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; The other weekend, a friend asked me “how do you talk to girls?” This is a hard question to answer for me to answer for several reasons:

1. I also have trouble talking to girls.

2. What is a girl? How do you define that? Do they get I.D. cards? Do they have distinctive markings? Tell me your secrets.

3. One of my only qualifications for answering is potentially the fact that I have occasionally attended these ambiguous things known as a “girl’s night.” It is where a bunch of people (maybe girls? maybe not?) stay in and do fun things and eat delicious food of some sort.

4. My other qualification is I really love Girl Scout Cookies.

However, I’m not completely obtuse, so I can translate that question into “how do I get over my feelings of shyness, insecurity, fear of rejection and nervousness to communicate with a female-identifying person on whom I am crushing?”

I feel like this is a fairly universal question if you take out the female-identifying part. For many of us, it is very hard to talk to anyone if we have feelings for them! (if you are someone who does not have this problem, let me know ASAP, I have questions).

So, from my extremely unqualified position, my general advice would be this:

1. Talk using sound. Having conversations with someone in your head is good practice, but talking aloud is generally the way to go.

2. Don’t run away from the person as soon as you start talking to them. Unless someone just shouted “Free Girl Scout Cookies!” Then you can run away. Your crush will probably be right behind you.

3. Asking them questions that require a long answer is good, because not only do you get to hear your crush talk about something that interests them, it gives you time to regroup and think of another question.

4. Remember to breathe. Your crush might have questions if you pass out in front of them.

5. If all else fails, offer them a cookie. Neither of you have to worry about talking if you have mouthfuls of cookies.