Assignment:
Provide examples of manners or habits that you find curious and explain why you think they exist. Make sure the
manners or habits you discuss are at least loosely related to one another.
I graduated from high school in 1980. I know dating practices have changed a lot since then, but the rules I had to go by were illogical.
First, when I was in school, the boys had to ask the girls out. Girls couldn't ask boys or they were considered floozies--desperate sex fiends who would stop at nothing to get their hands on a male. Of course girls had other options. For example, a girl could have her friends ask the boy to ask her out. That wasn't being a floozie, that was being a diplomat. I never understood the difference.
Secondly, boys had to decide the agenda for a date. A hamburger and a movie? The local basketball game? Walking around the mall? Necking the park? We couldn't ask a girl out and then ask her what she wanted to do. That was a sign of incompetence, lack of imagination and general wimpiness. We were supposed to be in charge.
And of course if the girl wanted to go out, she had to agree with the proposal, however stupid it might be. I once spent two months working up the nerve to ask a girl out. Her name was Donna. She was cute but also the class brain (which is why it took me two months to get the nerve to ask her out.) To my astonishment, she said "Sure, let's do something." So what did I do? I suggested we go to the local movie. It was a brainless flick called Culpepper Cattle Company. We were both bored out of our minds, though I tried to be cool and pretend it wasn't so bad, which only reinforced her suspicion that I was a lunkhead. But I only asked her to the movie because I didn't know what she liked to do, and the cultural rules said that I couldn't consult her opinion.
Finally, these cultural rules dictated that males pay for everything. If I asked a girl to the homecoming dance, I bought the tickets; I bought her a corsage, and I bought gas for the car. Once, however, our school had a "Sadie Hawkins" week. During that week, girls were supposed to ask boys out, pay all expenses and decide the evening's agenda. It seemed like a great idea. But our sense of cultural correctness runs deep. I was surprised when a shy, modestly behaved girl asked me out. She was very nice, a minister's daughter, but I didn't know her well. So what was the first thing that went through my mind when she asked me: "MY GOD, SHE'S A FLOOZIE!" But I took a deep breath, remembered the rules, and agreed to go out with her. Like me, she showed total lack of imagination and suggested we go see an idiotic movie. But I ended up driving--and paying for everything--because I couldn't allow my masculinity to be compromised.
At the bottom of all these rules was an old fashioned idea of maleness. Males were supposed to dominate, be decision makers and providers. Women were supposed to be subordinate. And just think, this was the 1970's. Women were asserting themselves in politics and business, and the Equal Rights Amendment had been passed by Congress. But when it came to dating, we all embraced antique values.
Occasionally, a non-traditional student has the advantage of perspective. This fellow makes good use of it. He writes about these "cultural rules" in a detached, humorous way because he no longer suffers under their restrictions. The paper has good voice but is also intelligent.
This student also has a lot of sentence variety, a broad vocabulary (that he uses well) and good grammar.
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