Safety before his feelings

Most boys or men are not taught to be people pleasers – but girls sometimes are. In my classes, I typically ask if the participants have ever been taught to “be nice” to people. Most all of them over thirty will raise their hands. To which I reply “you can throw that right out the window! You don’t have to be nice to anybody”! I do tell the teens they have to be nice to their parents.

So if a young girl is meeting someone for the first time, or perhaps in a brand new relationship, where they’ve only been out on a few dates, if the guy is a creep or a jerk he may initiate a rendezvous at a more secluded location. “Hey lets go for a walk on the beach at midnight– not many people around at that time. Or maybe its how about coming over to my place (he lives alone) and we can … watch a movie, study together.. whatever. Where the danger here lies is a lot of girls worry about telling him no. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings” They are trying to be nice because that is what they have been taught. To which I say – “Awwwww, go ahead – he’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t, well, its his loss. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet nice, upstanding guys who have respect for boundaries and wont bat an eyelash if he is told no. In fact, sometimes telling a guy no is exactly the right way to increase his interest.

If you are just getting to know someone in a dating relationship, you don’t know them really well. And trust has to be earned. There are all kinds of safety mechanisms you can put into place in the early part of a relationship before trust has been established. So you should never feel compelled to go with someone alone in the early part of any relationship – it’s just not safe!