Bromance

Well, this is awkward.

Kubota has a girl friend while Belladonna does not have a gentleman friend.  That strikes Belladonna as cosmically unfair.  She is a senior and Kubota is a freshman.  Belladonna thinks she is more socially adept than Kubota.  Why does her brother have a romance interest and she does not?

Mrs ERJ tried to console Belladonna.  Guys have the upper hand.  When they/we decide it is time for a relationship we (guys) have the initiative.  We can ask every organism with XX chromosomes to go out until lady-luck smiles upon us.  Ladies are still expected to be passive and wait for the man to make his move.

This has not changed at the level of one-and-one in spite of the advances in sexual equality.

As a dad, I would be MORE than OK if Belladonna did not have a date until she was 26 or 27.  Still, I am sad when Belladonna is sad.

I did my best to coach her up.  She needs a major re-work on the body language.

Punching a guy on the shoulder is not the traditional way of letting him know that you are romantically interested in him.  Paralyzing his arm for more than four hours makes it difficult to get hugged.

I do not pretend to be a lady's man.  But I am practiced at working The Great Mis-Information Superhighway.  There is a vast amount of information out there to assist those of us who are socially inept at decoding feminine  body language.  Information that can be reverse engineered to coach-up daughters.

Most of the advice boils down to two items:

• Primping....it shows that the woman is trying to look attractive and is a wee bit nervous.  
• Defanging risk....News flash, guys have fragile egos.  Our pride demands that there not be witnesses if/when we go down in flames.

Primping

It is interesting to me that one of the "signs" is when the woman does quick, tongue darts to the corners of their mouth, where their upper and lower lips meet.  That is one of the classic signs of when a person is lying.  It is almost as if the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz needs just a little bit more lube to get the jaw back afloppin'.

Neurons that fire together; wire together.  It is probably lying/tongue dart===>stress;  Stress====>tongue dart.  For the person who is a disinterested observer, there is a delicious irony that this entire "theater" has disingenuous body language embedded within it as a subplot.  No wonder people from older cultures are baffled when we attempt to convince them that arranged marriages are primitive and backwards.

Defanging risk

One of Belladonna's prime downfalls is her choice of "wing-men".  They are movie star gorgeous.  Belladonna is pretty but fades into the background when she is hanging out with either of her two best buddies.  Lightening, and hormones, strike the most salient feature.  Belladonna needs a different wing-man....one who has the girl-next-door persona.

Lightening also also seeks out salients that stand out, by their lonesome.

Predators

Boys, selecting a girl, have certain things in common with predators.  Wolves do not mark and stalk sheep that are packed into the middle of the flock.  They choose the stragglers, the ones that leave the security of the flock and can be approached with little risk. 

Unlike the sheep, though, the girl needs to project the vibe, "I want to spend time with you.  I will say 'Yes' to any honorable offer that you make."



Like the Killdeer in the video shown above, sometimes a girl has to be a little bit over-the-top before the expected action becomes clear to the boy.

The "no risk" vibe.

I don't know how much she listened.  She may be picking out her mark.  Or she may be making me a happy man and not date until she is 26.

Time will tell.