Wily Girls. . . Girls With Wiles. . .

When I was eleven-- during the thaw after the Great Ice Age-- and in pubescent turmoil over the whole how-to-get-the-boy-to-like-me thing, I did what most young girls have better sense than to do: I asked my mother.

"What do you have to do to get a boy to like you?" I said, my head filled with visions of blue-eyed, auburn-haired Rodney McClanahan, who sat behind me in Mr. Childress's sixth grade class. My mother, being the closest thing to a fount of all things wise and feminine I had available to me, leaned close and whispered: "You just have to use your feminine wiles."

I knew then and there I was in deep sh*t. Because I didn't have clue what she was talking about. It took fifteen years for me to realize she didn't know what she was talking about either! She had grown up the eldest of six kids on a depression era farm and had worked her way through college and dated mostly via air mail through WWII. She was about as "wily" a female as Ma Kettle. But the fact that she'd hooked up with my tall, handsome dad gave her "creds" with me, so I kept trying to discover my elusive and clearly underdeveloped "wiles."

From watching TV, movies, and my numerous cheerleading cousins, I gradually learned that smiling, eye-batting, giggling, and fitting into a size 4 were involved. Oh, and blonde hair. My mother wouldn't let me go blonde or get contacts, I was a hopeless size 14, and-- worse-- I had a reputation for being smart. Three strikes. I couldn't wile and beguile boys, so I decided to compete with them. And I won. sigh.

It took me until halfway through college to quit approaching the whole "girl-boy" thing as an acquisition problem and begin thinking of it as an enjoyable interpersonal opportunity. It took still longer for me to realize if I could make a guy laugh, he was halfway to being mine. Then, of course, it took even longer for me to figure out how to get rid of the ones I hadn't actually INTENDED to make laugh. . .

The best (and most infuriating) advice I ever got: be yourself and be happy being yourself. The worst advice: never let a guy know how smart you are or how much you like them.

So what do you say? What was the best/worst advice you have gotten on dating and relations between the sexes? And can anybody enlighten me on that whole "feminine wiles" thing? Ooooh. . . and here's another one. . . what is the difference in dating/relationships when you're in your twenties and when you're (ahem) "older?" I just went through all of that and I still don't get it!!!