Because the key to being liked is scrubbing away your personality.

Being young is tough. Between school, parents, puberty and the pandemic shutting down your graduation, it can be a very confusing time.

So when you’re toward the end of elementary school and suddenly injected with a heavy dose of hormones, you might be interested in checking out some books to help you talk with your crush.

Even though she’s an adult, Japanese Twitter user Chisato recently decided to check out some books aimed at young kids, to see what kind of advice they were giving. She posted her surprising find to Twitter:

▼ “I was a shocked old woman when I saw what elementary school girls are reading these days.” (Translation below)

https://twitter.com/xxx_macaron_xxx/status/1258378246162272256

The book is The Beauty Dictionary, and there’s a lot going on in those four images.

One of them tells girls how to look pretty for their boyfriends by putting on makeup, and another suggests shampoo for different hair types. Considering most elementary school kids should just be using whatever shampoo comes in a fish or cow-shaped bottle, it’s already a little weird.

But the page that sticks out the most is the one about how to talk to boys. Here’s the translation:

Cute Conversation Techniques

Do you get nervous talking to boys? Here’s some easy techniques to try out!

#1. Parroting Technique

Parroting is repeating the same words back to the person you’re talking to. It shows that you’re listening and helps the conversation flow.

Example:

You: Good morning! Did you go anywhere on vacation?
Him: I went to the amusement park with my family.
You: Amusement park?
Him: Yeah, Osha River Land.
You: Osha River Land! I want to go there.
Him: It was fun. I like the roller coasters best.
You: Roller coasters, huh! I wonder if I could handle that.

We’re already starting off on some shaky ground here. Perhaps parroting could be beneficial in some extreme circumstances, but when just talking to someone normally it can get very grating very quickly. Far from being “cute,” it feels like it turns the speaker into a parrot themself.

But the next technique is even more egregious. It uses a part of the Japanese alphabet (the sa, shi, su, se, so section), which is why we chose to translate it here as the “ADCDE Technique.”

#2. ABCDE Technique

Boys loved to be praised. If you don’t know what to say, use these magical ABCDE words. And remember to praise from the heart!

A is for Amazing (literally: as expected, you’re amazing)

Ex: “I didn’t study but I passed the test.” “Wow, Name-kun, you’re Amazing!”
Be careful with this one, since if you don’t know him well enough yet, he may wonder why you think he’s so amazing.

B is for unBelievable (literally: I didn’t know that)

Ex: “This elementary school is haunted.” “Whoa, unBelievable!”
If he says something you already know, you don’t have to pretend like you don’t know, just say “I want to know more!”

C is for Cool (literally: cool)

Ex: “I grew an inch.” “Cool!”
The perfect way to slip in a compliment in the middle of a conversation.

D is for Discerning (literally: good sense)

Ex: “Name-kun, you’re so Discerning with the manga you like to read.”
Whenever a boy has something new with them, be sure to take notice of it before anyone else.

E is for Extremely interesting (literally: oh really)

Ex: “Oh wow, that’s Extremely interesting. So cool!”
If you drop this during a lull in the conversation, it will show that you’re listening and talking to boys will be easy.

Where do we even start with this? I suppose at least for the second one, they don’t outright tell girls to lie and say they don’t know something when they do. Hooray?

Again, we were all elementary school kids once, and we remember how hard it was to talk to someone you liked. But advising kids to praise their crushes nonstop is not the way to go about helping.

At best it will cause even more lulls in the conversation and frustrate the other person, and at worst it will erase your personality in the vain hope of trying to become more appealing to someone else.

Here’s how Japanese netizens reacted:

“Teaching this to elementary schoolers is awful. It’s teaching girls not to value themselves.”
“Gross. This is how you appeal to your middle-aged boss, not how you appear cute.”
“This reminds me of magazines I read as a kid that taught how to make love spells.”
“Is it weird that I feel like I learned a lot from this as a 23-year-old?”
“I would never let my kids read this.”
“Those conversation techniques just look like you’re trying to cast a spell or something.”

You know, let’s go ahead and take this opportunity to suggest an alternative ABCDE Technique for anyone of any age looking to talk to their crush:

A is for Anxiety, which remember, you’re both feeling
B is for Bugs, the best ice-breaker in any situation
C is for Candy packed in your lunch and awesome to share
D is for Dinosaurs, for when bugs fail
E is for Easiness, if the conversation doesn’t flow, then move on! There are plenty of others

Although at the end of the day, I suppose we should at least be thankful the Beauty Dictionary didn’t have a list of the types of guys elementary school girls don’t want to date.

Source: Twitter/xxx_macaron_xxx via My Game News Flash
Featured image: Twitter/xxx_macaron_xxx
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