Monday, June 20, 2005

Girls are stupid; Guys are losers

I dedicate this blog to the arena of dating. Something must be said. Something has to change. Something must be done.

80% of my conversations with students are about dating or something very close to dating. (We don't talk about courtship in Louisiana. We leave that for those in Moscow.) Guys develop interests. They flirt. They hang out with their respective girls. They come to me and tell me their stories. And I usually end up getting frustrated. I get frustrated at a cycle I have noticed. I don't know how to label or identify this cycle. It should be labeled though. Perhaps it should be called the "Girls are stupid; Guys are losers Cycle." It goes a little something like this:

A guy walks into a room full of people his own age. Immediately he scans the room and picks out the 3 or 4 hot girls and develops a strategy on how to talk to them or get their attention. Every other girl in the room is instantly ruled out as even a potential person to converse with. The only reason the guy will even begin a conversation with one of the other, unhot girls is to gain credit in the eyes of the 3 or 4 hot ones he has on his radar. Guys are savvy enough to know how to use and consume the unattractive ones to get the hot ones' attention. And so he develops his strategy and carries it out. This is step one in the cycle - Scope out and seek out the hot girls.

This leads to step two. Girls are smart enough to pick up on the guys' strategy. They see which girls get more male attention. They see what body types, wardrobe, and personality guys are attracted to. And what does this compel them to do? Well, it compels them to compete. They develop their own reactionary strategy, which can go in either of two directions. Direction One is the more popular route which consists in losing weight or dressing sexier or modifying their personality to be more flashy. Direction Two runs completely opposite but it has the same goal in mind. This route is to be more reserved, apathetic and indifferent to the whole dating game in hopes that some guy will find the indifference attractive in and of itself. But obviously most girls go with option A.

And what does this, in turn, do the guys' initial strategy? It encourages and reinforces it. Girls dress less and put on more of a performance to satisfy the guys' unreal demand which forces girls to put on more of a performance which reinforces the guys' demand and round and round we go.

So which one came first? Do guys only run after the hot girls because of years of living in a pornographic culture and because girls are becoming skinnier and skinnier and revealing more and more skin? Or are girls becoming skinnier and skinnier and revealing more and more skin because this is what attracts guys? Well, obviously both. But which one came first? Which is supporting the other? Or are they, in fact, supporting each other continuously and constantly?

And so the cycle continues. Everyone knows it and everyone contributes to it. Well, what are the effects? Well, to name a few: eating disorders, pornography addiction, a distortion of love and sex, cultural deterioration, sexual perversion, jealousy and hatred, adultury, and ultimately divorce. Dating's only hope is to be redeemed and restored. Without the work of the gospel changing guys and girls to love each other in real, redeemed ways, we are doomed to live in the cycle and reinforce it and tear down and destroy everything and every body in the process.

1 comment:

Laura Negus said...

I have two letters for scotta "b" and "s". But, nicely stated, Matt. I am encouraged that you are helping, in part, chipping away at some of those floppy-haired Southern boys.