Advice About Girls

When I was visiting my brother this weekend he showed me a book called, " The Dangerous Book for Boys" which discusses numerous topics that all boys love. One section was entitled, "Advice About Girls". I found it quite entertaining and thought I would post it for any of the males that might read my blog. There is some good advice. It goes like this (my comments are in red):

"You may have noticed that girls are quite different from you. By this, we do not mean the physical differences, more the fact that they remain unimpressed by your mastery of a game involving wizards, or your understanding of Morse code. Some will be impressed, of course, but as a general rule, girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do.

We thought long and hard about what advice could possible be suitable. It is an inescapable fact that boys spend a great deal of their lives thinking and dreaming about girls, so the subject should be mentioned here-as delicately as possible.

Advice About Girls:

1. It is important to listen. Human beings are often very self-centered and like to talk about themselves. In addition, it's an easy subject if someone is nervous. It is good advice to listen closely-unless she has also been given this advice, in which case an uneasy silence could develop, like two owls sitting together.

(I personally get a little uncomfortable when I have to talk for a while and my conversation partner is silent. I don't normally have a whole lot to say unless someone gives me something to work with. There needs to be a good balance. Conversation is an art. One of my favorite things is being able to converse well with a guy.)

2. Be careful with humor. It is very common for boys to try to impress girls with a string of jokes, each one more desperate than the last. One joke, perhaps, and then a long silence while she talks about herself...

3. When you are older, flowers really do work-women love them. When you are young, however, there is a ghastly sense of being awkward rather than romantic-and she will guess your mother bought them. (I like flowers. The more spontaneous, the better)

4. Valentine's Day cards. Do not put your name on them. The whole point is the excitement a girl feels, wondering who finds her attractive. If it says, "From Brian" on it, the magic isn't really there. This is actually quite a nice thing to do to someone you don't think will get a card. If you do this, it is even more important that you never say, "I sent you one because I thought you wouldn't get any." Keep the cards simple. You do not want one with fancy stuff of any kind. (Cards are nice. And simple is always good. I prefer a nice card with a sincere note over a gift any day.)

5. Avoid being vulgar. Excitable bouts of windbreaking will not endear you to a girl, just to pick one example. (Amen)

6. Play a sport of some kind. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it replaces the corpse-like pallor of the computer programmer with a ruddy glow. Honestly, this is more important than you know.

7. If you see a girl (or anyone) in need of help-unable to life something, for example-do not taunt her. (Never a good thing) Approach the object and greet her with a cheerful smile, while surreptitiously testing the weight of the object. If you find you can life it, go ahead. If you can't, try sitting on it and engaging her in conversation. ( : ) )

8. Finally, make sure you are well-scrubbed, your nails are clean and your hair is washed. Remember that girls are as nervous around you as you are around them, if you can imagine such a thing. (It really is true...at least in my case) They think and act rather differently to you, but without them, life would be one long football locker room. Treat them with respect.

So that's that. If you want any more specifics on my thoughts on these, I would be happy to discuss.

In the Pursuit of Beauty

Even though my sister has already written about what I am going to write about, I'm doing it anyway, mostly because it was my idea in the first place. Since my only readers are my family and they have probably read what she wrote, I apologize for any duplication of ideas or thoughts.

This summer while I was at the beach with my family my mom, sister and I began discussing Chinese food binding. My mother was reading a book about it and we decided to learn a little bit more about this seemingly inhumane tradition. The more we learned, the more appalled we became. (See above photo)

Chinese foot binding dates back to the 10th century and was practiced until the 20th century. A woman began binding her foot when she was a young girl. The binding would cause her feet to break and then grow to be deformed and often infected. The foot usually reached a length of a mere 4-5 inches. The smaller the better. The reasons for doing this were mainly aesthetic, for the binding caused the woman to walk in a certain way which for some reason was highly attractive. This is called the lotus gait. Another thing that I found interesting was that with bound feet, the women had very limited mobility causing them to have a very limited role in society.

As I learned these facts about foot binding I couldn't not believe that a women in her right mind would allow that to happen. And then it occurred to me that we women do the same thing today just in a different forms. This idea occurred to me as I was laying out in the sun suffering from a somewhat painful sunburn. Who ever decided that baking in the sun in order to have dark skin at the risk of getting cancer was a good idea? Probably someone who thought that breaking little girls feet was also a good idea.

My point is, which I feel like I am not expressing very well, is that it is really ridiculous what our society has defined as beauty. The pursuit of beauty as the world defines it is in most cases associated with pain, discomfort, and sacrifice of one's virtue. How easily we are deceived. I am so grateful for the Gospel that teaches us what real beauty is and that we don't have to sacrifice our souls to obtain it.