Giving up (going my own way)

[ConfusedLucy]

Reading threads like this I am starting to wonder if we need to start teaching how to relate to members of the opposite sex in a healthy way at a young age.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Reading threads like this I am starting to wonder if we need to start teaching how to relate to members of the opposite sex in a healthy way at a young age.

And how would that go in a world of child sexualization?

What does little Johnny need to Lear about little suzie at age 7?

 

[ConfusedLucy]

And how would that go in a world of child sexualization?

What does little Johnny need to Lear about little suzie at age 7?

He doesn’t need to lear at her he needs to be encouraged to see her as a complex human being, not make assumptions based on her gender or categorize her as either a whore or virtuous female as if it were that simple.

There are a lot of unhealthy attitudes on both sides, feeling entitled to a partner because you are a “nice guy”, judging men on what they earn and all these arguments on which side has it easier in the dating world. None of this does any good.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

He doesn’t need to lear at her he needs to be encouraged to see her as a complex human being, not make assumptions based on her gender or categorize her as either a whore or virtuous female as if it were that simple.

There are a lot of unhealthy attitudes on both sides, feeling entitled to a partner because you are a “nice guy”, judging men on what they earn and all these arguments on which side has it easier in the dating world. None of this does any good.

Oh. Yes. I misunderstood. Yes to all of that with a healthy does of giggle control for the girls!!

 

[garegin_asatrya]

Judging from literature and art from ages past I think that “modern sexualization” is laregely a myth. We just have vastly more media available. They say that 20th century has had more books published that all other centuries combined. We are talking about individual book titles, not copies.
I think children do fine with the opposite gender. The proverbial hits the fan after red pillers and feminists get into people’s head. It’s the adult version of cooties.

 

[Xantippe]

Judging from literature and art from ages past I think that “modern sexualization” is laregely a myth. We just have vastly more media available. They say that 20th century has had more books published that all other centuries combined. We are talking about individual book titles, not copies.
I think children do fine with the opposite gender. The proverbial hits the fan after red pillers and feminists get into people’s head. It’s the adult version of cooties.

If anything, I think my kids have been more sheltered from media than I was as a kid, and my mom was actually rather conscientious.

It’s a little harder to tell now that they are big (12 and 15) and have more of an independent life, but it was definitely true that they were more sheltered when little. For example, when I was a kid, the news was on every night. We watched whatever the adults were watching, be it scary news, war movies (albeit of the sanitiized John Wayne variety), or murder mysteries. But we didn’t watch anything with bad language or S-E-X (although there’d be a lot of inexplicable scenes on TV or in movies with the unmarried hero in bed with an unmarried heroine with the sheet up to her neck). So, on the one hand, now that I have kids, the available media is a lot rawer, but on the other hand, we don’t watch our big people shows in front of them as people did back in one-TV-in-living-room days.

Back in the good old days, there just wasn’t as much content available for kids. You had your Saturday cartoons, but (as I recall from being an 1980s kid), there was often nothing kid-suitable on TV. Fast forward to the present, and you have 80 episodes of almost every kid show on Netflix. Not to mention a huge home video library.

I know for a fact that my kids get a lot more kid-appropriate kid stuff than I did as a kid.

Now, it’s true that I was much more savvy about the national and international news from an earlier age because of the 6 o’clock news, but that’s the trade-off.

 

[Xantippe]

He doesn’t need to lear at her he needs to be encouraged to see her as a complex human being, not make assumptions based on her gender or categorize her as either a whore or virtuous female as if it were that simple.

Right.

There are a lot of other relevant moral categories.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Reading threads like this I am starting to wonder if we need to start teaching how to relate to members of the opposite sex in a healthy way at a young age.

I think so. It used to be that high schools, colleges, and even the military taught basic etiquette, and asking for a date and conduct on said date were covered in that. Now, you can find etiquette lessons in all of those environments, but dating-specific advice tends to be lacking.

A few years ago my BIL explained to my husband and I that he asked a girl he liked to help him move so he could take her out to dinner as a thank you, that way, he wouldn’t have to ask her out but he still got a dinner date. He asked what we thought. I told him that as a girl, I would assume he thought we were pretty good friends and he could count on me. I would totally take dinner as a thanks for moving furniture at face value. My BIL pushed back against my answer explaining that “no one goes on real dates anymore, it’s weird” (we’re a year apart!), but things never did materialize with that girl.

Now, he’s in a great relationship with a woman he actually bothered to date.

 

[Xantippe]

I think so. It used to be that high schools, colleges, and even the military taught basic etiquette, and asking for a date and conduct on said date were covered in that. Now, you can find etiquette lessons in all of those environments, but dating-specific advice tends to be lacking.

A few years ago my BIL explained to my husband and I that he asked a girl he liked to help him move so he could take her out to dinner as a thank you, that way, he wouldn’t have to ask her out but he still got a dinner date. He asked what we thought. I told him that as a girl, I would assume he thought we were pretty good friends and he could count on me. I would totally take dinner as a thanks for moving furniture at face value. My BIL pushed back against my answer explaining that “no one goes on real dates anymore, it’s weird” (we’re a year apart!), but things never did materialize with that girl.

Now, he’s in a great relationship with a woman he actually bothered to date.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of trouble with the “going out on dates” part of dating, especially for young people, and especially for non-online dating.

Guys (for example on CAF) aren’t clear on what asking for a date sounds like (it needs to be a specific invitation), and there’s a lot of confusion about who pays (it’s the host). I learned all of this stuff as a teen, but I learned it from Judith Martin (AKA Miss Manners).

I suppose young men are very unlikely to pick up a 10-pound book on etiquette.

goodreads.com/book/show/106238.Miss_Manners_Guide_to_Excruciatingly_Correct_Behavior

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I don’t think being “asked out on a date” is the be all and end all of relationships. I had some guys who asked me out on dates. One of them led to a 10-year relationship. And I had some guys who didn’t ask me out on dates but we just hung out together and occasionally made plans to go do something (which could be due to me saying, “I’d like to go do X tomorrow, want to go together?”) One of those guys, I married. We’re still married.

Dating’s okay, nothing magical about it though.

 

[pianistclare]

Right. In the South, people still attend classes for manners and are still participating in Cotillion.
While it sounds ridiculous they DID
learn how to eat in a non-disgusting food falling out of your mouth sort of way
girls learned not to eat with the outh open or smack
guys learned how to ask girls to dance
girls learned how to politely and non-insultingly decline
guys learned how to make non-sexual small talk
guy learned the art of being relaxed
girls are taught that just because some nice boy asked you to dance you’re not IN A RELATIONSHIP
they both learned the finer points of making a phone call and asking out on a real date
what things are appropriate for dates and what activities are not appropriate on said date.

These are things family members used to do. Now, kids are on their own. And they often make disastrous choices.

I used to laugh about the kids enrolled in Cotillion, but overall, it was a good experience for them. Etiquette never goes out of fashion. Even in the workplace.

 

[Bonnie]

I learned all of this stuff as a teen, but I learned it from Judith Martin (AKA Miss Manners).

I suppose young men are very unlikely to pick up a 10-pound book on etiquette.

goodreads.com/book/show/106238.Miss_Manners_Guide_to_Excruciatingly_Correct_Behavior

Yeah Miss Manners! I learned so much from her book! Wish it had been out earlier - would have saved me a lot of embarrassment.

I read her column; it’s written mostly by her kids now, but it’s still instructional.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t think being “asked out on a date” is the be all and end all of relationships. I had some guys who asked me out on dates. One of them led to a 10-year relationship. And I had some guys who didn’t ask me out on dates but we just hung out together and occasionally made plans to go do something (which could be due to me saying, “I’d like to go do X tomorrow, want to go together?”) One of those guys, I married. We’re still married.

Dating’s okay, nothing magical about it though.

But when nothing’s happening and yet guys aren’t asking anybody out and yet still complain about being lonely–that’s why we bring up the “asking out” thing.

 

[Xantippe]

Right. In the South, people still attend classes for manners and are still participating in Cotillion.
While it sounds ridiculous they DID
learn how to eat in a non-disgusting food falling out of your mouth sort of way
girls learned not to eat with the outh open or smack
guys learned how to ask girls to dance
girls learned how to politely and non-insultingly decline
guys learned how to make non-sexual small talk
guy learned the art of being relaxed
girls are taught that just because some nice boy asked you to dance you’re not IN A RELATIONSHIP
they both learned the finer points of making a phone call and asking out on a real date
what things are appropriate for dates and what activities are not appropriate on said date.

These are things family members used to do. Now, kids are on their own. And they often make disastrous choices.

I used to laugh about the kids enrolled in Cotillion, but overall, it was a good experience for them. Etiquette never goes out of fashion. Even in the workplace.

We have cotillion here, too.

I feel like we’re not quite rich enough for it, though.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

But when nothing’s happening and yet guys aren’t asking anybody out and yet still complain about being lonely–that’s why we bring up the “asking out” thing.

I guess it could be good in that context, but I didn’t see the “helping somebody move in order to ask them to dinner” to be a bad approach. What likely happened there is the girl just wasn’t that into him. If she had been, the “help you move” wouldn’t necessarily mean the guy is in the friendship-not-relationship bin because he didn’t ask for a formal date.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Oh, wow.

Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of trouble with the “going out on dates” part of dating, especially for young people, and especially for non-online dating.

Guys (for example on CAF) aren’t clear on what asking for a date sounds like (it needs to be a specific invitation), and there’s a lot of confusion about who pays (it’s the host). I learned all of this stuff as a teen, but I learned it from Judith Martin (AKA Miss Manners).

I suppose young men are very unlikely to pick up a 10-pound book on etiquette.

goodreads.com/book/show/106238.Miss_Manners_Guide_to_Excruciatingly_Correct_Behavior

When I was a kid, my grandma used to cut Miss Manners columns out of the paper for me throughout the week and then give them to me when I would go over on the weekends. Growing up very poor and very rural, the wealth of knowledge I gained from those columns served me well as I started building a career and working with people from very different backgrounds.

Just recently, someone asked to be in the delivery room when I give birth . This person isn’t even particularly close to us and I’m only having hubby there. I told her ‘no’, she asked why not, and I told her “because a lady doesn’t entertain with her legs in the air”. My husband almost died of shock and laughter, and when we got to the car, I explained it was a Judith Martin-ism.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I guess it could be good in that context, but I didn’t see the “helping somebody move in order to ask them to dinner” to be a bad approach. What likely happened there is the girl just wasn’t that into him. If she had been, the “help you move” wouldn’t necessarily mean the guy is in the friendship-not-relationship bin because he didn’t ask for a formal date.

I don’t think she put him in the friend zone for not asking her out. What most likely happened is she didn’t think he was interested in her so she moved into someone who was. That’s what I would have thought and done.

If you’re interested, make a MOVE! Asking a girl to help move furniture doesn’t let her know that you think of her as anything more than a friend, especially if both of you have a number of opposite sex friends already.

 

[Bonnie]

Just recently, someone asked to be in the delivery room when I give birth . This person isn’t even particularly close to us and I’m only having hubby there. I told her ‘no’, she asked why not, and I told her “because a lady doesn’t entertain with her legs in the air”. My husband almost died of shock and laughter, and when we got to the car, I explained it was a Judith Martin-ism.

That’s funny!

 

[UbiCaritas]

When I was a kid, my grandma used to cut Miss Manners columns out of the paper for me throughout the week and then give them to me when I would go over on the weekends. Growing up very poor and very rural, the wealth of knowledge I gained from those columns served me well as I started building a career and working with people from very different backgrounds.

Just recently, someone asked to be in the delivery room when I give birth . This person isn’t even particularly close to us and I’m only having hubby there. I told her ‘no’, she asked why not, and I told her “because a lady doesn’t entertain with her legs in the air”. My husband almost died of shock and laughter, and when we got to the car, I explained it was a Judith Martin-ism.

Seriously, Miss Manners is AWESOME for all kinds of things, but especially those intrusive new mommy questions.

When my oldest was about 4 months old, I was accosted by a total stranger at the post office who demanded to know if I was breastfeeding or not, complete with lecture about why I needed to be doing so. As it was, I had tried very hard to breastfeed and it didn’t work out–very sore subject. However, rather than either sharing waaaay TMI with the rest of the patrons, or even just bursting into tears, I was able to look her in the eye and say, in a firm, polite, but don’t-mess-with-me tone of voice “The baby is being fed well. Thank you for your concern.”

She looked totally stunned, complete with dropped jaw, but didn’t say anything else as DD and I exited stage right.

 

[Xantippe]

I guess it could be good in that context, but I didn’t see the “helping somebody move in order to ask them to dinner” to be a bad approach. What likely happened there is the girl just wasn’t that into him. If she had been, the “help you move” wouldn’t necessarily mean the guy is in the friendship-not-relationship bin because he didn’t ask for a formal date.

The problem is that it’s just not a step forward, because there’s so much plausible deniability.