Dating Tips From Seventeen Magazine

One of the countless perks of being a librarian is that I have scores of magazines and books available to me all of the time. Hooray!!! And being a librarian who works with kids means that the teen magazines come straight to me. Eh. I’ve never really been interested. They’re a little flashier then the ones from my teen years, but they’ve always seemed to be the same old shit. Boys, clothes, celebrities, blah, blah, blah. Like the women’s fashion mags only with less sex and scantily clad women and even fewer articles about anything interesting.

Maybe I’m cynical about the state of the teen mag because I’m still mourning the passage of Sassy. You girls who were teens in the late 80s and early 90s know what I’m talking about. Jane Magazine tries to be a grown up version of Sassy and fails miserably. But Sassy…now there were some ARTICLES. I remember reading my first scandalous Sassy at the tender age of 15. In it was an article discussing the compelling teenage dilemma: “Are you ready to Lose Your Virginity?” Gripping journalism, indeed! This article caused Sassy to be banned from many of my friends’ households…but I was careful to hide it from my parents. All the fuss would have been for nothing, because I read the article and decided “not” about the virginity. I could wait. Well, a couple of years anyway…

So today I decided to check out this month’s Seventeen. What drew me, you ask? “The Shy Girl’s Guide to Making the First Move,” thank you very much. Emblazoned on the cover was the promise of no-fail macking tips from Seventeen! It was way too good to pass up. I’m admitting right here and now that I read this article and it was actually pretty damn good! Oh, I’m planning to use these tips. All you menz out there better LOOK OUT! Now guys, stop reading so you won’t ruin my surprise attacks….

OK, now that the guys are gone, let me tell you girls that the Seventeen tips are way better than the Cosmo macking tips, which go something like, “When you’re in the produce section of the supermarket, fondle a zucchini suggestively and give him a knowing look.” Yeah, right. Like I’m ever in the supermarket produce section…

The trick, according to author Mikki Halpin, is to make your move in a casual way, where you suggest that it would be in your target’s best interests to hang out with you. These are subtle but effective moves. And they will make the boy…er…guy think that being with you is all his idea. We girls know that this is the best tactic of all because the menz are far more chivalrous when they think the date was their own brilliant plan. They try harder to win you over, which often means drinks and dinner on them, baby. Uh…the guys have stopped reading, right???

The article gives you scenarios: Turn a friend into a sex toy (ok, it really said boyfriend…but I think these tips can totally be used it to turn friends into sex toys), getting the popular guy (I would try this on the aging fratties who still see themselves as Mr. Popular), the guy you spar with, and the random dude at the mall. The only scenario that wasn’t so useful in the adult world was the one with tips for hitting on a guy from another school. I couldn’t make that work for me. Hardly any guys work in other libraries.

There are also some valuable research tips included in the article to pinpoint the exact type of delving you will have to do to see if making your move is a good idea. They appeal to the girl detective in me. They are things like scoping out whether he has a girlfriend, seeing if you have common interests, checking out his body language when you talk to him, (you can do this subtly when you’re checking out his package. That’s a tip from Gigi, not Seventeen), etc. Good ideas! The article also details the amount of risk involved, the actual move to make, and a scripted opening sentence. Some of these were great. My favorite by far was, “Now that I’ve beaten you at chess, I will allow you to escort me to the National Chess Tournament Semifinals.” Oh you KNOW I am going to use that one. What man could resist?

Who the hell knew that Seventeen was chock full of great tips for the single gal? It may have been a fluke, but I highly recommend that gorgeous and sassy women check out the June 2003 Seventeen and put those tips to use! There are also some pretty good de-stressing tips in this issue and a picture of a really cute guy from 2 Fast and 2 Furious. Well worth it, I’d say. Now let’s all get out there and start making our moves!!

-Gigi 06.25.03