Are guys afraid of smart girls?
April 9, 2003 | 12:00am
Hi Marc!
I just want to ask if guys are afraid of smart girls. It sounds absurd but I have this feeling that guys are afraid of me and I don’t know why. I kinda look like a university scholar, but definitely not nerdy. I’m a friendly person, but I don’t smile often. I laugh only when something is funny. People misinterpret this and think I’m suplada. Thanks for reading this. I think you’re a sensitive person and you give good advice.  Smart Angel
Are guys afraid of smart girls? I think it really depends a lot on the guy, as we’re not all the same. After talking to both my male and female friends here in the Philippines, I think guys can sometimes get a bit threatened by an obviously intelligent girl. This is not to say that guys don’t like a smart girl, just that they may be a bit wary of appearing less intelligent than she is.
You have to remember that although we’re now in the 21st century, there are still a few macho, sexist, social beliefs out there. One such belief is that a guy is superior to a girl in every sense (except maybe in giving birth), whether it be physical, emotional, or mental. Admittedly, men are born stronger  in a muscular sense (although a lot of guys can still get their butt kicked by a well-trained girl). But when it comes to the lumpy gray matter in our skulls, women are every bit as capable as men.
Now the problem lies in a guy’s sense of pride. Men can be highly competitive, and perhaps more importantly, don’t want to look bad in front of others. It’s bad enough if they lose a competition (whether it be physical or mental) to another guy, but they are sometimes exponentially embarrassed if they’re beaten by a girl. In their eyes, and those of some of their buddies, their machismo rating has just dropped lower than the peso.
Now this doesn’t mean that you should, all of a sudden, stop studying and start acting like the village idiot so that guys will be comfortable around you. It just means that you should become aware that guys may feel a bit insecure around you, and you may need to tone down the overly academic speech until they’re more comfortable with you (just because a guy says the stars look nice tonight doesn’t mean you should launch into a lecture on quasars, black holes and the infinite reaches of the omniverse).
Now I may have painted the male population as a bunch of illiterate pigs, and I want to stress that this is not the case at all. We are more than capable of being friends (and sometimes more than friends) with a highly intelligent girl. Smart guys will enjoy the company of people who can discuss things on an equal footing, and are open to learning from others, whether they be guys or girls (unless they’re so insecure that they need to surround themselves with people who make them feel superior). But we don’t like it if a girl (or guy) comes off as being too mayabang about her (or his) intelligence (bragging about your class rating or academic awards should only be mentioned if someone else brings up the subject).
That being said, are you sure that it’s your intelligence that is making the guys feel uncomfortable? As you yourself mentioned, you don’t smile very often, and only laugh when you find something really funny. It’s fine not to laugh if you don’t find something amusing, although it is polite to at least give a small smile if someone has attempted to make a joke. Even without someone cracking a joke, a smile from time to time makes you appear friendlier and more approachable. Think of all your older relatives when you were a kid. You always felt happier and more at ease with the ones who laughed and smiled a lot compared to the ones who sat in the corner at family parties with a scowl on their face. A smile just makes people think that you are a happy person, and people like to get closer and feed off that happy mood.
So try to relax and be a little less serious all the time. Smile more and feel free to join in on conversations without thinking of them as a discussion group. Most importantly, smile and remember that your real friends will admire and accept you for who you are, not what you know (or don’t know).
Hey Marc!
How’s it going? You give great advice, especially in the health department. I need some diet tips to get my body fat down and my muscle mass up. I know I need to keep my rice intake down, preferably, abstaining from it altogether, but I’d like to know what other types of food I should eat, in place of the fatty ones that I should give up. Most people suggest steamed fish and tuna, but I’d like to be able to add more variety to make dieting a little more enjoyable, or in this case, a little less difficult. Specifically, I’d like to know four things: First, what are the healthy alternatives for breakfast, in place of those high-fat foods that are filled with preservatives like bacon, hotdogs, etc. Second, I know that most diet foods (such as steamed fish) aren’t all that tasty. How do I spice things up a bit? What are some healthy alternatives to add a little flavor to my meals? Third, what makes a good, healthy sandwich? What kind of bread, palaman, dressings, etc. should I be eating? And lastly, since I’ll be giving up rice, what should I eat to meet my body’s carb requirements? I find that eating pasta about an hour before my workout gives me much more energy. Could this be psychological? Or is pasta really a better alternative?  Fixing My Diet
It seems that more and more people are realizing that in order to see the muscle cuts on your body, you need to not only work out, but eat right as well. As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, someone can do crunches to death and have great abs, but they’ll never be seen if there is a layer of fat covering them up. It’s nice to hear that you’re ready to explore the other side of fitness  the right diet.
I personally used to have one of the worst diets imaginable. I would describe diet as "DIE with a T." As a teenager, I would not only eat my pork chops with the big rind of fat on it, but also steal the fat my friends would cut off from theirs and eat that as well. Of course, in the land of lechon and chicharon, this artery-clogging and flab-inducing practice is quite normal, but in Australia, people get a bit shocked.
Being a bit older and (hopefully) wiser, I’ve realized the importance of eating right, especially if you want to reap the full benefits of all that hard work at the gym. Now don’t get scared. Dieting is a lot about watching what you eat and how you eat it, i.e. adjusting the quantities, types and frequency of your meals. In other words, you don’t have to starve yourself. In fact, a starvation type of diet can often backfire on you. If you starve your body drastically to lose weight, not only will you become tired and irritable, lose muscle mass and concentration, but your body will also over-compensate by urging you to binge-eat as soon as possible. In the end, your two weeks of starvation will end in a pig-out session which will see you put on even more weight than you lost.
So what do you eat and how? As a substitute for those lovely traditional fatty meat and rice breakfast dishes, why not try cereal? I personally like to eat granola with soymilk in the morning, as it’s not only nutritious, but tastes pretty good as well. As an alternative, oatmeal or Weetabix are pretty yummy, too, with a bit of honey or brown sugar (refined white sugar should be avoided). Fresh fruit is abundant here, and makes another good breakfast alternative. The cereal type breakfasts are good because they are time-released carbohydrates (especially oatmeal), which means they will burn up gradually throughout the day, giving you the energy you need to jump start the morning (unlike rice which will just sit in your stomach unless you exercise soon after to burn it up straight away).
Now what about the other meals of the day? I know steamed tuna sounds pretty boring, and to be honest, I’m allergic to fish. While steaming works, you can also barbecue, or even use a turbo broiler to cook fish. Try lightly marinating some skinless chicken breasts overnight in a mixture of diet Sprite (helps the marinade soak in and tenderizes the meat), crushed garlic, soy and teriyaki sauce, some crushed ginger, a dash of vinegar and maybe barbecue or light oyster sauce. Try and use sauces that are low in salt and which do not contain MSG. Broil (don’t fry!) and have it with some mashed potatoes or camote for a change. Lean beef is also OK from time to time.
Sandwiches are another viable alternative to rice meals. The best bread is one that has the least amount of processed ingredients. This means going for bread that doesn’t use bleached white flour or white sugar. Better to go for the multigrain or whole-wheat breads with no sugar if possible. Bagels are another fantastic and incredibly healthy option (I used to run a bagel café, so I have researched their intrinsic benefits pretty thoroughly). Fillings can include fish (like your dolphin-friendly can of tuna), vegetables, chicken, turkey, etc. Avoid dressings that are too creamy as they may have a lot of fat in them. Check the side of the bottle to be sure. Lastly, try toasting the sandwich for added crunchiness and taste.
As for carb requirements, you’re right in thinking that eating pasta an hour before working out will give you that extra boost of energy. In fact, it’s quite important to get a little carb in your body before working out. If you have to eat one rice meal a day, make sure it is the one just before working out. Pasta is a better alternative, but be wary of the sauces you have with it. That creamy bacon carbonara is not helping the waistline one bit! An even better pre-workout carb is a root vegetable like camote or potato, which burns a lot more easily. Try steaming, boiling or roasting it.
You should also try and remember to eat smaller meals, but more frequently. Start by halving what you’d normally eat for a meal, but then eat the same amount three hours later, breaking up your food intake to about five or six times a day. This will train your body to burn up the available food as soon as it gets it without having extra to store as fat. It will also slowly shrink your stomach so that it craves less to get full the next time. Your last one or two meals should be mainly vegetables or protein, as any extra carb will just sit in your stomach and become fat during your sleep when little energy is required.
Hope this helped! I wish you the very best of luck with your diet and workout and hope you’ll start seeing those cuts soon!
Send question to question_marc@hotmail.com
I just want to ask if guys are afraid of smart girls. It sounds absurd but I have this feeling that guys are afraid of me and I don’t know why. I kinda look like a university scholar, but definitely not nerdy. I’m a friendly person, but I don’t smile often. I laugh only when something is funny. People misinterpret this and think I’m suplada. Thanks for reading this. I think you’re a sensitive person and you give good advice.  Smart Angel
Are guys afraid of smart girls? I think it really depends a lot on the guy, as we’re not all the same. After talking to both my male and female friends here in the Philippines, I think guys can sometimes get a bit threatened by an obviously intelligent girl. This is not to say that guys don’t like a smart girl, just that they may be a bit wary of appearing less intelligent than she is.
You have to remember that although we’re now in the 21st century, there are still a few macho, sexist, social beliefs out there. One such belief is that a guy is superior to a girl in every sense (except maybe in giving birth), whether it be physical, emotional, or mental. Admittedly, men are born stronger  in a muscular sense (although a lot of guys can still get their butt kicked by a well-trained girl). But when it comes to the lumpy gray matter in our skulls, women are every bit as capable as men.
Now the problem lies in a guy’s sense of pride. Men can be highly competitive, and perhaps more importantly, don’t want to look bad in front of others. It’s bad enough if they lose a competition (whether it be physical or mental) to another guy, but they are sometimes exponentially embarrassed if they’re beaten by a girl. In their eyes, and those of some of their buddies, their machismo rating has just dropped lower than the peso.
Now this doesn’t mean that you should, all of a sudden, stop studying and start acting like the village idiot so that guys will be comfortable around you. It just means that you should become aware that guys may feel a bit insecure around you, and you may need to tone down the overly academic speech until they’re more comfortable with you (just because a guy says the stars look nice tonight doesn’t mean you should launch into a lecture on quasars, black holes and the infinite reaches of the omniverse).
Now I may have painted the male population as a bunch of illiterate pigs, and I want to stress that this is not the case at all. We are more than capable of being friends (and sometimes more than friends) with a highly intelligent girl. Smart guys will enjoy the company of people who can discuss things on an equal footing, and are open to learning from others, whether they be guys or girls (unless they’re so insecure that they need to surround themselves with people who make them feel superior). But we don’t like it if a girl (or guy) comes off as being too mayabang about her (or his) intelligence (bragging about your class rating or academic awards should only be mentioned if someone else brings up the subject).
That being said, are you sure that it’s your intelligence that is making the guys feel uncomfortable? As you yourself mentioned, you don’t smile very often, and only laugh when you find something really funny. It’s fine not to laugh if you don’t find something amusing, although it is polite to at least give a small smile if someone has attempted to make a joke. Even without someone cracking a joke, a smile from time to time makes you appear friendlier and more approachable. Think of all your older relatives when you were a kid. You always felt happier and more at ease with the ones who laughed and smiled a lot compared to the ones who sat in the corner at family parties with a scowl on their face. A smile just makes people think that you are a happy person, and people like to get closer and feed off that happy mood.
So try to relax and be a little less serious all the time. Smile more and feel free to join in on conversations without thinking of them as a discussion group. Most importantly, smile and remember that your real friends will admire and accept you for who you are, not what you know (or don’t know).
Diet Fix |
How’s it going? You give great advice, especially in the health department. I need some diet tips to get my body fat down and my muscle mass up. I know I need to keep my rice intake down, preferably, abstaining from it altogether, but I’d like to know what other types of food I should eat, in place of the fatty ones that I should give up. Most people suggest steamed fish and tuna, but I’d like to be able to add more variety to make dieting a little more enjoyable, or in this case, a little less difficult. Specifically, I’d like to know four things: First, what are the healthy alternatives for breakfast, in place of those high-fat foods that are filled with preservatives like bacon, hotdogs, etc. Second, I know that most diet foods (such as steamed fish) aren’t all that tasty. How do I spice things up a bit? What are some healthy alternatives to add a little flavor to my meals? Third, what makes a good, healthy sandwich? What kind of bread, palaman, dressings, etc. should I be eating? And lastly, since I’ll be giving up rice, what should I eat to meet my body’s carb requirements? I find that eating pasta about an hour before my workout gives me much more energy. Could this be psychological? Or is pasta really a better alternative?  Fixing My Diet
It seems that more and more people are realizing that in order to see the muscle cuts on your body, you need to not only work out, but eat right as well. As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, someone can do crunches to death and have great abs, but they’ll never be seen if there is a layer of fat covering them up. It’s nice to hear that you’re ready to explore the other side of fitness  the right diet.
I personally used to have one of the worst diets imaginable. I would describe diet as "DIE with a T." As a teenager, I would not only eat my pork chops with the big rind of fat on it, but also steal the fat my friends would cut off from theirs and eat that as well. Of course, in the land of lechon and chicharon, this artery-clogging and flab-inducing practice is quite normal, but in Australia, people get a bit shocked.
Being a bit older and (hopefully) wiser, I’ve realized the importance of eating right, especially if you want to reap the full benefits of all that hard work at the gym. Now don’t get scared. Dieting is a lot about watching what you eat and how you eat it, i.e. adjusting the quantities, types and frequency of your meals. In other words, you don’t have to starve yourself. In fact, a starvation type of diet can often backfire on you. If you starve your body drastically to lose weight, not only will you become tired and irritable, lose muscle mass and concentration, but your body will also over-compensate by urging you to binge-eat as soon as possible. In the end, your two weeks of starvation will end in a pig-out session which will see you put on even more weight than you lost.
So what do you eat and how? As a substitute for those lovely traditional fatty meat and rice breakfast dishes, why not try cereal? I personally like to eat granola with soymilk in the morning, as it’s not only nutritious, but tastes pretty good as well. As an alternative, oatmeal or Weetabix are pretty yummy, too, with a bit of honey or brown sugar (refined white sugar should be avoided). Fresh fruit is abundant here, and makes another good breakfast alternative. The cereal type breakfasts are good because they are time-released carbohydrates (especially oatmeal), which means they will burn up gradually throughout the day, giving you the energy you need to jump start the morning (unlike rice which will just sit in your stomach unless you exercise soon after to burn it up straight away).
Now what about the other meals of the day? I know steamed tuna sounds pretty boring, and to be honest, I’m allergic to fish. While steaming works, you can also barbecue, or even use a turbo broiler to cook fish. Try lightly marinating some skinless chicken breasts overnight in a mixture of diet Sprite (helps the marinade soak in and tenderizes the meat), crushed garlic, soy and teriyaki sauce, some crushed ginger, a dash of vinegar and maybe barbecue or light oyster sauce. Try and use sauces that are low in salt and which do not contain MSG. Broil (don’t fry!) and have it with some mashed potatoes or camote for a change. Lean beef is also OK from time to time.
Sandwiches are another viable alternative to rice meals. The best bread is one that has the least amount of processed ingredients. This means going for bread that doesn’t use bleached white flour or white sugar. Better to go for the multigrain or whole-wheat breads with no sugar if possible. Bagels are another fantastic and incredibly healthy option (I used to run a bagel café, so I have researched their intrinsic benefits pretty thoroughly). Fillings can include fish (like your dolphin-friendly can of tuna), vegetables, chicken, turkey, etc. Avoid dressings that are too creamy as they may have a lot of fat in them. Check the side of the bottle to be sure. Lastly, try toasting the sandwich for added crunchiness and taste.
As for carb requirements, you’re right in thinking that eating pasta an hour before working out will give you that extra boost of energy. In fact, it’s quite important to get a little carb in your body before working out. If you have to eat one rice meal a day, make sure it is the one just before working out. Pasta is a better alternative, but be wary of the sauces you have with it. That creamy bacon carbonara is not helping the waistline one bit! An even better pre-workout carb is a root vegetable like camote or potato, which burns a lot more easily. Try steaming, boiling or roasting it.
You should also try and remember to eat smaller meals, but more frequently. Start by halving what you’d normally eat for a meal, but then eat the same amount three hours later, breaking up your food intake to about five or six times a day. This will train your body to burn up the available food as soon as it gets it without having extra to store as fat. It will also slowly shrink your stomach so that it craves less to get full the next time. Your last one or two meals should be mainly vegetables or protein, as any extra carb will just sit in your stomach and become fat during your sleep when little energy is required.
Hope this helped! I wish you the very best of luck with your diet and workout and hope you’ll start seeing those cuts soon!
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