CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THESE GUYS THINKING?

Have you ever wondered what the guys you hang out with are really thinking and feeling? Has your boyfriend ever completely shut down on you, leaving you wondering why a totally minor incident ticked him off so much? Do you ever find yourself wishing that the cute but untalkative guy in class would open up a bit more?

Would it matter if you understood the unique way guys are wired?

Whether you’re reading this book for fun, curiosity, or out of desperation to understand guys, we believe you will come away with a brand-new perspective on how guys think that will affect your life in high school, college, and beyond.

SIX INSIGHTS

This chart shows the six insights the book is going to cover. These six “surprises” help us move past our surface understanding (what we assume about guys) and take us inside to what these guys are really feeling at their core.

• Guys need respect. Guys would rather feel unloved than inadequate and disrespected.
• Guys are insecure. Although guys look confident....even cocky at times....they are often insecure in themselves. They worry that they will be found out, and therefore are drawn to girls who help them feel like they measure up.
• Guys are tough and indestructible. Guys look indestructible, but on the inside their hearts are tender, easily hurt, and strongly guarded. However, they will let down their defenses when they know their heart will be safe with a girl.
• Guys are visual. Even decent guys in great dating relationships struggle with the desire to visually linger on and fantasize about the female body....and much of that struggle depends on what a girl is wearing.
• Guys are all out for one thing. Teenage guys are conflicted by their powerful physical desires, which also have massive emotional consequences. Guys need your help to protect both of you.
• Guys go after the hot girls. Guys are attracted to girls with a good personality as well as inner and outer beauty, but they can’t force a physical attraction.

So where did we get this information?

The short answer: from the guys themselves.

The longer answer: In 2004, Shaunti wrote a book called For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men. That little book explained a bunch of things that women just tend not to “get” about men, and it became a bestseller. It’s been talked about on TV and radio, and Shaunti has had speaking engagements about it all across the country.

People started asking Shaunti for a follow-up book that would teach the same concepts, but in a way that would better relate to you as teenagers. They wanted answers to the question: What don’t young women already know about guys that they really need to know?

We figured this need was a no-brainer. What teenage girl wouldn’t love to have some previously undiscovered insight into what guys are really thinking and feeling? So we began our research....and discovered that getting teenage guys to honestly share their deepest needs and fears wasn’t easy. We eventually hit on the right formula, and held lots of confidential meetings (focus groups) with groups of teen- and college-age males....and conducted informal interviews with guys everywhere. We also did a ton of test surveys, stopping guys in malls, in coffee shops, and on the street. When we promised the guys that their names would never be revealed, many of them overcame their usual fear of baring their souls. And, wow, did we learn some fascinating things!

The survey

We hired several experts to help us test whether everything we’d been learning by just talking to guys was true. They helped us design and conduct a scientific survey of four hundred guys from all over the country who were between the ages of fifteen and twenty to see how they really thought and felt about a bunch of different things.*

For Young Women Only is all about the guys’ fascinating answers from that survey and all those interviews. Because it’s a short book, instead of trying to cover everything, we are focusing on things that girls tend not to “get” about guys. We’ve divided our findings into the six insights on the chart, all of which are backed up by statistical evidence. Each chapter of the book will cover one of those six insights. We think you’ll be amazed by some of the surprises, just like we were.

Two for the price of one

Occasionally we also include some survey results or quotes from For Women Only (FWO). That survey included men all over the country from ages twenty-one to seventy-five and was followed up with informal interviews of many more. We’ve included a little of that information because sometimes it helps to see what guys will be like a few years down the road. So really, you’re getting the benefit of two surveys and two books for the price of one!

Hearing it from the horse’s mouth

The best and most important part of hearing the truth about guys from guys is that it helps us really know and believe it’s true. In this book we want to move you from the place of wishing certain things about guys to knowing the truth about them....right from their own mouths. And when you know the truth, you will have the opportunity to make better, smarter decisions about how you interact with the guys you know. Hopefully, those new choices will help you as you relate to your guy friends, boyfriend, and even family members.

Your guides to the male brain

So who are we? There are actually two people writing this book. There’s Shaunti, who wrote For Women Only. For that book, Shaunti did tons of research and data gathering about men that no one had done before. Turns out, her Harvard graduate degree and years as a Wall Street analyst helped pave the way for these well-researched books!

Then there’s Lisa, a screenwriter, author, and editor for several magazines and books. Along with her writing expertise, Lisa brings her practical experience of raising teenagers. Her daughters, Sarah and Hannah, have helped her tremendously, including rolling their eyes and editing out any hopelessly “uncool” things they read in the first draft. Neither of us is a counselor, so we have drawn on the expertise of counselors, youth workers, pastors, and others who work with and understand teens. The best experts in this book, however, are the hundreds of guys your age. We hope they will make you laugh while teaching you a lot about what it means to be a guy.

BEFORE WE START: GROUND RULES

Before you turn the page and get a look at the inner lives of guys, here are some ground rules:

1. First, you may have noticed that the media often makes fun of guys and stereotypes them. We won’t be doing that here. We honor the guys who shared their hearts with us, and believe that you will really appreciate their insight.
2. Second, this is not an equal treatment of malefemale differences. We don’t deal at all with how guys can or should relate to you. Yes, girls obviously also have needs, and many of the truths discussed in these pages apply to you too. But since the theme is the inner lives of guys and our space is limited, we’re focusing entirely on how girls relate to guys, not the other way around.
3. Third, remember that there are always exceptions to every rule. When we say that “most guys” appear to think a certain way, realize that “most” means exactly that....most, not all. Since we have limited space in these pages, go to www.foryoungwomenonly.com to explore more resources, read the entire survey, or join the discussion on these issues.
4. Fourth, we’re talking about what is normal inside guys, not necessarily what is right or wrong about their outward behavior. We want you to understand their thoughts and feelings, even when we may not agree with their actions.
5. Fifth, we need to warn you that some of the enclosed insight may be hard to hear. In all honesty, we were tempted to exclude certain points. But we realized that we were hearing important things that the guys themselves often can’t say directly to the girls they know. So we decided to trust you with this information. If anything is distressing to hear, please don’t wrestle with it alone. Please pray about it and talk about it with an older woman you can trust.
6. Finally, as we discuss these findings, from time to time we’ll be looking at the results from a faith perspective, especially when there are noticeable differences between the answers of guys who say they don’t have any particular religious beliefs, and those who do. The nationally representative survey included all types of guys, regardless of their personal beliefs, and we think this information will be helpful even if you look at life and faith differently than we do. But we believe that adding the faith perspective is also valuable as we consider what to do with all this new information.

By letting you in on the guys’ secrets, we hope you will take it as an opportunity not just to learn fascinating new things, but also to practice new ways of relating. Not only can you become a much better girlfriend (or a much more attractive prospect!), but it’s a lot easier to learn good habits now in your teen relationships, so you don’t have to break bad habits later when you are married!

In other words, the point of learning this new information is not to change the guys in our lives, but to change and improve ourselves.

So, sit back and relax....and maybe fasten your seat belt!....as we take you on a journey into the inner lives of guys.