Too complicated to have any generalizations apply to you.

What is with this current attitude that someone or something is “too complicated” to have any generalizations or rules apply to them?  I see it all the time in discussion forums about personal relationships.  Do we live in a world where everyone is such a special snowflake that everyone falls outside the norm?

For example, divorce.  If someone on a discussion forum announces they’re getting divorced or thinking about it, and you chime in and say, “It’s better to stay together for the kids,” I guarantee you someone will jump down your throat insisting that it’s not your life, you don’t know all the details, and that relationships are “complicated” and therefore conventional wisdom does not apply.

Or how about obesity, particularly if you’re addressing evangelical women.  No one flies off the handle more than evangelical women if a man states that women are more attractive when they are thin.  A hullabaloo over this issue just went down at Boundless recently when one of their bloggers, Ted Slater, wrote a post and used the words “bouncing beach ball.”  His post was apparently so incendiary that it was deleted and replaced with a more “conciliatory” post by Candice Watters, who used the word “precious” every five seconds to remind fat girls that they deserve love, too, while insinuating that with enough prayer, a fat girl can find a man who will love her without demanding that she lose any weight.  To top it off, Ted then posted a new post apologizing for his cruel, thoughtless words.  And to think evangelical women complain that men don’t assume enough “leadership” these days.

Anyhow, in the comments of Candice’s new post, a few men piped up to agree with Ted’s original sentiments.  Naturally, these men got flayed alive by your typical assortment of Christian lashings, such as accusations of being unattractive, having a bad personality and/or mean spirit, and not speaking in love.  Several women insisted that obesity is not a personal failing and that you can never assume that someone loves cake more than a hot body just by looking at them.  The person could have complicated medical issues!*  Plus, well, it’s hard to be thin!  And chubby girls already feel a lot of despair about not having a boyfriend!  Good Christians pretend that other people are not fat, I guess.  Let’s keep fighting abortion instead!

Is this trend the result of the self-esteem culture and its resultant narcissism?  I think it might be.  But then, as the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)

*I am definitely aware that sometimes a person is obese due to chemical or hormonal imbalances in the body, especially something like a thyroid problem.  But it is ludicrous to believe that the majority of the American public has a thyroid problem that’s causing the love handles, love saddlebags, or whatever you want to call them.

Learn from Adam.

Men’s Game blogs often advocate that a man not do what his wife tells him to do for fear of compromising his masculine authority and becoming less attractive to her as a result.

What most people don’t realize is that the Bible teaches the same lesson:  Eve tells Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and like a good beta husband, he does.  Voila!  Sin!  Seriously, three chapters into Genesis, and we’ve already got Adam doing Eve’s bidding.  The results of such betatude?  Well, in addition to the aforementioned sin and therefore death (no more Tree of Life!), not to mention expulsion from Eden:

• Women experience pain in childbirth — this is an exclusively human trait; no other animals experience pain in giving birth
• Women are put under the authority of their husbands
• Men must toil to ensure they can eat
• Sinful nature is passed on through men

Lesson?  Don’t do what your wife tells you to do, or suffer the consequences.

(Probably the second-best “Don’t listen to your wife” Bible story?  When Sarah told Abraham to take her servant Hagar as a concubine.  The result of that union was Ishmael.  The Middle East thanks you, Abraham!)

Love vs. In Love

Readers, please weigh in.  I’ve heard more than one man pooh-pooh the idea of differentiating between loving someone and being “in love” with that person.  (Apparently, the idea of being “in love” with someone is a female thing, ergo entirely nebulous and more or less imaginary, whereas a man just simply loves.)

For my part, I’m not sure which side I come down on in this argument.  “In love” often seems synonymous with infatuation.  “Real” love, the kind of ongoing, day-to-day love that keeps a relationship alive for a lifetime, has little to do with the waves of emotional rollercoastering of infatuation.  Then again, we’ve all seen elderly couples who still look at each other with a touch of infatuation, so….?  Complicating the matter is the breadth of meanings of love in the English language.  (“I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack….”)

What say you?  Is there a difference between loving and being “in love”?  Can a person really be “in love”?

Presentation is of the essence: women’s edition, part 2.

Hey, readers.  I had a crazy week last week that left me mentally drained every night, so the blogging had to be shunted to the backburner.  Thanks to everyone who has continued to visit the site and has contributed to discussion.

Okay, back to the promised second half of my post on how women can maximize their appearance.  In Part 1 I discussed figure and face.  Here I’ll be discussing fashion.

Sometimes I think fashion is the trickiest part of a woman’s appearance to master.  Not every trend favors every woman’s figure, but many women choose their clothing based on trend, regardless of what the clothes actually look like on them.  Others eschew fashion altogether as a frivolous, materialistic, ungodly pursuit and prefer to wear uniforms of shapeless T-shirts and jeans.  Neither approach results in a more attractive woman.

In my opinion, good fashion flatters both the woman’s figure and her complexion and is contemporary.  (Just because something was considered tasteful in 1985 doesn’t mean it’ll still be tasteful today.)  In order to achieve good fashion, a woman should pay attention to the fit and drape of the clothing, the cut of the clothing, and the color and print.

– Fit/Drape

Fit and drape of fabric are just as important to women’s fashion as to men’s.  A garment can be stylish and tasteful and still look horrible on you if the fit and drape are wrong.  You can tell that a piece of clothing has a good fit if it doesn’t gap or bunch anywhere.  A button-down shirt shouldn’t gap between the buttons.  Pants shouldn’t bunch around the ankles or gap at the waist.  They shouldn’t sag at the butt.  The seam where the sleeve meets the body of a shirt should sit at the edge of the shoulder.  In general, your clothes should not look pulled-tight over your body, nor should they make you look like you’re swimming inside them.  Good drape of fabric is indicated by clothes hanging in a natural way off the body, as if gravity is the only force on the clothes.  Clothes shouldn’t look like they’re “caught” somewhere (like across the breasts or shoulders or thighs or stomach).

Often a trip to the tailor can correct problems with fit and drape, but if the alterations are such that it amounts to practically taking the entire garment apart and then re-stitching it to fit you right, you might want to skip on the garment altogether.  Also, DO NOT buy “aspirational” clothing that “someday” you will fit into when you’ve finally lost the fifteen pounds that you’ve been meaning to lose for the last five years.  Buy clothes that fit you NOW and that you will actually wear instead of hang in the corner of your closet and look at every now and then and sigh because you still haven’t lost those pounds.  By the time you actually lose the weight and manage to keep it off, the garment will probably be out of style, anyway.  In general, I advise getting rid of any piece of clothing you haven’t worn in three years.  After three years, most clothing is dated, and if you haven’t worn it in three years, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to suddenly get inspired and pull it out of the closet and start wearing it.  There’s a reason you didn’t wear it for three years, after all.

– Cut of the clothing

This is closely related to fit/drape.  An item of clothing can fit and hang perfectly on the body, but a poorly selected cut can undermine much of the good of the fit and drape.

The goal of good fashion is to give the impression of the woman having ideal proportions.  The ideal body proportion for women is to have a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.7 (the waist measurement is 0.7 times the hip measurement, i.e., the waist measurement is roughly two-thirds that of the hips).  It is also generally considered more attractive and feminine for a woman to have long legs and a long torso.  Unfortunately, most women fall short of the ideal WHR and either don’t have long legs or don’t have a long torso.  This is where the principle of proper cut comes in.

Wearing clothes that are cut to flatter your figure is how you can create the illusion of perfect (or at least closer to perfect) proportions.  I generally think that proper cut is a trial-and-error thing that’s unique to each woman.  There are lots of fashion books that give tips on what to do if you have X body type, but following their advice to the letter won’t necessarily result in a better-looking you.  And just because a garment has a specific cut doesn’t mean that that garment itself is going to flatter you.  Even within cuts, you have to evaluate each garment individually.  Not all V-necks are created equal.  What you want to strive for is balance.  If you have a short waist, high-waisted pants won’t elongate your torso.  If you have short legs, really baggy pants won’t create an illusion of long line.  If you have a short neck, a V-neck may be more flattering on you than a crew neck.  And so on.

Usually if you do enough trial-and-error-ing, you will start to find that certain cuts work for you and that certain brands make those cuts in ways that are especially flattering on you.  Don’t be above buying several of the same shirt in multiple colors if the shirt works for you.  It’s better to wear a lot of the same thing that looks great than to wear a variety of things that look so-so.

– Color and print

Women’s clothing has much more vibrant colors and variety of colors than men’s clothing, so women should take advantage of that.  If your wardrobe is mainly olive green, slate blue, washed-out brown, and different shades of gray, your wardrobe is probably not catching the eyes of very many people, especially not men, whose wardrobes consist largely of the same colors.

Back in the ’80s, it was very popular to determine which colors looked best on you by classifying you as a “season”  according to your hair and eye color.  “Springs” looked good in neutrals, “summers” in pastels, “autumns” in rusts, and “winters” in bolds.  While I don’t think it’s necessary to be that strict, every woman has colors that she favors more than others.  In my opinion, it’s more important to pay attention to the tone (the lightness or darkness) and the saturation (intensity) of the color than the hue itself.  Don’t limit yourself by saying, “I can’t wear green.”  No matter your coloring, you probably can wear green; you just won’t look as good in all tones or saturations of green.

As for prints, be aware of the expanding property of prints.  I tend to avoid them because they make me look wider; as lovely as all the flowery skirts are that are out there, they often make me look like a wide load.  My feeling about prints is that they should accent your outfit, not be the focal point of the outfit.  If the print is the main thing drawing attention to what you’re wearing, be very sure that the printed garment flatters the part of the body it’s on.

Re: stripes – I rarely buy anything striped, especially if it’s horizontal.  Sometimes large, blocky stripes can be okay, but for the most part, stripes often tend to be too busy and too casual…plus, there’s the whole widening thing.

A few other things I thought of:

– Accessories

Not being overly burdened with wealth, I don’t own a lot of accessories (bracelets, earrings, necklaces, scarves, shoes).  Well-chosen accessories, though, can dress up (or dress down) an outfit and provide a contrasting accent.  Often just the accessories can make the difference between a casual and a dressy look.  Different accessories can also multiply the number of outfits you have (like wearing the same shirt with two different scarves).

– Wardrobe basics

Once you’re out of college, it’s a good idea to start building a wardrobe with items that will last you years, rather than just a season or two.  These are the items that are more timeless and are worth spending a little more on.  Having high-quality basics will make your entire wardrobe look pricier.  Here are some items that I think are indispensable to a contemporary (and usually professional) woman’s wardrobe:

– Dark wash jeans – Jeans are ubiquitous these days and are now made stylishly enough that they can be used in both casual and dressy settings.  Dark wash is the most versatile, so if you must buy one type of jeans, buy these.  They can be dressed up with a nice top and heels, or dressed down with a T-shirt and jeans.  I like high-end jeans (>$150) due to their not stretching out with wear, but you can find dark wash jeans at any price point, from Old Navy and Target on up.  A classic straight leg or slightly boot cut will flatter most women’s figures and look the most sophisticated.

– Black pants – Black pants are also extremely versatile and can go from office-wear to date-wear with a change of your top and shoes.  Express’s Editor pant is an affordable, medium-quality cut that is flattering on a lot of body types.  Banana Republic and J.Crew also make pants that work for this purpose and are a little more conservative in their cuts.

– Knee-length black dress – There’s virtually nowhere the “little black dress” can’t go.  You can dress it up or down with shoes and accessories, and if you choose the cut wisely, it may never go out of style.  If you have figure flaws you’re looking to cover up, it’s hard to go wrong with an A-line silhouette.

– Cardigan – Cardigans came back into style in the mid-’90s and refuse to leave.  Cardigans are an excellent layering garment for those times when you can’t tell what the weather will be like.  They can also add modesty to a sleeveless or strapless dress or top.  Black is the most versatile color, but gray and other neutrals can enhance any wardrobe as well.

– Knee-length coat – Depending on where you live, you probably should have one for spring/summer/fall and one for winter.  The belted trench is a classic style that’s “in” right now, but unbelted is fine, too.  Knee-length is versatile enough for just about any occasion except the most formal, in which case calf-length is more appropriate.  Make sure the coat does not add bulk to your silhouette.

– A bra that fits right – Your clothes will drape and lie better if you’re properly, um, arranged.  If you have never had a bra fitting, it’s something worth looking into.  At the very least, it will confirm that you’re already wearing the correct size.  You can have a fitting at any major department store or lingerie shop like Victoria’s Secret.  If you want to measure yourself, VS has a how-to guide.

– Underwear that doesn’t give you Visible Panty Lines – Your butt shouldn’t look like it’s divided into fourths.  That is all.

Okay, I think that about covers it, at least for now.  Overall, a wardrobe is an investment, and if you treat it like one, it will repay itself many times over over time.  Don’t be afraid to spend now for something that fits great, looks great, and is a quality garment that you will wear many times.  And while you’re at it, clean out your current closet using the Three Year Rule.  You’ll feel much better about buying new things if you have room for them in your closet.

OT: SWPL spotting

I saw this the other day when I was getting off the 405:

Just so the picture makes sense:  the car is a hybrid.  (Yes, my camera phone has terrible resolution.)

The most painful LJBFing (for a woman).

Don’t worry, faithful readers.  I haven’t forgotten about the second half of the last post.  Stay tuned.

I saw the movie Just Wright on Friday.  For those unfamiliar, it’s a romantic sort-of-comedy, sort-of-drama starring Queen Latifah, Common, and Paula Patton as a physical therapist, NBA star, and gold-digger, respectively.  Obviously, Queen Latifah and Common’s characters end up together at the end, but not before navigating a shapely bump in the road called Paula Patton.  In this case, Patton’s character’s gold-digging strikes very close to home since she is Latifah’s character’s godsister.

Although the script never fleshes the characters out much beyond the surface, a lot of women will be able to relate to Latifah’s Leslie, who is always passed over by men for Patton’s Morgan and long ago learned to accept that men will always see her as the “friend.”  Common’s Scott is no different:  despite some sparks with Leslie during a chance meeting at a gas station, the minute he sees Morgan, Leslie is but an afterthought.  In practically the blink of an eye, Scott proposes to Morgan, assuring his skeptical mother that Morgan is different from the girls he normally encounters.  The future looks set — until Scott injures his knee during a game midway through the basketball season.  Scott’s agent arranges for a top-notch physical therapist to work with Scott, but when the therapist turns out to be a sexy blonde, Morgan gets Leslie to work with Scott instead.  It’s while Leslie is rehabilitating Scott that Morgan returns Scott’s ring with a note, telling an irate Leslie that she can’t be married to a has-been.  It’s also during this time that Leslie and Scott begin to get closer.

Although nothing unpredictable happens in this movie, it did contain what I thought was one of the most painfully realistic moments that most women have experienced at least once in their lives:  the female version of “let’s just be friends.”  In the scene, Scott asks Leslie why her phone isn’t blowing up with calls and texts.  He points out that in the time she’s been working for him, she hasn’t been going on dates.  Leslie absorbs his observations with dignity and simply says that she’s single.  I’m not sure that any woman can go through this experience without feeling slightly humiliated, especially when the person who has noticed that you’re a romantic dud is someone you’re attracted to.  But Scott unknowingly makes the experience even worse, because he goes on to say (helpfully, I’m sure, in his mind) that Leslie is smart, funny, and attractive.

It’s really the fact that he says Leslie is attractive that twists the knife.  Most women enjoy hearing that they are smart and funny.  If a man whom a woman is attracted to tells her that she is smart and funny, she will maybe feel a little disappointment that he didn’t say more, but she generally will not feel despair.  It’s when the issue of looks enters the picture that women can really be devastated.

Women instinctively know that their looks matter to men and that some men will never be attracted to them because of their appearance.  Much as women hate the priority that looks have, all women want to be considered attractive by men, especially men they’re attracted to.  As a result, nothing is quite so painful as being told you are physically attractive yet the man doesn’t want you.  This is by far the most horrible way that a man can “let’s just be friends” a woman.  A woman can get over “you’re really cool, I like you a lot, but I just don’t see us this way,” but a woman will feel her soul being crushed when a man says, “you are beautiful, but I don’t have any feelings for you.”  Every woman’s next thought is, “If you think I’m beautiful but don’t want to be with me, then there must be something terribly wrong with me.”  Every woman’s brain translates the man’s words as “I would fall in love with and/or have sex with every horrible, lying, ugly, stupid shrew in the world before I would fall in love with or have sex with you.”  It’s not just a rejection of her as a person, it’s a rejection of her as a woman.

Obviously, in the movie, Scott comes around and sees that Leslie really is the right person for him, so all’s well that ends well.  (Although I had to suspend disbelief that an NBA star would marry and, presumably, remain faithful to a woman, much less a woman of Leslie’s size.  I just can’t believe that an NBA star as big as Scott would not have a nationwide harem with svelte “girlfriends” in every city.)  Anyhow, my point is this:  men, if you really care about a woman, don’t compliment her looks directly unless you have immediate intentions to act romantically.  In other words, it’s fine to say “you look nice today” or “I like that dress on you.”  It is NOT okay to say “YOU are attractive” or “YOU are beautiful.”  Especially not beautiful.  I highly recommend not saying “you are beautiful” to a woman unless the next words out of your mouth are “I love you.  Will you marry me?”

P.S.  for the Culture Police types – The movie is a very true PG.  There is next to nothing objectionable in the film other than a very brief, very not-showing-anything love scene between Leslie and Scott.  No language, and Leslie has a very good relationship with her married parents.

Presentation is of the essence: women’s edition, part 1.

A while back I wrote a post describing how men can maximize their looks by tending to the three Fs:  fitness, follicles, and fashion.  Women can do the same by tending to their three Fs:  figure, face, and fashion.  Also, I just want to clarify that looking good should not just be for the purpose of attracting a husband or boyfriend.  Looking good will improve your life mentally, emotionally, and physically, and give you greater confidence – which will in turn make you more attractive to the opposite sex.  For my Christian readers, I suppose this is where I’m supposed to remind you that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit don’t want to live in no junk!  Very generally speaking, though, I think that the state of the body is a partial reflection of spiritual health.  I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the United States is experiencing both a spiritual quagmire and an obesity epidemic.  But I’ll save that for another post.

Back to the point of this post, though, which is how women can maximize their appearance!  Obviously I have more to say on this because (a) I am a woman, and therefore have personal experience with most of the issues that women face in this area, and (b) there’s simply more that women have to do to pass muster.

FIGURE

Unfortunately for women, men value a woman’s figure much more than women value a man’s physique.  For many men, the poundage you carry will make the difference between whether he sees you as the Eternal Friend With A Good Personality or as the Potential Wife.  This means that unless you’re naturally slender and don’t put on weight easily, you’re going to have to watch what you eat and get regular exercise.  In other words, you will have to develop some self-discipline if you don’t already have it.

– Diet

Eat greater amounts of lean protein, fruits, and vegetables, and drink more water.  Limit starchy and greasy foods and high-sugar drinks like fruit juices and sodas.  (Sodas are empty calories to the max.  Eating Special K for breakfast is worthless if you’re chugging down two Big Gulps a day.)  Stay away from processed foods like TV dinners and “instant” meals where you add water and stick it in the microwave.  These are usually high in salt and fat…hello, water retention!  Learn the basics of cooking if you don’t know how to cook; not only will your food prep be healthier, your food bill will also decrease.  I recommend Betty Crocker Cooking Basics as a starter cookbook if you really don’t know what you’re doing in the kitchen.  This book has easy-to-follow instructions, great photos, and recipes that won’t make you the next Bobby Flay but will enable you to make tasty meals with common ingredients.

For singles who are cooking for one, a toaster oven or a small George Foreman grill are really easy ways to bake or grill meats in single servings.  I also tend to buy frozen vegetables and nuke them in the microwave.  Frozen vegetables take the pressure off trying to eat perishable foods fast enough.

– Exercise

Find an exercise plan that you can stick to and easily incorporate into your life.  Don’t join a gym if you’re only going to go once a month or if you’re too shy to use the equipment in front of strangers.  Don’t buy expensive home gym equipment or faddish workout DVDs.  Unless you are really passionate about exercise, don’t invest in anything that requires you to spend an hour a day working out; you will run out of enthusiasm quickly and then be stuck with a bulky or expensive (or both) investment that you don’t use.  My preferred methods of exercising are brisk walking around the neighborhood and a core strengthening Pilates DVD.  Walking briskly for 20-25 minutes three times a week will take at least an inch off each thigh; it will also tighten up your booty and tone your calves.  Plus, it’s free, which is everyone’s favorite price.  If you’re the type of person who needs some accountability, recruit a friend and go walking together.  Just keep the pace brisk; you should be slightly out of breath at the end.  The Pilates DVD has helped to tone up my thighs, abs, glutes, and arms, but even better is the added endurance for sitting, standing, and walking.

Another option to try, if you are willing to spend some money, is Wii Fit Plus for the Nintendo Wii.  One of my friends has it, and it is a blast.  It has so many different exercise options that you won’t get stuck in a rut.  Also, the exercises are short.  Wii Fit Plus also has the ability to track your progress.  If you’re motivated by visible results and are more electronically inclined, Wii Fit Plus may be for you.  Another bonus is that you can exercise in the privacy of your living room or wherever you have a TV.

Overall, the goal for feminine fitness should be to have a healthy body for your body type.  Don’t be discouraged that you don’t have the body of a millionaire supermodel or actress.  Those women’s JOB is having a perfect body, and only a very small percentage of women have the genes that make them eligible for that job, anyway.  And a lot of even those women struggle with maintaining their figures.  (Also…most eligible men in your circle will never have a chance with a woman of Hollywood-caliber looks.  Only the most delusional man is going to hold out for the Christian version of Jessica Alba or Megan Fox — and even if one showed up at church, who’s to say she’d go for him?  Most men, when faced with the choice of a real live woman who takes care of herself vs. his imagination, will choose the real live woman.)

FACE

After figures, most men are interested in a woman’s face.  While underlying bone structure more or less determines who’s the fairest of them all, every woman can maximize her facial beauty by taking care of her skin and smartly using makeup to enhance her best features and downplay her, um, not so perfect ones.

– Complexion

A good complexion is a marker of good health, which, for obvious reasons, is attractive.  Eating right and drinking water will improve anyone’s complexion.  Also, find a skin care regimen that works for you.  It doesn’t have to be expensive, but you should be cleansing your face in the morning and at night before you go to bed.  Also, use moisturizer.  Moisturizer keeps the skin hydrated, which allows light to reflect more evenly and gives you a more youthful, luminous glow.  Finally, use sunscreen to help protect yourself from sun damage, which will age your skin.  A lot of moisturizers come in versions that include sunscreen, so you can kill two birds with one stone.  (My skincare for years has been Mary Kay’s Timewise cleanser for oily skin and moisturizer with SPF 15.  I have tried other products periodically, but none have kept me from breaking out and made my skin soft the way that the MK Timewise does.)

– Brows

Brows are an area that is often ignored by fashion and beauty articles.  Well-groomed eyebrows will make your face look more refined and more feminine.  If you’ve never had your brows waxed (or threaded), especially if you have thick or bushy brows, consider having your brows done.*  Done right, they will help shape your face, open up your expression, and draw more attention to your eyes.  If you have thin, light eyebrows, you can fill in your brows with a brow pencil or powder.  Brows that are too dark and overpowering can be lightened with bleach.

* Make sure your brows are done by an esthetician.  Hairdressers usually don’t specialize in brows, making it more probable that the experience will hurt and/or that she will mess up in some way.  I know this from personal experience.

– Makeup

There is actually some debate in Christian circles over whether or not women should wear makeup.  I obviously think it’s okay, but I don’t think any woman should feel pressured to wear it because otherwise she’s a failure as a woman.

The basic purpose of makeup is to enhance your best features and downplay your worst ones.  Exactly how much makeup or the types of products you use are up to your preference, but a good makeup job will not draw attention to the makeup.  It also doesn’t matter so much whether you use expensive or drugstore products.  Everyone’s skin is different and will react to makeup differently.  What I do like about higher-end makeup, though, are a couple of things.  One is the opportunity to test it in the store at the counter.  Just because it looks a certain way in the tube doesn’t mean it’s going to look that way on your face — or stay that color as you’re wearing it.  I also think higher-end stuff has better color selection for foundations…I find that drugstore foundations tend to be too pink or too peachy.  The other main reason is that I generally find higher-end makeup to wear better:  it goes on more smoothly, it blends more easily, it lasts longer, and you don’t need to use as much as you would with cheaper stuff.

If you’re not very familiar with makeup, here’s a quick primer on different products and their uses:

Foundation – Used to even out your skin tone, hide blemishes and redness.  Comes in liquid, powder, or creme forms; finish can be matte or luminous.  Foundation should match your skin tone and not leave a visible line of demarcation on your jaw line; your face and neck should match.  Good foundation also helps to control oil and shine on the face.  For those not needing the coverage of foundation, tinted moisturizer is a sheer option.  Foundation is often set with loose or pressed powder.  (You just dust it over your face with a brush or puff.)

Blush – Highlights the cheeks, can also be used to contour the face (e.g., make a round face or nose look narrower, shorten a long face, accentuate the cheekbones).  Comes in powder and creme forms.

Mascara – Lengthens, thickens, and/or adds curl to lashes.  Gives color to pale lashes.  The most common colors are black and brown, but you can also find blues, greens, and purples.  If you have small eyes, using a lash curler before applying mascara can help your eyes look larger.

Lipstick – Adds color to the lips.  Intensity ranges from sheer to shiny to matte…really, every finish and color are available.  Lip gloss adds shine to the lips and also comes in a variety of colors, though the pigmentation won’t be as intense as with lipstick (ergo, a good choice for a younger girl).

In my opinion, these four products are the main ones you need for a basic, everyday face.  If you want to add more emphasis to the eyes, you can use eyeliner and eyeshadow, but these can be a little trickier to use.  A lot of women make the mistake of not blending and using colors that are too harsh for their skin tone, so they end up looking like raccoons with hard, black lines ringing their eyes.  This is a cheap look.  You want to avoid that.

For some good makeup tutorials, I recommend the pixiwoo channel on YouTube.  It’s run by a couple of English sisters who are professional makeup artists.  They know their stuff, plus they’re very personable and lots of fun to listen to with their accents.

Oops, this post got really long, so I’m going to split it into two parts.  Stay tuned for my Very Important thoughts on fashion.

Why Christian girls have so few boyfriends.

I was reading the comments at another blog, and one commenter mentioned how “shocking” it is that so many cute Christian girls in their late 20s/early 30s have only had one or zero boyfriends in their entire lives.  Honestly, this kind of news is only “shocking” if you don’t know anything about conservative Christian culture.  Here’s how a reasonably attractive, non-psycho Christian girl of, say, age 32 can go boyfriend-less her entire life:

• Very poor male/female ratio of singles at church. If mating is a numbers game, women are on the losing side.  Most churches that are not specifically targeted to single professionals (a.k.a. “seeker churches”) have a low singles population.  Of the singles who are regular attenders, the majority of them will be women.  Of the men, a lot of them will be “old” or weird.
• Single men at church do not initiate. If there are any single men who pass muster, they often aren’t asking out the single women at their church.  Sometimes this is due to fear of social ostracism (i.e., ask out too many women and you get a rep of being an indiscriminate player who’s only looking for a warm body), sometimes it’s a lack of sexual interest…in general, sometimes it’s immaturity, sometimes it’s apathy, and sometimes it actually IS that all of the single women at church are fat and/or damaged.
• Refusal to date both non-Christians and nominal Christians. Most “good” Christian girls will not hang out at places where the average (non-Christian) man will go to meet women, such as bars, clubs, sporting events, house parties where alcohol is served, or the mall.  They are much more likely to be found in the church nursery, leading a youth group retreat, helping out at a women’s shelter, attending a small group Bible study, baby-sitting the children of married Christian friends, on a missions trip, hanging out with her parents and family, or at a game night sponsored by the college & career group at church.  Should a good Christian girl actually meet a non-Christian man who is attracted to her, she will most likely be very wary of him as a romantic prospect and will refuse to go on a date with him if he asks, due to the biblical command not to be yoked (married) to unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14).  Ditto for a man who is nominally a Christian (i.e., claims to be a Christian yet doesn’t “bear fruit”).

Other factors can come into play as well — being too picky is a problem regardless of creed — but these three points cover the major reasons that Christian girls endure such long periods of singleness.  In the end it’s pretty much a numbers game, and the girls are losing it.

ManLingo: “smart girl”

Quite often you will hear men complain that there are no “smart girls” in their social circles to date.  Even a quick perusal of good ol’ Craigslist, that bastion of high standards, will reveal a desire to have sex with date a “smart” or “intelligent” woman.  Educated single women hear/read stuff like this and immediately begin bashing their heads against their desks.  Hello, we’re right here, they think as they silently curse eHarmony, match.com, OKCupid, and the universe.

Several years ago I came to the conclusion that what men mean by “smart” and what women mean by “smart” are really two different things.  When a man says he wants to date/marry a “smart” or “intelligent” woman, he means:

• A woman who will laugh at his jokes
• A woman who will be impressed by him/his job/his car/etc.
• A woman who is only moderately helpless (i.e., needs his help in many different areas of her life but doesn’t have to use her fingers to calculate 2+2)
• A woman who also meets his minimum standard of attractiveness (because no man who’s surrounded by, say, dumb, homely women is going to complain first that they’re all dumb)

What “smart” or “intelligent” does NOT mean to a man is (not an exhaustive list):

• Has an IQ exceeding 120
• Got good grades in high school or was even class valedictorian
• Got an academic scholarship to college
• Has a graduate-level degree
• Knows times tables through 13×13
• Can easily converse about politics, religion, science, art, music, and popular culture with both breadth and depth
• Is witty
• Doesn’t need a calculator to calculate a tip at a restaurant
• Knows how to change the oil in her car, fix a clogged drain, or hook up the home theater just from reading the manual
• Has an SAT-worthy vocabulary
• Is a brilliant writer
• Reads dozens of non-fiction and/or award-winning books per year
• Keeps getting promoted at work with stellar job reviews
• Kills at Brain Age 2
• Taught herself Latin by reading Harrius Potterus et Philosophi Lapis

This is not to say that a man won’t objectively acknowledge a woman’s brains if she meets criteria from the second list.  It’s just that, for all practical intents and purposes, all he really cares about is the first list.  Plus, it’s simpler (and sounds better) to say “I want to date/marry a smart woman.”

What does a woman mean by “smart”?  She means a keen, quick, analytical mind that can easily and clearly express itself.  Advanced verbal skills (especially syntax and vocabulary) are powerful and attractive indicators of intelligence to a woman, especially when paired with wit.  Intelligence sans social skills/social intelligence is generally not attractive.

Aloof vs. So-Aloof-You’re-A-Jerk.

I meet weekly with a group of single women from my church for a combination Bible study/fellowship group.  Yesterday since only three of us showed up, discussion was firmly in the “fellowship” camp.  One of my friends shared the story of what had happened when she went on a date with a younger guy from church.  He was a guy she had gotten to know, who constantly said to her that they should hang out.  Because he was several years younger, she was hesitant but felt that she should go in with an open mind.  So, she accepted.

They went to a movie.  Afterward, he did not make any conversation.  They also met up with his friends (I think?), and he sat on the opposite side of the table from her and also talked about another girl he was interested in.

Needless to say, my friend was not impressed…but what do you know, the guy called the next day to say that he’d had a great time and that they should do it again.

Men, if you’re going to single a woman on a date, then that date really needs to be exclusive.  Don’t bring your buddies along, do be the leader in making conversation, and by all means DO NOT EVER talk about another woman you’re interested in.  You may think that you’re being cool and aloof and demonstrating higher value (i.e., non-neediness) as well as self-social proofing, but all this does is make the woman deeply uncomfortable and confused, and possibly embarrassed.

The disappointing thing about this is that this young man is otherwise a stereotypical “great guy” treading in Youth Group Guy territory.  All he did on this occasion was disappoint my friend, as well as hurt his own reputation (which is now “nice guy but too immature and not ready to date”).

Being a little aloof on a date is good.  You don’t want to come across as overly attentive; that’s a big turn-off.  But going in the opposite direction to the extreme is a huge mistake as well.  You’ll just end up on a date with a woman who is wondering why you even bothered to ask her out.