The art of courtship

Whom to Woo.—The first thing to emphasize is that you are wooing the girl, and not her father, her mother, her aunts, or her family in general. Since the objects of the wooing are (1) to learn whether the girl is congenial, and (2) to persuade her that you are congenial, and should be accepted, you will find that the second object is achieved best by making yourself attractive to her. In cases where she cares for the opinion of her mother, or father, or family, it is the part of wisdom to court, within reason, the family as well. But the main thing is to woo the girl.

The girl must be willing to be wooed, sooner or later, or you had best cease your efforts. In normal cases, she will not object from the start. If she objects, because she is interested in someone else, or thinks she does not care to be made love to or to marry, or because she thinks there is some personal reason why you are distasteful, your first task is to continue courteously in your suit, until you test out whether or not you can remove this preliminary bar. If she is interested in some one else, this becomes the old conflict between males for the female’s favor: and you will use the methods indicated hereafter. If she professes to be entirely uninterested in love and mating, unless she is abnormal fundamentally this is easy to overcome. Lay aside your obvious wooing, interest yourself in whatever she is interested in, and qualify as a friend and companion in her own interests. She will soon, if she is normal, recognize the great value of your companionship, and from this love should speedily grow.

If the objection is that she finds some trait in the man that is distasteful to her, this dislike must be overcome. Perhaps the objection is to some mannerism of the man’s, some error of speech, or some habit which may be altered by him. In such cases, if he desires to win the girl’s favor, he must either change the trait, or convince her that she does not really object to it. Of course, her very objection may be an education to the young man, both as to her nature, and as to how others look upon his actions. If, for objection, she objects to his friendship with a certain man, or to his going to baseball games, he may, after studying out the matter, decide that the girl is too narrow in her ideas to be his desired mate. He should, of course, first try to educate her attitude toward an acceptance of his trait; but, if he fails, the world is full of girls, and he may find much more happiness elsewhere. Suppose her objection is to some error of speech that the man constantly commits. In this case, his task is to correct it, not only to please the girl, but because her objection has given him an insight into how other people regard the mistake which he may have always heard made and made himself, without exciting comment.

Six months ago, a girl whom I know met a young man, of good family, fairly well-to-do, fairly educated (a couple of college degrees, I think), and a man who had traveled rather extensively in Europe and South America. He played a good hand of bridge, was interested in the same artistic things that the girl was, and was smitten with her from the first. After playing around with him for a couple of months, she refused to see him thereafter, except in a large party; and absolutely refused to let him court her further. The reason can be gathered from this typical specimen of his conversation. “I was at the club, see? A lot of the fellows were there, see? And we decided to shoot a little bridge, see? On the very first hand, see? I had four honors in diamonds, and I bid two diamonds, see?” Tactfully the girl had pointed out that the constantly reiterated “see” just was not done by literate people. The man could not or would not change it: and yet that small irksome trait was what cost him the girl he wanted.

In more usual cases, however, the girl is willing to be wooed from the start. Then your task is easier.

Object and Methods of Wooing.—The object of wooing, in addition to its value as education in the opposite sex, is to win the regard of the other person, if you continue to desire her, and to win her consent to the mating. What is the practical method of doing this? The easy and only wholly satisfactory way is to make yourself attractive to the girl, so that you become indispensable to her happiness, her enjoyment of any experience, and her contented living.

Let it be repeated, that the man must stand high in the girl’s eyes, to give the mating a chance for success. If the girl takes a man as a last chance, because she fears she can get no other suitor, the chance for happiness is lessened: if at any time later she meets a more attractive man who persuades her that he would have proposed, if she had waited, regret and dissatisfaction may set in, and the whole love and marriage relationship may be curdled. When a man singles out a girl for his attention, he cannot avoid transplanting the situation back to the old savage days, when the male preened and strutted before the female, anxious for her approval. What are some of the obvious ways to win her approval, which at times are neglected so disastrously that the man’s chances end at once?

Notice the man’s difficult task: to look at himself with the girl’s eyes, and furnish her with an increasingly attractive picture of himself. Some genius uttered the brilliant half truth that love is blind. Luckily for all of us, this is largely true. But a girl’s parents and relatives, friends, and rival suitors, will obligingly lend their eyes as glasses to her: and the man may expect to find what faults he has magnified almost out of recognition. What, then, from the girls’ standpoint, will she look for in the man?

First of all, girls are by nature neater than men. Girls will allow much latitude to a man for carelessness in attire. But the man who neglects such simple toilet matters as the care of his nails, and presents himself with a black rim under them; who lets his shirts and collars remain in service till they are sooty; whose shoes are unnecessarily unpolished, on occasions when she may expect to be judged by other eyes from the standpoint of her escort,—such a neglectful man may as well know that any one of these things may damn him more in the eyes of the girl than if he had committed murder.

Secondly, a girl will judge the man by how she thinks he will look in the eyes of her friends and associates. If the man is slightly ungrammatical, and so are she and her friends, this makes no difference. But, if she has more booklearning than he, and if her friends are critical in this regard, and regard themselves as at all highbrowish, the man must make it his job to grow up to her literate standards. “I don’t like that there show,” “them sort of pictures,” “moving pitchers,” “I ought to of went,” and all the rest of the verbal atrocities that the ungrammatical blunder into, must be corrected. Winning and keeping a girl’s regard must be regarded as seriously as getting ahead in business. Wooing thus includes a course in self-improvement, along every line. It will do no harm to obtain a book of handy helps in grammar, in etiquette, and the like. Don’t eat peas with your knife, or wear a red tie with a dinner jacket: unless the girl prefers it. In that case, the advice is the reverse: study the proper mistakes to make. Later on, you can gradually lead the girl toward improving herself. Make yourself attractive in every way in the eyes of the girl, and of the relatives or friends on whose judgment she relies.

The moral qualities go along with this. The normal girl will prefer a man who stands well in men’s eyes: that is, who has the reputation of a he-man, equipped with at least an average amount of human courage. As a matter of fact, if the last sentence were truer, it would be better for girls. A large number of them, unfortunately, prefer instead the man whom women like, and men dislike: the parlor lizard type, the afternoon tea snake specimen, the namby-pamby woman-pleaser who never makes a success of anything in life except wooing women. There is a thrill, beyond doubt, in being wooed and kissed by such a man: there is much unhappiness in a continuing relationship with him.

Having made yourself attractive, the next thing is to make yourself important and indispensable in the girl’s eyes. If the girl is sensible, a display of sensible ideas on matters of life will aid; if she is frivolous minded, a display of a frivolous, spendthrift nature is more shrewd. Do the things she expects of you: date her up as often as she desires—it may take all of your shrewdness to ascertain the fact, too. Take her, not essentially where you want to, but where she wants to go. If you adore boxing matches, and she prefers Coney Island and art museums, postpone the boxing matches and take in the others. If you like good music, and she cares only for the movies and baseball, first make up your mind whether you want to continue to woo her; and, if you do, especially at first, take her where she wants to go, and only slowly and tactfully sprinkle in with the cinema thrills and the paid athletics a small dose of Brahms and Beethoven. Do what she expects of you: and always do a little more. That is, do the unexpected thoughtful little things. Find out her favorite foods, chewing gums, cigarettes, people, amusements; and go out of your way to provide her with these. If you like chewy chocolates, and she detests candy and adores pickles, do not provide her with an elegant two pound box of chewy chocolates. Don’t be like the married man who presents his timid old-fashioned wife with a box of cigars for Christmas, and then smokes them himself. Be more courteous and thoughtful to her in public that she has a right to expect. This advice is sound, unless the girl is of the rare clinging vine type who wants a man to bang her around in alleged he-man style. If that is what she wants, give her all the banging she can stand. Make your motto, “We Strive to Please”—and do more than strive.

You will want, and she will expect, some physical love from the start. Among different strata of society, customs as to kissing and caressing differ. Never give the girl less than she expects. After you have found out that she likes to be kissed, you will disappoint her permanently if you give her the sort of kiss you would give dear old Aunt Tabbie, aged ninety-eight in the shade. Yet remember to think of her wishes primarily: don’t give her the sort of kisses you want first, but the kind that she wants. Your artistry will come in subtly leading her to want things that you want. And, once a woman is generally satisfied with a wooer, and wants his approval, she moves swiftly to the place where she wants to please her lover in every way. Then the desires coincide: and the man can read his own wishes, and know them for the girl’s as well.

Problems of Wooing.—The man should find out what he wants from the girl—whether a mere flirtation, a temporary mating, or a permanent one—and adapt his technique to gaining his goal. For instance, in the question of letters. He should do his best to satisfy a girl’s craving for love letters, if separations occur. In all probability, he cannot satisfy her desires here: what she really wants is his presence, and a thousand-page letter does not give the thrill of that. Ordinarily it is not the best tactics to spill over endlessly in a love letter: a chatty, companionable letter, with artistically worded love phrases that hint a vast withheld reservoir of love, is better as a rule than pages of sugary sentimentality. Except at the very first, when all rules of sanity are laid aside. And yet, recall that, if you desire subsequently to retire from the courtship, love letters may be very embarrassing. Try to phrase your letters so that they mean everything to the girl, and nothing to the outside world, which may have the pleasure of reading them in newspaper columns featuring a breach of promise case. It is well to keep this possibility in mind from the start. Don’t store up trouble for yourself in this fashion. Be cryptic and allusive, leaving more than half for the girl to read between the lines. It may save you trouble in the long run.

As for wooing and proposing by proxy, even the most bashful person had just as well learn that it is suicidal. The proxy brings a message to the girl that should come from the beloved man: insensibly her emotion goes out to the bearer of the message. Captain Miles Standish sent John Alden to woo Priscilla for him, and the maiden wisely said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” King Edgar’s trusted courier wrote the king that the maiden he desired to wed was ugly and wholly unattractive, and then proceeded to marry her himself for her beauty, for which the king later lopped off the man’s head. Wooing by proxy is much worse than not wooing at all.

As for quarrels, the more experienced wooer will have few or none of them. Beginners in love will insensibly drift into them. Now quarrels have no place in most real loves: they are a sign of some concealed dislike or aversion, which may take a more virulent and costly form after the wooing has been made irrevocable, or comparatively so, by marriage. If the quarrel can be easily patched up, well and good; but if quarrels constantly come, it is a bad omen. The only exception is where both man and girl enjoy a quarrel more than peace, and mate in order to have a mate to quarrel with for life. This is abnormal; and, if you are a normal man or girl, understand that quarrels, especially if they are usually over trifles, are a good warning to break off the courtship and look elsewhere.

The Proposal, and After.—No sensible girl today wants the man to propose to her father, or her parents, before he proposes to her. After all, he is not marrying the father, or the parents; he is marrying the girl. The father or parents are consulted after the plans are made, for ratification and aid: the goal is the mutual consent of the lovers. Again, customs as to the seriousness with which proposals are regarded differ strikingly in certain localities and at certain seasons. In the South, from which I came, a girl is proposed to almost as easily as she is asked for a dance; she becomes engaged as casually as she accepts a drink of water, and breaks it off whenever the mood strikes her. During college days and the girl’s early debutante days, she may be “engaged” to several or half a dozen men at a time. In the North, the custom is ordinarily different. Again, there are seasonal variations: young couples who meet at a summering place may become engaged for their mutual pleasure during the summer, with no intention of ever seeing each other when they return to their regular homes in the autumn. All of these things must be taken into account.

Don’t study a book of etiquette as to how to propose. The more stilted and formal a proposal is, the easier it is for the girl to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Real lovers know, without the words having been said, that their equivalent in deeds has been achieved. Even a slang proposal, “Well, honey, shall we hit it off together?” may be far more effective than “May I have the honor of making you my wife?” Be natural in this, unless you have ascertained that the girl desires the frills. In that case, give her what she desires. The acceptance may be given with a kiss, or with mere words. More usually, the girl will ask for time to consider the matter. If she means yes by this, proceed to make that clear to her. If not, keep after her until you win the acceptance, or her friendly refusal.

It is not hard to read from a girl’s refusal whether she means a real objection, or merely a delay. If you really desire her, she will be flattered by your continuing to woo her, and to make yourself more and more attractive in her eyes. In any case, if she is worthy at all, she will word her rejection so as never to wound the man unnecessarily. If the parties are suitable as mates, a rejection alters soon enough to an acceptance.

Courtship After Marriage.—How to Love (Little Blue Book No. 98) takes up the problem of how to act after the mate has been won. It may be briefly summarized here thus: the real lover, man or woman, continues the courtship as long as the mating lasts. All that has been said about making oneself attractive in the eyes of the other, applies with especial force to this wooing after marriage. Do your best to make a success of the mating; if your efforts fail, and a separation or divorce is necessary, you can never reproach yourself afterwards with the accusation that you did not try your best.

As for courtship of other women after marriage, or a woman’s courtship of other men after marriage, both of these are known; and, in our present organization of society, are natural. The man who is by nature promiscuous, or the woman who has the same nature, for his or her happiness will be as faithful as possible. If love comes toward another woman or man, the lover will come to it with more artistry and more experience than in the earlier attempts; and the technique of wooing should be correspondingly improved.