Cheese Goes to School

Dear Bro Jo,

I love your blog! You give really good advice. I'm really glad my friend found it for me. You might remember me. She is Mac and I am Cheese. :-) In the end your advice to my mom was really good, and it turned out that the boy she asked you about is now a really close friend of mine and nothing more.

[Reader's Note:  you can find the original letter from Mac HERE - it's part 1 of a three letter series.]

I have another question. Maybe you could help me? I recently started going to a new school. (I was home schooled before.) I'm finding that lots of guys older than me are always asking me out and texting me flirty stuff. (They know I'm only 14 and they should know better than to ask me out because they are all LDS too. We live in Utah!) I really want to date when I am sixteen but not yet. I don't want to make them mad or be mean to them. I want to keep them as friends. But I want them to back off a little.

There are a couple specific guys who are like the total school heartthrobs. They're cute and stuff, and are always super nice and respectful but I don't like feeling like I'm a hunted rabbit. But I also have a hard time knowing whether they just want to be friends and I'm just looking at normal friendliness as more than it really is, or if they are looking for some kind of *relationship.* I think friends is great! But I totally don't want a boyfriend.

Also, it seems like I have a million new guy friends but I'm having a hard time making girl friends. Is that a bad thing?

Thanks!

Cheese :^)



Dear Cheese,

Remember you? How could I forget!

Unless it crosses the line of inappropriate, the flirting doesn't bother me so much, and I'm glad you're waking up to the reality that simply being LDS is not a guarantee that a guy follows the prophet each and very da-ay . . .

Now, about you and guys and "just being friends" . . . you're on the right track by realizing that now is not the time in your life to have a boyfriend (graduate High School first, then you can - and should - switch gears), but you're still undercooked when it comes to Guy-Girl friendships. You should be nice, you can be friendly, but you have got to understand that Guys and Gals just do not stay "close friends" and nothing more. Don't confuse guys being decent and nice and / or flirty with true friendship.

There's something about you that guys like; that's a good thing and you should be grateful for it (this column has lots of loyal readers who would gladly trade you problems). It may be that you're very sweet, you could be attractive (when the Jo Boys were approaching the "age where it's OK to admit you like girls" they coined the phrase "she's not painful to look at", it could just be that you're "new". Whatever it is, don't let the reactions of others change who you are. And don't get caught allowing the opinions of others to affect your own sense of individual worth; if you're suddenly not the most desirable girl in the 9th grade, that doesn't mean you're no longer great. As a daughter of God you'll always have value, with or without attention, with or without a boyfriend.

And that may be one of the reasons it's hard for you to make friends with girls. Again, don't change, but realize that in a world where many girls would love to have boys fawn all over them (or even just One Boy), you may present a lot to be jealous of. Now keep that just between you and me; no girl wants to hear how great you think you are. But you can use that information to be helpful and understanding of others.

Boys will likely always see you as a potential Girlfriend (or date) first, rather than as a friend (by the way, this is true of all boys, and all girls). That may disturb you, but in the long run it's actually a good thing. Eventually you'll have a best-friend boyfriend, I hope. When the two of you are old enough, that will be the guy you should marry.

Because of both of those things, girls struggling with jealousy and boys seeing you as a girl first, then it IS a good idea for you to cultivate some good female friends (in addition to Mac). The key to doing that is, cliché as it may be, to be a good friend. Learn to listen and ask them about them. Look for people that need a friend, too, just like you.

It's not that it's a horrible thing if you don't have very many gal pals - when it comes to friends, quality is much more important than quantity - but increasing your pool of friends is a good thing.

And I promise, no matter how big or small your new school is, there's no way you're the only girl that feels like she could use a friend.

- Bro Jo