OH MAN I NEED AN EXPERT!

Boy, I remember liking a girl like Chris in HS. It was intense. However, it's really tricky to walk the line between stalker and adorer. Ya hafta play it sorta cool. Good luck.

im a little confused as to the issue here
you dont know ehether you should ask her out ?? is that it
Well if it ids i say go for what have you got to loose but if she says no you should lay off i reckon

I know this seems the most important thing in the world to you right now. Your hormones are peaking and your sexual outlets are pretty restricted. Peer pressure and expectations cast a shadow on everything you seem to think or do. Ideas about what life and love are all about are confusing. Your family probably seem to hold "old-fashioned" ideas, and the media (films, television, pop music, advertising, etc.) seem to glorify the intense emotions your body is experiencing. This is a tough time for young people, but we all generally get through it more or less in one piece.

O.K., here's some advice from an old man.

Your primary focus should be on your studies, not romantic relationships. Thinking about any girl/guy during classes decreases your potential for learning skills that are going to be critical later. School has a very limited time to help you acquire knowledge that will play a very large role in what your future will be like. Don't miss any more of it than you can help. Homework assignments are the minimum that the teacher believes you need. To excel, and doing well in high school is important, you need to go far beyond assigned work. Explore topics and subjects that seem of interest, and you will be richly rewarded.

High school romantic relationships are almost always fleeting. Girls and boys are changing physically, emotionally and mentally at a fast pace during this stage of life. The plain girls will become beautiful in a few years, and the football hero will turn to paunch in ten. The foolish may later become wise, but are more likely to become even more foolish. What seems interesting now, in just a couple of years will bore you to tears. Physical contacts are intense now, but if your partner has a shallow character, or colorless personality, the future is probably dim. At the moment "love" seems meant to last forever, and that you have already found the ONE person you were FATED to spend eternity with. Actually, you will soon find that it is possible to love a whole bunch of different people, and that fate is fickle. Don't let yourself get tied down before you've had an opportunity to taste the wider pleasures of life. It isn't possible to fully experience life by falling headlong into a dream.

Cultivate friendships with both sexes, but don't let friendship muddle your brain and values. Presumably, your family has taught you the fundamental values that our society most cherishes. The Courage to face either physical, or the moral/ethical challenges, is tested constantly by young people. Compassion for those who have less, or are despised by the crowd, is sometimes hard when you want to be accepted by the BMOC set. Honesty with yourself, your teachers and parents may be tough when your emotions are running high. These and other core values will ultimately make you more and better friends if they are upheld. When you like a girl, is it because she is sexually desirable, or because she is a genuine person with courage, compassion and honesty? How can you tell, if you don't look closely?

If you do have sex, then be responsible. In these days sexually transmitted disease is always a risk. Who else have you and the girl been having sex with? To embarrassed to ask? Then don't have sex. Sex carries with it a certain risk of pregnancy. Are you ready and capable of providing a full life for the woman and your child? Where will you earn the money to feed, cloth, house, and the thousand other things that a father is responsible for? Can you give up whatever dreams you might have for a career, to wash dishes for the rest of your life. When we become responsible, we also have to make sacrifices. What are you willing to sacrifice for an short, but intense pleasure? Your life? The life of your sexual partner, and any child that might result?

Relax. You have only lived a short time, and you probably have sixty years or more ahead of you. You have plenty of time to live a full and productive life. Don't be in such a hurry to get to the end of it. A few years from now, you will be in college and that is a really wonderful world that will make high schools seem very small indeed. Getting started in the world, finding your place and what you really want to do with the rest of your life is much easier before you take on a wife and family. It will come, but you have to be patient and disciplined.

Ok thanks but...
I hate to say but I am not your tipical teen and nither is Chris! She does not care what anyone thinks of her and I have not let her charm get in the way. Sure she is beautiful and all but that is merly half of it. I am interested on her personal qualitys! She is a one in a million as far as I am conserned! Thanks though any other ideas would be most helpful!

Bye the way...
I don't even ponder having sex or anything like that I just want to get to know her on a more then just friends level! That is if she would let me.

It sounds pretty promising, Xale. If you've gone to homecoming dance with her -- even just as friends -- surely you have an excuse to talk to her? Sit down with her once in a while at lunch time?

The question you quote her as saying sounds like she might be interested, but is not sure of your interest -- if that is the case, then go ahead and show more interest.

The "young people's relationships are almost always fleeting" thing has come up several times lately, I don't get it. They're fleeting... so? They can still have a lot of value, including happiness (if fleeting), heartbreak (better to have loved and lost...) but most especially PRACTICE so that by the time someone is mature enough to want a non-fleeting relationship, they know how.

Well....
Well I am like 65% sure she knows I have really liked her for a while and I am not sure if she cares, pitties, likes it, or even gives a damn but I do not want to blow my chance. And at lunch my other "friend" and his girl friend will most likley dis on me! Also I get really I mean REALLY nevus around her. But I will try to not pretend that I don't notice her when shes walking by and stuff.

That sounds like a start! :-)

Can you talk to your friend about just leaving you alone already?

Re: Ok thanks but...


An essential part of growing up and becoming an adult is developing perspective. Asherman put a lot of time and effort into writing a responsive post that should help you put your aching crush into perspective.

Your response: "Ok thanks but... I hate to say but I am not your tipical [sic] teen and nither [sic] is Chris!"

Believe it or not, you are a typical teen boy. The object of your blinding crush is also a typical teen girl. You're allowing your crush on this girl to rule your life. You have no perspective.

Advice: She accepted your invitation to the dance, but she made it clear that her acceptance was conditioned on going to the dance together as "friends." Perhaps she may simply want to go on several platonic dates with you "as friends" to see if the two of you click. Ask her out on another date. If she turns you down and again informs you that she wants to remain friends, then you must put your feelings and this life-ruling crush into proper perspective and try to move on. Like it or not, Asherman said it best:

wish i listened to Asherman when i was a teen...:-)

I was hopelessly in love with Louise. I composed poetry, and then tore it up so she wouldn't think it was lame. I drew elaborate characitures of the Beatles (this was the early 1960's) to send to her, knowing of her fondness for the group. She snubbed me, she ignored me, she treated me like dirt. I was crushed.

About ten years after i left high school, i was standing in line at a lunch counter in a department store. I could just feel someone staring at me, so i turned, and saw a woman of about my age riding up the escalator with an older woman, whose family resemblance suggested to me that they were mother and daughter. I was clueless for a moment, but just before they disappeared from my view, i realized it was Louise. She looked like 30 miles of bad road. I later learned the denouement of my childish obsession.

At the time i pined for Louise, she was going out (secretly, over her parent's opposition) with a guy considered cool in teen culture, because he was an usher at the theater, where he could slight and abuse the less self-confident teens. He had his own car (a beat-up 1953 Chevy, which was still more than others had). After i went away to university, Louise dropped out of school to marry the theater usher-boy, and was pregnant. Three children later, she had been abandoned and lived with her parents.

The reason i felt her stare is that is exuded pure hatred. After some thought, i realized that she somehow resented me for not having saved her from her own stupidity. Never one much given to regrets as it was then, this taught me valuable life lesson about not getting what one desires--the less attractive alternative may be getting what one desires.

As Debra and Ash have pointed out, you need a heavy dose of perspective.

Setana
Setana! How true! Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it! LOL

I think most of us can think back upon our youthful crushes and thank the Lord that we didn't end up with that person! We shouldn't waste too much of our time pining over unrequited love. It is so much more fullfilling to live in the real world than in a fantasy.

I have found that the folks I knew in high school who didn't act on their crushes, and I'm not talking sex, just dating, turned out stranger than the ones who did. I'm fairly sure that half of them are in prison, or CEO's. I get those two things confused sometimes.

Willow, great to see you again!

I really enjyed Asherman's post too, guys. I do wish I could re-do High School. This time I'd pay more attention to studies.

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the author looking for simple advice on how to pursue a fun and free date life in his teens while also being a solid student?

If so, I'd say, hey Xale...relax and play it cool when this young filly comes around. Just stay friends if thats what she wants for now. Don't try to make yourself look better than others...ex: don't be a clown...be the nice, handsome, gentleman type. Oh! and never lie!

The boy's focus


The poster, Xale, is struggling with a consuming crush on a girl named Chris. He is stuck on HER to the point of obsession and to the exclusion of all others:



He asked her to a dance. She accepted his invitation, but she made it clear to him that she would go with him JUST AS FRIENDS. If she only wants to be friends, what more can he do without letting her know how obsessed he is with her and wihtout appearing as a stalker? How does he deal with his crush?

I have to reiterate some recent rants about moralizing. C'mon, guys!

He's a teenager in love. That's not bad, that's not good, that's life. Education is not the be-all and end-all.

She made it clear to him that she would go just as friends, and then asked whether someone had made him do it. That suggests a certain insecurity, a certain "wow, does he actually like me?" He talks about refusing to sit with her at lunch time and ignoring her in the hallways. I think he can show some simple interest without worrying about getting into stalkerhood.

As cav says, go for it. See what happens.

My own experiences with this were -- I dunno -- valuable. Not good, not bad. My best friend suddenly became VERY attractive to me midway through 7th grade -- for Valentine's day, I sent him red carnations (=love) anonymously, with an elaborate scavenger hunt to find out who sent it. A clue here, which led to a clue there. My romantic notion of him ending up, alone, at the last clue and me stepping out of the shadows (ah, youth) was dashed when I saw he was doing the clue-hunting with a posse of giggling friends of his. I grabbed the last clue and ran, and never owned up to it. (He knew.) We stayed platonic but gaze-y friends for a very long time (in retrospect, I so should have gone for it).

All of these various crushes and teenage machinations taught me SO much about human nature, as well as relationships specifically. Perspective is nice, sure, but that's a big part of what the teenage years are for, IMO. Oh, that doesn't work. Dammit. THAT works!! [happy sigh]

oh. i honestly thought it was much more simple. and so i thought sozobe's advice was best...i mean asherman's was sage wisdom, but i thought that xale was simply excited about this gal, and was looking for pointers on how to behave around her without looking stupid.

where is our poster anyhow?

Yep, would love to hear more from you, Xale.