“The Hunger Games”: post-apocalyptic female fantasy.

LOGLINE:  As she is thrust into the national spotlight under circumstances beyond her control, a tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks must choose between her tall, dark, and handsome best friend and the shy yet heroic rich boy who has loved her from afar for years.

For those not in the loop, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is the first of a trilogy of books that is one of the hottest things in YA lit right now.  A movie version starring Jennifer Lawrence is in the works (see this week’s Entertainment Weekly), and the brass are obviously hoping it becomes the next Twilight franchise.

Whereas Twilight was entrenched in the realm of fantasy (vampires and werewolves), The Hunger Games is futuristic sci-fi, set in a post-apocalyptic North American dictatorship known as Panem, which is made up of twelve districts and a Capitol.  Originally there was a thirteenth district, but the Capitol destroyed it when the districts rebelled.  As a result of the defeated rebellion, the Capitol instituted a televised gladiatorial event called The Hunger Games, held annually to remind the districts who’s in charge and to provide entertainment for all the residents of Panem.  The conceit of the Games is that the gladiators are all teens drawn at random from each district (one boy and one girl, for a total of 24 competitors known as “tributes”), and they must fight to the death until only one is left standing.  It’s part Survivor, part Roman coliseum.  Entry into the lottery is compulsory between ages 12 and 18.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen becomes her district’s tribute when her younger sister’s name is drawn.  Knowing that participating in the Hunger Games is certain death, Katniss volunteers to go in Prim’s place.  She and Peeta Mellark, the district’s boy tribute, travel to the Capitol, where they are styled and given star treatment (so the audience can get to know them and possibly decide to “sponsor” them, i.e., send them helpful supplies once the Games are underway) as well as trained for the Games by a previous winner from their district (a forty-something alcoholic named Haymitch).  Once the Games begin, Katniss must use all of her wits to stay alive…which she does, obviously, or there wouldn’t be much of a trilogy, would there?

The book is a page-turner, and while not exactly gory, it doesn’t shy away from the killing.  What surprised me, though, was how “chick-lit” the book was once you stripped away the post-apocalyptic setting.  I’ve read other sci-fi/action teen series (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, both featuring teen female protagonists), and neither of them was remotely as egregious as The Hunger Games in the area of romantic female fantasy.  (Then again, those series were written by men.  Hmmmmmm…)  For all the salacious “teens forced by the totalitarian government to kill each other” angle, the book’s emotional heart is pure chick lit.  To wit:

• Peeta has been in love with Katniss since they were five years old yet has never had the guts to talk to her. [Women love longing stories.]
• Still, he has always looked out for her when he could.  When they were eleven, Peeta, a baker’s son and therefore “rich” by the district’s standards, provided Katniss with some bread he intentionally burned on a day when she was hungry and rifling through their trash.  For doing this, his mother beat him. [The woman does not have to do anything to earn the man’s devotion and bravery.  Her mere existence is inspiration enough.]
• Before the Games start, Peeta confesses to an interviewer on television that he is in love with Katniss.  Katniss, of course, is skeptical because she thinks it might be a ploy to win viewers’ sympathy.  Haymitch encourages the teens to play up the “star-crossed lovers” angle for the audience.  [Playing pretend lovers is straight out of a Harlequin novel.  Or Candace Cameron Bure’s most recent TV movie.]
• During the Games, Peeta pretends to side with the tougher tributes as a means of protecting Katniss. [More devotion and bravery.]
• When Peeta is badly injured, Katniss tends to him.  After the change to the rules is announced – both tributes from a district will be declared winners if they are the last two standing – Katniss realizes that she can get more aid from viewers if she pretends to be in love with Peeta.  [See above re: Harlequin novel.  Even better if plausible deniability can be invoked later.]  Naturally, as they become more intimate with each other (at one point sharing a sleeping bag – he was ill, it was cold outside!), Katniss feels confused.  But maybe that’s because….
• Prior to volunteering for the Games, Katniss spends most of her time hunting (illegally) with her best friend Gale, who just so happens to be two years older, tall, dark, handsome, and angry at the government.  Katniss is better with a bow and arrow (no self-respecting heroine is worse than a man at anything important), but Gale is a good hunter and together they are able to help feed their families.  Although Katniss spends much of her time believing that she and Gale are only friends, she also spends a lot of time thinking about Gale during the Games.  Especially when she feels herself growing a little too close to Peeta.  [Romantic heroines usually must choose between two guys.  Even tough, not-particularly-feminine heroines.]

So…what we have here is a tomboy whose choices in men are a devoted rich boy and a hot loner.  Or a best friend and the new boy in town.  Or the beta she never noticed and the alpha who hasn’t declared his intentions.  Haven’t we all seen this movie before?  Did I mention that Katniss doesn’t want to get married, ever?

But that’s not all!  Because the Hunger Games are televised, the tributes must all get makeovers.  So the book devotes a significant amount of time to fashion and grooming.  Yes, we are treated to Katniss getting her legs waxed and details about her outfits and even her fingernail polish.  The tributes even get personal stylists.  (Lenny Kravitz just got cast as Katniss’s.)  The tributes get instant fame and must go through televised interviews that are like talk shows.  Of course, that the tributes have no choice in the matter (and are about to go to their deaths anyway) is supposed to mitigate this most girly of plot points.  But a perusal of YA lit aimed at teenage girls will reveal tons of books about being popular or famous or becoming popular or famous.  When Katniss (and ::SPOILER:: Peeta) triumphs at the end, she is informed that she will have to do a victory tour – more forced fame!  Quelle horreur!  And she’s still going to have to pretend to be in love with Peeta!  (Can you even stand it?)  Even while her feelings for Gale are getting in the way!  And she breaks Peeta’s heart!  What’s a tomboy who just survived death to do?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but I was really shocked at just how stereotypical and conventional the book was underneath all the window dressing.  Maybe the secret to The Hunger Games is that it’s Twilight for the people who think they’re too good for Twilight.  But at least Twilight didn’t pretend to be some sort of social commentary about war, survival, and totalitarian government.

The hamster is strong.

(For further reading, check out Salon‘s article comparing the heroines of the two series.  Celebuzz did a comparison of the two series also.)

Bug killaz.

A couple weekends ago, I came back to my apartment with some female friends to watch a movie.  I went into the kitchen, and one friend said, “Uh…is that a big bug on your ceiling?”

I looked up at the ceiling and didn’t see anything.  Then I looked where she actually meant, and there, sitting on the vent, was a cockroach that was maybe 2 1/2 inches long.  My friends immediately wanted to find a guy in the building to kill it.  I suggested a neighbor who I was pretty sure was male (judging by the chubby guys I had seen entering with bottled beer on another occasion), so my friends ran over to recruit his services.  Alas, he was not home.

My friends continued to freak out, and I realized that if I wanted this roach out of my apartment, I was going to have to remove it myself.  Not having any roach spray, I decided to see if ant spray would be effective.

It wasn’t, really, but it did get the roach to fall to the floor, whereupon I smashed it with the can, and roach bits went flying.

My friends congratulated me on killing the roach and marveled that I was able to do it.  In my head I was going, “What else could I have done?  I couldn’t leave it there, and I couldn’t have you guys standing around freaking out about it for another half an hour.”

Secretly, though, I was sort of glad that I killed the roach myself.  I have a hard time asking favors of people in general, and sometimes I get the impression that men feel awkward being asked to help, or they feel put out/annoyed that someone is interrupting their plans.  Men seem to be happy to grab things that are out of reach, or occasionally to lift something heavy, but beyond that, things get questionable if you don’t know what a man’s specific abilities are.  He might be good at doing something…or he might not.

Maybe some of this just boils down to how patient a woman is.  Not too long ago, Suzanne Gosselin of Boundless wrote about how she never once changed a tire while she was single because she always had beta orbiters helpful male friends who would do it.  She saw this as a good thing.  My reaction was more of, “Why didn’t she just change it herself?  It’s not that hard.”

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I was talking to my parents on the phone today and my mom told me about an experience she’d had that I thought would be relevant to the blog.  While we were on the subject of American Idol, talk turned to Adam Lambert, and my mom asked if she had told me about her fellow election volunteer.  I said no (and wondered what prompted this particular non sequitur).  Well, my mom informed me, I needed to get a load of this lady.

So, apparently there’s another lady who volunteers on election days, too, and my mom has gotten to know her a little in the standard “we’re both stuck here all day so we might as well be friendly” kind of way.  According to my mom, this other woman is probably in her late 40s or early 50s, is married, and has three sons, the youngest of which has now graduated from high school.  I don’t know this woman’s name, so for the purposes of this blog post, I’ll just call her Rhonda.

Anyhow, Rhonda has been very nice and seemed relatively normal until the most recent election, where she showed up dressed like a goth and had a dyed-red streak in her hair.  It turns out that Rhonda is divorcing her husband.  Also, two of her three sons are gay (the middle one is the straight one).  The youngest son dropped out of school and got his GED because he was bullied so much for his flamboyance.

I told my mom that Rhonda was in the throes of a mid-life crisis.  My mom then told me (bringing the discussion full circle) that Rhonda also had a tattoo of Adam Lambert’s autograph.  A couple of years ago, Adam Lambert came to town to perform a concert at a major city festival that Rhonda and her family worked at.  They were able to go backstage and meet Adam, and Rhonda got Adam’s autograph not on a piece of paper but on her body.  The very next day, Rhonda had Adam’s autograph tattooed onto herself.

My question was, Where was the husband in all of this?  What self-respecting man allows his wife to get a (young, gay) male singer’s autograph tattooed onto her body?**  For a middle-aged Midwestern mom, that’s practically adultery.  I couldn’t help but think that either the husband had checked out of the marriage emotionally years ago, or he was fatally unequipped to deal with his wife and children.  Wielding some pimp hand along the way would probably have helped save his marriage.  It would even help him now, if he cared to exercise it.  A woman acting out to the extent that Rhonda is is BEGGING for an alpha to come into her life and show her what’s what.

The whole story made me sad to hear it.  Divorce stories are always sad.  But one thing is clear:  Female nature abhors an alpha vacuum.

**But blah blah blah, a woman is the sole boss of her body, blah!  In this case, NO:  the tattoo is a subconscious FU to her husband’s betaness.

THIS ARTICLE, I can’t even.

The article:  Heavy Issues for Heavy Women.  (So miraculous that NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.)

The discussion thread:  Miracle on Matrimony Street.

A quote:

We’ve been married for almost seven years now. One child and an additional 35 pounds later [which makes her 290 at 5’3″], my husband is nothing but more attracted to my fat frame. And he gets a little annoyed about the guys who hit on me. Just as God had made some men who prefer brunettes, some who prefer tomboys, some who prefer bookish gals, God has given some guys a deep appreciation for fat women.

Especially in light of Roissy’s post on Why European Girls Stay Thin.

BRAIN GOES KABOOM.

Hallmarks of creepiness.

One thing I’ve picked up from my time in the manosphere is that a lot of men think women are too liberal with the word “creepy.”  They think that women summarily apply it to every man they find sexually unattractive, as though “sexually unattractive” were a subset of “creepy.”  While I’m sure that some women label every unattractive man “creepy,” most of the time it is a knee-jerk assessment.  Creepiness is a woman’s gut telling her that something is Not Right.  Every woman has had at least one experience being in the presence of a truly creepy man who set off every red flag in her head and made her want to run away as fast as possible.

Most of the time, creepiness stems from some degree of social inability.  People expect others to relate to them in a culturally accepted way, and deviating from these socially acceptable cues will set off alarms in people’s heads.  Probably the biggest creep factor is a combination of staring and lurking.  Staring makes people uncomfortable because people aren’t accustomed to prolonged looks, and lurking makes people uncomfortable because people interpret prolonged eye contact as a reason to approach.  A woman who is getting looks from a man will usually expect him to approach her and begin conversation.  However, if he continues looking but never tries to talk to her, she will start to feel uncomfortable and possibly threatened.  If the man has other unfavorable social markers such as hygiene and grooming issues, he’ll easily fall into the creepy category.

Icky touching is another creepiness factor.  Most people touch in accordance with the level of intimacy they share, starting with hand-to-shoulder and progressing to fuller bodily contact.  Creepy touching is touching that is inappropriate to the level of intimacy that two people share, or goes on too long to be plausibly innocent, or seems gratuitous to the situation.  For example, if some guy you don’t know too well is always coming up behind you and putting his hands on your shoulders and rubbing them as a means of starting interaction with you, that’s creepy.

Invasive conversation is likely to set off the creepy alarms as well.  By invasive conversation I mean conversation that is overly focused and inappropriate to the level of familiarity with the other person.  One time I was in a group where a man was asking another woman in the group a lot of detailed, personal questions about herself – questions that a normal person would not ask of someone they had just met.  The woman tried to answer the questions as politely as possible, but when he left, she turned to me and asked, “Did that guy seem creepy to you?”  To which I answered, “YES.”

Off the top of my head, the three issues I’ve mentioned here are the main ones that trigger the creepy factor (at least outside of truly, unmistakably socially “off” behavior).  What creepiness is NOT is social awkwardness.  You are not creepy if you’re shy, or bumbly, or prone to stick your foot in your mouth.  As I said before, creepiness is really about that gut-level feeling that something is Not Right in the way another person is interacting with you and that it could possibly put you at risk.

But what would she say about dads?

Boundless blogger Martha Krienke, in today’s post for “The Boundless Show”:

One of my favorite TV shows is “A Baby Story” on TLC. I like watching the new parents anticipate and prepare for their new baby, and the birth often makes me cry. My tears, which are the happy kind, are partly a result of witnessing a new life coming into the world, but I also admire the mother who just gave her all on behalf of that little one. What a hero!

A mother’s love for her children is astounding. Giving birth is just the beginning; next is the 2 a.m. feedings and interpreting the baby talk of a 2 year old. And who knows how a parent potty trains a toddler much less finds the nerve to sit in the passenger’s seat while her teen gets behind the wheel.

The Mother’s Day card I bought for my mom this year says:

(front) Motherhood. It’s not rocket science.

(inside) It’s brain surgery on astronauts during a lunar launch while reciting the Declaration of Independence bakwards — only with less logic. Happy Mother’s Day

I think that sums up well the magnitude of a mother’s role and the difference she makes in her child’s life. This Sunday, be sure to take time to honor your mom and express your appreciation.

A couple of comments:

1.  Regarding the Mother’s Day card – would ANYONE be able to find a similar Father’s Day card?  The card just seems to be another in a long line of “moms are superhuman rock stars, dads are sperm donors” messages in the media.  I highly doubt anyone would liken a father’s role to even basic brain surgery, even if he were an actual brain surgeon.

2.  My single male readers should spam bomb Martha with bountiful negs designed to tinglate the Christian soul.  Unlike all of the ungrateful urban wenches harboring Sex and the City dreams, this chick loves babies so much she cries when women she doesn’t even know personally have babies.  She could be YOUR baby-maker!  Step to it, sons.

Also discussed in this week’s podcast:

She says she has infatuated feelings for almost every guy she meets. Not only is this habit starting to interfere with how she interacts with men, it’s also affecting how she views herself and her relationship with God. Candice Watters, a regular contributor to Boundless.org, offers advice for this college-age reader to begin seeing her male peers as brothers in Christ.

I haven’t listened to the podcast, so I can’t speak to the advice given by Mrs. CW, but it’s not uncommon for some girls to develop crushes on everyone possessing a Y chromosome.  Everyone knows someone like that.  (Given the cynical attitudes in the manosphere about what type of man is able to attract women, one does wonder how many of the men in her orbit this reader actually does notice, however….)

What I imagine is going on in this reader’s scenario is that she crushes easily on any guy who looks at her more than half a second, and she gets irrationally excited at ~possibilities~, leading her to fantasize about being married to whichever guy she is talking to at the moment, which she then feels guilty about because she may be trying to flirt with him when she hasn’t gotten the green light from him to proceed, OR she’s dreaming about Guy X when someone else is praying out loud, or she finds it difficult to think about God because Guy X COULD BE THE ONE, MAYBE, LIKE SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE AFTER THEY’VE DATED CHASTELY FOR A YEAR OR SO AND HE PROPOSES ON ONE KNEE WITH A BEAUTIFUL SOLITAIRE IN HAND AND HOPEFULLY HE THINKS “JAYDEN” WOULD BE A TERRIFIC BOY’S NAME AND OH NO I HAVEN’T PAID ATTENTION TO THE SERMON THIS MORNING I AM A HORRIBLE CHRISTIAN.

This isn’t something I’ve struggled with, but this reader’s scenario seems pretty harmless to me and not necessarily requiring a rehabilitation so she can “begin seeing her male peers as brothers in Christ,” which is, I’m sure, what all of her brothers in Christ are hoping for.  As long as the people around her are encouraging prudent behavior and a more reasonable view of the situation, things’ll probably work themselves out just fine.  If it IS a spiritual concern for her – for example, her fantasy life is going off the rails sexually, or her infatuations are blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, or she is blindly following her tingles with men who wouldn’t make suitable husbands – then she should definitely pray about it.

On a more practical level, if this girl is crushing on every guy she meets, then she should probably also be taking a closer look at these men to see if she can find a potential husband in one of them.  Finding lots of male peers attractive isn’t exactly the worst problem in the world to have.

If anyone has listened to the podcast, please fill me in.

The new “I have a boyfriend.”

Everybody knows that women who don’t want to be bothered by men often use “I have a boyfriend” as a deterrent.  The scenario usually goes thusly:

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way. (paraphrasing)

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  I have a boyfriend.  (usually prefaced by “uh” if she doesn’t like you, and “I’m sorry” if she’s trying to let you down gently)

GUY:  Oh, my bad.  (goes home to chronicle failure in blog)

Whether or not the girl actually has a boyfriend is beside the point.  Etiquette dictates that trying to steal someone who is taken (if not legally so) is rude, and so the excuse usually works.

However, thanks to Game, many men now consider “I have a boyfriend” to be a shit test.  The logic behind this assumption is that the woman will forget about her boyfriend if a more alpha male comes around, so the man should be that alpha male if he wants to make time.  Fair enough.  Boyfriends don’t incur any legal obligation of loyalty.

This got me thinking, though…if “I have a boyfriend” no longer commands the same social sway that it once did, then what new excuse can a woman use to politely get rid of unwanted swains?  (“I have to wash my hair” is the “Shout to the Lord” of excuses, i.e., just a little too obvious of a go-to.)

Well, recent comments left on this blog indicated that a woman who dated multiple men concurrently was “undeniably slutty” and unable to be satisfied by one man.  So, in light of that information, maybe the new “I have a boyfriend” should be “I have three boyfriends.”

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way.

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  I have three boyfriends.

GUY:  WHAT OMG WHORE WHORE WHORE WHORE WHORE  (runs away to denounce modern women in blog)

Of course, a woman deploying this technique would have to make sure the situation didn’t backfire on her:

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way.

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  I have three boyfriends.

GUY:  MY KIND OF LAY-DEH!

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  $*#@!!….um, I just remembered, I have to wash my hair.  (runs away to remind girlfriends that men are pigs)

Alternative suggestions:

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way.

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  My dog/grandma/parakeet named Bill just died.

or:

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way.

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  I’m attending my son’s figure skating competition.  The tassels on his costume are amazing.

also:

GUY:  Yo, we should hang out sometime in a sexual way.

UNINTERESTED GIRL:  Okay, but I have to warn you…I didn’t shave my chest this morning.

It’s up to you.  Pick your poison.

Is romantic competition inspiring?

I’ve noticed over the years in my television watching that the most common method of getting two characters together is to introduce romantic competition.  Typically Girl A and Guy B will be in some sort of platonic holding pattern – usually platonic co-workers, good friends, or good enemies – but either one of them has a secret crush on the other, or they both have secret crushes on each other, or they believe they don’t have secret crushes on each other but the audience knows they do.  No one wants to upset the comfortable apple cart, until – BAM!  Romantic competition shows up and swoops one half of the platonic couple.  This leaves the other half jealous and distraught, which leads to shenanigans that may or may not bring our destined couple closer together, but at the very least primes the audience’s pump for a juicy future romantic reconciliation.  Friends exploited this trope over and over and over, keeping the audience’s interest in Ross and Rachel alive for a decade.  Bones is doing the same for Booth and Brennan, as is Castle with Castle and Beckett (which I don’t watch but this is my understanding of what’s going on).  How I Met Your Mother appears to be going there with Barney and Robin, The Big Bang Theory is currently doing it with Penny and Leonard, and one of my favorites, Gilmore Girls, kept up the song-and-dance for years with Luke and Lorelai.

This is all fine and good for interesting television, but does this scenario ever play out in real life?  If you’re a guy and you have a female friend whom you have a bit of a secret crush on, are you going to act if some other guy steps into the picture and starts dating her?  Or are you just going to sit back and ride it out until she’s free again?  If you’re a girl and believe you don’t have a crush on your male friend, how do you deal with unexpected jealousy when he starts dating someone new?  Is romantic competition a motivator for getting out there and fighting for the person you’re attracted to, or does it make you step down and sit it out?  (Please note that these questions refer to singles only.  Married people had better fight if there is a potential interloper.)

Relating to this concept – are people off-limits if they’re “in a relationship”?  In my opinion, any person not married is free game, although in practice, people tend to treat those “in a relationship” with quasi-marital respect, and attempts to break up an unmarried but established couple are considered akin to homewrecking.

I feel silly jockeying with other girls for a guy’s attention, especially if I’m not receiving any preferential treatment, so I tend to withdraw.  But maybe other people are different?

Alpha Christian dating.

I feel like I’ve been reading a lot on game blogs lately how important it is to push a girl further sexually than she professes to want to go.  The M.O. is basically that of “she’ll have sex with you if you push, then back off, then push harder.”  And it obviously works, if the stories being recounted in the comments are true.  Of course, these successes tend to occur when the woman puts herself in an already compromising position – she’s looking for sex but doesn’t want to admit it (in case the man turns out to be a beta), she’s drunk, or she’s at his apartment late at night just for the naked but chaste cuddles in his bed.

Christian dating, or at least the ideal of Christian dating, is the polar opposite of these scenarios.  Men are typically urged to acquiesce to whatever the woman wants, except in the case of sex, in which case the man should “man up” and draw a big chastity line in the sand.  If women are the gatekeepers, then men should be the gatekeepers’ keepers (in a kindly, protective, safekeeping way, not in an evil, domineering way).  I think this attitude springs from the idea that women are naturally more moral and sexually reticent than men, yet women are also naturally very susceptible to pressure to put out.  Because women are more moral, it is men’s duty to support women’s superior morality, lest the woman become immoral.  It’s all a part of being a leader and manning up and being intentional.

So if Christian men are enjoined from sex or any physical escalation that the woman claims not to want, and Christian men are not to take advantage of alcohol, a bar setting, sexual innuendo, and being alone with a woman in his or her home, then how can a Christian man impress a woman with his alpha bona fides?

I’m sure that if you posed this question to the Boundless types, they would scoff at the idea that a real man even needs alcohol et al. to accomplish his mission.  Real men impress through their superior character and leadership skills!  But how do you do that when you have none of the common cultural tools in your chest?  Here are the most common ones:

• Join the church band/be a worship leader.  Playing an instrument is always a DHV.  Guitar is the most common, but if you’re good at the piano or keyboard, even better.  Plus, you’re just more visible to more women.  (DLV:  working the sound board or the PowerPoint slides.)
• Teach Sunday School or work with the youth group.  Many Christian women start feeling their ovaries quiver when they encounter a man who’s good with kids and wants to teach them the faith.  However, make sure that your bonding with kids is over cool stuff, like sports, music, or rough-and-tumble play, and not, say, Star Trek.
• Go on a foreign missions trip.  Missions trips are very quick ways to prove your Christian bona fides, but make sure that you have a good story to tell when you get back, preferably if it includes some sort of Providential intervention.  (In such cases, it is okay to cry when talking about your experience.  Africa changed you.)
• Join a small group.  You’re not just a Sunday Christian, and you desire the intimacy and learning that a small group affords.
• Pray out loud in group settings.  Possibly the ultimate DHV.  Offer to bless the meal.  Offer to close.  Be the first to jump in with the popcorn prayer.  Just don’t fall into the habit of following a script, or say “Lord” or “Father” every five words.
• Lead social gospel outings.  Be the point person for the soup kitchen, or the clean-up trip, or the day at Habitat for Humanity, or ministering at Skid Row, or cause du jour is.  And be organized.  It’s no good to lead if you’re terrible at administration and planning ahead.

Generally speaking, Christian women – at least those brought up in church culture – are highly attuned to displays of visible, acknowledged leadership.  It’s not always enough to be the alpha of your clique of friends.  Then again, in a church setting, it’s hard to be the alpha of your clique if you’re not doing at least one of the above.

If you happen to score a first date with a GCG (Good Christian Girl), the best default game plan is to play the part of a gentleman.  Open doors, pull the seat out for her, grab the check before it burns a hole in the tablecloth, compliment her outfit (“I like your dress” is fine, but “you look gorgeous” is a little too much, too soon), pray over the meal, don’t order alcohol, and DON’T TAKE HER TO A BAR.  Much of the time, a GCG, especially if she has already graduated from college, is screening for husband (and future father) candidates, which means she expects to be treated like a lady.  If you fail in this department, I can almost guarantee that her friends will deem you unworthy in the inevitable post-game analysis.  If you fail and she likes caddishness, then she’s probably not a true GCG, even if her dad is a deacon, a pastor, a missionary, or an elder.  Oftentimes PKs and MKs are the worst of all, because they get off on rebelling.

At the end of the date, don’t go for the kiss.  Don’t even try.  The only girls who will hold it against you are the ones who are used to cads pushing for more.  Be different and DHV yourself.  Plus, with a GCG, it’s better to let her hamster run for a month or two, or even longer, wondering why you won’t kiss her, than to try too early and confirm that all you want is sex.  Women love the anticipation and the angst of not knowing when they can be treated to your puckered lips.  (However, they should feel relatively assured that it will happen at some point.)

Above all, TREAT EVERY WOMAN AS IF SHE WERE A 10.  This goes for old ladies, fat girls, plain girls, and whatever else isn’t your type.  If you get a reputation for only being nice and friendly to the hotties, it will take a lot to scrub “shallow” and “insincere” from your record.  Jesus loves the plain girls just as much as He loves the hot ones, so you should, too.  Being genuinely nice to the unlovelies is a huge DHV.

Minefield.