Some time ago I “liked” Elite Daily on Facebook, and now the site litters my newsfeed with increasingly ludicrous articles like “9 Reasons You Should Date A Man Who Still Lives With His Parents” (…should I really though?), “Twelve Ways Healthy Couples Understand Each Other Without Words” (if I don’t practice romantic telekinesis am I doomed?!) and “Good Guys Do Exist—Just Not Until After College."
There it is: the widely held belief among young women that good guys don’t exist in college. They’re immature and incapable of upstanding behavior. They like you and then they don’t like you, they’re interested until you finally give them the time of day, they’re only in it for one thing, they want you to be something you’re not, etc, etc. Boys are dumb.
After hearing about a friend's boy issues, how many times have you doled out some heartfelt advice then finished up with a conclusive, “Whatever, he’s dumb.” Or vise versa: how many times have your complaints been met with the response, “Boys are SO DUMB.”
But boys aren’t dumb. In fact, boys are pretty smart. It was a certain girlfriend of mine’s approach to life and love that made me realize this.
My friend accepts most every invitation to hang out, always willing to give it a chance. If she’s not feeling it right away, she doesn’t immediately dismiss the potential, letting the conversation die out as the interval between text messages grows longer and longer. She doesn’t play any hard-to-get games and she always seems to be engaging in fun, flirty convos with at least five different boys. On a Friday night dedicated to a girls’ night in, her phone vibrates endlessly as they all try to contact her and see what she’s up to. She always has a plethora of romantic options to consider.
One day, I asked her about one of the boys in question.
“Do you like him?”
“Nah.”
A different day, after hearing about an elaborate straight-from-a-rom-com date she’d just had, I asked her about her feelings on this potential beau.
My friend was quiet for a minute, thinking.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
In a way, my friend is just like the boy we all keep calling dumb. In a sense, she’s playing the field. She might even be hurting the feelings of some of these nice boys, enamored as they are by her beauty and bubbly personality. But it’s not that she has malicious intent or is out to screw someone over when she fails to commit. She’s not trying to be frustrating or unreasonable or confusing. She’s just letting life happen, welcome to whatever experiences come her way and enjoying the people she meets along the ride. She’s giving them all a chance, because who really knows what or who you want at our age any way? My friend isn’t dumb at all; she’s incredibly smart.
Boys aren’t foreign creatures with strange brain processes that need deciphering by some special alien code; they aren’t evil beings scheming on how to best mess with you; and for the most part, boys aren’t out to get you, hurt you or confuse you. They’re just people. And while it’s true that people make mistakes and can be dumb and hurt you, those aren’t qualities unique to the male gender. Girls are just as guilty of being selfish, scheming or hurtful.
I’d argue that for the most part, boys are just doing what my friend is doing—taking life as it comes to them and enjoying the scenery until the right moment comes along. Maybe we should all take a lesson from my friend and the boys we call dumb, because they’re on to something.
Society says there’s a double standard—boys can get away with avoiding commitment and "being dumb," while girls get to maniacally analyze and fixate. Really though? Doesn’t it all come down to how we individually react and handle situations ourselves? If you want to make yourself crazy, and indeed lock yourself into the equivalent girl stereotype of boys being dumb, then there’s no one stopping you. But why not just step back and go with the flow and let life and love happen as they happen?
We shouldn’t label boys as idiots. Maybe you’re just not the right girl for that one guy, and that one guy just isn’t the right boy for you. When you really find the person for you, I doubt you’ll think they’re dumb.
Needless to say, I've "unliked" Elite Daily on Facebook.
