ADVICE GODDESS

BRAWL STRAPS

I’m a woman in my early 20s. The guy I’m dating brought me to meet his friends. His male friends were warm and friendly. The women were awful. One deliberately kept saying my name wrong (it’s not exactly exotic), and two others glared at my miniskirt. Another said something about how low-cut my top was. She made it sound like a compliment, but it was a mean dig. How can these women be so nasty when they don’t even know me? How do I diffuse situations like these?

— Upset Nothing like women celebrating other women: “Way to go, girl! Showing everything but your areolas.” When a man has a beef with another man, he’ll be direct about it: hurl insults at the guy’s face and maybe try to renovate his jaw with a barstool. Women fight sneaky-dirty with other women, using covert tactics, explains psychologist Anne Campbell. These include mobilizing a group of women to ostracize a woman, talking trash to men about her looks and how “loose” she is, and offering “compliments” that are actually nasty digs. Give a woman’s confidence a beatdown and she might dim her shine (cover her miniskirt with a shawl and wipe that sexy red lipstick off on her sleeve). Psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt separated female research participants into random groups. She compared one group’s reactions to a 20-something woman walking into a classroom dressed “conservatively” (in a looselyfitting shirt and khaki slacks) with the other group’s reactions to the same woman dressed “provocatively” (in a very short skirt and a tight, low-cut shirt). Dressed conservatively, she was “barely noticed by the participants.” When she entered in skin-baring sexywear, almost all the women “aggressed against her.” They rolled their eyes at her, gave her “once-overs” and shot her “death stares.” After she left, many laughed at her, ridiculed her appearance, and/or suggested she was a man-hopping sleaze. You’re a target for the she-hyenas whenever you wear sexy clothing and makeup (like an intense smoky eye with winged eyeliner). Decide whether you have the emotional strength and social capital to bear the glares and backbiting, or whether you need to, say, stock up on some floor-length prairie dresses. This isn’t to say you should immediately assume the worst of all women. However, understanding what you can expect from some might help you stand tall in the face of an attack – remembering that it’s about them, not about you, when they imply that your bedroom’s visitors log rivals Ellis Island’s.

QUARANTINE WOLF

I’m a guy in my 30s. Before COVID, I used Tinder to hook up with different women a few times a week. I don’t recognize myself anymore. Yesterday, I was on a date, and the girl was really hot and wanted to go back to my place to have sex. I was weirdly turned off by the idea and called her an Uber home. This isn’t like me, but it keeps happening. Why am I suddenly like this?

— Worried

If we hadn’t gotten vaccines, we might’ve seen a whole new category of lingerie, a la Victoria’s Crotchless Hazmat Suit. Our body’s immune system protects us by mobilizing warrior cells to fight off invaders like bacteria, parasites and viruses that cause infectious diseases. However, war is costly – whether between nations or inside us. Psychologist Mark Schaller notes that our body’s effort to surround and kill “pathogenic intruders” sucks up calories needed for important bodily functions. It can also be “temporarily debilitating” due to “fever, fatigue and other physiological consequences of an aggressive immunological response.” (You sometimes have to boil the village alive to save the village.) To avoid these costs, we need to avoid being exposed to disease in the first place. Helping us do that is the job of our “behavioral immune system.” This is Schaller’s term for a suite of psychological mechanisms that function as our early warning system, helping us identify signs of pathogens in our social environment and motivating us to feel, think and behave in ways that keep us from getting invaded by the buggers. For example, social psychology grad student James B. Moran and his adviser, social psychologist Damian Murray, find that reminding research participants of the looming threat of infectious disease puts a damper on the appeal of casual sex and their inclination to have it down the road. Chances are this response explains your own psychological and behavioral shift: stud-turned-monk of COVID-19. There’s no clock on exactly when you’ll be back to your sexual-Wild West self. Should you get nostalgic, keep in mind that you can still dip into some elements of the hookuppy old days, such as “the walk of shame” – though, these days, that’s what we call it when you get yelled at by the old lady down the street for taking out the trash unmasked.

ACROSS

1 Impressive sights at affairs 8 Fendi rival 13 Paved 19 Victim of river diversion in Asia 20 Like some

R-rated films 21 Comfortable 22 Sports venue where the home team hasn’t won in years? 24 Boulevard feature 25 Invoice no. 26 Brainstorm 27 Dreyfus defender 29 Heavy weight 30 Hubbub 33 Trimming plans 35 Industrial site 37 Like memories to smile about 39 Sock part 41 Hottest, in a way 44 Cattle farm run by bigwigs? 51 __ Stephens: 2017 US Open Women’s Singles champ 52 Tennis feature 53 Isolated work group that hinders corporate efficiency 54 Bone near a calf 56 Belgian artist

James 57 Chews like beavers 60 “I __ noticed” 62 Change for a ten 64 Drop the ball 65 Bird rarely on the wing 67 Pitt URL ending 68 Toys “R” Us giraffe mascot 71 Epithet for Henry

Ford? 76 Stayed to the bitter end 79 NBA impossibility 80 Hide out 84 Sushi bar order 85 Company named for the exaggerated height of its tallish bottles 87 Bowling headache 90 “Crazy” vocalist 91 Mountain gap 94 Blood bank fluids 96 Blackthorn fruit 97 FD employee 98 Magnate 100 Advice for runners’ practice sessions? 105 Feeling guilty 107 Ducks org. 108 Frozen Four org. 109 Tough goings 110 Like some promises 114 Swan dive revelation 118 Expected result 120 Cause for a claim 123 Not as relaxed 125 Smeltery input 126 French star 128 Powerful fall cleanup tools? 132 Having a twist 133 Bug, for one 134 Gets back to business 135 Sorrowful tune 136 Free-for-all 137 Red Sea land

DOWN

1 Mother of Isaac 2 First-class 3 Totaled 4 Reindeer cousin 5 Japan’s

Mount __ 6 Disobedient 7 Org. concerned with youth substance abuse 8 Ramble on

9 Egyptian site of a historic 1799 discovery 10 NFL passing stat 11 Nueve y uno 12 Bat prefix 13 Spicy food truck items 14 Had some 13-Down 15 Purplish veggie 16 TV weather promo about a storm threat? 17 Biblical twin 18 Entertainment center sites 20 Actor Morales 23 Iraq War weapon:

Abbr. 28 Vinyl revival items: Abbr. 31 Low USMC rank 32 MLB Hall of

Famer Brock 34 Family guys 36 Bar on a truck 38 Chef’s creation 40 Cavern phenomenon 42 [Bo-ring!] 43 Absorbent fabric 44 Many an MIT grad 45 Lawless role 46 Coup d’__ 47 Routing word 48 Respected figure 49 Concerto finale, perhaps 50 Depend 55 Poetic contraction 58 Hot spot service 59 ER demand 61 Research university with a

Boston campus 63 Agronomist’s concern 66 School near

Windsor 69 Org. created by the 1933 Banking

Act 70 Sense 72 Shades 73 Early number? 74 Buzzed 75 Familiar greeting 76 Fall mall hiree 77 Ship-to-ship greetings 78 Quarters for a spell caster? 81 Actor Schreiber 82 “I’m buying!” 83 Moistens 86 Country whose name ends in the same three letters as its capital 88 Debtor’s note 89 Gull relative 92 Lynn’s father worked in one 93 Primate genus 95 Pain pill target 99 Ignore 101 Provider of shade 102 Harder to get 103 Corn unit 104 Fast flight 106 U.K. military award 111 Goal of an accord 112 Flanged fastener 113 Fashion initials 115 __ face 116 Peace goddess 117 “The Gondoliers” bride 118 Playwright Simon 119 Sierra’s “other” 121 Carpenter’s wedge 122 “Auld Lang __” 124 Cork’s home 127 Maya __,

Vietnam Veterans

Memorial designer 129 ISP option 130 French king 131 Just right