Dating Advice for Men and Women

I'm going to take a slight risk with this post.  Recently, this blog about dating advice for men has been floating around Facebook.  And, men, read it.  Women, go ahead and read it too.  It is good dating advice for men.  But I want to offer a counterpoint to women, because, quite frankly, we don't always do things better than men do. So, with further ado,

Five Notes on Dating for the Ladies

1) Be clear.

If men need to be intentional, so do women. We often can get away with playing games, with blowing hot and cold, with sending mixed signals and misleading hints.  If we don't want guys equivocating, playing that pseudo-dating game, or defaulting into relationships, rather than straight-up asking us out, we've got to start straight-up answering.  Be honest with the men in your life, especially when they are being honest and vulnerable with you.

Part of the ability to be clear and honest comes from a deep self-knowledge.  How can you let someone else know what you want from a relationship, what you need in life, where you see yourself going through the year, unless you know can answer these questions?  How can you tell if someone shares your values and priorities, unless you can identify them for yourself?  The men I have seen be most hurt by women are wounded by women who don't know their own desires well enough.  For example, more than one man in my life has been told by a woman, "I don't want to date; I want to court/be courted" -- yet she could not tell him what she mean by "courtship."

We don't need to have it all figured out -- we none of us have it all figured out -- but we need enough to recognize ourselves in an internal mirror and communicate some of that image, so to speak.

2) Be rational.

That being said... be honest, but don't overdo the analysis.  I have two subpoints under this point 2).

a) Don't overtalk/overdiscuss it.  Yes, it is good to know where your relationship stands.  Sometimes this will require a DTR, depending on how the relationship started/progressed. But you don't need a DTR every day or every week, or even every month.  Let things grow and progress; let the relationship take its course.  You may need to reevaluate after a few months if it is not clear to you how things are progressing.  That's okay -- and it's okay to bring it up if you have a strong reason to think something has changed.  It just should not be an every single day discussion.

b) Don't overanalyze.  Some of the best advice on communication between the genders is simple arithmetic.  Men, when a lady speaks, take what you think she means, and multiply it by 3.  Ladies, when a man speaks, take what you think he means and divide it by 3.  Most things he says/does are not veiled hints, secret messages, or hidden meanings.  When he says he doesn't want to hang out tonight because his football team is playing and he wants to watch it with the boys, that does not mean he doesn't like you.  It doesn't mean he doesn't want to date you.  It doesn't even mean he's tired of you.  It simply means that he wants some beer and wings and to watch the Patriots play.  If your mind is going crazy over-analyzing things, you are going to have a hard time holding yourself to (2)(a).

3) Let him lead. 

If you have read anything on this blog (including that little bio of me on the side), you will have figured out that I am a self-professed feminist and a strong Polish woman.  That should tell you two things about number (3).  First, that I have a hard time writing it for fear of how some people may interpret it.  Second, that I don't mean look down and be a doormat.  I don't mean he has to make all the decisions or run your life.  In fact, stay away from those models!  Instead, find where and how he is a leader and affirm him in those areas.  Figure out intentionally how to incorporate these things into your relationship.

As a corollary: let him do those little chivalrous things that melt female hearts, but don't demand them!  This is a tricky balance to reach.  I had a couple of male friends who taught me something about the balance when I was too far on the other side.  They did things like run in front of me to open doors and flat-out refuse to go through lines before me.  Eventually, I learned to accept these gestures with grace, rather than rolled eyes. I also got to witness how this small, token affirmation of their masculinity helped them develop it in other ways.

On the other hand, many men are not taught to do these things, or are taught by the women in their lives NOT to do these things.  So judge a man by a greater picture of his heart than whether he takes the outside of the sidewalk.

4) Guard his eyes.

Okay, so guys were told to help guard our hearts.  Ladies, we have got to guard their eyes.  I tend to hate soapboxes on modesty and I am not going to tell you what to wear or how many inches below your neck your neckline should sit.  As I walk through the mall with my fiance, I find myself jokingly covering his eyes at times -- but only half-jokingly.  Because the fact is, I don't want him to see those parts of other ladies!  And as a general rule of thumb, the parts of other ladies that I don't want him to see are the parts of me he should not be seeing till we are married.  If I want him to entertain only pure thoughts about me, I need to be presenting myself in such a way that I encourage only pure thoughts.  It's not about blaming women for men's thoughts -- it's about love.  If I love him, I want to make it as easy as possible for him to keep his mind full of pure thoughts.

5) Girls struggle with lust too.

This is a direct answer to number 5 for men, on physical touch.

One day, I stumbled across a couple articles (I'm not sure that these were the ones, but they are good ones I found in retrospect) that focused on the fact that women struggle with physical desire. I was shocked at how freeing I found this point.  When we believe that we should not be having a particular struggle, there are two consequences: 1) we tend to deny that we are having that struggle, which leads us unable to combat it; and 2) we tend to think we are particularly alone and particularly awful for having that struggle. We are too often led to believe that lust is a struggle unique to men, that only men desire more physically than is allowable before marriage.  This is just not true.  We were born with the same original sin and the same concupiscent desires as men.  So ladies, read point number 5 for the men, and apply it to your own lives.  And maybe click the links in the first sentence.

Fun Fact of the Day

Fun fact of the day: you can set Word's grammar check options to identify not only passive voice, but also cliches and gender-specific words.

I have not yet used this function, so I cannot tell you how it works.  However, I am fascinated by its existence. 

Day-Maker #83

Overheard in the office: "No, we do not have the Pope's cell phone number."