Questions & Answers

Wish I had one:
“I really want a girlfriend.”

Dear Annie,

I am a 13 year old boy, and I really want a girlfriend. I have never had one, I have never kissed anybody. I really want a girlfriend.

The problem is that I am extremely shy, and the two girls I like are intimidating, and I don't know if they like me or not. The problem is that I go to private school, and everybody gossips, and if one says she won't go out with me, they will tell everybody. One of the girls is popular, but nice, not mean, and the other one is part of a different group, but I like them evenly. I am so desperate to have one of them as my girlfriend, I really like them. I like them so much I'll find myself thinking about them while I masturbate. I would like to know how to get either one of them to go out with me, or to ask me out, or to like me, or to show signs of liking me. I don't know what to do.

Help

Dear Help,

You're having sexual fantasies about these two girls. That's fine. But it sounds like your sexual desires are pushing you to "really want" a girlfriend rather than any interest in getting to know either of these girls as people, not sexual objects. Do you know what I mean? It sounds like you see them as interchangeable. "How do I get either one of them to go out with me?" That you don't really care which one. That you just really want to have someone to kiss and hold and be sexual with. Somehow this seems like a backwards way of starting a relationship. The way it's supposed to go is this: First you get to know a person as a person, then you get to know the person as a friend and then, after time to build trust and respect and all that stuff, you move to something physical, if that's what both people want and they're emotionally mature enough to handle it. When you try to jump right to the physical stuff, there are going to be problems.

Let me say one more thing. Girls like guys who are truly interested in them -- you know, person to person. When guys come on to girls because they are only interested in the physical stuff, girls become mistrustful and those guys get reputations as "players".

So what do think about what you've just read?

In friendship,

Annie