The Praying Mantis Conundrum: A Gentleman’s Guide to Surviving the Unwanted Affections of the Junior League

There is a particular brand of chaos reserved for the man who finds himself, through no fault of his own, cast as the leading man in a tragedy he never auditioned for. I am speaking, of course, about the peculiar and perilous position of being the “older guy” who somehow becomes the object of affection for a demographic that really should be spending their Friday nights trying to sneak into PG-13 movies, not strategizing on how to compromise my liberty.

Let’s call it what it is: a siege. A very tiny, very vocal, and terrifyingly confident siege.

It starts innocently enough. You’re just existing—perhaps helping out at a community event, chaperoning, or simply being the guy who remembers to bring an extra bottle of water to the youth function. You’re polite. You’re stable. You’re the human equivalent of a fire extinguisher: present, useful, and decidedly not exciting. But to a certain subset of young women, that stability is misread as a challenge. They look at a man who isn’t chasing them and think, “Ah. He is intimidated by my sheer power. I must pursue him until he submits.”

And then, the rhetoric begins.

It always starts with the Declaration of Absolute Truth. They will look you dead in the eye, with the unshakable conviction of a philosopher king who just discovered eyeliner, and declare, “It’s my body. I can do whatever I want with it.”

And you, standing there holding a plastic cup of lukewarm soda, think: Yes. That is legally and morally accurate. However, the thing you want to do with it currently involves me, a statutory limit, and a lengthy stay in a place where they serve meals on trays with metal dividers.

They don’t see the nuance. To them, you are the final boss in a video game. You are the mountain they must climb to prove their maturity. They tell you they love you with a fervor that is both flattering and deeply alarming. It’s the kind of love that writes your name in glitter on a notebook, not the kind that understands the complexities of a 401(k) or emotional regulation.

And because we live in a society that often mistakes a man’s discomfort for “being shy,” they press harder.

This is where the grievances begin. Because it is one thing to be harrassed. I’ll be honest: in the abstract, when you’re an aging man and a group of young girls calls you “cute,” there is a small, dormant part of your ego that does a little victory lap. Oh, my knees hurt when it rains, my back makes a sound like stepping on a bag of potato chips when I stand up, but I’ve still got it? It’s a brief, fleeting moment of vanity.

But that moment dies a swift death the second the interrogation begins.

It starts subtly. “Are you scared?”
Then it escalates. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? Is something wrong with you?”
Then comes the nuclear option, delivered with the kind of sneer usually reserved for reality TV villains: “Maybe you’re just not man enough.”

They test your masculinity. Not through feats of strength, but through psychological warfare. They equate your refusal to commit a felony with a lack of virility. It’s a stunning logical leap that would impress a conspiracy theorist. In their minds, your moral compass isn’t a sign of integrity; it’s a sign that your compass is broken. They look at your restraint and see weakness.

Let me tell you, there is no feeling quite like having your manhood questioned by someone who still needs a permission slip to go on a field trip.

It is in these moments that I find myself relating to an unlikely creature: the Praying Mantis.

In the natural world, the male praying mantis approaches the female with the intention of romance. He is cautious, he is calculated, and he knows that the moment he consummates that relationship, there is a statistically significant chance that she will bite his head off and eat him for protein. He is a lover, a dancer, a gentleman—and yet, he is one misstep away from becoming a post-coital snack.

My role here is “playing mantis.”

I am surrounded by females who are broadcasting signals of interest, but I know that the act of “mating” (so to speak—let’s not be literal, please, I’m trying to stay out of prison) is a death sentence. The moment I validate their advances, the moment I take them seriously, the narrative flips. Suddenly, I am no longer the stoic object of affection; I am the predator. The same girls who were begging me to prove I’m “man enough” will be the first to point the finger. It’s not malevolence; it’s biology. Or sociology. Or just the terrifying nature of dealing with people whose prefrontal cortexes haven’t finished developing.

If I were to succumb to the pressure to “prove” myself, I wouldn’t be a hero. I’d be a cautionary tale on a true-crime podcast with a theme song that goes way harder than it needs to.

So, I stand there, in the mantis position. I am graceful. I am still. I am trying not to get my head bitten off.

My grievance is that I am cast as the villain either way. If I engage, I am a pedophile. If I don’t engage, I am “heartbreaker.” A coward. A man who “isn’t man enough” to handle a “real woman” (who, again, cannot legally vote).

There is no chapter in the “How to Be a Man” handbook that covers this. The manual usually just says, “Don’t be a creep.” But it doesn’t tell you how to navigate being called a creep for not being a creep.

So, how do we solve this? How do we survive the Praying Mantis trap with our freedom and our sanity intact?

We do it Derek Mwale style.

For the uninitiated, Derek Mwale is the master of the unexpected. He is the king of the pivot. He takes a situation that is teetering on the edge of chaos and redirects it so smoothly that you don’t even realize you’ve been derailed until you’re already laughing.

When they say, “It’s my body, I can do what I want, you’re obligated,” you don’t argue the legality. You don’t lecture. You go full Derek. You look at them with the gravest expression you can muster and say, “You’re right. It is your body. And I respect that so much that I’m going to respect it from approximately 500 feet away, which is the distance I’m about to walk right now to go check on the grill.”

When they question your masculinity, you don’t puff out your chest. You laugh. You laugh the laugh of a man who has paid taxes, who has sat in traffic for an hour, who knows that the true test of manhood isn’t “doing what a little girl dares you to do,” but rather, having the ability to say “no” without needing to justify it. You channel your inner Derek. You hit them with a joke so absurd that the tension snaps.

“You think I’m not man enough? Ma’am, I ate a whole large pizza by myself last Tuesday and didn’t tell my doctor about it. That is peak masculinity. Now go call your mother to pick you up before I start telling dad jokes so cringey you’ll legally age out of this conversation.”

You use humor as a shield. You use seriousness as a sword. You say, clearly and without stuttering: “I am flattered that you think I’m a cool guy. But I am an adult. You are a child. My job is to keep you safe, and that includes keeping you safe from me making a stupid mistake. I am not breaking your heart; I am protecting your future. If that makes me ‘not man enough’ in your book, then I will wear that badge with honor.”

It is not easy. It is exhausting. It is a tightrope walk over a pit of social ruin, armed only with a dad-joke shield and a moral compass that refuses to budge.

So, to any other mantis out there, standing on your branch, watching the females circle while trying not to get your head bitten off: I see you. I know your grievance. We are not predators. We are not cowards. We are simply men who understand that sometimes the bravest, most masculine thing you can do is walk away from a fight you can’t afford to win.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on the grill. The smoke alarm is going off, and frankly, the sound of the smoke alarm is less alarming than the conversation I was just having.

Stay safe, stay sane, and for goodness’ sake, stay out of the back of the police car. It’s a bad look.