Freshman Girls

Last night I was invited to answer questions for the freshman girls' Bible study at our church. Naturally, they spend a great deal of time wanting to know about boys and their actions and such. I've been thinking about exactly what a summary of what that hour and a half conversation would look like:

Don't try to be what the media tells you is beautiful and/or sexy. Be who you are, because every boy has something different he's attracted to. Faking it has it's own built-in consequences.

Boys will notice first about you what you want them to notice first about you. Since every boy has something different he's attracted to, if you're play the dumb blonde, eventually, you'll get the kind of boy that is attracted to dumb blondes.

Boys don't get your positive or negative hints. You have to be willing to be honest and direct, but put two or three compliments in front of the reality.

Girls shouldn't be mean...to each other or to boys.

Sometimes a girl will not have dates because boys haven't become men yet. This is not a bad thing, and certainly preferable to "settling" on a boy.

Hooking-up has its very own built-in consequences.

When boys aren't good with conversation, remember they grew up playing war and with trucks making explosion sounds. Your play always involved conversations.

If a boy asks you where you want to eat or what movie to see, he's truly looking for information, so answer with your preference. If he didn't want the information, he'd have phrased the question differently ("So, I thought we'd go see 'Walking Tall.' Is that cool with you?").

Strive to be a "total package" kind of girl: Growing in your relationship with Christ; smart; funny and beautiful in your own way (keeping in mind that Edgar Allen Poe said, "There can be no exquisite beauty without some strangeness to the proportion.").

Guys are simply not that complicated.