The fact is, I know my Dad isn't a considerate person: not in the sense of bouquets of roses and diamond rings and eloquent speeches. But sometimes I forget how perceptive he is. Today we were sitting in his and my mom's bedroom, and he reiterated the now-common refrain in my family, "Anika, you definitely do buy a lot of stuff." "Yeah," I sighed, only partly embarrassed anymore. The fact is, I bought out a Macy's, a CVS and a DSW my last quarter at Northwestern. Or so it felt later, when I was unpacking boxes of shoes and hats and dresses. My mom seizes every opportunity to tell me how I'm losing my values. My sister, jealous that I get new outfits while she gets nothing, agrees with Mom. But my Dad has been silent up until now.
"Do you think maybe the reason you were buying so many things was psychological?" Which sounds like a question people would have trouble asking seriously. But he did, and the answer was a serious yes, yes, yes. And he followed with, "Sometimes we tell people to stop smoking, to stop eating, but sometimes I wonder what makes you eat or smoke if it isn't good for you. We don't ask about the underlying reason." And it was the way he asked - with such genuine consideration and respect - and it was the perfect question, and I wasn't expecting it from him.

The fact is, the perfect question unlocks the speaker's thoughts without offering judgment. But it isn't effortless. It doesn't just happen. In order to ask it, the person doing the asking has to put aside their own feelings, their own opinions in the matter. They have to look at someone else who's engaging in behavior, and they have to care enough about that person to ask, why does that person do this? It requires foresight, planning and above all empathy. These aren't traits I normally ascribe to my father. But when he asks me something so sweet, so kind and so sincere, I realize two things. 1) That I give him pretty short shrift sometimes and 2) I'm his daughter, and there are things about him I should still strive to emulate.

Oh, and the third, something that a lot of girls don't learn until far too late in life: a boy can buy you roses and rings and read you movie-perfect scripts, but it doesn't mean a rat's ass. When he offers you a real compliment or a great question, basically when he bothers to think about you before he speaks, these are signs of affection and character. The second is a much higher standard, but I suspect that small moments of honesty create and save entire relationships.