Q & A: Chickwatching

Someone privately asked:

How does a man identify a broken girl?

I’m not sure how to answer the question, because I (rightly or wrongly) feel like I’m atypical. Unless you count this blog, I’ve never actively sought out broken girls; they’ve always found me. More predatory men are undoubtedly clued-in to things I don’t see, but I think there are some broad generalizations I can make.

Broken girls tend to react disproportionately to displays of common decency and respect… their standards are often incredibly low on all but the most superficial of levels. A BG doesn’t feel accepted by the most loving of friends and families, because even those well-meaning folks see her as a problem to be fixed, or a lost soul to be transformed… no one looks at what she is and appreciates it. A man who can look at her, tell her she’s a fucked-up, hopeless mess, and then just… let it go, not turn it into one more mountain for her to climb… well, she’ll be drawn to that man in more ways than she knows how to express. She’ll change everything about herself —evolve into something completely new— just to keep feeling his quiet validation.

What comes of that metamorphosis, of course, depends entirely on the man she picks, and BGs are not well-known for their reliable intuition. Which brings me to what I think is another common characteristic: overwhelming emotional complexity wed to the calm, calculating decision-making capacity of a nervous golden retriever. This isn’t to suggest that BGs aren’t intelligent; in my experience, they’re usually above average. It’s just that their intelligence —as with their beauty, charm, and every other appealing characteristic— seems to invariably get them deeper into trouble. The voices of doubt and shame and fear start screaming in their heads, they freeze in place, and Shit Just Happens around them. They open their eyes after the dust settles, brush themselves off, and wait to see who’s going to make the next big decision in their lives.