Life

This Guy Has Awful Dating Advice For You

by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

In my humble opinion, one of the first steps toward being "dateable" is not having hair that looks like a porcupine that fell in bleach. But clearly that's a non-issue for Christian motivational speaker Justin Lookadoo, whose "Dateable Rules" focus more on things like how girls need to stop talking so much if they ever want anyone to love them. Unfortunately, what separates Lookadoo from your run-of-the-mill jackass is that he gets paid to "inspire" teenagers at public schools and churches throughout the south.

To look at it in the most charitable light possible, his advice for teen girls isn't all bad. It includes wisdom like "the sexiest thing on a girl is happiness" and "girls don’t fight girls, ever." But it also tells young women they are "soft" and "gentle," unlike guys, and dateable girls must embrace their girliness. Dateable girls also "know how to shut up," says Lookadoo. And remember:

Let him lead. God made guys as leaders. Dateable girls get that and let him do guy things, get a door, open a ketchup bottle. They relax and let guys be guys. Which means they don’t ask him out!!!
Need him. Dateable girls know that guys need to be needed. A Dateable girl isn’t Miss Independent. She knows we are made for community. Needing each other is part of faith. She allows him to be needed at times, knowing he was called to serve just as much as she was.

It's pretty run-of-the-mill Christian conservative, traditional-gender-role nonsense. Boys are told that "dateable guys know they aren’t as sensitive as girls and that’s okay" and "Men of God are wild, not domesticated. They don’t live by the rules of the opposite sex." Dateable guys also stay away from porn and always "keep women covered up."

Some of teen recipients of Lookadoo's little lecture haven't been too keen on it. At a speech at a Dallas public school this Wednesday, some students left the assembly early and others confronted Lookadoo afterward, according to The Atlantic. "Why did you tell girls to get out of abusive relationships instead of telling guys not to be abusive in the first place?" one astute young lady asked him. The kids have since taken to Twitter, where you can find their feelings about the talk under the hashtag #lookadouche.

Image via Lookadoo.com