Archives for December 2013

How’s that for a title? So I remain mostly in hiding when it comes to this blog thing, and for where I’m at in my life right now, that works for me. But occasionally I have something that I REALLY want to say. This is a very opinionated post, so understand that before you dive in. Feel free to disagree with me, but have an open mind. Today I really want to say this: Boys are NOT dumb.

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Now don’t get ahead of me- I’m not saying boys don’t do dumb things, heaven knows they do and heaven knows I’ve seen it, what I AM saying is that just because boys do dumb things doesn’t mean we get to pin the entire sex with a “Hey I’m a male and therefore stupid” label. And you know who does a lot of that? Me. And my friends. We’re single girls, we’re in the dating pool and trying not to drown and when things don’t work out the way we want guess what we attribute the failure to? The boy and this genetic makeup that supposedly makes him incapable of seeing how wonderful we are. It’s almost routine at this point as we vent to each other, “He didn’t even text me back today, but whatever!” and the response EVERY TIME is “Ugh, boys are dumb.” And that’s almost always the end of that. We hear that statement and that’s the end-all of the conversation. No one argues. It’s a fact.

But here’s the thing, it’s NOT a fact. It’s not the end-all of the conversation, and as guilty as I am of saying it, I’m getting really sick of hearing it. There are a lot of things to complain about when it comes to dating. There’s the society-wide shift from actually taking a girl out to just calling it “hanging out,” which leaves everyone involved confused about the relationship really is and if you can call it a date or an almost-date or anything at all. Then there’s the society-wide shift that tells men that it’s okay to bide their time and not date at all if they just don’t want to.  And then there are the girls that treat guys like dirt and leave them not wanting to date another girl ever for fear of being crushed again. There are problems flying in from BOTH sides and the main issue is NOT that boys are not intelligent.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to write this post for a couple of reasons. The first was because I know A LOT of boys that are very bright. A bushel, a peck, a heap even. And the other was because it dawned on me that just because I find a boy attractive, and he doesn’t find me attractive does not make him, or his entire sex, dumb. On the other side of that, if a boy finds me attractive, and I don’t feel that way about him, that doesn’t make me, or my entire sex, dumb either.

I spent the majority of my teenage years with boys who were the most intelligent group of human beings I ever had the pleasure of calling my best friends. They were sweet, they were compassionate, they were bright and could knock out a pre-calculus problem like it was nothing. They cared about me, they watched out for me, they gave me advice, and worried about me. And they still do. At college I’ve made a lot of new male friends who I love as well. They’re also incredibly kind, intelligent, and love their Savior. Good guys are everywhere and exist at every stage of life. My friends are great guys and they are NOT dumb, I would hate for anyone to say so. Think of the boys in your life that you are close to. For every guy we call dumb, there’s a girl like you that loves them and knows who they truly are.

The way I see it there are two major problems with throwing around such a loaded statement.

The first is that it’s not fair to guys.

Someday we’re each going to find a guy who thinks the sun rises and sets with us. He’s going to see how wonderful and beautiful and loving and smart we are. Those men will love our ambition, they’ll love our quirks, and they’ll think we’re everything good in the world. And we’ll love them too. There are awesome guys out there. There are guys that will be wonderful husbands and even better fathers. I know them and so do you. They’re your brothers and cousins and friends. They take their relationship with their Heavenly Father seriously and have a healthy respect for women. I would hate to marry a man who before we started dating I called stupid or dumb. I would hate to marry a man who before we started dating called ME stupid or dumb just because I did not do the things he wanted or act the way he expected me to, or worse, because ANOTHER girl didn’t do the things he wanted or act the way he expected her to. I want to ALWAYS have respected the guy I choose to spend forever with.

The second is that it’s not fair to girls.

Often, the statement “boys are dumb” is the result of a boy choosing to be with another girl. If the guy you were dating has someone pining after him, and he chooses to be with you because he loves you, does that make him dumb? Is he dumb for choosing you? No, he’s not. There are always exceptions and it gets tricky when every person and every story are different, but when it comes right down to it, I wouldn’t appreciate someone thinking that being with me was a stupid choice for a guy to make. So it’s not fair for ME to think that a guy being with someone else is a stupid choice either. It’s hard enough being a girl without having other girls wish misery on you.

The bottom line is we need to be kinder to one another, regardless of what gender you belong to or what your story is or who you’re into or who you’re not into. “Boys are dumb,” is a cop-out statement. It makes it easy to not have to focus on the real problem, whatever the real problem is, and that doesn’t serve anyone.

I expect to be respected by the men in my life so it’s only fair that I grant them that same respect.

Have you ever heard this statement used? Have YOU ever used it? Let me know what you think!