Module 2: Avoiding Sexual Harassment & Dating Violence
The top questions guys ask about relationships answered.
#1 Question guys ask: why are girls always attracted to the jerks?
Here’s the answer: most girls are not attracted to jerks, but undeniably some are attracted to jerks. If you think that all girls are attracted to jerks, you should re-evaluate who you pursue as a romantic interest, and why you are pursuing that person.
There are some people, both girls and boys, that are attracted to people who reject them and are mean to them. They reject those who are nice to them. Relationships with people like this are a nightmare, a constant battle of rejection and acceptance that is a lot of work for very little reward.
If you are in a relationship with someone who is physically violent toward you, and it does happen, get out of the relationship. It will not get better. If you do not end the relationship now, the relationship will transpire one of two ways: (1) you will be a continuous human punching bag for someone; or (2) you will be forced to defend yourself. If you do defend yourself after she initiates an attack, and the police get involved, who do you think will be blamed for the violence? Probably you. It’s not fair, but that is the world we live in. It is much smarter to leave the relationship immediately.
On the other side, there are men who beat up women. Why do women stay with men like that? In many cases, it is economic. In other cases, the physical abuse is the culmination of a long psychological campaign to brainwash the victim.
The idea that “bad boys” are a suitable match for “good girls” is reinforced through popular culture, as demonstrated in this exchange from the Whit Stilman movie The Last Days of Disco.
#2 Question: How do I talk to girls?
The usual advice here is “be yourself”. To paraphrase Dale Canegie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, that is terrible advice! Yourself is insecure, selfish, and pretty much cares about one thing only. Yourself is a terrible person to be.
Most guys need to change their underlying philosophy about girls before they get comfortable talking to them.
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Change your attitude. Set out to make friends. If you do this sincerely, it is very freeing.
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Relationships between the sexes do not have to be this game where there is a winner and a loser. It should be a situation where both parties benefit. As little kids say, “it’s not a winning game.”
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Act like you’ve seen a girl before. Look her in the eyes. Don’t look her up and down, scope her out or stare at her chest. Don’t constantly scan the room for other people or stare at other women walking by. It’s obvious to everyone when you do those kinds of things.
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Along the same lines, don’t make comments about girl’s bodies when you talk to them or as they walk by. “Oooh boo. Look at you boo. You don’t know what you do to me boo.” Don’t be the wooo! guy. Or shout propositions. That makes you sound like a case of arrested development. It is also illegal. It’s called generally referred to as “sexual harassment”, which also includes unwanted touching.
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Don’t follow a woman around. That’s called stalking and it’s really creepy.
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You can make 100x more friends by being genuinely interested in other people than you can by trying to get other people interested in you. Find something that interests you about them, ask some questions, and learn something.
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Cultivate friendships with girls.
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Smile.
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A person’s name is the sweetest sound to him or her than anything else.
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Be a good listener.
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Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
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Make fun of yourself. Don’t make fun of others.
On the subject of talking, you have a right to free speech and free association. But so does everyone else. So if you use your free speech to make people uncomfortable by constantly talking about sex or someone’s body, or by making jokes or hateful statements based on someone’s sexual orientation, sex, ethnicity, or religion, you put your future in a very vulnerable position, because most employers will use their free association to not hire you.
Potential employers already look at your Facebook page and do searches about you on the internet. Most of them care what you post and what is out there about you.
Search engines are also getting better and better. You will eventually be able to search by images and sounds, like your picture and the sound of your voice.
Everything on the internet is there for a future employer to observe. What you do now does matter. And it never goes away.
At the conclusion of this module, invite the students to stand and work on the Counter-Attack. In this exercise, we pretend the shooter is attempting to enter the classroom and we have no escape route. The students prepare on the teacher’s signal to throw something at the shooter (we suggest tennis balls for the exercise) and produce whatever they have in their backpacks (if with them) that they can use as a weapon (see the active shooter memo you reviewed earlier for details).