A sappy song played in the background while Beagle and I prepped dinner. “I’m head over boots for you” the singer declared. In a defeated tone, Beagle said, “I feel like this is how girls want boys to be, but I just don’t talk that way.”
Poor teen boy has entered the realm of romantic relationships and he realizes that his natural boyish M.O. won’t be enough to satisfy the very different desires of his love interests.
We refer to male and female as the opposite sex for a reason. Girls can be complicated. Men, maybe not as much.
Girl code, or what a girl wants without telling you but expects that you will know and be willing to deliver on a regular and perfectly timed schedule, could take a lifetime of intimate relationships to figure out. Heck, girls sometimes can’t decipher their own jumble of mind and emotions.
Take heart, my son, you don’t need to speak the fancy words. Instead of resenting love songs, you can borrow from their poetic wisdom to help you. Make a playlist for a girl and tell her that the songs remind you of her. In my day we called them ‘mixed tapes’ and they weren’t nearly as easy to make as picking digital tracks off the internet. Just be sincere and make sure you know the message of the song. You wouldn’t want to dedicate a supposed love song like REM’s “The One I Love” which sounds nice but is really about moving on from a girl who is a “simple prop to occupy my time.”
Furthermore, if you can get past your distaste of sappy song lyrics, you might learn a thing or two about girls from the message behind the words. For example:
I only have eyes for you.
No one enjoys a wandering eye in a partner. Don’t look at other girls, talk about other girls, or even contemplate that another girl exists. Just kidding about that last bit. But seriously, love the one you’re with or break it off.
I’ll be a man who will fight for your honor…. I’ll be the hero you’ve been dreaming of.
Chivalry is not dead, even in an age of feminism. A girl, like anyone, enjoys knowing that you’ve got her back. A woman I know met her husband for the first time at a frat party and fell in love with him because when she passed gas he took the blame for it. It doesn’t take much to be someone’s hero.
She don’t know she’s beautiful
I’ll go out on a limb and say that there isn’t one living girl who doesn’t like to be told she’s beautiful. Even if she should know it. Even if you’ve told her a million times. Even if you just told her 3 seconds ago. You get my point.
Here’s the short of it… every person, male or female, benefits from three common things: attention, affection, and admiration. The need for fulfillment of these basics doesn’t go away. Finding unique ways to provide these staples to a loved one is the challenge and the fun in relationships. Rise up to the challenge, my son, and start studying those love songs, romantic movies, and not-so-subtle hints dropped by girls.
Chaos & Clarity 