Girls Will Be Boys

This week my parents have gone away on a cruise. I got that instant buzz everyone gets when they realise they suddenly have a free house and can do whatever they want, but it occurred to me far too soon that our family don't actually have enough rules to break. I thought of drinking and smoking in the kitchen, then realised that's a regular Saturday morning for my mum. By the time I had found nothing more rebellious to do than paint my nails naked, I decided to have a barbeque.

Everything was going smoothly and I had just put out a tray of steaming sausages and burgers on the table right under the noses of my close girl friends and to my surprise they stayed right there. I couldn't work out what the girls' problem was, until one of them said "Oh how amazing would it be if the boys weren't here, we would devour all of this." I was totally confused, I thought surely these beautiful, confident girls wouldn't think twice before doing something so basic as eating in front of boys without feeling self conscious.
This got me thinking, would boys really think less of a girl for stuffing her face? Surely, I thought, it just brings us back to the stereotypical male nightmare of taking a girl out for dinner and watching her poke around at a salad all night. I would have thought that a guy would love to see a girl with a hearty appetite, but perhaps I was wrong.
What this really made me question was, do boys really want girls to be like boys?

No

A prime example of this is my best friend Tallie. She has often been described as every boys dream. Imagine blonde hair, blue eyes, a killer rack and a better high score on Call of Duty than most boys I know. Not to mention she has a job lined up at Sky Sports. Although she sounds essentially like a boy minus the trouser meat, Tallie still maintains a balance. She still wears makeup, goes out clubbing, gets her nails done and is for all intents and purposes a girl.
Unless you're in an ideal situation in which you strike a balance, and just so happen to be stupidly hot then it could be possible that having the qualities of a boy is a turn off. I know so many girls who pretend to be a Tallie around their boyfriends, sitting infront of the TV watching football with a look on their faces like they're watching a foreign film.

Regardless, when girls try to be like boys it is actually fairly ineffectual. Just as we girls wouldn't want our boyfriends tagging along with us to the nail salon and shopping, surely boys don't want their girlfriends sitting around with them while they're trying to watch sports, play video games and get high. After all, it is time reserved for male bonding.
However much you don't want to feel like 'too much of a girl', at the end of the day a guy is dating you for that very reason. If they wanted to hang out with a farting, make-up free sports fan then they would just fuck their friends during half-time.

But Maybe Yes

However much girls shouldn't unleash their inner beast infront of boys, there should still be a line to how far they take it. Even if a guy doesn't want to bang their BO infested best friend, they much less want to spend time around a squealing co-dependant creature who can never relax. You may not need to fart infront of your guy to show you're relaxed, but a pair of trackies every now and then is okay.

you probably wouldn't say no...

One aspect to consider is that boys are inherently hunters and aggressors. They want a girl to protect and spoil. I'm sure in the 1950s this worked out fantastically, as girls were girls in their pretty little A line skirts, job free and waiting to be rescued so they could start using their wombs like easy-bake ovens. In modern society however; where a girl can go out into the real world independently, competing alongside men for whatever she may want, it's difficult not to cross the line of emasculation. After all, boys need to open our car doors, pay for our meals and open our bottles for us to feel like their cojones are sizeable.
Even if this is the case, there is no reason why girls who are independent and comfortable in their own skin shouldn't be allowed to act however they want. In some ways it's better to be the girlfriend sitting next to you cheering on your team than the one asking you to explain the offside rule AGAIN. (In case you were wondering, I fall into the second category).


In this day and age it is hard to strike a balance between feminine and masculine energies, with androgyny all over the runway it's no wonder it's creeping into our relationships. I believe that although boys don't want to be emasculated, they also don't want to be dating a Barbie doll (regardless of the flexibility).
If this means we have to let them open our ketchup bottles for us, then at least let it be because we're about to pour it on a hefty burger.

Thanks for reading

Olivia Jane

xx