My daughter, there’s this ongoing joke among us men. It’s told a hundred different ways with the same premise: a boy comes to take a girl on their first date, but her father does something crazy to threaten him and that scares him off. The game among men is to come up with the most outlandish threat possible, ranging from reminding the boy how fast bullets fly, to lurking over his shoulder throughout the date. Our intention is to declare our love and protection over our daughters. I’m afraid what we’ve actually done is told you we don’t trust your choices (in lovers; in friends; in the kind of situations you would put yourself in; etc). When I met your mother’s father for the first time, these types of jokes were on my mind. I didn’t think he’d actually kill me, but I was appropriately (and now that I know him I might even say ironically) intimidated by this Tommy Bahama wearing Omahan joining us for dinner. Instead of death stares, though, what I got was treated to a steak dinner and his genuine interest (not interrogation) about who I am. From that day on, over many steak dinners and even on the night your mother and I together asked him what he thought about us getting married, your grandfather repeated the same mantra: I trust my daughter’s choices. He never threatened me because he wasn’t thinking about me all that much. He was thinking about his daughter. Therein lies the problem with the joke. It’s only about men and boys. The daughter might as well be a motorcycle and it’d still make sense. So listen my daughter, you’re not my property to protect. You’re my daughter to love. You’re going to make lots of choices for lovers and friends in your life. Many will propel you toward greatness by how they love you or hurt you. Some relationships will lead nowhere, and a select few will utterly wreck you. For all the bad choices you make, I know there will be plenty more good ones. If you do choose poorly, there’s no “I told you so” or “Where’s my shotgun?” There’s only your mom, me, a cup of coffee, and a chair at our table for you to talk or cry or sit at silently. Your choice.