Yup.

> many unspoken assumptions

Yup. And had I known that, been able,
in verbal, emotional, psychological,
and social skills,
to have acted on it, and done so at all well, then
as soon as that girl I knew in high
school, starting when she was 12, was
out of high school and I was out of
college, we would have gotten married
and my life would have been much different
and quite likely much better.

Side
point: High school first love is
not necessarily just a joke, just
an unwelcome threat of too much
emotional involvement, an unmarried
pregnancy,
or something just
to be thrown away. In particular,
a lot of high school girls will get
married at the traditional time,
in June after their high school graduation,
so that from age 12 to marriage she
is short of time to learn about young
men, find some good catches, pick one,
build a relationship, after trashing
a few,
go steady, and get engaged, all in
time for her high school graduation.

To nerd boys talking to girls: Don't
just play Anatomy 101 Hands on Lab,
contact comfort cuddling, caring about
her and protecting her, joining your
life with hers, etc. and in addition
be sufficiently articulate and clear
with, right, a natural language, e.g.,
English, to eliminate "many unspoken
assumptions". Else your communications
can be poor leading to misunderstandings,
that is, she can accumulate a list of
things about you that are wildly false,
and similarly for you about her. Then
after a few weeks of you two acting on
those misunderstandings, your relationship
can be in real trouble. That's what
that girl and I did; there was actually
nothing really wrong, but the misunderstandings
ruined our relationship.

Realize some emotions she likely has: First
being a girl, her emotions are likely more
intense than yours. E.g., she has
emotions about pregnancy, if she gets pregnant
some really strong, good emotions if she
wants to be pregnant and some really strong,
bad emotions if she doesn't. Second, learn
to read her emotions in her facial expressions.
Sorry, guys, even if you are a normal male
and not a nerd, from birth she is an
astoundingly talented and devoted reader of
facial expressions while you are thinking
about the posts in the crib, how the latch
mechanism works, how to escape to get to the
toy firetruck on the floor (not really
a joke), and how to control it via C++ code.
She does a lot of communicating
with facial expressions. Third, with
her strong emotions, and because she is
a girl and generally more vulnerable to
"the hostile forces of nature and society"
than you are, she tends to be afraid.
Indeed, serious anxiety disease is much
more common for human females (maybe 4:1) than
in males. So, one thing you should do,
and that you might get hugs, kisses, and
more for, is to help her with her fears,
i.e., provide her with some emotional
security. The relationship is not
all about hands on lab.
Fourth, one thing she is afraid of is
being rejected by you. If you are a mean
guy, then you may be able to exploit this
to your (likely only short term)
advantage and manipulate her to
be intimidated, subordinate, subservient,
subjugated, etc. (you don't really
want that, do you?). If you are a nicer guy,
then you will give her some of the highly
coveted emotional security of letting
her know you are not about to reject her --
right, she might take advantage of this,
feel entitled, take you for granted,
and abuse your effort. To know,
read her emotions. Fifth, to help her
with the emotions closer to your
relationship, use the famous three
little words, "I love you", sometimes
a lot. And, "say it with flowers" or
some such things. Else she can be
afraid that you are drifting away from
her. Sixth, realize that she's a
mammal (not just a joke about her bust line)
and, like all baby mammals (even
though she is not exactly still a baby)
she does not (emphasize this with
flashing letters and some huge font
size) want to feel alone -- for her
to feel alone can be just terrifying to
her. Indeed, one reason for cell phones
is so that girls can continue to gossip
while mobile, and they gossip
(may I have the envelope please) so that
they don't feel alone, so that they
feel acceptance and approval from membership
in a group that they get by bringing
the group juicy tidbits of gossip (read some
D. Tannen, long at Georgetown) --
built one of a heck of cell phone and
smart phone industry. Seventh, when
everything does hit the fan, slow
down, calm down, back down, relax,
count slowly to 20, maybe type in all
your thoughts and review them 24 hours
later, maybe even days later,
etc., and see how to correct
the situation. In all of this, be
highly aware of her emotions. Did
I mention the importance of her emotions?
Maybe use some reflective
listening techniques ("What I heard you
explain was ...; is this about right?")
also intended for good parenting of
children and likely also useful if
you are CEO of a startup.

There's more.
Maybe I will get a blog and post a
more complete and better organized
presentation.

But for this thread, at least for now, some parts of
the humanities can be crucial for
understanding people.