The politics of cookies

Standing in the bookstore a couple of days before Christmas, I was privy to a young teenage girl’s cell phone conversation. As I stood browsing the book shelf in front of me, she sat in an overstuffed chair just to my right, chatting on her cell phone at normal conversational decibels. The girl was, I’d judge, about 15, give or take a year. There was a man standing next to me browsing the same shelves. His startled reaction to the conversation led to me to think he was the father of a similarly aged teen.

The girl’s conversation didn’t register with me (or the guy standing next to me) as much beyond background noise, until she said, “I was thinking about making some cookies for [boy’s name], but I don’t know. Will he expect me to have sex with him if I do?”

When a question like that lands on the floor with a thud, all ears are suddenly trained on the conversation. The guy standing next to me was visibly startled. I glanced at him and he glanced at me. Then he whispered, “I need to go home and have a tall drink now.”

Well, the question was asked in all seriousness. It is, apparently, a minefield out there.

Last night I had the occasion to ask the lad and one of his friends who were sprawled in the living room, “If a female acquaintance gave you a tin of cookies for Christmas, what would your reaction be?”

The lad’s friend said, “I’d say thanks and let her know I appreciated it. Then I’d eat the cookies, if they were good.”

The lad said, “Well, it depends. Remember when [stalker girl] made me those heart shaped cookies? I threw them out.”

“Well yeah,” the lad’s friend said, “a heart shaped cookie has strings and sirens attached. A chocolate chip cookie is just a cookie.”

So I told them about the conversation I overheard in the bookstore. They were both surprised and both agreed that if she had to ask the question, she shouldn’t be making this guy cookies. Unless that’s the outcome that she wanted. In that case, the guy should run really fast to the nearest dumpster with the tin of cookies. But a simple gift of cookies at Christmas from a female friend or acquaintance is not normally viewed by the male population as an invitation for or an excuse to ask for sex. Unless they’re heart shaped, of course. Santa Claus and reindeer shapes are fine. Blob shaped chocolate chips are the safest.

The lad’s friend summed his thoughts up, “Guys are not that complicated. Women try to make us more complicated and then we have to react.”

It all sounds very complicated to me. And the question of whether cookies=sex is extremely disconcerting to hear falling out of a 15 year old’s mouth.