The
Whole
GUY
Thing

What Every GIRL
Needs to Know about
Crushes, Friendship,
Relating, and Dating

Nancy Rue

1
“It Was Easier When They Were Annoying Little Pests.”

Take a minute to remember back when you were in, say, fourth grade. Maybe fifth.

Think recess.

The bell rang and the boys bolted out of the building already yelling — about what, nobody knew — and immediately got into an activity that involved throwing something or climbing on something or jumping from something or concocting something. Punching each other for no apparent reason was often part of that. If they stopped moving and started talking, it was either to plan the next throwing-climbing-jumping-concocting-punching thing, or to agree on how to get the most squealing out of the girls with their throwing-climbing-jumping-etc.

They were complete pains, but they were predictable. If a disagreement arose among them, they solved it with either a shove or a shout, and five minutes later (if it even took that long) they were back to throwing-climbing-jumping as if nothing ever happened.

And then there were you girls.

You strolled out of the building, sometimes arm in arm, already chattering, and you sorted yourselves out into groups. One group always formed a knot by the fence. Another gathered around the playground equipment that nobody played on anymore because that wasn’t cool. (The swings and see-saw were now more like furniture.) Still another group hung out by the water fountain, because all the boys ended up needing a drink at some point after all that throwing-climbing-jumping-concocting and punching. And even though they could be little pains, there was something mildly fascinating about them to those few girls who could tolerate them for more than seven seconds.

Whether you made it your business to be around them or not, you most likely thought certain things about boys:

“They HAVE to show off, as if people would forget they’re there if they don’t. Like that’s gonna happen …”

“They’re so gross! What’s with that disgusting noise they make with their hands in their armpits? And burping the Pledge of Allegiance? Really? Body sounds and fluids are that hilarious?”

“It’s like making us scream is their career.”

“I want to stay away from them, which is pretty easy because, except for the making-me-scream part, they act like I have some weird disease they don’t want to catch.”

You probably complained — most likely to your father, since he was a boy once —that males were annoying, to which said father most likely told you they purposely bugged you because they liked you. You could not figure out the logic in that, but you didn’t spend much time worrying about it, because you had more important things to concern yourself with. Like your BFF and the girl drama that was constantly taking place.

Yeah. You thought that was drama.

Sometime around sixth grade, give or take a year, stuff like this probably started showing up in your mind:

“I want guys as friends, but I’m too embarrassed to talk to most of them. If a guy’s good looking, that makes it even harder. I had a lot more guts with guys when I was little!”

“I find myself wondering who will ask me to dances and stuff, if anybody. Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not allowed to date yet, but when I see all these happy couples together, I feel like people think no one wants to date me. Then I feel like a loser.”

“I really want a boyfriend. I just want a guy to hug me and protect me. I daydream about it a lot. For hours.”

“If I meet a guy and he’s my age or a little older, I immediately start thinking about our wedding!”

“I want a guy to notice me. That’s all.”

I’m not making this up. Like all the girl quotes in italics you’ll find in this book, they come directly from girls on my teen blog “In Real Life” or girls who have emailed me privately. I have dozens like them in my file, with more coming in all the time. As soon as the tween girls graduate at thirteen from their blog (“Tween You and Me”), the whole subject comes up again: “Should I be thinking about boys this much? Shouldn’t I be concentrating more on God? If there’s no point in dating until I’m ready to get married, like my dad says, what am I supposed to do with all these feelings I’m having now?”

Seriously, wasn’t it so much simpler when boys did their thing, you girls did yours, and you hardly had to talk to them if you didn’t want to? (And who wanted to?) Sure, they might have picked at you — knocked your pencil off your desk every time they passed, unzipped your backpack on the bus so when you stood up all your stuff fell out, laughed like a pack of hyenas when you gave the wrong answer in class. Now, you sort of want them to pick at you. You realize that what grown-ups told you when you were a kid was right: they do tease the girls they like. And you want to be liked.

It isn’t that you didn’t notice the attractive-factor in the male of the species before now. As a tween, you might have had a huge crush on the teen celebrity of the year (week, even day!). Maybe you had a “thing” for the young assistant soccer coach or that student teacher with the great dimples. Those were safe crushes, because the chances of ever meeting that media heartthrob were like a million to one, and no matter how much you daydreamed about the older guy you actually met, you knew he wasn’t for you.

And then one day, as one of my bloggers put it, “It seems like boys are finally growing up and you can totally picture yourself in a relationship with one of them. Nothing serious, but that desire for male company is definitely making itself known.”

Maybe a guy in your own age group emerges from the pack of absurd little pests looking a little less absurd than the rest. And a little cuter. Okay, a lot cuter. He has a sense of humor that doesn’t include bodily functions. He uses vocabulary of more than two syllables. He actually seems to notice that other people have feelings. He shines brighter, looms larger, goes deeper than any teen guy you’ve known so far. Every time you see him, you may do one of a number of embarrassing things: Blush. Stammer. Lose ten or eleven IQ points. Giggle like you’re five years old. Or hightail it to the nearest safe place (i.e. a restroom) to do all of the above. The mere thought of the boy is enough to send you into cardiac arrest, and that thought is ever-present — on your math worksheet, your computer screen, the insides of your eyelids. You’re not exactly obsessed, but you aren’t above making sure you’re in the right place at the right time to catch a smile, a “hi,” or—be still my heart — an actual conversation. If he accidentally touches you, you practically swoon like a character in a Jane Austen novel.

Guydlines

If you haven’t felt that way around a guy, chances are you’re waiting for that moment to happen. If you picked this book up on your own (as in, nobody made it required reading for you and you haven’t stopped rolling your eyes since), I guarantee the above will occur at some point. You may be twenty-five before your heart hammers for someone of the male persuasion. I know women who didn’t have their first crush until they were in their forties. The point is, there is nothing more normal than for you to feel drawn to a guy and crush big time. It’s not even silly, though some adults who want you to put off matters of the heart for as long as possible might tell you that it is. No, this probably isn’t the man you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, although stranger things have happened. But for right now, it feels very real.

This almost magnetic feeling is normal because it’s triggered by your hormones. Think about it: you didn’t consider boys to be anything but pests before puberty, right? You didn’t decide they no longer have cooties —your body did. This is how you were put together by your Creator. Granted, the pull is stronger in some girls than others, and it happens at different times for every individual, but chemically speaking, it’s there. If it weren’t, the human race would come to a screeching halt. So enjoying the jittery, giggly feeling or longing for the feeling or wondering why you don’t long for the feeling is all as natural for your age as pimples, periods, and armpit hair.

And sometimes just as confusing, annoying, and downright painful.

If anything even remotely like the above is going on in your head — including, “Why is it that every other girl on the planet who’s my age is all about boys, and I just don’t see what the big deal is?”— you’ve come to the right place. Guys don’t have to be “an issue” in your life for this to be an important subject for you to look at. You might not be spending every waking hour struggling over the opposite sex, but your attitude toward them is significant, no matter what it is, and you’ll be thankful at some point that you got clear on it. Now’s your chance.

I’m not calling this “the right place” because I have all the answers and am going to lay them out for you so that you can breeze through your teen years with this whole guy thing under control. I can’t do that. Nobody can do that for you.

Nobody but you, that is.

I know it sounds almost ridiculous for me to say that you are in charge of your relationships with guys, even at thirteen or fourteen. Maybe the culture around you is constantly telling you what you should or shouldn’t do or giving you the impression that you have no choice but to do what everybody else is doing.

On the one hand you live in a society where the clothes on the store racks sometimes border on exotic dancer or at least criminally indecent, and every secular teen magazine you pick up is telling you how to flirt, how to turn your crush into a serious relationship, and how to choose the shorts, blush, and haircut that will make you the sexiest. If you do find an article about embracing your body type and being comfortable in your own skin, it’s probably placed right next to an ad featuring a skeletal model showing almost all of the skin she’s in. Guys are under just as much pressure to be hip as you are, so you almost have to spend a thousand hours with a boy to find out who he really is. Meanwhile, our culture shrugs its shoulders and assumes that every girl in her teens is sleeping with every boy in his.

All of that is even harder when you’re trying to walk in your faith. You’re talking to God, getting a handle on how God wants you to live in this world, and then you go out into the world and people look at you like you’ve grown a second nose for not going with the cultural flow.

On the other hand, if you’re part of a faith community that has boy-related rules, that can be confusing too. Things like:

What the Guys Say

“My church won’t let me date until I’m sixteen, but, dude … I want to.”

“You shouldn’t date until you’re ready for a husband, and then you should only go out with guys you think you might want to marry. Otherwise there’s no point in dating.”

“Christians shouldn’t date; they should court.” (Or even “You shouldn’t kiss a man until you’re at the altar with him, exchanging vows.”)

“Flirting is trashy.”

“You shouldn’t even be thinking about boys right now. Your mind should be on God.”

Now, hear me. I’m not expressing an opinion about any of those. I’m just saying that there are so many conflicting messages, you may feel like you need to escape to the nearest all-girls boarding school and stay there until you’re eighteen.

There’s no need for that.

In my years as a high school teacher, workshop director, youth group leader, speaker, blogger, writer, mother, aunt, and friend, I’ve gotten to know many (and we’re talking many) girls who don’t want what society’s telling them they ought to want, but who at the same time wrestle with the rules their church and/or parents are laying down. Like you, perhaps, they:

really like boys and at least want to be friends with them, but aren’t sure they know how

want to get to know guys but they’re afraid to, because they’ve been told that it could lead to sex (or that it always does …)

enjoy having guys like them but wonder, “Is this okay? Is it godly?”

see girls getting all strung out over boy-girl drama and wonder, “Does it have to be that way? Can I have a healthy relationship with a guy at this age?”

want to honor their parents but don’t exactly agree with their rules about boys

Those girls just aren’t sure how they’re “supposed” to think and feel. There’s your trouble right there: the ever-lurking “supposed to.”

Our society tells you you’re “supposed to” be a sophisticated boy magnet by the time you’re thirteen. They (whoever “they” are) tell you that, because it’s your effort to be sophisticated that sells the movies, videos, music, makeup, clothes, hair products, magazines, and birth control they’re selling.

The adults in your life may tell you you’re “supposed to” put off all thoughts of guys until you’re marrying age because they’re afraid for you (and sometimes rightfully so) and are trying to shield you from being hurt. Their motives are a whole lot purer than the world’s in general.

But what both sides tend to forget is that no one can tell you what you’re “supposed to” feel about boys at your age, any more than anybody can tell you that you’re not “supposed to” ever get jealous, or angry, or confused, or have an upset stomach. It’s not just about what you feel anyway. It’s about what you choose to do with those feelings.

And that … only you can decide.

You.

When you get that first flutter in your stomach that tells you, “I have a crush on him,” nobody is going to swoop in with the butterfly net.

When a boy plops down next to you out of nowhere and says, “Hi, I’m Jason,” nobody else is going to be in your head figuring out what you want to say back.

When a guy leans in to kiss you, no set of rules is going to unroll between you with “No Kissing” highlighted.

We adults may say to you, “Do this, don’t do that — and you’ll be fine,” but we’re fooling ourselves. You will be the one making the decisions. You will be the one in charge of your behavior.

And yet not totally. You’re going to find just a few basic truths in the following chapters, and here’s the first one:

Basic Truth #1

You’re much more likely to make true, authentic choices when you have a relationship with God.

You aren’t in this by yourself. When you really think about it, it only makes sense that because God created the hormonal-development-normal process that put you here in the first place, God is going to be there to get you through it. God has never been known to put something in motion and then abandon the people it’s happening to, expecting them to fend for themselves. (Hello — forty years in the wilderness anyone?) In fact, the Lord is so in there, it’s pretty much impossible to do it without him.

That’s so much of what this book is about. It’s here to help you form the foundation with God, which will naturally help form a foundation for your future with men (and everything else in your life!) starting from right where you are at this moment. Here’s what you’ll find in these pages:

As I just mentioned, the basic truths you’ll want to use to make your decisions, whether you’re a committed Christ-follower or still finding your way. Jesus doesn’t say anything directly about teen guy/girl relationships in the Gospels, but there’s still great guidance in there for you to build on, especially about the all-important, has-to-come-first connection with God we just talked about. We’ll delve into that in the features called God on Guys.

Quizzes and questions that give you a chance to figure out where you are in each area. You have to know where you stand before you can go forward. More than that, you’ll need to accept where you are, even if you’re going to move in a different direction from here on. Look for that in What’s Going On with Me?

Honest talk on the major relationship topics teen girls ask me about. It’s impossible to make wise choices without the right information. By the way, you might want to reassure your parents that you won’t find explicit sex education here. I’ll leave that to them. You’ll find all other major guy subjects in the Guydlines feature in every chapter. (That’s the feature you’re reading now.) When you see quotes from girls in italics or I tell you a story about one of them, that’s all based on true stories. I haven’t created any fictional scenarios (I thought I ought to say that since I do write fiction!) or put together several girls’ stories into one.

Suggestions for ways to apply what you discover here to your own situation. It’s one thing to read about all this and a whole other thing to actually practice it. In Making It Real, you’ll get inspiration that will help you move forward.

Guidance for talking to your parents about boy issues, especially if you disagree with them. There is a way to honor your father and mother, God, and your own integrity all at once. I’ve got your back on that in Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out.

Space to get your questions, your struggles, your inner wrestling matches out there where you can look at them. You’ll see a prompt in each chapter under If I’m Totally Honest …

Actual input from guys I’ve interviewed, so you can gain insights into what’s going on with them. It’s a no-brainer that the best way to figure out what guys think is to ask them. Of course, they aren’t always comfortable actually telling you, the potential girlfriend, so I’ve done the asking for you. Their answers are scattered in What the Guys Say.

A brief recap of what each section says just in case you need a quick refresher, or you’re just not sure what I’m talking about. Each one is called The Twitter Version because it contains less than 140 characters. Life is short, after all.

What the Guys Say

“How can I tell when a girl likes me? I CAN’T!”

Just to make sure we’re clear, here’s what this book ISN’T:

It ISN’T a list of everything you should think, do, and say when it comes to boys. You’ll just read honest information so you can wisely take it from there.

It ISN’T even my opinion on what philosophy every teen girl should embrace when it comes to her relationships (or lack of them) with boys. You are all different. Your practice of the absolute truths will be unique to you, because that’s part of God’s infinite variety.

It ISN’T a Book of Judgment. If you’ve already made some mistakes in the guy department or if you have thoughts you wouldn’t tell your best friends, you won’t feel like a finger is being pointed at you as you read this book. You’ll have a chance to shed any shame and start fresh, which is the whole Jesus thing to begin with.

If you’re still with me, let’s start with a look at where you are with guys right now.

The Twitter Version

This book is about making choices, not about following a bunch of rules. Nobody can make those choices for you. Seriously. Nobody.

What’s Going On with Me?

This is sort of like one of those quizzes you take in a magazine. (You may not read any of the articles, but you’ll always take the tests, right?) The difference is that this one, and the ones in future chapters, are not designed to put you on a scale of good to bad, or even slide you into a slot. It’s here so you can take stock of the jumble of guy-stuff going on in your head (and heart) and at the same time see that you aren’t the only one who has foggy spots when it comes to boys. Even if you and a friend both take the quiz, don’t give in to the temptation to compare your results and walk away feeling like you’re worse than—or better than—she is. Think of it as, “It is what it is, and I want to find out what it is.”

Each time you take out pencil or pen for one of these self-surveys, remember to give the most honest answers you can, rather than the ones you think you’re “supposed to” give. We have pretty much done away with the term “supposed to” in the previous pages, because what good is it going to do you to create a false picture of yourself? If you’re nervous about somebody else knowing what you’re really thinking and feeling, write your answers on a piece of paper you can throw away. If you have siblings, consider shredding (the paper, not the siblings).

Read all six of the scenarios below. Then number them according to how much each one is like you — 1 being closest to who you are and 6 being farthest from your mind. If any of them is nothing at all like you, put a 0 next to it. (Which means you could have anything from six zeroes to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.)

Here we go.

GIRL A

_____ “Every female my age is always talking about guys. I’m never the one to go ‘Oh, that boy’s really hot’ or ‘He’s so cute, blah, blah, blah.’ Guys are okay. I’m just not that into them, and when everybody’s going on and on about the whole thing, I feel left out.”

GIRL B

_____ “I find myself yearning for a boy to like me. You know, just to notice me. I feel like I’m missing out on something, but I don’t know how to get their attention without looking like I’m trying to get their attention. I’m way more comfortable talking to guys online than in person. Does that make any sense at all?”

GIRL C

_____ “Right now I just want to be friends with guys because I don’t think I’m ready for the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Guys can make great buds, just to hang out with, no pressure. The problem is, nobody will leave it alone. They’re all like, ‘But seriously, don’t you like him?’”

GIRL D

_____ “I really want a boyfriend, like other girls have. I want to be loved, to feel wanted, and to know somebody really cares. I think that would be so awesome. But then I start thinking, is it okay to feel that way? Shouldn’t I just be patient and wait for the guy God has picked out for me?”

GIRL E

_____ “I’m pretty much comfortable with guys, as friends and as dates. I don’t know, it just comes to me naturally. What I’m wondering, though, is how to be in a relationship without all the drama. Especially about sex. I know girls who make it sound like after a few weeks their boyfriends just expect them to have it.”

GIRL F

_____ “I’ve made up my mind not to date until I’m ready to get married because what’s the point? I want to save myself for my husband in every way. But what am I supposed to do in the years between now and then — with all this male cuteness around me? Should I not even be friends with any of them because it could turn into something else?”

What the Guys Say

“I started getting interested in girls when I was ten.”

“At thirteen, I’m not ready to date.”

“I’m fifteen and I’ve had one relationship that didn’t turn out too well.”

“I date but it’s totally not serious. I’m only seventeen.”

Now, take a look at how you scored yourself. Did you place a 6 next to one of the girls, with zeroes on all the others, or were your fields of identification more evenly spread? Hopefully that gives you a picture of where you stand on boy issues at this point and which things you’re going to want to pay special attention to in this book (even though you’ll want to read it all, of course!) A few insights that might be helpful:

If you have GIRL A tendencies, don’t worry that there’s something “wrong” with you. Everybody starts to notice guys at different times in their lives, or you just may be one of those women who will always be pretty content without them. Don’t let what everybody else is doing determine your view of yourself. You’re okay, girl. Read on anyway and find out what it’s all about. You’ll be especially interested in chapter two, “I Just Don’t Get Guys.”

If you have GIRL B in you, it does make sense to want boys to notice you without you having to do anything to get them to acknowledge your existence. It also makes sense to feel like some girls do it completely without effort, because some girls actually do. But more of them don’t. More of them, like you, feel like they’re all arms and legs and teeth about it at first. So, the desire for male attention is perfectly normal, and so is being absolutely sure you’re never going to get it! I think you’re going to learn a lot from chapter three, “I Feel Like a Geek.” In chapter four, the A Word About Guys Online section will help you with the Internet thing.

If you see yourself in GIRL C, you’re off to a good start in your life with the opposite sex, because whether it’s romance or just friends, knowing a guy as a person is the best basis for any relationship. Chapter four, “Can We Be Just Friends?”, will help you with your more boyfriend-prone friends who don’t get friendship with guys.

Is GIRL D like you, even a little? Good for you, fessing up to that, because it’s as normal to want a boyfriend now as it was for you to plaster boy band posters all over your room when you were eleven. People are meant to be loved, and you are just awakening to the fact that someday you’ll want a forever love with a man. That desire doesn’t just appear when you’re old enough to do something about it. Otherwise you wouldn’t even need this book. It’s your reasons for craving a relationship that are worth looking at carefully. Chapter six, “So — Should I Date or What?”, is going to be of special interest to you.

What about GIRL E? If she’s your mirror image — or you can see a bit of your reflection in her — you have both the easiest and the hardest aspect of the boy thing going on. You’re confident around guys, but that same confidence can put you in situations you aren’t sure how to handle. Chapter five, “Do They Really Want Just One Thing?”, and chapter seven, “Oh, the Drama,” are the ones you’ll especially want to focus on.

As for GIRL F lookalikes, it is awesome that you have such firm convictions, and that you recognize how hard it is to stick to them. You’re going to find a lot of support here, and that includes safe places to look at your beliefs and make sure they’re coming from God and not from fear, as sometimes (and I’m just saying sometimes) happens. After you’ve read the whole book, I suggest you really study chapter eight, “This Is All-Important, Because …”

No matter where you are, the next step forward is to hear what God has to say on the guy subject in general.

The Twitter Version

Every girl’s in a different place when it comes to guys. Every place is a starting place.

God on Guys

“I feel really guilty because I spend A LOT of my time daydreaming about guys, and I give God less attention.”

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of girls in society today would look at you like you were nuts if you said that out loud. The response would probably be something like, “God? Really?” Let’s face it, knowing God doesn’t always make life easier. On top of everything else we’ve mentioned — confusion, awkwardness, feeling completely clueless—you have to worry about God too!

So let’s go there first, beginning with one of the Beatitudes — or as some of my teen friends call them, the Boy-Attitudes. As Jesus is listing the “Blessed Ares,” he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

Each of the beatitudes has two parts—what we need to do and what God does. In this one, our job is to hunger for doing the right thing, to thirst (as in find yourself dying for a water bottle) for a relationship with our Lord that goes deep. God’s job is to fill that hungry emptiness and quench that thirsty longing so that we don’t even want to do the shallow and the trivial, much less the heinous and the horrible.

And this has what to do with guys?

A bunch, because nobody can distract you from your hunger for righteousness like the male of the species.

“Not long ago I was at my crush’s house (his sister is my friend) and while we were all praying, he was beside me, so we were holding hands. I’ve been going crazy ever since, just because I got to hold his hand!”

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have anything whatsoever to do with guys. They aren’t put here on this earth solely to pull you away from God, no matter what some well-meaning parent may tell you. They’re here, they’re part of your life, and you very naturally want to be part of theirs. It’s just important to put your hunger and thirst for God first, so that stomach-rumbling, dry-mouth longing for a boyfriend doesn’t get out of control. The fact of the matter is, you can have great relationships with guys that actually enhance your spiritual walk. What could happen if you prayed with guys? Volunteered together at a homeless shelter? Went on the same mission trip? Actually talked about your faith—what a concept, yeah? God, in God’s infinite power and wisdom, can use anything (even a former pest), as long as you’re following closely.

What the Guys Say

“I know God’s going to show me the girl I’m meant to spend my life with, so I’m not that into dating.”

This beatitude doesn’t say you have to be righteous every minute of every day. What it does say is that we need to be ravenous for righteousness. We need to be so hungry and so thirsty that we’re trying all the time to have that need satisfied.

And here’s the deal: having a guy like you isn’t going to satisfy that hunger. Being the girl they all flirt with isn’t going to quench that thirst. Feeling confident with your own guy-catching skills definitely isn’t going to make you feel full.

There is nothing wrong with having a boyfriend, having a crush, or enjoying the fun of being attractive (without playing with people’s feelings and hurting them). There is everything right with having healthy friendships with guys just as you do with girls and learning to understand them as people so you don’t always feel weird and awkward around them.

What’s wrong is when you forget the hunger and thirst for being close to God because you’re hungering and thirsting for male attention, or for the ease with which the ever-present “other girls” draw guys to them like the poor boys are in a trance, or for the guy you’re crushing on to at least know you’re breathing.

So how do you strike a balance? You don’t.

The scale is meant to be lopsided. God always has to be bigger, take up more of your time and your thoughts and your intentions. But — and hear me on this — God is in there when you like a guy because that guy is a good person, because you like the way he treats people, because he makes you laugh or makes you think or makes you want to be your real self. God’s in there when you treat guys as people instead of mysterious creatures you have to conquer. God’s present when you resist the urge to flirt with a guy you don’t really care anything about, just to see if you can snag him. When you’re jealous because other girls are getting all the male attention and you pretty much hate that about yourself, God’s there to forgive and turn you around. When your heart gets broken because your guy falls for your BFF, God is already on it, loving and healing and moving you on.

So just like everything else in your life, it’s not God OR … It’s God AND. Not God OR guys. God AND guys.

How do you get there? In some ways, that’s different for each individual, but one basic thing is essential for everybody.

Take time every day to talk to God about this stuff.

This is the space where you ask the questions you actually have, not the ones you think you’re “supposed” to have. (There’s that word again). If the guy issue is on your mind now, then for Pete’s sake why would you strike up a conversation with God about what he wants you to do when you’re thirty? God wants to discuss what you’re wrestling with today, this instant. Because if you don’t get God’s help with today’s struggles, you can’t move on to tomorrow’s.

What do you do when you talk to God? You can journal your thoughts — unless the idea of writing page after page makes you want to scale the nearest wall, in which case you might draw what you’re feeling and thinking as you pray, or go for a run and pray, or make lists, or shoot baskets and pray. Anything to keep your focus so you can really get it out there where you and God can take a serious look at it.

Study the Scripture we’ll talk about in this book. Read it as if God is talking directly to you in the context of what you’re going through. Stop when something speaks to you and write it down (draw it, etc.) and keep it where you can go over it again. And again. And did I mention again?

Just in case you’re thinking, “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve been married for a million years!”, let’s look at what one of your own kind commented one day on the blog:

“Something that’s really struck me recently is the verse: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37). Everything in our lives should be focused on God. If we are fully loving God with everything we have and everything we are, then all our other priorities will just swish into place. This is a pretty hard concept for me to accept, because one of my weakest points is how I can get so crazy about a guy. The more I think about it though, the more it makes sense. Everything will fall into its proper place in our life, even a guy, if we put God as number one.”

I love the idea of priorities “swishing into place.” It’s not about guilt. (“I’m a horrible person because I thought about the guy holding my hand instead of the prayer we were saying.”) It’s not about shame. (“I can’t even talk to God now because I daydream about my crush instead of reading the Bible.”) It’s not about being so godly that guys never enter your mind. (“If I really want to be a God-follower, I have to ignore half the people God created.”) It’s about being so hungry for God in your life that you set aside time to feast with God every day so you’re filled with the Spirit as you go out into that world, where guys are so everywhere you’re practically tripping over them. Not noticing them, not thinking about them, not wanting to be accepted by them is a pretty ridiculous goal. The real goal is to be aware that God is there, helping you keep it all in perspective. You only know that by loving God with everything you have.

And that’s the truth.

The Twitter Version

If you develop a close relationship with God, you’re going to know God’s there in everything you face. Including guys. Especially guys.

Making It Real

In this feature in each chapter, we’ll be talking about ways to apply what you’ve found in the God on Guys and Guydlines sections. Since we’re only in chapter one, let’s just go over five things you’ll need to get serious with yourself about before we move on. Think of it as kind of a mental to-do list:

(1) Be honest about your feelings. Do you just want a guy to like you so you’ll feel better about yourself? Or are there really some boys you’d like to get to know as people? Are you really interested “hot” guys, or do you just say that because everyone else is saying it? Are you actually into a particular guy and say you’re not because somebody (your parents, your church, your friends) says you “shouldn’t” be? If you need to, go back to your answers in “Where Am I?” and look at them more closely. Again, nobody has to know how you feel but you. And God.

If I’m totally honest, my reaction toward the male population (and all the guy-girl stuff that comes with) is

(2) Make sure you know the difference between “romance” and “relationship,” because most of what we’re going to be talking about here falls into the relationship category. We’ll touch on romance, because it’s vital that you don’t get them confused. For now, see if you can come up with a definition for each.

Romance means:

A relationship means:

(3) Take stock of your current relationships with guys. Think about who’s a friend, who’s a crush, who’s somebody you could see yourself with five or six years from now, who’s someone you’d just like to get to know better. Name names. Think faces. Your whole experience with this book will make more sense if you’re thinking about individuals, rather than just the concept of “guys.”

Guys I’m simply friends with (and am happy staying that way):

Guys I have a huge crush on:

Guys I want to know more about:

Guys I can actually see myself dating in a few years:

(4) And, of course, take an honest, serious look at your relationship with God. Do you feel close to God? Do you talk to God and sense the divine presence? Are you still getting there? Just starting out? Just now thinking about it? Don’t put that on a good-to-bad scale. I’ll probably say this fifty times: there’s no judgment here. Just get a clear picture and we’ll take it from there.

(5) If you don’t already know, find out where your parent(s) or guardian(s) stand on the whole guy thing. Need some help with that? We’re just about to go there.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

“I don’t want a boyfriend yet, but I do find myself liking guys more. My mom says, ‘Why are you talking about boys so much?’”

It doesn’t matter that your parents have known since the moment they found out you were a girl that this day would arrive — it still seems to come as a complete surprise to them that you’re now interested in guys. That’s part of the reason why they tend to pull in the reins when it comes to boys: either they didn’t see it coming, or they’re in denial. There are other reasons too, which we’ll be talking about in the chapters ahead. The point is, however you may feel about the control your parents or guardians have in your life, the first thing you need to do is accept that they have it. It’s a God-thing. Commandment Number Five makes it abundantly clear: “Honor your father and your mother.” And then it goes on to say, “So that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). What mother hasn’t said in those moments when her kid is going defiant on her: “I brought you into this world, and so help me I can take you out of it!”? Even God says, if you want to survive, you’d best be respecting your parents.

Having said that, let me say this: “Honor” doesn’t mean unquestioning obedience, not at this stage of your life. Eventual obedience, yes. The people raising you get the last word, and well they should, because when it comes to the big picture they know more than you. But it is perfectly appropriate, and definitely good for your growth as a person, for you to discuss issues with your family and at least understand their decision-making process. As I’ve said, the decisions you make are ultimately your own; you’re going to choose whether to go with their advice or do your own thing and deal with the consequences (which will inevitably include a breach in trust). But their rules and their wisdom need to be a part of your choices or, metaphorically speaking, your days aren’t going to be long in the land of milk and honey.

Let’s also make a clear distinction between your actions and your feelings. If your dad says you can’t date until you’re eighteen, you need to let the guys in your life know that and not sneak around that rule. But even if you’re not allowed to date and you really, really like a guy, that attraction doesn’t make you a disobedient daughter. What you are is a young person who has to make a decision about what she’s going to do with those feelings without going against her parents’ wishes. Will you decide to avoid that boy you like as if he were the H1N1 virus so you won’t be tempted? Be his friend and keep your feelings to yourself? Get focused on other things so you won’t spend all your time daydreaming about things that can’t happen right now? Those are all legit ways to honor the rules without denying that you have feelings.

What all this tells you is that you need to find a way to talk to your parents about your relationships with guys and what the house rules are going to be in that regard.

Talk.

Not argue. Not get all defensive and wind up storming off to your room and slamming the door and thus ending all chance of conversation. Not this-is-what-I’m-going-to-do-and-you-can’t-stop-me.

Talk. As in:

Ask your parents to be clear about their rules and why they’ve made them. And, yes, you do have the right to ask for clarification and explanation, as long as you do it respectfully. Make sure they get that you’re going to do what they ask you to do, but that it’ll go down easier if you can understand why. “Because I said so” isn’t really a fair response to a thirteen- to sixteen-year-old girl on this issue, so explain to your parents that you’ll be able to make better decisions yourself if you know how they make theirs.

An approach like this will take you nowhere:

“I don’t get why you won’t let me stay out past ten o’clock. It’s stupid.”

This one, on the other hand, has a better chance of bringing you the clarity you need:

“Okay, so can we talk about the reasoning behind my curfew? I’m not challenging it. I’d just really like to know.”

Ask them to give you a chance to state your case. If they say, “No, we don’t see the point in that,” the conversation is over. But if approached in a mature, non-hysterical way (you aren’t pitching a fit or brandishing a weapon, for instance), most parents will hear you out.

This probably won’t do it:

“Let me just tell you why that doesn’t work for me.” Neither will “This is the lamest rule in this hemisphere” or “This is what everybody else’s parent are letting them do.”

This, however, might:

“I’m going to follow the rules, for sure, but I’d just like a chance to tell you how I feel about them.”

Just keep in mind: tone of voice and body language speak just as clearly as your words, sometimes even more so. Folding your arms, rolling your eyes, curling your lip —you won’t get too far with those.

The Twitter Version

Your parents make the rules, but discussion about those rules is totally appropriate. How you approach that will make all the difference.

Ask them to pray for you. This isn’t a trick to get them to think you’re Angel Child. In fact, if your request isn’t genuine don’t ask. Truly, though, you need all the prayer you can get on this, and who better to go to God for you than the people who love you the most? And …

Ask how you can pray for them. Your parents are at the most challenging point in child-raising since potty training and tantrums (which hopefully you’re no longer throwing). Trust me, they need prayer as much as you do.

However, this is guaranteed to make them suspect your sincerity:

“I need to pray for you guys, because you just don’t get it.”

On the other hand, if this one comes from your heart, your folks will appreciate it:

“I know you guys worry about me, so, is there some way I can pray for you?”

We’ll talk more about discussing guy issues with your parents as we get into each specific area. This much is a good start, not only in terms of boys, but for your whole relationship with your folks. If you can communicate effectively with them in this mine field, everything else is going to seem like the proverbial walk in the park.

We’ve already covered a lot of ground. Time for a regrouping breather. Before we go on to your first “If I’m Totally Honest …”, decide whether you want to jot down your thoughts here in the book, or gather them in a journal set aside just for guy issues, or, for that matter, whether you want to write them down at all. Some people freeze when they take pen in hand, so if you can toss thoughts around while you’re hiking or horseback riding or hacking away at the mess in your closet, that’s perfectly fine. The goal is to spend enough focused time on the question that you get to a place of satisfaction. That could mean anything from just venting (when you’re sick, don’t you always feel better after you throw up?) to actually resolving something, if only in your own spirit. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you do it.

If I’m Totally Honest …

My biggest area of concern (anxiety, fear, terror …) when it comes to boys is:

2
“I Just Don’t Get Guys.”

“I don’t even know the first thing to say to a guy! They’re so different from girls that I just feel like I’d make a total idiot of myself.”

“I sometimes wonder if the guy I like likes me back. I mean, he makes it a point to talk to me even though somebody else is waiting for him. And even when he’s in a hurry he always says ‘hi’ and ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ Am I being stupid? After all, he could just be being nice to me and I just want to THINK he likes me. Seriously, am I going crazy?”

“I’m pretty sure this one guy likes me as a friend, which is what I want. The only problem is I’m not totally sure what he’s thinking about when we’re talking. I mean, is he really into me or does he just like me as a friend? How do you KNOW that?”

Those comments are based on the emails that wind up in my in-box weekly. Clearly, feeling less than your usual confident self around boys is a common problem, and the first comment above nailed the major reason: guys are so different from us females.

Ya think?

Girls who have older brothers don’t seem to have as many issues with being tongue-tied or babbling aimlessly when a guy shows up on the scene. They know guys are different, alright, but they’re used to it. For most of the rest of the teenage female population, these mystery creatures can make them feel like somebody else is suddenly living in their body.

The questions fall like confetti:

Do they want to talk about the same stuff girls want to talk about?

Do they care about the same things you do?

Do they even speak the same language?

And then there’s the energy they put off. Now, that’s definitely different from ours. They have a certain strength that makes a young woman feel safe and yet for some reason scared spitless at the same time. It can be delicious — or it can be more dizzying than the Goliath at Six Flags.

“A guy can’t just tell you he likes you. He either stares at you twenty-four/seven or acts obnoxious every time you come around or tries to be all cool like he’s waiting for YOU to make the first move. Then if you do, you feel like a moron when he looks at you like ‘Where did you get THAT idea?’”

“You can’t tell if a guy actually likes you, or if he’s just a big flirt. There’s this guy in my English class who one minute will act like I’m the only female in there, and then the next minute he’s doing the same thing with another girl. What’s up with that?”

“Guys do the stupidest things to try to impress you. Why would anyone think that bragging about how he punched somebody in the face would do it for you? And then they spit like they’re all bad … I mean, seriously, who goes for that?”

The dilemma is that we like guys because they’re so totally different from girls. And yet that’s also the reason they drive us bonkers, cause us to doubt ourselves, and pretty much make what used to be a fairly sane world seem like it needs some serious medication.

What the Guys Say

“When a girl likes you, she’ll stare at you and never leave you alone.”

What the Guys Say

“I think guys are more direct than girls. Girls use more subtle tactics than guys.”

But just because guys are different doesn’t mean they’re impossible to understand. In fact, you have a far better chance of getting what guys are about than they have of getting you.

One, because boys aren’t generally as mature as girls of the same age. It’s a scientific finding, really. The biggest difference between a girl’s brain and a boy’s brain is not the speed of development (girls don’t get smarter faster!) but the way their brains develop. Girls get language and fine motor skills earlier while boys get first dibs on the targeting and spatial memory. In other words, they can get fixated on something (no kidding?) and remember how to get places, that kind of thing. (Which is why they hate to even ask for directions at the mall!) Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

And two, as complicated as guys may seem, they don’t see themselves that way. When it comes to relationships, they want things to be much simpler than they actually are, at least in our view. Of course they have feelings that go deep, but many, many of them don’t know what to do with them yet and won’t until they’re at least in their late teens. For now, some guys are going to keep those feelings at bay by immersing themselves in whatever they’re into: sports, video games, punching each other, and burping — not necessarily in that order.

Their seeming simplicity doesn’t mean they’re “stupid” or “underdeveloped.” There’s a richness in some guys that you may not notice for years to come. It may mean, again, that it’s easier for you to comprehend them than vice versa. That puts you at an advantage. While thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old guys are still showing off for you and performing for each other, you have an opportunity to observe them, analyze them, and maybe even befriend a few of them. This is your time to find out what makes them tick and then go in for a closer look at a few individuals who you’re interested in as friends.

What the Guys Say

“What a lot of guys don’t get is that girls and guys just think differently.

That’s where all the drama comes in.”

The Twitter Version

Accept the fact that you’ll never completely get guys, because their brains are biologically different from ours. It wouldn’t be that interesting otherwise. Less frustrating, but boring.

So while some guys your age are just now waking up to the realization that there are even knots to untangle in the boy-girl thing, you can start untying them and make things a whole lot smoother for both of you. Let’s start with your particular snarls and snags.

What’s Going On with Me?

Check EACH statement about guys that mystifies you, or at least makes you say, “Don’t you just hate that?” All of these, by the way, come right out of the mouths of your peers.

___ “Some guys aren’t even that cute, but they have flirting down to a serious art form. And, unfortunately, it works.”

____ “People will tell you a guy likes you, but he acts like you’re a total pain in the tail.”

____ “One minute they’re still absurd little pains, and then they’ll turn around and do something totally sweet and understanding.”

____ “A guy can’t just tell you he’s interested in you. He has to play some kind of game with you so you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing.”

____ “There doesn’t seem to be any difference between them (a) flirting with you because they like you and (b) flirting with you because they can.”

___ “They do lame things to get your attention — but if YOU did the same thing, they’d laugh right in your face.”

____ “One will be all friendly to you until his friends come around, and then you’re either invisible or he totally starts dissing you.”

___ “They don’t want to talk about feelings and people. It’s like if you can’t talk about their fantasy football team, forget about it.”

___ “They pay all this attention to girls who are so shallow they’re like puddles. You know, cute but basically clueless. If you say something intelligent, guys run the other way.”

___ “The really good-looking jocks can be so rude and disgusting, like they have a right to do that because they’re hot.”

Now count your checkmarks and see what your “score” might tell you. Remember: this is not a test you pass or fail, or a judgment call, or even an “on a scale of one to ten, here’s how cool you are” kind of thing. It’s just a way to see just how many mysteries you still have to solve.

If you have from 0 to 2 checks, you may have guys pretty well figured out. Or you don’t see the need to figure them out at all! Do you have older brothers? Boys you’ve always hung out with? Do you just have a natural gift for getting along with guys? Or doesn’t it bother you that guys are confusing and obnoxious at times? Consider yourself lucky, but read on. You just never know what you might learn — or where you’ve been misled!

If you checked from 3 to 6 of the statements, you aren’t completely in the dark but you definitely have some questions. Think of it as natural curiosity and scope out the rest of this chapter for those answers you still need.

If you have between 7 and 10 checks, that doesn’t mean you’re hopeless when it comes to understanding guys. Your mystification probably comes from not spending much time with them in the past or from a basic personality that makes you sensitive to human behavior — especially when it seems less than human! Dive right into this chapter, and you’ll come out feeling at least 50 percent more sure of what you’re dealing with in boy-world.

What the Guys Say

“I’m not very good at being able to tell if a girl likes me. Normally one of my friends or a friend of the girl has to tell me. And they’re like, ‘Duh — it’s right in your face!’”

Guydlines

Before we start loosening those knots, let me just say that most of what you’ll find here are general statements that apply to most teenage boys. Individually, they’re as different from each other as you are from every other girl reading this book. If we gave guys a quiz … well, forget that. Guys don’t usually do self-surveys unless it’s required for them to get into college. Just know that in your experience with males, you’ll find exceptions to just about everything we talk about, but when guys do behave in those what-is-he-thinking ways, it’s usually for the reasons you’re about to read.

Overall, guys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen have the following going on to some degree:

They’re dealing with puberty and its accompanying hormones too. Before you start squalling that they don’t have to put up with breasts and periods, take it from me, they have their own challenges on the body-changing scene. They’ve got voices that do unpredictable things at the worst possible moments. They’re getting even hairier than you are (and on their faces). You think your feet are too big and your arms too long? They’ve got that in spades. And that’s just to name a few of their issues. Yeah, they can get away with a few more zits than girls can, but they have to start shaving over those babies. They’ve got the same oily scalp thing going on, but unlike you, if they get too into hair products, their buddies are all up in their business.

They’re taught practically from birth not to show their feelings, but, man, do they have them. Hormonally and developmentally they’re starting to like girls, but they can’t just go around saying, “I really dig you. Let’s hang out and see where this goes.” The thought of that scares most guys to death. If they actually do it, they never hear the end of it in the locker room, because everybody else is afraid they’re going to have to do it. That drive to get close to girls is powerful enough. They can’t get involved with the emotional stuff too.

Guys process their feelings differently than girls do. Especially as teenagers, they usually see things more in black and white. It’s either good or it’s bad. It’s cool or it’s lame. You’re in or you’re out. So, he likes a girl, she doesn’t like him, he moves on. He likes a girl, she likes him, he stops liking her — he assumes she’ll get over it. They definitely don’t run to the bathroom crying with their friends when it doesn’t work out (even if they’re emotional about it in private).

Unlike you, the guy-girl thing isn’t as much about feelings for them. The comment about it seeming like a game to find out if you like them and they like you? At this point for some guys, it is more about the game than the relationship. That doesn’t mean they’re all players. Sure it’s fun (for them!), but most of that playing also involves playing it safe. A guy will hide behind the game so that if the girl doesn’t turn out to be interested, he doesn’t look like a fool, no matter how he might actually have felt. Basically, many are SO not ready for a relationship.

Most adolescent GUYS don’t have GIRLS figured out yet! Which is why a lot of guys do things like travel in inseparable groups — the whole safety-in-the-pack mentality. It’s why they brag or turn everything into a joke or act bored and call it cool. They don’t know what you want, so some of them fall back on behaviors that worked for them in fourth grade. That’s a fact, actually. While they can look a little like men, in certain situations they may actually be less mature than they were at ten, before the hormones kicked in. They aren’t really that immature all the time. Just around you.

What the Guys Say

“I want to date different girls rather than have a relationship with just one. I can’t see myself doing that.”

What the Guys Say

“I admit that when I like a girl, I totally try to impress her.”

Flirting isn’t really much different for guys than it is for girls. It’s like a test: Do you notice me? Do you think I’m kinda cute? How long can I keep you interested? Notice the repetition of “I” and “me.” Flirting is about the flirt-ER, not the flirt-EE. That doesn’t automatically make it bad (as we’ll see in chapter three), but it does make it easily misunderstood. Some guys don’t even know they’re doing it. Others make it a career. But in the end, it’s their way of reassuring themselves that they’re charming and attractive.

That’s the general idea. Let’s move on to some specifics that apply to various guys. Do I dare group them into types? Just don’t tell them we’re doing it.

The Jock. It doesn’t matter how hunky he is and how much he likes to surround himself with women: sports and the opinions of his guy friends will almost always come before girls (or anything else) until he learns that there are other priorities. Maybe in his late teens. Early twenties. Thirties … That’s not to say that athletes aren’t great guys. All that teamwork and physical discipline turns a lot of them into pretty terrific men. But right now, don’t count on being the football captain’s number-one focus.

The Gamer. He’s so into Black Ops, World of Warcraft, or figuring out how to get his hands on the next midnight release he barely notices there are girls in the world unless you’re wearing an Xbox or PS3 headset as jewelry. He’ll chat you up if you, too, spend hours upgrading your tank, looting treasure chests, or enhancing your armor (and even then he likely only cares about how many achievements and defeated levels you’ve racked up). But that virtual world is his safe place right now. Don’t be offended if he doesn’t seem to see you. Either he doesn’t, or you’re still way too scary for him.

The Scholar. You may think of him as a brain, but he’s not that different from the jock. He’s focused on his mind and what he can put in there, what he can figure out, what he can invent. He’ll catch up on his girl skills later, but don’t dismiss him; he’s great friend material. It doesn’t occur to him to play the game, and he can actually carry on a conversation if you get him on the right topic.

The Player. All he seems to think about is girls! That can come from a lot of different places — from a surplus of hormones to an ego that needs constant feeding because of, say, issues at home. His supposed affections are not to be taken seriously, but he can be enjoyed, especially if you see what he’s up to. Try not to be judgmental, even as you give him a wide emotional birth. Sometimes that need to be the campus ladies’ man comes from a place of deep pain. But don’t try to psychoanalyze him or rescue him. You can’t. Just know that he may not be as cavalier as he pretends to be.

The Artist. Once again, this guy is focused, whether it’s on his music, his drawing, his poetry, his acting—whatever. Because he’s sensitive enough to create art, he’s also sensitive enough to get girls, and to be hurt by them. More likely to talk about ideas and feelings, he’s also more likely to get his heart broken. While he may seem to be all about the band he’s in or the theatrical role he’s playing, his relationships with girls can be important to him. And they can also be more about romance and all its trappings, as part of his whole romantic persona. Just like every other teenager on the planet, he’s figuring himself out. He’s simply more aware of it than most guys.

The Tortured Soul. On the surface, this guy may look like a full-out loser. Drugs, maybe. Alcohol. The I-don’t-care-how-I-look attire and hygiene. Can’t get it together in school. No passion for anything except putting everything down, and even that he does with either boredom or anger. He’s either given up already, or he just wants to get back at the world for making his life miserable — whether it actually has or not. He’s got issues. He might reach out to a girl to ease some of his pain. If you’re within reach, back off kindly. You can’t fix him. Pray? Yes. Solve his problems? No. Besides, all that baggage makes a healthy relationship just about impossible.

The Really Nice Guy. Friendly, considerate, never in trouble — that’s this guy. You can approach him without worrying that he’s going to give you the “You’re kidding, right?” look. You could tell him your most secret of secrets and they would stay that way. You could do something terminally embarrassing and he would never tease you about it. He’s sweet. He listens. And for the life of you, you can’t figure out why you’re not attracted to him. That’s because he has a lot of competition from guys who can act like cave men but are at the same time fascinating. This guy is going to get his share of “You’re a nice guy, but …” from girls he falls in love with along the way, but years from now he’s going to be the husband about whom other women say, “Why couldn’t I find one like him?” Meanwhile this kid may be the best friend you’ll ever have, so be careful with his feelings. Respect him for who he is. Let him show you that guys on the whole can be a pretty wonderful gender, once they grow up.

Whether any of these guys admits it or not, they are generally fascinated by you and the mysterious changes that are happening in you — not only your new figure and the natural swing that has swung into your walk, but your blossoming maturity and your confidence that may be way ahead of theirs. You are far more different from them than you have ever been before, and they are both entranced by that and terrified of it.

Which means that regardless how they come off, they are afraid of you to some degree — because you have an effect on them you don’t even know about. Without even realizing it, you make them blush and trip over their feet and stutter like Porky Pig. You think you are awkward around them? That’s nothing compared to the goofy way they feel every time you walk by with your female secrets. So what do they do with that?

Flit like crazed moths from girl to girl.

Pretend they don’t notice you.

Act like men and then realize they’re acting like men and scare themselves and regress into little boys.

Salivate over girls who wouldn’t give them the time of day.

Look for approval from guys who are just as clueless as they are.

Spit out of car windows, wear ball caps over their eyes, walk around with their shoelaces untied.

There is no end to the romantic gestures.

You’re changing too fast so they fall back on what has always worked: confusing the daylights out of you. At the same time, they want to touch you. Some of them will do it whenever possible. From “accidental” brushes in the halls to full-out hugs in the corners. From arm wrestling challenges to picking you up and carrying you around. From a poke in the side when something’s mildly amusing, to an arm around your shoulders that stays there. Mostly, they’re testing out their former theory that girls were just soft boys. They seem to need a lot of tests.

Day by day, though, they’re maturing. More and more you’ll see them breaking from their pack where they have to act according to the code and making themselves available for real conversation. You’ll find out that one actually reads when his grade doesn’t depend on it. That he likes the same music you do. That he isn’t so much into sports as he is sci-fi or movies or camping, which doesn’t exactly disappoint you. You might discover he has a sense of humor. That he cares about what you have to say. That he shares your faith.

Get him back with his buddies and he may not own up to any of the above, but one-on-one, he and others like him will become easier to get to know. Their energy won’t freak you out anymore. It may make you feel softer, or glowy-er, or more confident. That’s chemistry, and it’s nice.

Of course, almost the minute you think guys might not have slime for brains after all, you come up against one who won’t leave your complexion alone (“How’s it going, Pizza Face??”) or who mocks you every time you raise your hand in class, and actually talks to you as if you’re a guy. (“Dude, don’t you do anything but study?”) But that kind does grow fewer and farther between. The good guys start outnumbering the bad.

The Twitter Version

Instead of being hard on the male gender as a whole, look at each guy as an individual. That’s what you want them to do with you, right?

Then they present different problems. Not paying as much attention to you as you’re willing to give them. Treating you like a treasure at church when his cronies aren’t around and acting like you’ve become extinct when you see him at a soccer game, surrounded by his fellow belchers.

Still, there’s hope for them. Though not all of them. Some will always be immune to being civilized when it comes to women. Some will take longer than others to realize they have to treat a girl like more than a good time or a casual possession if they want to have a relationship. But many of them will get it, a few even before their teen years are over, more by the time they hit their mid-twenties.

So in the meantime, what do you do with this sometimes maddening situation? Interesting enough, God has some answers for you. God did, after all, create them that way.

What was he thinking?

God on Guys

In the garden of Eden, Eve was lucky. The way the story unfolds in the Bible, she didn’t have to grow up with boys becoming men. She came into being as a full-grown woman, made perfectly for a full-grown guy.

Really ticks you off about the whole eating the forbidden fruit and being thrown out of the garden thing, doesn’t it? We could have had it so good! But the point is that God truly did create men and women to be completely different.

“Male and female he created them,” the first creation story says (Genesis 1:27).

In the second account, God first makes the man out of dust and puts him in the garden alone. Then God realizes that’s not working, which is the only time in either telling that God declares something he has done to be anything but “very good.” “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). So God creates a woman out of one of Adam’s ribs and presents her to him, and Adam is more than pleased (Genesis 2:18 – 24).

From the beginning, then, God intended for men and women to be different from each other. Hard as that is sometimes, it’s a given. You can fight it, or you can accept it and celebrate those differences, because there it is. Unfortunately, God doesn’t present your intended partner to you fully mature and say, “Here you are, bone of each other’s bone, flesh of each other’s flesh.” You’ve got to go through the burping and the bragging and the baffling behavior. Fortunately, God’s there to help.

One other detail of the creation-of-humans story is essential to getting through these years:

“So God created humankind in his image …” (Genesis 1:27).

And just to be sure you don’t miss it —

In the image of God he created them.”

Then the story says:

“Male and female he created them.”

Guys, as crass and confusing and confoundedly cute as they can sometimes be, are created in the image of God, just like you. The potential for awesome maturity and breathtaking character and splendid integrity lies deep in every one of them. Deeper in some than others, I’ll give you that, but there nevertheless.

So not only will it make your life easier to try to understand guys and cut them some slack, you have an obligation to do it. Jesus underscores that much later, in the Gospel of Matthew, where he says:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matthew 7:1 – 2).

When you think about this in terms of guys, it kind of gives new meaning to the following verse about not pointing out the speck in your neighbor’s eye before you remove the big ol’ honkin’ log in your own, doesn’t it? Here we are saying, “Guys are so fickle! Guys are totally confusing! Guys are immature!” But have we noticed the stuff we do to them? A few insights from my teen guy informants:

“I’ll like a girl because of the way she acts, and then when she finds out I like her, she’ll act totally different.”

“Girls can be so cruel when you ask them out, like, ‘Uh, NO!’, so if I like a girl, I just wait to see if she likes me first.”

“Some girls think we’re all the same, and we’re not.”

“A girl can totally twist your words. Like if she shows you a new dress she got and asks what you think and you say it looks nice and you go back to texting or watching a movie, the girl says ‘You don’t like it?’ That annoys me because that’s not what I said and now I sound like a jerk.”

Over and over I hear that when a guy likes a girl, he’ll try to help her out with things, like homework. Or he’ll try to talk to her or text her frequently to get to know her better. The problem is when guys do this, girls seem to have the opposite of the desired response. As one girl put it, “When a guy likes you, he just makes hints and hangs on you.”

Go figure.

The Twitter Version

God made guys the way they are for a reason. We may not get it, but we gotta go with it. They are a God-thing too.

Making It Real

The next logical step — and yes, there is a certain logic to understanding guys — is to do some observing. You’ll want to do this unobtrusively, of course. Staring at a guy and then whipping out your notepad and jotting things down isn’t the best approach. Just be intentional about noticing these kinds of things when you’re around boys and see how it affects your view of them.

Their attempts at being funny — successful or not. Several of the teen guys I’ve interviewed said they purposely make jokes around a girl they like. If the girl likes the guy back, she’ll usually laugh even though he’s being “dumb and corny.” (Hey, he said it, not me!) Does that make them seem less obnoxious and more, well, sort of endearing?

Their willingness to help. It can be pretty annoying when a guy acts like he knows everything and has no problem telling you, but a lot of times, if you listen carefully, he’s trying to fix your problem. “You’re using an outdated version of Windows” doesn’t mean, “You’re stupid when it comes to computers.” It means, “I want to share my expertise with you because I want to impress you.” Is there something so wrong about someone wanting you to notice them? Wanting you to know what’s unique about him? Is that being phony, or just wanting to show himself in his best light? Don’t you do the same thing?

What seems to push them away. Do you notice any guys registering this in their body language?

“Girls put on all this makeup, and to be honest, we don’t care. We’d rather see their real faces.”

“I hate it when a girl sends me a message on Facebook, and when I don’t answer right away she sends me two more.”

“It drives me nuts when girls change who they are just so you’ll like them. I wish girls would just be them.”

“I want to say to girls, ‘Don’t play mind games, because most of us can’t figure you out. That’s what we like about you, but don’t try to rule us with it.’”

When you think about it, aren’t their complaints valid? Can you see how avoiding those behaviors would give you a better chance of getting to know the real guy who’s in there behind the scowling and the eye-rolling?

Give it a shot and see what happens. As you do, keep these two direct quotes from sixteen-year-old guys right in the front of your mind:

“Our minds are different, and we cannot read yours.”

“We can be really stupid at times. We may even say the wrong thing and hurt your feelings accidentally. But that doesn’t mean we hate you and don’t care about you.”

I think they speak for themselves, yes?

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

Keeping in mind the guidelines I offered in the parenting section of chapter one, take the next step and ask your folks for their advice.

No, really, I’m serious. Your mom and dad have been there, or you wouldn’t exist. So, yeah, the world has changed dramatically since they were teens, but human nature is the same as it’s always been. If possible, consult your dad (the former boy) on why guys act the way they do. Query your mom about her experiences with the male gender in her day. Tell them you’re gathering data and want their input.

If you want them to feel respected and valued by you, this won’t do it:

“Everything’s different now than it was back then.” (Insert “WAY back then” and you’re toast.)

This might get you some useful information:

“You were my age once, so, like, what did you do when_____?”

Obviously if you just do it to lull them into a false sense of security while you go ahead and do whatever you jolly well please, this won’t be effective. Your parents weren’t born yesterday. They’re going to see through insincerity and you’ll be worse off than you were before you tried to have this conversation. Jot down some questions you really want answers to that your parents’ past might actually give you some insights on.

How did you two meet?

What was it like when you were dating?

Did your parents approve?

Did you like each other at first sight?

When did each of you start to get interested in guy/girls?

Were you ever as clueless as I feel?

Then prepare to be surprised, if not delighted. You might actually see your parents in a whole new light — one that might even enlighten you.

The Twitter Version

Parents can be a great source of advice about guys if you get over yourself and ask.

If I’m Totally Honest …

There is at least one change I could make in my attitude toward boys in general … okay, maybe two … which is:

3
“I Feel Like a Geek.”

Understanding guys — as much as any girl is able to, right? — can help you feel at least a little bit less like an alien around them. But “a little bit” doesn’t really cut it in situations like these from the lives of your sisters in confusion:

“I was at this church fun night thing, and me and the guy I sort of like were there. I think I lost my head and went a little wacko. I was giving him hugs (I wanted to kick myself) and following him and yelling while I was looking for him. I was so embarrassed, especially when I found out he doesn’t even like me. Ugh!”

“There’s this new guy at church, and I’d like to get to know him just as a person because he seems interesting. He’s not like all the other guys and is kind of a geek, but he seems comfortable in his own skin, which I think is pretty cool. He doesn’t try to dress and act like the typical teenage boy, you know what I mean? My problem is I don’t know what I should say. When I talk to my friends, I usually tease and joke with them, but I’m not sure how much of this I can do with him without seeming like I’m flirty or something.”

“Why is it that some girls are completely comfortable hanging out with guys? There’s a girl in my youth group who’s definitely like that. She doesn’t really flirt, but guys seem to want to talk to her anyway. She’s skinny and pretty and has shampoo commercial hair. Do you think guys hang out with her for that? Should I watch her and try to do what she does?”

The girls who posted these comments on my blog are ordinarily independent, confident, put-together young women. Get a guy in there, though, and suddenly they freeze up or go in the other direction and freak out. In short, they just can’t seem to be who they usually are.

Sound familiar? Girls have confessed to all of the following. Maybe you can relate to …

fainting in front of the guy you like. (That’s one way to get his attention.)

generally jabbering on about nothing (and later feeling like an idiot).

giggling hysterically for no apparent reason (while wishing something large would fall on your head and stop you).

clamming up for fear of looking like you’re flirting (even though, really, you just want to be friendly).

staying totally away from a guy you actually like because you’re afraid of getting too attached (even though you stood up in front of the whole class in third grade and announced which boy in there you were going to marry).

never being able to think fast enough to say something smart or witty. (Ten minutes later, of course, when he’s long gone, you’re practically Tina Fey.)

feeling your heart rate go up, unable to make eye contact with anything but the ground (and if other people are there watching, you’re basically headed for a coronary).

falling over a trash can while watching your crush out of the corner of your eye (or landing in his lap in a camp chair because your legs gave out at the nearness of him).

Seriously, what is up with all the klutziness around guys? They’re just people, right? Why can’t we just act normal around them?

How much time ya got?

Actually before we go into reasons (there are many) and solutions (there are a few), let’s check out what your comfort level is when it comes to guys.

What’s Going on with Me?

Read each of the following statements and choose the response that best fits you. Don’t forget to be completely honest with yourself. Your answers won’t be good or bad; they’ll just be you.

1. When I’m in a group of people I know that includes guys I …

a. love it!

b. can actually speak without being convinced that some guy is going to say, “Where did you come from?”

c. stay quiet and hope nobody thinks my breathing is weird.

d. wouldn’t be there. At all.

2. When I wind up being one-on-one with a guy I …

a. am jazzed.

b. know I’m going to say something stupid, but give it my best shot anyway.

c. might be able to get out an entire sentence without hyperventilating.

d. am out of there.

3. When I like a guy as a friend I …

a. hang with him the same way I do with a girlfriend (except maybe for the conversation topics!).

b. am a little bit on guard because I don’t want him to think it’s something else.

c. wouldn’t even know where to start making friends with him.

d. don’t know any guys I would want as friends.

4. When I have a crush on a guy, I …

a. turn on the charm and see where it goes.

b. suddenly can’t think of a thing to say to him—or say ridiculous things I can’t believe came out of my mouth.

c. avoid him, because liking somebody that much freaks me out.

d. Crush? You’re kidding, right?

5. My crush …

a. knows I like him; I make sure of that!

b. thinks we’re just friends (acquaintances?), because I’m scared for him to know I like him. I mean, what if he doesn’t like me back?

c. doesn’t know my name; make that my first initial.

d. doesn’t exist. Ew.

6. To me, the difference between flirting with a guy and just being friendly is …

a. not there; they’re the same thing, aren’t they?

b. flirting is for somebody you have a crush on, and being friendly is for friends.

c. flirting is fake and being friendly is real.

d. nothing. They both sound like trouble to me.

7. When it comes to a boyfriend …

a. I’ve already had one (maybe two).

b. I’m so not ready.

c. I can’t imagine a guy wanting to be my boyfriend.

d. Don’t even take me there.

Count up your a’s, b’s, c’s, and d’s, and let’s see what they tell you about how this chapter can work for you.

If you had a number of a’s (at least three or four), you’re pretty much at home in guy world, and you probably make guys feel at ease around you too. You might be tempted to skip this chapter, but don’t. Your natural boy-magnet status has some potential to lead you into situations you don’t mean to get into, and the following chapter can point out the warning signs. It will also give you info for helping your more guy-challenged friends.

If you had a number of b’s (at least three or four), you may feel like a geek a lot of the time, but you’re farther along than you think. In fact, the caution you feel can serve you well. Still, you may be missing out on some of the fun of having guys as friends or enjoying a crush, so read on. A little confidence-building can go a long way.

If you had a number of c’s (at least three or four), being around guys still paralyzes you. But that doesn’t mean your social life is doomed. In this chapter, you’ll see how to relax and find friendship among those formerly absurd boys, without getting into the romance that currently freezes your personality. There’s plenty of time for romance later.

If you had a number of d’s (at least three or four), you avoid guys whenever possible, either because all the ones you know have the maturity of newborn weasels, or you’ve had or seen some things go down that make you want to have no part of anything boy related. It’s actually impressive that you’ve gotten this far in the book! Keep reading. You’ll need this info eventually, and

What the Guys Say

The ways you can tell a girl feels awkward are:

“She doesn’t talk to you. At all.”

“She changes the subject a lot.”

“She doesn’t finish her sentences.”

“It’s easy to get her to blush and look away”

“Her cheeks go to bright-red-tomato stage.”

when that time comes, you may be able to skip the awkward stage completely.

Wherever you are, you don’t have to stay there. The why and the what next can help you move into a more confident place.

Guydlines

There are as many reasons for becoming a complete ditz around a guy you like or amid a bevy of boys as there are girls experiencing that annoying phenomenon. A few general principles might be of help to everybody:

1. The early teen years are generally awkward anyway. While some girls escape it (the luckies), most have trouble from time to time keeping fast-growing legs, arms, and feet under control. Your center of gravity is changing and your body doesn’t move exactly the way it always has, so there’s that to get used to. And then you have all this stuff that you’re not entirely comfortable with yet. Budding breasts. Spreading hips. More curves in general. Not to mention the things you’re sure you’ll never be at ease with, that make you feel like an extraterrestrial: Skin that makes YOU think you look like you’ve been nailed with a double pepperoni (though nobody else sees it that way). A nose that suddenly seems out of proportion to your face (that was my issue). Trouble finding clothes that fit because your weight and height haven’t equaled out yet. Hair that needs to be degreased like three times a day. Whose idea was it to have all this start just when you actually want to look cute for the opposite sex? Even if you’re magazine-cover-girl material, you’re probably still ultra-critical of your appearance, which can’t help but make you self-conscious. Feeling self-conscious then manifests itself in acting like a klutz.

2. Boys seem to bring that basic awkwardness out in girls like the sun brings out freckles, puberty brings in pimples, evil brothers bring on fangs — you get the idea. Guys’ new energy is unsettling, and you don’t know what to do with it yet. It’s not that much different from learning a new dance move or soccer skill or cheerleading routine. Just about everybody struggles with it at first.

3. You don’t know what the results of your actions are going to be. Kind of reminds you of walking down a dark street at night. Something unexpected could jump out at you or come up on you from behind, so you creep along all crouched, looking over your shoulder, startling at every sound. You can’t relax and take it in stride because you have no idea what’s going to happen in this potentially dangerous situation. Not to make guys out to be stalkers, but for some girls the feelings of not knowing what will happen are similar.

“What if I let a guy get to know me and then he asks me out? I’m not allowed to date yet and I’m afraid I’ll hurt his feelings or he’ll think I led him on.”

“What if I’m just friendly and some guy thinks I’m flirting, then he tells everybody and I get a bad reputation?”

“What if I try to talk to a guy and he ignores me?”

“What if I start a conversation with a guy and he looks at me like, ‘Why would I want to talk to you?’”

“What if I say something totally dumb, and I have to just … change schools or something?”

4. It seems to matter so much. When you were younger, most of your self-esteem came from being accepted by your girlfriends and knowing that you belonged. You also had your parents and siblings, your activities, maybe your church family, and you were good to go. Now it seems like a lot of the girls you know are turning to guys to make them feel worthy and accepted. It’s like the ones who have boyfriends are on a higher plane than the ones who don’t. If a guy has a crush on you, then you must have something going on. If a lot of guys are friends with you, that means you’re cool, and we gotta be cool or die, right? Whether having relationships of any kind with guys actually matters to you, it matters in the world you live in. And when something is significant, it tends to make us nervous.

What the Guys Say

“I can’t tell if a girl’s flirting with me. I feel stupid when think she is and then find out she isn’t.”

Think about the way you feel when you go into a championship game or take the stage for your solo or sit down for a final exam. How you perform matters, and consequently the potential to choke and fail goes up about five notches. You like the boy, and it matters whether or not the boy likes you, which makes you anxious, so you do whatever it is you do when you get nervous (giggle, babble, pull in like a turtle), and, voila! … you feel like a geek.

It happens so fast you don’t even have time to think about it. Until an hour later when you’re beating yourself up and thinking you will die a spinster, blah, blah, blah. It’s a wonder you can even squeak out a syllable in the presence of testosterone.

Obviously, the first thing to get a handle on is the mistaken idea that your whole worth as a female is wrapped up in whether or not guys find you appealing. That’s really the most ridiculous thing I can think of. Seriously. The world you’re living in right now may be telling you it’s so, but in that respect, the world is totally lying through its teeth. The world doesn’t get to decide the truth of that for you. You get to decide that. You get to decide to believe in and live by a basic truth, and here it is:

Basic Truth #2

Your true worth as a person comes from being loved by God as the unique individual you were made you to be. Nothing the world tells you can compare.

Don’t even think about saying, “Try telling that to the kids at my school.” Or, “You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a loser.” First of all, you think I haven’t been there? Me and about 90 percent of the women who’ve gone through middle and high school since I was a teenager? Talk about your nerds — my picture was next to the word in the dictionary. And yet, like so many people like me, somehow I had guy friends and then boyfriends, and eventually married an amazing man. You can too. But it won’t be because you develop flirting skills or find a way to “fake it ‘til you make it” or have a complete makeover.

It will be because you find your worth in who God made you to be out of total and unconditional love for you. Anything else is like plastic surgery on your soul.

Did I mention that it probably isn’t going to be easy? That you might not truly blossom until you’re in your twenties? That being the Scarlett O’Hara of the 21st century may not be a role you’ll ever play? (You’ve heard of Gone with the Wind, right? About the chick who turned getting any man she wanted into an exact science?) Finding out who God made you to be and being that (instead of the false self we all tend to put on to try to cope with soul-stripping things like bullies, exhausted teachers, and a toxic culture) is a lifelong process. The beginning, now, is the hardest because teenagers can be critical, judgmental, narrow-minded, and thoughtless — present company excepted, of course. If you feel “different” you might think there is nowhere to run, nowhere to express that, no place where that’s okay. But you can still do it. In terms of the guy scene, here’s what that looks like:

What the Guys Say

“When a girl just happens to be sad and needs a hug when you walk by, that’s flirting. When she just acts like a normal person and laughs with you, she’s being friendly.”

Work on getting to the place in your mind where you can say, “Whether that boy (or boys in general) likes me doesn’t make me or break me as a person. I’m pretty cool just being me. Really. I am.”

Stop watching TV or reading magazines for a while if you have to, and avoid conversations with friends about who likes who. Getting yourself clear often means dumping all the influences that muddy your thinking.

Start looking at boys not as dangerous creatures you have to stay unattached from so you won’t get in trouble or get your heart broken, but as potential friends, just the way you see girls as potential BFFs.

If even thinking about a guy as a friend ties your tongue into a square knot, start small. Is there some guy you’d like to get to know, just because he’s a great person? What is it about him that interests you? Ask him about that. Tell him why you find that fascinating. The fact that boys love to talk about themselves definitely works in your favor! If he acts like you’re bothering him or like he thinks you’re trying to flirt with him, you don’t need him as your friend. That behavior says nothing about you and everything about him — as in, he has an ego the size of Montana. Move on.

Watch the girls who seem completely comfortable hanging out with guys. What do they do that you think is appropriate and fun and something you’d like to be able to do? On the other hand, what do they do that makes you think, “I could never do that. I don’t even want to do that.” For instance, you may admire the girl who can say to a guy without stumbling over her words, “Okay, it’s obvious you’re the only one in class who’s getting this algebraic equation thing, so here’s the deal — will you tutor me?” But you may be completely turned off by the girl who snuggles up to the guy in the cafeteria line and says, “I need you to be my protector today.” I mean, really? Your best instincts will tell you to steer clear of the Miss I-Need-Your-Protection approach. A guy may seem to like the shamelessly flirty approach, but the relationship usually doesn’t go too far from there. It’s based on a game that can only be played for so long. But watching the genuine girl will demonstrate how to relate to guys according to your own authentic personality. If you’re bubbly and fun, there’s nothing wrong with telling him something hysterical you just saw go down in the hall. If you’re more scholarly and he is too, strike up a conversation about the upcoming midterm. If you share a sarcastic wit, compare websites that cause LOL reflexes to kick in. He’s a unique person, so are you. How else are you going to get to him know him if you don’t show him who you are?

What if you have an actual crush on a guy, somebody you feel different around than you do the guys you just want to be friends with? A crush tends to bring out a girl’s most bizarre behavior. The proverbial butterflies in the stomach seem to have a direct link with the blush reflex, the immobilized or runaway tongue, the loss of cognitive function. Just when you really want to show him what you’re made of, suddenly what you’re made of is Jell-O. What then?

As with guy friends, try to keep it in perspective. Ask yourself where you really want this to go. Are you ready for a boyfriend? Do you hope this crush morphs into a relationship? Do you know what that will involve? Would your parents even approve? Or do you just want to enjoy the feeling and admire Crush Boy from afar and giggle about it with your friends? (The ones you trust with your life, unless you want your feelings broadcast with the morning announcements.) In either case, remind yourself that this cutie you’re crushing on is 99 percent sure not to be the guy you spend the rest of your life with. As aflutter as you feel around him, you’re not in love with him. The this-matters quotient is not very high. See these feelings and gentle flirtations for what they are: a fun part of being a young girl. Enjoy the glow.

What the Guys Say

“When a girl’s flirty, she’s more touchy You can’t joke around with her the way you can with a girl who’s your friend.”

By the way, for those of you determined to save not only your body but your heart for your future husband … if you do develop a crush on someone who obviously isn’t going to be your life partner, don’t tell yourself you’re “cheating” on the one who someday will be. I can’t tell you how many girls have emailed me, feeling guilty because they get weak-kneed over a guy at thirteen or fourteen. “Shouldn’t I be guarding my heart?” they want to know. Yeah, you should. But “guarding” it means don’t give it away. Having a crush is more like feeling your pulse race, not offering up your still-beating coronary organ on a platter. Once again, don’t fight how you feel. Just make wise choices about what you do with those feelings.

Some advice on handling a crush:

Get to know him as a friend. A crush can be blinding. While you’re checking out those great shoulders and dreamy eyes, you might miss the fact that he’s rude to teachers or always grabs the biggest piece of pizza at youth group. A crush is just infatuation if you don’t really know the guy.

I advise against chasing Mr. Hottie. It’s one thing to conveniently arrive at math class the same instant he does. It’s another to text him every possible minute and plant yourself outside the locker room door when he’s going out for soccer practice. Let the time you spend together happen naturally. Even though these days it’s accepted that girls call guys, teen boys don’t always like for the girl to take the lead, old-fashioned as that sounds. You could take your own survey among boys who are your friends, or your older brother’s friends, and see what they say. Count on at least one of them to come up with, “It depends on the girl.” He’s no help. The days of waiting by the phone for the boy to call might be over, but the pursuing ought to be at least equal. If he isn’t texting back, give it up.

What the Guys Say

“When a girl flirts, she compliments you on every little insignificant thing you do. It can seem really fake.”

Complicated intrigue isn’t a good idea either. Like asking your friend, who is a third cousin to a guy that used to be your crush’s best friend, to find out if your crush likes you. Or getting him to notice you and then pretending you don’t notice him to see if he really wants to get to know you. Seriously, at this age, most guys aren’t going to work that hard. Besides, if you really want to have a good friendship with him, why mess with his head? If you’re bored, find a hobby! Surely you’ve seen games played, and seen them mess up what could have been a cool relationship. It doesn’t have to happen.

About the worst thing you can do with a guy you’re crushing on is try to act the way you think you need to act to get his attention if it isn’t who you really are. If he seems to go for outgoing girls and you’re the quieter type, then suddenly laughing uproariously in the lunchroom or trying to do a stand-up comedy routine in the middle of youth group might get him to notice you, but what are you going to do after that? Keep pretending to be the life of the party when you’d actually rather die than be in the spotlight? The truth’s going to some out sooner or later. The same goes for playing the part of the helpless female when you’re feisty and independent, or dressing like a hoochie mama because you’ve seen him drool over girls in jeans that fit like a second skin. Okay, so, no, you don’t totally know who you are yet, but you do know who you’re not. Don’t go there — or he’ll be noticing a girl who really isn’t you.

What the Guys Say

“It really bugs me when a girl follows me everywhere.”

It’s so delicious to think about him, flirt with him, tell your girlfriends what he said and what you said. Those will be feelings you’ve never had before and you’ll savor them. But if you find that they’re keeping you from, oh, doing your homework, spending quiet time with God, sleeping … you’ll definitely want to pray for God to help you refocus in a healthy way. Think about it. Married people who are crazy in love and have committed their entire lives to each other still go to work, nurture other friendships, and go for hours without contacting each other on Facebook. Boys are just one part of your life. You don’t have to do anything at all if you have a crush. If you leave it alone — or even if you don’t! — I guarantee it will fade eventually. Many times, if a girl has a crush on a guy, it’s because she senses that he likes her too, which can lead to a friendship that’ll last or an attempt at a boyfriend-girlfriend thing that usually dies out at some point. We are not talking serious here. Keep that in mind.

If you do want to get to know your crush and find out if he has the same feelings for you, one of the things you’ll want to understand is the concept of flirty vs. friendly. That also goes for those of you who like to hang out with mixed groups. The question always arises: Is it all right to flirt and joke around with guys? Or is that leading them on?

What the Guys Say

“Whether it’s flirting or being friendly depends on the girl’s intention. Friendly girls are everywhere, and just because they smile and are polite doesn’t mean they like you. Flirting is a step beyond friendly, where you hold each other’s gaze, talk in a way that shows you’re interested, and smile a lot.”

Some definitions can help you here.

To flirt, according to the dictionary, is to “throw quickly and jerkily” or to “wave back and forth quickly, as the bird flirted its tail.” It isn’t hard to see how the next definition developed: “to play at love without serious intentions.” Ya gotta love that. When a girl flirts, she’s like a bird, waving her little self back and forth. A quick dive in and then just as quickly back out. Nothing serious. Just play.

Looking at it that way, flirting could be a harmless, fun thing. Grabbing his ball cap and running off squealing while he chases you, the same way he pretends to bump into you as he’s getting on the bus and then grins in that sort of heart-melting way. You’re both throwing a cute little piece of yourself out there just to see what happens.

Or you could see it as dangerous. Toying with something shallow and meaningless. Just trying to get attention. Starting something you have no intention of finishing.

The word “intention” is the word that’ll help you out here. It all comes down to why a person flirts. I can think of five reasons why girls do it. (I’m not sure if these apply to boys too. They probably aren’t sure either, to tell you the truth.)

Girls may flirt because:

They like attention from boys.

Depending on how guys respond, they’ll find out if they’re attractive to the opposite sex without getting into heavy heartbreak.

It keeps things light. They want to have fun with boys without all the trauma and drama of a relationship.

They hope it’ll lead to something more.

They have no idea, except that it makes them feel good.

Those reasons can be looked at in a number of different ways. Take getting attention from boys, for instance. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Is there something wrong with wanting to be noticed? Does it say somewhere in the Bible that the good people sit in a corner and try not to be looked at? If you have the urge to say, “I don’t want to have to flirt and play games to get some guy to notice me,” then flirting isn’t for you. Just be careful about judging the girl who does flirt when she interacts with boys. Quite frankly, drawing on a guy’s arm with a Sharpie while he pretends to protest and is obviously loving it is not comparable to making out with the guy in the lunch room. The flirter isn’t lowering herself. She’s having a great time. So is he. A Sharpie war isn’t leading them into a serious relationship they aren’t ready to handle. It’s a drawing with a permanent marker, not the road to marriage.

What happens sometimes is that those who aren’t good at flirting don’t get that it comes naturally to some girls. They don’t understand that inherently flirtatious girls aren’t consciously scheming to snag a guy who doesn’t want to be snagged. Yeah, some girls do make absolute fools of themselves chasing after boys who couldn’t care less. Those girls have a self-esteem thing going on and need our prayer, not our condemnation. But those girls who just enjoy the company of boys in a playful way are not committing a sin. Not having “serious intentions” is exactly where you want to be at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen!

What about the testing aspect — the finding out whether you’re attractive to the opposite sex? It is normal, natural, hormonal, and God-ordained that you want boys to think you’re pretty, fun, and great to be with. If we stop caring whether men want to be with us, humanity will die out. Whether you’re interested in dating or have decided to wait until you’re older to court or whatever, you probably wouldn’t feel horrible if you found out a boy liked you. You’ve probably had some doubts about whether you’re “going to be able to attract a (future) husband.” That need to know is in there, and it’s human.

So as we’ve said, flirting isn’t good or bad in itself. It’s all about what you intend by doing it. There are other behaviors that people confuse with flirting that just aren’t — and they need to be avoided. I’ve narrowed them down to three:

Acting sleazy with boys. That means body language, actual language-language, ways of dressing, and intentions that suggest the girl has sex on her mind. It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to go over and say, “Honey, you’re so much better than that. Can we go to God with this right now? Oh, and would you put some clothes on first?” That isn’t flirting, it’s seduction. There’s never a place for that when you’re an unmarried woman. And definitely not when you’re a teenager. Yikes.

Being fake with boys. This involves doing things that so aren’t you, just to make a connection. Actually, fake is never a good idea in any kind of normal interaction with people. Some girls are more comfortable getting to know a guy by starting with something light and on-the-surface before they get to their shared interests, but that something light should always reveal a true personality trait, not one you’re pretending to have.

Leading boys on. This is purposefully giving a guy the impression that you like him, when you have no intention of doing anything but playing with his affections. Never a good thing. That seems to happen when a girl is not so much interested in getting to know a boy as she is proving that she can have any guy she wants. Ya gotta have deep compassion for that, because usually it means there’s something painful or empty happening inside.

Flirting isn’t any of those. Nor is it an absolute essential. You are not less-than-a-real-girl if you don’t flirt, and you are not a phony if you do. It’s all about keeping your motives pure and your actions true to who you are, not who the world says every girl has to be.

What if as you’re reading all this you get that funky, sinking feeling that some of applies to you? Maybe you’re realizing that you try to shape yourself to be some guy’s ideal, or you are sort of “addicted” to getting male attention just because you can? If that’s the case, don’t beat yourself up. Go to God with it. Ask for God’s help with being more real. Being aware is half the battle won. God can assist with the other half, which is exactly where we’re going next.

What the Guys Say

“To me, it goes beyond flirting when a girl starts wanting to know you personally—starts showing you that she wants to know who you are.”

The Twitter Version

Being as close to your true self as possible is what guys really like and what God likes. You’ll like it that way too.

Hopefully you’re feeling less awkward and unsure already. To really bring it home, we need God. Let’s go there now.

God on Guys

I hope those insights and that advice take the edge off of your nervousness around guys. Some of it simply involves a shift in thinking. More of it has to do with what you really know, what beliefs determine how you behave. Not head-beliefs, but heart-knowing.

That is so hard. Even Paul had issues with it.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).

He totally gets the concept of knowing in your head but not being able to act on what you know. In fact, he goes on for nine more verses making sure we get it. Fortunately, he offers a solution, which I think applies to the guy-things we’re talking about. He says in verses 24 and 25:

“Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Much as it may feel like it at times, your relationship with guys doesn’t constitute a “body of death,” but we’ve established that it does matter and can mess with your mind. The rescue comes from our Lord. Okay, no, he doesn’t swoop in and put the right words in your mouth or give you a flash of what the object of your affections is thinking or steer you away from making a spectacle of yourself in front of Mr. Cutie …

Or does he? Paul goes on to point out that you don’t have to be ruled by your “flesh” anymore. You don’t have to obey the sweaty palms and the desperate dry mouth that come from being afraid you’ll be rejected and forever unloved. He says, and ya gotta love this:

“You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9).

God has already “swooped in” and will give you the words if you’re paying attention. Maybe not audibly, but by showing you the real person you’ve been made to be. It’s like this:

You spend time everyday focusing on God. As a result, you see who you are. That means you behave more like you. And more like you. And more like you. So that when a new, oh-this-matters situation comes up, you barely have to think about what you’re going to do or say. It’s there. The Spirit of God dwells in you.

This obviously doesn’t mean you’ll never make a mistake or blurt out something inane or realize you’ve daydreamed yourself into iffy territory. It does mean that it will be natural for you to scurry back to God and get centered again on who God made you to be.

And that’s going to be absolutely essential, because the only person you have any control over whatsoever is you. Being indwelt with the Holy Spirit isn’t going to change how guys generally behave around you. It isn’t going to alter the culture’s attitude about all things male and female. You’re going to have to take cover sometimes and remember God’s only a breath away.

However, and this is good news, the more you are your authentic God-made self around the individual guys that you know, the easier it’s going to be for them to be who they really are. They might not know why, mind you, but it’s a start. One of my favorite quotes of all time is attributed to Francis of Assisi, who was reported as saying, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Just by being who you truly are, you spread this good word:

“Whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves” (John 1:9, The Message).

God’s got your back on this. And your front. And your inside. The more you hang with God in concentrated chunks of time, the more deeply you’re going to know that. And it’s going to show. You won’t necessarily become prom queen (although you can’t rule that out …), but you’ll be comfortable with who you are. And even if not every guy will realize it, there is nothing more attractive than an authentic human being.

Know it. It is a basic truth.

Basic Truth #3

The only power you truly have is the power to be who you were made by God to be.

Making It Real

“The whole guy thing with me is WAY better than it used to be. I don’t have any desperate crushes on any guys. I don’t think about guys 24/7. And I’m not all freaked out when I have to talk to a guy like he’s an alien. I used to not talk to guys at all. But now that’s all fine … I mean, sometimes I still find myself slipping, and I have to ask God to help me focus on him. But my attitude towards guys in general is way better than it used to be.”

What a great place to be, huh? Every girl can get there. It’s a matter of taking one step at a time. If you want to inch forward, you can try any of the steps below that apply to you. Or just think about them and pray about them for when you’re ready.

If you feel like you completely lose your personality when you’re around a boy, name one reason why the real you, the you that you’re most comfortable being in other situations, wouldn’t be accepted by that boy. Just one reason. I bet you can’t do it. What does that tell you? If you can name one trait that a particular guy would snicker at, consider whether he’s somebody you want to be friends with anyway.

If you have a crush a mile wide on a guy, but you either turn into a zombie when you’re with him or can’t stop running off at the mouth about nothing, imagine him saying to you, “Let’s be friends. You wanna hang out?” (Remember, I said “imagine”!) How would you act around him then?

If you find yourself developing an instant crush on any guy who looks your way, make a list of the characteristics of the perfect guy to spend time with as a friend. You might include something like, “A sense of humor that isn’t based on putting people down,” or “Is pretty much friendly to everybody, not just ‘the cool kids.’ “ If a crush comes close to that list, think about being friends with him. If he doesn’t, you might be more in love with love itself. Watch a chick flick instead!

If guys fall for you even when you’re just being friendly, get a trusted friend to tell you what she sees when you’re around boys. Does your friendliness look like flirting? Like you’re interested in being a girlfriend? Is there anything you want to change? Or do you think guys just need to get a clue? This is going to require some big-time honesty from both you and your friend.

If you’re convinced all guys are jerks, choose one guy you know of and study him (without him knowing it, obviously). See if you can come up with one thing about him that doesn’t totally annoy you. Got that? Try another one. This exercise isn’t designed to make you boy crazy. It’s to help you see that guys are decent human beings inside there somewhere.

Remember, these are just baby steps, not magic solutions. Every road is traveled by putting one foot in front of the other.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

One of the hardest things about the awkward-with-boys stage is that it often feels so lonely. You can become convinced that you’re the only girl who isn’t beating guys off with a stick, which leads to being too embarrassed to talk to your friends about it, especially if they seem to get male attention just by showing up. Before you know it, you’ve lost all perspective and have come to the conclusion that no guy is ever going to look your way. If you’re a boy magnet yourself, it might be hard to discuss your issues with your friends because all they can say is, “You can have any guy you want. Don’t even go there with me!”

What you need is someone to talk to who loves you unconditionally and has probably been there before you. Who meets those qualifications better than your parents?

Before you protest, hear me out.

We’ve already established that some parents get nervous (okay, they freak out) when daughters get interested in boys. Moms and dads simply want to protect their girls from getting hurt and messing up their lives. They sometimes make quantum leaps, in this case from “She thinks guys are cute” to “She is going to get pregnant and all our dreams for her will go down the tubes.” That’s no different than you going directly from “I just don’t know what to say to boys” to “I’m going to be alone for all time.”

I maintain that you can help each other out with this. See if this makes sense to you:

Your parents need to be reassured that your interest in guys is a normal, healthy part of your development. They need to know what you’re thinking right now—whether you just want some guys as friends, or you want to feel comfortable in a group that has guys in it, or you really, really like a guy and he likes you but you’re not sure where to go with that. They won’t flip out if you go to them with that information, as long as you present it in a way that says, “You’re my parents and I trust you. You’re the people I want to be able to come to with this stuff.” It’s doubtful that anything you tell them is going to be as disturbing as what they fear, believe me.

They may also have some great insights. Maybe your mom was a basket case with guys when she was your age too, and then she gradually found her self-confidence. Just hearing her story could be a huge boost for you. Your dad (previously a teenage boy) could undoubtedly tell you what things made him go “huh?” about teenage girls. He’s the man who loved you first. Once you get him beyond, “No, you don’t like boys. I’m forbidding you to,” he might want to help. Ask him some direct questions. Give him a scenario and see what he thinks.

If the chances of you having a conversation like that with either of your parents are as good as you winning the lottery, start with a different topic. Approach them with something not so close to your heart, like the girl drama you’ve observed or the math teacher who’s giving you nightmares. Show that you really want their wisdom. Give mature feedback when they ask about the things going on in your life. It’ll pave the way for a later discussion about guys.

The Twitter Version

You can change parent talks from lectures to discussions. Just ask the right questions.

Parents don’t willingly stop thinking of their offspring as children. It’s up to you to show your parents that they’re ready for the next level in your relationship. Do it in your most respectful and authentic way, and Mom and Dad will hopefully be ready too.

If I’m Totally Honest …

I think if the right guy knew this about me, he would really like me:

4
“Can We Just Be Friends?”

“Here’s what I want: good guy friends that treat me with respect and just want me to be me.”

I hear that above quote from girls a whole lot more than I hear, “I just want a boyfriend!” And why not? One of my bloggers puts it this way:

“My thing about guys is that I don’t want to get romantically attached to someone at this stage of my life, and there’s a big difference between being romantically attached to a guy and just being … well … attached to him. Kind of like your brother. You’re not attached to the boy romantically, but you’re still mightily attached to him whether you like it or not— whether you even know it. For me, it’s easier to be around guys when you think of them as a bunch of your crazy brothers. You can enjoy them for who they are, because as we with brothers know, it’s impossible to make a brother quit doing the things that drive you utterly insane. You just learn to live with their insanity and have fun with them all the same.”

She makes it sound so reasonable, so simple. So fun. And yet like everything else about guys, somebody somewhere made it complicated.

What the Guys Say

“At least half my friends are girls.”

“The boys in my grade at church aren’t allowed to mix with the girls, and that’s a tad annoying because some of the best friends anyone can have are boys.”

“I’ve always had a lot of guy friends, and I don’t see what the big deal is. But other people think I have all these crushes, especially if I ask a boy for his email address so we can chat back and forth now and then. They make me wonder if it’s even okay to have FRIENDS!”

It is okay. It’s just different from friendships with girls — big surprise, right? If you want guy friends, you can have them. It really is as simple as that. Let’s start with where you are when it comes to boys as buds.

What’s Going On with Me?

After reading each statement, choose the number that matches how true it is for you. There are no right or wrong answers — just honest ones.

5 — totally true

4 — kind of true

3 — I want it to be true

2 — never true

1 — never going to be true

____ 1. I know from experience what kind of friendships you can have with guys.

____ 2. Friendships with guys are great.

____ 3. In some respects, friendships with guys are sometimes better than friendships with other girls.

____ 4. I have friendships with guys no matter what other people say.

____ 5. I’m friends with a guy I used to have a crush on.

____ 6. A guy friend is a friend, not a potential boyfriend.

____ 7. I’m not afraid a guy friend is going to get the idea that I want him as a boyfriend.

____ 8. I like hanging out with groups where there are guys and girls.

____ 9. If a guy I’m friends with goes romantic on me, I know how to handle it.

____ 10. I understand guys a lot better after becoming friends with some.

Add up your numbers and jot down your total: ____ Remember, this is not like a score on the SAT. It just tells you how much you can learn from this chapter.

If your total is between 50 and 43, being friends with guys is as natural for you as breathing. Consider yourself blessed. There are still some things to be aware of so give this chapter a thorough reading. You never know what you might add to your current wisdom.

If your total is between 42 and 35, you’re probably working on it, but you may still have a few doubts. This chapter will help you start to smooth those out. Pay close attention to the sections that focus on your particular questions.

If your total is between 34 and 22, you may dream of those friendships that seem to come so easily to some girls, but you’re still at the wishing stage. If you’re not sure how get beyond that, you’ll find ways to change your thinking so you can count a guy or two among your besties.

If your total is between 23 and 16, this is all still pretty foreign to you. Don’t feel socially challenged! This is just strange new territory, and this chapter can be something of a map. Remember, one step at a time.

If your total is between 17 and 10, chances are you’re squirming in your seat and thinking about not finishing this book! You may have had some experiences that have totally turned you off to guys, or you truly aren’t interested. If you don’t want guys as friends for those reasons, you’re better off waiting. But if you think those friendships are out of the question for you because no guy would want to be your friend, I can safely say you’re wrong. Please, please keep reading and let’s get that self-esteem in shape.

Guydlines

Before we move on, I want to make sure you understand that having guys as friends isn’t a requirement for being a real girl. You’re not a social reject if you choose not to take one on as a buddy. This is all about opening up the possibilities for friendships that could add a whole new dimension to your life.

Why is that? Your peers can tell you.

“I like hanging out with guys because they aren’t as fussy and dramatic as some of my girlfriends. They’re straightforward and honest.” Girls who’ve befriended guys their age say they can talk to them about some things their girlfriends just don’t get. They don’t have to worry about gossip or having every word they say picked apart, because for all their other faults, guys aren’t usually into either of those. There’s very little “walking on eggshells,” as one girl puts it. You’re not going to compete with him for other guys’ attention or for the coolest outfit or the best hair, so there isn’t that to deal with. If you swear him to secrecy, it’s like he’s under oath in a court of law. And as for grudges, some girls say guys don’t hold them. “Have you noticed that’s something girls are particularly good at doing? We hold a grudge against our friend for three days after they get mustard on our fave T-shirt, whereas between guys it seems to last a total thirty seconds!” Basically, most of boys’ lingering absurdity disappears when you let them relax and simply be.

“The more you hang around with guys, the more you’ll get used to just talking. One guy came up to me the other day and said, ‘Do you actually like people this much or are you not normal?’“ If you practically go into a catatonic state when it comes to boys, thinking of one as just another person to be around can do wonders, especially when you discover (and you will) that they can be funny, caring, smart, dependable human beings.

“I’m glad I’ve had lots of experience with guy friends, because I have the ability to just say ‘I’m not impressed’ when other boys flirt with me inappropriately, which throws them off guard and gives me a chance to get out of there!” What you can learn about guys in general from your friendships with a few goes beyond just being able to stand up to players and other assorted guys-acting-like-jerks. An honest friendship with a guy can let you in on how they think (and, yes, they do think), what they enjoy in a girl, what females do that makes them crazy. If you store up that information now, you’ll have it to draw on when you reach the age to be serious about a relationship.

“I often wonder if I seem stupid or immature or if my appearance is just totally dorky. But when I look at my guy friend I realize he’s not afraid to act or look like a fool around me!” An authentic guy can teach you a lot about being genuine. He can bring out the best in you, the real you.
   The only drawbacks to having friendships with guys seem to be the ones other people create — people who just don’t get that you can be buddies with a boy.

“Sometimes my girlfriends drive me nuts because they tease me every time I talk to a guy I’m friends with. If I strike up a casual conversation with him, I get the look from them and the little eyebrow thing that clearly says they think I LIKE him. He’s just a friend!” There are people who think it’s impossible for a girl and a guy to even have a conversation without it turning into a scene from a romance novel. Most of them are other girls who haven’t had the experience themselves or who see every guy as a possible boyfriend (and can’t see why you don’t too).

What the Guys Say

“Friendships with girls are cool as long as you both agree that you’re only friends. Otherwise, it gets awkward.”

“My parents—well, mostly my dad— don’t even want me to be friends with guys. They say it’s a ‘slippery slope,’ whatever that is.” People correctly use the term “slippery slope” for things like cheating, as in, “once you start borrowing somebody’s homework to check your answers, it’s a slippery slope to just flat out copying it.” It gives you the image of starting something you can’t stop. While guy friends have been known to become boyfriends, those friendships are not automatically destined for something serious. They aren’t “starter relationships.”

“I once liked this really nice boy. He tried to make friends, but my church doesn’t believe in dating so I got freaked out and kind of pushed him away. I pretended to ignore him and never even said hi to him and now I feel bad. I think I missed out on a good friend.” Yeah, some churches don’t think guys and girls should be friends until they’re old enough to think about courtship and marriage, and that can be a problem if you don’t exactly agree. The thing is, most of them don’t “absolutely forbid it.”

So if you’d like to have guys in your circle of friends and there’s freedom for you to make that decision, I have some suggestions for you. For those of you who already enjoy those relationships, these might help with any speed bumps you’re encountering.

Start with the right mindset—and “be afraid” isn’t it. If you’re scared to have a friendship with a boy because you think it might go too far somehow, remember that you don’t see a guy, decide he’s your future husband, and go after him the way you do a college degree or first chair in the orchestra. Instead, your long road toward marriage is a process of learning what boys are about, what you want in a partner, what’s attractive about you, and what it feels like to have the kind of friendship that should be the foundation for any long-term relationship. The very safest and healthiest way to do that is to be friends with guys. If you do, then when you meet HIM, you will still be pure, as so many of you want to be, but not so hopelessly terrified that you have no idea what to do.

So look at boys as people, the same way you do girls. One of my bloggers says she doesn’t “draw an imaginary line” between girls and boys, and I like that. Rather than stating your goal as “I want to be friends with guys,” it makes more sense to say, “I want to get to know that particular guy because I think we’d have a good time together.” If there’s actually a guy, or several, who seems like he’d be cool to just hang out with, you’re onto something. If not, it’s better not to look for a boy to befriend just because he’s male. Says one girl who has a bunch of guy friends, “Sometimes it’s hard to control the whole unintentional-flirting thing with them because, well, I’m a fifteen-year-old girl! But I just try to think of them as brothers, not as possible future husbands.” You can bet the guy isn’t going there!

Remember that a guy is a mere mortal. Just because he’s taller, stronger, and exudes that eyebrow-singing energy doesn’t mean he’s powerful. He actually has no more power than you do. Remember Basic Truth #3: the only power any of us has is the power to be who we were made to be. I’ll say it again: what’s the guy going to do if you say hi to him or ask how he thinks he did on the algebra test? If you’re sure he’s going to guffaw in your face or immediately think you’re trying to flirt with him, he’s not the guy you want as a friend anyway. That kind of response tells you he’s operating under a gigantic sense of his own importance. This mere mortal can’t hurt you. The only one he’s hurting is him, by depriving himself of your amazing company. Chances are a guy you feel comfortable enough to strike up a conversation with isn’t going to blow you off. If he’s the decent guy you have him pegged for, he’ll be friendly right back at ya.

What the Guys Say

“There’s a relational attraction that makes a guy and a girl friends to begin with. But that can jeopardize the friendship so you have to be aware of that.”

The way you get things rolling comes from whatever it is that makes you want to be friends with the guy in the first place. He plays soccer (tennis, field hockey, or video games) and so do you? You have a ready-made conversation starter. You guys go to the same church and have exchanged eye rolls across the room when everybody else is acting like youth group is a singles mixer? There you go — instant connection. Did you see him reading Lord of the Rings, which you practically have memorized? How can you not talk to him? That’s the whole idea; a friendship, any friendship, unfolds naturally. Be friendly and honest and interested because you genuinely are. That’s hard for anybody to resist.

Don’t worry about your friends wanting to pair the two of you up or accusing you of being a shameless flirt. In fact, don’t even get into that discussion with other people. If friends is what you and this guy are, that will become obvious and people will find something else to whisper about. When you get right down to it, it truly doesn’t matter what people think when you’re behaving with honesty and integrity and sisterly love. If you don’t want their gossip to ruin your thing with your boy buddy, tell him what they’re saying and laugh it off together. And don’t be shy about telling your girlfriends to back off and get a clue. (Okay, so you’ll be nicer than that …) Honestly, if those BFFs can’t respect your feelings, they aren’t BFFs.

If as you get to know Friend Guy you find yourself developing a crush on him and you don’t want that kind of relationship, don’t think you have to stop hanging out with him. Usually the urge to talk about naming your future children will pass, especially

What the Guys Say

“I think if a girl you’re friends with wants more than just friendship and you don’t, you shouldn’t start dating her just because you feel bad.”

if you don’t dwell on your feelings — daydreaming about the two of you walking along the lake holding hands, etc. That part will probably fade and you’ll still have the friendship. Crushes are fleeting. Friendship is a whole lot more enduring.

None of this is about needing guys in your life. It’s about needing good healthy relationships in your life, whether they’re girls, guys, adult mentors, family members, or the little kids you babysit. All the same principles apply. If it’s real, you’re good to go. Follow the lead of one of your same-age sisters:

“I have to be 100 percent me around people, otherwise they might be disappointed if I act as someone else and they like that more. If they accept my geekiest and klutziest, it can only get better!”

A word (or more!) about guys online. Girls frequently confide in me that it’s so much easier for them to establish a friendship with a guy on Facebook or via email or even texting.

“I met this guy on a website for kids with the same chronic illness I have. We chat a lot and he seems like a really nice guy. I’m just not really sure what to do about any of it. I mean, I really like him, but he lives so far away … I’m just really confused.”

“I’ve been talking to a guy I know on Facebook for the last few nights and he’s very interesting. He’s eighteen and I’m fifteen, but I like that he actually uses intelligent-sounding words and is smart. I wouldn’t want to go out with him, but as a friend he seems cool. And yet, do I really know him?”

“I was talking on Facebook to a guy I’ve only met once in person and he invited me to come see him in his school’s band

on Friday. What do you think he meant by that? I am of course obsessing and analyzing everything he said before and after that. I think he was just being friendly, but it kinda caught me off guard. Am I freaking out over nothing?”

“I usually start my friendships with guys on Facebook, like this new guy in our class. I didn’t talk to him because I’m shy around people I don’t know well. But on Facebook we talked for like an hour. It just helps to break the ice.”

The Twitter Version

Being just-friends with a guy has way more benefits than drawbacks. As long as you’re honest with each other; there are no negatives.

Social networking can be a total blast, and, as some of your sisters have pointed out, it eliminates that awkward “what do I do with my arms?” and “I bet my face looks red as a beefsteak tomato right now.” If both you and a guy you’re chatting with on Facebook are being real, it can be a way to start getting to know each other. And if he lives far away, you’ve taken your friendships global.

There are benefits to online friendships, but the issue with the Internet is that it can also be totally used in the wrong way as well. It was created to give everybody a voice, but there are some voices you don’t need to hear. Doesn’t it seem like there are always folks out there who can take any good thing and twist it until it’s no longer recognizable?

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the social network to develop friendships. You just have to be super careful. Some guidelines:

If you have never actually met the guy you’re Face-booking with (as in, you haven’t seen each other’s real faces!), don’t give away any personal or contact information. (Which means keep all of that out of your profile too.) Let your conversations be light and focused on interests you share, rather than on your virtual feelings for each other. Not to make you paranoid, but you really don’t know who this guy is and whether anything he’s saying is the truth. Definitely do NOT agree to meet with him, and if he asks, make sure you tell an adult you trust.

If you have met the guy and you’re keeping in touch because he lives someplace else, take the same approach as if you’d never seen him in person. Unless you know you’re going to get together again, under safe circumstances, there’s really no point in going for deep soul-sharing. Becoming emotionally involved with someone you’ve barely met is never a good idea. Girls have been known to make some pretty crazy choices thinking they’ve found love online. Have fun but stay unattached.

If your text/email/Facebook guy friend is somebody you see often (church, school, sports, that kind of thing), talking via the Internet can indeed help you get past the initial shyness and keep you from turning into a sweaty mess the minute he looks at you. It will be like picking up the conversation where you left it when you signed off. Obviously, you’re going to balance online time with all the other stuff you have going — uh, like schoolwork, quiet time … sleep. Right? Things like Facebook can be addictive, especially if you know there’s somebody you like waiting for you to post a comment on his comment, which was a response to your comment. Decide what’s a reasonable amount of time to spend sitting in front of your computer and try to stick to that. Parents can be very helpful there.

No matter what the situation is with an Internet friend, remember that everything you post is potentially public. That’s actually a good thing. It makes you think before you hit Enter: Is this something I’d want my mom and dad to see? Is this something that could be misinterpreted? Do I actually want the entire world to know this? Not a bad thought process at all.

The Twitter Version

An Internet connection can break the ice, but genuine, slow-growing, face-to-face friends are the best.

One girls sums it up beautifully:

“I used to have all these guy friends on Facebook. But then I realized it was kind of a problem for me because, like … I didn’t know who they truly were. They could say all this stuff about themselves and then not act like it in person. And you’ll say stuff you would never would to someone’s face. People are so different on the computer than in real life — they’ll say nasty or intimate things they would never say in person. So now I don’t do involved talking over the Internet because it has ruined a lot of friendships.”

What will that look like? That depends on your personality and his, though God does give us some basics to go on.

God on Guys

I can’t even begin to guide you to God’s Word on this subject as well as two of your own peers. Check out this insight.

“So you know how sometimes you’re friends with a guy and get that friend-crush thing? I used to feel bad about it, but then I found this verse: ‘Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor’ (Romans 12:10 ESV). OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS!!!!!! That is the awesomest thing. Do you get it? You don’t have to feel BAD about liking someone. In fact, it’s good to love. Furthermore, have a love that isn’t shallow. Love with a love that just wants the best for the other person, even if that’s just being friends. Love is not a bad thing. It’s the GREATEST THING EVER.”

And this one:

“My twin brother has a best friend who’s, like, a year older than us, but we hang out with him ALL the time. This guy is a Christian, he’s nice, he’s funny, he looks good … so naturally after spending a LOT of time with him and my brother I started to get a ‘friend-crush.’ I tried to shove that feeling away and just be friends and act normal, but if you’ve tried that before you know it doesn’t really work. And then I realized he’s my brother in Christ. I don’t have to love him with a shallow flirty ‘love’ that would probably mess up our friendship. I can love him as a brother, with God’s love, through his Spirit that lives in me.”

Where did these two teenagers get this concept that many women three times their age have yet to grasp? Knowing them, I strongly suspect it came from the kind of relationship with God we talked about in chapter one. So in your next quiet time with the Creator of all guy-kind, you might want to wrap your mind around a well-known passage from 1 Corinthians. It’s the one you’ll hear at weddings because it describes the ideal love relationship, but when he wrote it, Paul wasn’t talking about just man and wife. (As far as we know, Paul wasn’t even married!) He was addressing the whole body of Christ and how its members need to treat each other. Why wouldn’t this apply to you and the guys you love like brothers?

As you read 1 Corinthians 13:4 — 8, see if you can envision the picture as it applies to you. A list might look something like this:

Love is patient when your best friend insists you’re in love with the boy.

Love is kind when a guy sharing a single brain with his cohorts blows you off.

Love is not envious when other girls seem to do the boygirl thing so easily, or boastful or arrogant when guys swarm around you like gnats, or rude when someone says, “You guys are going out, right? I know you are!”

It does not insist on its own way when parents say, “No you can’t invite your boy BFF on the family camping trip.”

It is not irritable or resentful when even a guy friend occasionally behaves like a jackal.

It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth when that sort-of-a-computer-geek everybody disses turns out to be the best friend you’ve ever had.

It bears all things when you help your boy bud through a rough time.

It believes all things, like that friendship is possible even with Mr. I-Can-Have-Any-Girl-I-Want.

It hopes all things, like “some guy will see me for who I am and want to spend time getting to know more of my amazingness.”

It endures all things, like how long it takes you to figure this all out.

The best part of the passage is verse 8: “Love never ends.”

If you have a boyfriend-girlfriend thing, the chances of it lasting forever at this point are about the same as being struck by lightning, which — by the way—is what it can feel like when you break up. But a friendship can go on for the rest of your lives. You can be homecoming queen, student body president, and captain of the state championship volleyball team — and what you’ll treasure most is that guy who celebrated with you and cried with you and helped you find yourself, just the way you did for him.

“Love never ends.”

Think you can memorize that one?

The Twitter Version

I Corinthians 13 is like a guidebook for a friendship with a guy so love that buddy like a brother It’s biblical.

Making It Real

As simple as all this may sound, you probably have the same questions girls have asked me. Let’s look at a few of them:

How do you find guys with your same standards and stuff; one that’ll treat you with respect and not make you feel stupid?

The younger you are, the harder that is to do. You recall what we said about guys not maturing as fast as girls. If you’re thirteen or even fourteen, the pickings might be slim right now. But as boys start to catch up, more of them who share your faith and your values and your basic tendency not to act like a bozo will rise to the surface. Meanwhile, hang onto that standard and settle for nothing less. Even a guy who gives you respect but puts other people down isn’t a good candidate for your friendship. Do remember, though, that no guy is perfect. Part of being friends is to help each other with the places where you fall short. Choose a guy friend whose faults you can live with.

How do you send the message that you just want to befriends and think the boyfriend-girlfriend thing is not for you right now?

First of all, guys don’t tend to go there in their minds as much as we do. Can you even imagine yourself saying to a boy, “Before we get to be friends, I just want to make it clear that I’m never going to date you”? You can probably count on that friendship never getting past the first five minutes. If it comes up in conversation, you can say, “Yeah, I don’t date” (if that’s true) and let it go at that. Otherwise, just enjoy each other. If he gets a total crush on you and says so, be honest — the way you always have with him — about what you want and don’t want and leave the decision up to him whether he can still be just friends.

My best guy friend knows a lot of stuff that not many other people know about me. I know he’s fine with being friends, though I think he’d like to be something more. Is it okay that

What the Guys Say

“If the relationship gets funky, talk about it. Be honest. Come to a decision. Don’t just let the weirdness hang there.”

we talk this much just as friends? Or should I try to maybe hold back some?

Trust is a huge gift to give someone. It’s a good idea not to hand it out carelessly. But if you have a guy friend who listens to you and supports you, it’s worth considering whether you want to share that trust. You aren’t sending the message that you confide in him because you think of him as a boyfriend. If he tells you he’s interpreting it that way, you’re already in an honest enough relationship that you can say, “I love being your friend and I want to keep it that way.” Then the choice is his. You’re not in the business of reading his mind. (Not that you could anyway!)

How do you keep yourself from getting a crush on a good friend and ruining the whole thing by getting too involved?

Quite frankly, I don’t think girls trust themselves as much as they could. Just because you end up feeling something for a guy doesn’t mean, to be blunt, you’re going to hop into bed with the kid. If you don’t spend hours alone with him, for instance, you don’t have to worry the way you think you do. You can miss out on some great friendships by being afraid of getting too attached. We’re human beings. We’re supposed to get attached to each other. Generations before you managed to have guy friends without it becoming physical. There’s no reason why you can’t either. Okay, yeah, you may get your heart bruised a little. Who hasn’t? We learn from our losses. If we never have any, do we become the inwardly rich human beings we might have been? That’s up to you to decide. If the risk is too great, then by all means stick to your girlfriends. You have to do what’s right for you.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

All of this may be a moot point if your parents aren’t totally on board. More than one girl has told me that her mom and dad don’t want her to be friends with boys because it “always leads to something else.” Or that there isn’t any reason to have relationships with guys because they aren’t even close to marrying age. Then there are the parents — often dads — who say they trust their daughters, but they just don’t trust other people’s sons. They feel it’s better just not to go there and avoid all problems.

I’ll say this in every chapter: you are obligated to honor your parents’ final decisions. I would never advise you to go against their rules. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask to discuss their choices for you, and we’ve already talked in chapter one about how to approach that. Since the topic of guys-as-friends may be more of an issue for you than dating or sex, I think some specifics are in order.

Always lead off with something like:

“Can we just talk about this? I’m not going to argue, I promise.”

“I have a couple of questions — just some things I’m curious about.”

“What you guys say goes. I just need some clarification.”

I guarantee that nothing like this is going to work for you. (Ever.):

“I do NOT get this. You guys are, like, living in the dark ages.”

“Could you just listen to me for once? You never let me say my side of it!”

“I totally disagree with you, but whatever …”

Just incidentally, “whatever” never flies with parents. And “whatev”? Even worse.

Once it’s been established that there’s going to be a conversation, these are some possible questions you might ask:

Can you tell me exactly why you don’t want me to be friends with guys?

Are you afraid I’m going to get hurt somehow if a boy and I are friends?

Is there a way that would make both of us happy? Like I can hang out with guy friends as long as we’re with a group? Or only make friends with boys from church?

What do I need to do to show you that I’m mature enough to handle a real friendship with a teenage boy?

If your parents are okay with you being friends with guys but have reservations about which ones, you might suggest inviting that possible friend over with a whole group of your buddies (boys and girls) so your parents can see how he interacts with you (that way Guy Friend doesn’t feel like he’s being staked out!) or just introduce them to him at church or a game with, “I want you to meet my friend_______. We’re both into______.”

As we’ve said before, no one, not even your parents, can determine how you feel about someone, but whatever you do, don’t try to sidestep their rules for you. In fact, the more gracefully you follow those rules, even while respectfully making it clear (once!) that you don’t agree, the more likely they are to see your maturity and perhaps loosen the reins. After all, that passage from 1 Corinthians 13 applies to your love for them too. (Sigh.)

The Twitter Version

It helps to ask your parents specific questions about their philosophy on guys as friends, even while you’re following their rules. Just don’t take a tone with them.

If I’m Totally Honest …

I would be really comfortable with having a guy as a friend if:

5
“Do They Really Just Want One Thing?”

A couple of things before you start this chapter: We’ll be talking about the issue of sex, but we’re not going to discuss any of the actual details of the act. I’m assuming you know the basics and won’t be going “Huh?” the whole time. If you’re at all squeamish on the topic, I can assure you that nothing I say is likely to embarrass you. However, if you’ve never received any information about those basics (from your mom or another adult woman you trust), you might want to get that first. Then read on.

If you’ve already had some experience with sex, know that I’m not going to scold you, judge you, or tell you that you’ve ruined your life. You haven’t. But you can make life better, and hopefully you’ll find help for that here.

With that said, let’s look at the reason we’re even talking about this in the first place. One girl — a girl like you — cuts right to the root of it:

“The girls I know who date all seem to be having sex — or at least, that’s what they say. But I don’t think it has to be that way. Am I naive?”

What the Guys Say

“There are guys who do only want sex, but not all of us. Some guys want sex and a relationship. Some guys want to wait until marriage.”

That seems to be the whole reason parents don’t want their daughters to date, have guys as friends, or even think about the opposite sex until they’re ready to look for a husband. It isn’t that they don’t trust you. They’ve just accepted what would appear to be the truth: that every teenage relationship that goes on for any longer than a couple of months is destined to wind up in the sack.

“Appear” is the operative word. If you just relied on teen magazines, for instance, you’d be convinced that once you hit puberty it’s only a matter of time. They’re filled with articles that tell you how to determine when you’re ready to sleep with your boyfriend, not if. They fill you in on birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, and even how to be your sexiest self for the prom. Sure, they always warn you of the dangers — pregnancy, disease, and hooking up with Mr. Wrong. But they always offer having “safe sex” as one of your many acceptable options.

If you go to school outside the home—public, private, or even Christian — you’ll likely hear kids talking about sex like it’s no big deal. I myself have had girls tell me:

“I knew I was going to lose my virginity sooner or later, so I thought I might as well get it over with.”

“I want to date but I don’t, because all guys expect you to have sex. At least that’s what my friends say.”

“I don’t even feel like I can wear cute, trendy clothes, because guys just stare at you openly, like you’re a thing instead of a person.”

It is true that there are a whole lot of teenagers having sex. Recent statistics show that while only 13 percent of teens have had sex by age fifteen, by their nineteenth birthday seven in ten teens of both sexes have had intercourse. On average, young people have sex for the first time at about age seventeen. Those figures tend to get translated into “EVERYBODY is doing it.”

What the Guys Say

“No respectable guy just wants sex. We do want relationships.”

What the Guys Say

“No way guys only want sex from a girl! Girls are more than that. They’re a companion. They someone to just hang out with.”

But those same studies show that 87 percent of teens fifteen and under aren’t engaging in sexual activity. And who’s to say that some of the respondents aren’t lying and saying they are when they’re not, because they don’t want to come off as “nerdy” and “uncool.” It used to be that only guys would be guilty of that, but now there are plenty of girls who are embarrassed by their virginity. The label “never been kissed,” which used to deem a girl some kind of loser, has been replaced.

If you do hold fast to a commitment to remain pure until marriage, there isn’t much in our world to support you. Society in general sure won’t do it. Judging from movies, videos, songs, and TV shows — all created by adults, mind you—our culture just doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. One sign of that is the whole issue of teen pregnancy. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, and even the early 70s, girls who became pregnant “out of wedlock,” as they called it then, were usually sent away to a “group home” to have their babies secretly and give them up for adoption. Those programs—not the healthiest places mentally, emotionally, or spiritually — are all but nonexistent now because (in addition to the availability of abortion) most families don’t see the need to hide the fact that a daughter has had sex. They shrug their shoulders and say, “They all do it. She just got caught.” No, I don’t believe a teenage girl should be shunned and sent away because she’s with child. My point is that it is less and less a cause for concern in today’s society. Least of all your peers. Even some of your Christian peers.

“How can you be a ‘good girl’ when it seems like everybody else is making out like crazy behind the church after youth group?”

“I go to a Christian school and guys are pinching girls’ butts in the halls and couples are all over each other at the lockers. What do I have to do to get away from that? Go to an all girls’ academy?”

What the Guys Say

“There are times when my mind goes out in temptation land, but not every time I see a girl or am with one. Sex is not always the thing that pops into my mind.”

Before you get too depressed, just know this: not every teenage girl and guy in the world is having sex. And plenty of those who aren’t are still enjoying guy-girl friendships and even dating. Yeah, it’s hard to remain pure these days, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up all interactions with the male species — what for some girls is one of the most fun parts of being a girl. It just means you have to be wise and savvy. It means you need to be even closer to God than you ever imagined. And it means you need to know your own mind, inside and out. Let’s start there.

What’s Going On with Me?

Check ALL of the statements below that apply to you:

____ 1. I want to save my first kiss for my wedding day.

____ 2. I want to be engaged to a guy before I kiss him.

____ 3. I might kiss a guy I really like, but he’s going to have to be somebody special to me.

____ 4. I don’t see anything wrong with kissing when you’re dating, but all-out sex or any of the things leading up to it— not for me.

____ 5. I’m not going to have sex before marriage, but I think there are a lot of other things you can do that aren’t really sex that might actually keep you a technical virgin.

____ 6. I think if you’re with a guy you’re engaged to, it’s okay to have sex because you’re going to get married anyway.

____ 7. I think if a guy is someone you’d totally marry, then why not sleep with him as long as you use protection?

____8. Sex doesn’t mean the same thing that it used to; it’s more like what making out was a long time ago. I would totally do it if I liked a guy and it seemed right.

____ 9. I’ve already had sex.

____ 10. I think every girl should go ahead and do it before she ever settles down. Guys do it so why not us?

Your “scoring” will be a little different this time. Count how many checks you had in each of these sets of statements:

____ Set A — Statements 1 through 4

____ Set B — Statements 5 through 7

____ Set C — Statements 8 through 10

It’s really important that you not look at your results as any kind of finger-wagging, OR as proof that you’re virtually an angel so you can skip this chapter. This is just a way for you to see what’s really driving your thinking. That will make it possible for you to get where you need to be: in the driver’s seat.

If you had the most checks in Set A, you are truly a purist. Some of your convictions may change as you have more experience around guys, but hopefully you’ll be able to stick to the one that really is important. This chapter will help you see that it doesn’t have to be as hard as you might think.

If you had the most checks in Set B, you’re in a bit of a gray area. You know having actual intercourse isn’t a casual thing, but you’re thinking that there are ways around the hard-and-fast rule. That could take you someplace you don’t really want to be. Really study this chapter to get clear.

If you had the most checks in Set C, you’ll benefit most from the sections below that talk about why having sex outside of marriage is “such a big deal.” Again, I won’t be chastising you. I’ll just give you ways to make some better choices.

This time we’ll start with what God has to say and then build from there.

God on Guys

The only thing Jesus said in the Gospels about female-male relationships was in response to guys dumping their wives because somebody younger and cuter came along. There was apparently a lot of that going on. He said that the only reason for a divorce was when one of the spouses was unfaithful to the marriage vows. Basically, that meant adultery — having sex outside of marriage (Mark 10:1 – 12).

Later on, Paul fleshes that out in 1 Corinthians 6:12 – 20, so that it becomes pretty clear even if you aren’t married, sleeping with a guy without being married to him is not okay with God. And when you get right down to it, who is it that you really have to answer to?

Basic Truth #4

Sexual intimacy was created by God as a precious treasure for married people to give to each other.

But like every command Jesus gives us, this one isn’t just something he made up to keep you from having a good time while you’re young. Why would he do that? He came that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). It’s based on God’s love for you. He isn’t saying, “I want you to be miserable while everybody else is having all the fun.” He’s not even saying, “Obey this and you’ll get to go to heaven.” He’s saying, “I don’t want you to get hurt now, and if you ignore this, you definitely will.”

Abstinence isn’t just about not getting pregnant or preventing STDs. And it’s definitely not about sex being the root of all evil; God himself created it. It’s about protecting you from the inevitable emotional pain that you can’t cure with an antibiotic.

Hear me, now; the following is not a put-down of boys. They themselves will tell you the same thing: for guys at this age, sex is almost purely physical. Some of them may call it love, but what it is for them is hormonal, biological, and sometimes even egotistical. There’s power in seducing a girl, no doubt about it. Basically, the typical teenage guy doesn’t have sex to show a girl he loves her. He may actually care about her, but those feelings aren’t very connected to what happens with her in bed or in the backseat of his car. They’re two entirely different things, not because the boy’s a beast but, because as we’ve mentioned before, his brain is developing differently from yours. (And he will probably catch up later.) For a girl, physical affection is sometimes the way she shows her feelings, and the deeper the physical, the deeper the feelings. Having sex with a guy is typically part of an emotional commitment. She’s his, body and soul. There is no separation of the relationship and the sex.

What the Guys Say

“When you have sex before marriage, it’s like sticking two pieces of duct tape together You can’t get them apart without tearing the tape.”

At best, that creates a lopsided relationship while it lasts. At worst, when it’s over, and more likely than not it will be, the guy can walk away almost unscathed because he hasn’t given anything up. The girl has. She gave him not only a piece of her body but a piece of her heart, and that leaves an empty place that usually fills up with guilt and shame and regret and pain. Girls I’ve talked to use words like “cheap,” “dirty,” and “damaged” to describe how they feel. They aren’t authentically any of those things but the sensation is as hard to get off as a big, sticky cobweb.

That’s it, seriously. Jesus never said sexual sin was the worst possible sin. He just warned us against it because it’s probably the most painful. He was (and is) all about love, real love, pure love. He doesn’t want us to misuse it or abuse it or take all the dignity out of it. He doesn’t want it to hurt.

Twitter Version

Just don’t do it. You’ll hurt yourself. You will.

Guydlines

That presents a problem, doesn’t it? Here you are with this marvelous natural urge to get close to that cutie who has his locker next to yours — at age thirteen or fourteen or fifteen — and yet you aren’t supposed to get that close to him until the two of you are married at age twenty-one or twenty-two or twenty-three or even older.

So what are you supposed to do until you’ve walked down the aisle? Are people right when they say you should just stay away from boys completely so you aren’t even tempted?

You will decide that in your heart, and you can do that wisely if your head is also engaged. Below are three things you’d do well to press into your mind as well as into your feelings.

“Okay, so I have a question about being pure. Is it still pure to think about guys as long as we don’t think anything bad? I mean, really — it would be pretty hard to not think about boys at all because of our hormones affecting us.”

(1) You are not “bad” if you think about sex. Is it “bad” to have breasts, get your period, and discover that your eyebrows suddenly resemble a blackberry thicket? Becoming a sexual being is as much a part of puberty as any of those things. You can’t just turn it off. But you can turn it down. You have control over the volume in your head.

Low decibel: I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. I bet it would be kind of wonderful. What am I saying? I bet it would be amazing!

High decibel: I wonder what it would be like if we were both totally naked …

A little daydreaming about a kiss is a far cry from fantasizing your entire honeymoon. You’re far more likely to do something you’ve imagined yourself doing in detail. That doesn’t mean you will, but why tempt yourself? So go ahead and enjoy the occasional thought of a sweet kiss. Drift too far beyond that, though, and by the time you do kiss a guy (if you haven’t already) it’s going to pale in comparison to what you’ve dreamed up.

“I definitely don’t want to have sex before I’m married but I do want to really get to know guys. How do I handle that?”

(2) There are a number of things you can do that will help you resist the temptation — and in fact not have the desire to have sex be an issue at all.

Stay away from movies and TV and music that have a lot of sexual content, especially if it’s explicit. You don’t have to totally stick to Disney and Pixar, but if an R-rated movie looks like it would be good, get parental approval. If your folks see it first, they can tell you whether there are images in there you won’t be able to erase from your brain. The less you fill your mind up with how easy producers make casual sex look, the easier you’ll make it on yourself.

Try not to engage in long conversations with your friends about sex. Sleepovers can be breeding grounds for that. In the first place, you’re probably going to get a lot of misinformation from people your own age, everything from “You can get a disease from a toilet seat” (uh, probably not) to “If you have sex with a guy right after your period, you won’t get pregnant” (sorry, but it happens). And secondly, people tend to exaggerate in those kinds of discussions, so that before the sun comes up, you’re convinced you’re the only virgin left in the club. You’ll definitely be wise to avoid talking to guys about sex, even your close guy friends. They’re not experts, for openers, and just having the conversation can be titillating. Really, how are you going to keep your mind from going, “What would it be like with him?” when he’s explaining french kissing to you?

You’ll do yourself a favor if you avoid spending time totally alone with the boy you like. Dark, romantic places where there’s no one else around—a car parked at the beach, the back row of the movie theater, behind the robes in the choir room (okay, maybe that’s not that romantic …) can set you up for mistakes you’ll regret later. If you’re already picturing yourself in his arms, why put yourself in a situation where you’re liable to end up there? Trust yourself— but don’t test yourself. Trusting is I can have a relationship with this guy because we really like each other. Testing is We can sneak out of our camp cabins and meet by the lake and spend the whole night together, and nothing will happen because we’re both committed to purity. Most adults don’t have that kind of willpower! A healthy respect for your own weakness as a human being is a wise thing.

What the Guys Say

“Do all guys just want sex? I don’t.”

If you and a guy like each other, as friends or otherwise, there ARE other things to do besides sit around trying not to touch each other. You were attracted by something other than your potential sexuality (and if not — find somebody else!), so focus on that. Make pizza together, volunteer side by side at a soup kitchen, challenge each other to one-on-one basketball, enjoy each other as whole people.

Teasing guys, letting them think you’re going to do things you’re not — very bad idea. To be blunt about it, if it’s not for sale, don’t advertise it. A guy is not going to get the wrong idea if you don’t give it to him, and you can serve it right up on a platter by dressing to give the impression that you’d like for him to discover what you’re barely hiding, luring him into a suggestive situation, and then making him guess whether you’re serious or not (even if you aren’t), or tossing sex talk back and forth. He’s responsible for his own purity, but you’re also responsible for making sure you’re not leading him to the wrong conclusion, and even for making staying pure more difficult for both of you.

Be very cautious about relationships with older guys. You’re thirteen and you like a guy who’s sixteen; you’re fourteen and you’re into an eighteen-year-old; you’re fifteen and the man of your dreams is twenty. They’re so much more mature than most of the guys your age, it can be hard not to fall for one like a wall of bricks. But here’s why that’s an issue:

Even if you’re really grown-up for your age, a guy three, four, or five years older than you is probably more experienced than you are in the whole guy-girl thing and he’s likely to want things you’re not ready for, no matter how mature you are.

You’re totally in different stages of life right now, so you won’t be in sync. The depth of the relationship and the possibility of long-term commitment are more intense for the older guy than for you.

If a guy way older than you wants to date you, there’s a good chance he has immaturity issues. If he were mature, he’d wait until you were older to pursue anything romantic.

Sure, when it’s time to date, a lot of girls go with guys a few years older than they are because the maturity level matches better. Right now, it’s just safer to admire them from a distance or enjoy them as casual friends. They do make good big brothers.

Let’s just be clear on this. A decision to completely stay away from guys shouldn’t be based on fear of sex. If you’re just not interested in guys or you don’t know any you think are worth the time of day, that’s one thing. Being afraid of what might happen is another. I’m talking about fear that you’re going to get into a situation that you can’t handle. Being afraid you won’t be able to hold up the commitment you’ve made. Fear that you won’t be able to control yourself. Fear just isn’t a good foundation for this choice. Why are you spending time with God, realizing how much God loves you, how much good God wants for you, getting to know yourself the way God sees you, if you’re still going to hide out because you’re afraid of being hurt — maybe because someone has hurt you before? Do you really believe your Lord wants you to live in fear, rather than faith? Does God want you to be suspicious, fearful that if a guy asks you for the geometry homework he’s got something sinister in mind? What we’re talking about here is getting things in perspective and being realistic so you can have healthy relationships with all the people you care about, including guys.

(3) Keep in mind that just because guys in general have a physical, rather than an emotional, attitude toward sex, it doesn’t mean they all want that and nothing else.

When you flirt with them, there is no knee jerk reaction that makes them think you want to have a physical relationship. Some seem to have that, yeah, but you know who they are. They’re the ones always giving the power stares, constantly getting in your space, taking (or making!) every opportunity to touch you. Give them a wide berth. But there are guys who are just as nervous around girls as girls are around them. There are boys who don’t want the responsibilities of anything serious, but they’d like to get to know some girls as people. There are still boys who know nothing about sex and, though curious, are not out there trying to seduce every female who offers them a piece of chewing gum. Just because sex outside marriage is pretty much acceptable in society today doesn’t mean everybody is buying into it, not even all the guys. And just because you like boys, like to spend time with them, even flirt just a little, that doesn’t mean you buy into it either. Guys know that. They might not admit it to their buddies, but they also respect it.

A word about forced sex: Consensual sex (as in, we both agreed to it) is unfortunately not the only issue girls your age have to deal with. One in five girls become victims of date rape in their teens. That’s not meant to scare you. It’s meant to alert you to the reality that some guys do see sex as their right and will push it with force if necessary. Rather than get yourself to the nearest nunnery until you’re twenty-five years old and a marriage has been arranged for you (like that’s gonna happen!), just follow some safety guidelines:

If a guy has a reputation for a one-track mind, don’t flirt with him, don’t date him, don’t even befriend him. If he happens to be in a group you’re in (band, youth group, drama club), you don’t have to be rude. Just keep a lot of space between you and him. You might want to pray for the kid too. He’s got issues.

Really get to know a guy before you spend any time alone with him, whether you’re friends or starting to date. And even at that, make sure other people are within earshot until you’re convinced he knows right where you stand on sex. And even at that, don’t put yourself in a tempting situation. You may not be tempted, but he might, and once he has his mind set on what he wants, no could be hard to accept.

Don’t wait until you’re right on the brink of going too far to say no. In fact, don’t even get within a breath of that. A no from you always means no, but the further you’ve gone physically, the harder he’s going to be to convince that’s really what you’re saying. If he doesn’t take that no for an answer and pushes you into sex, it isn’t your fault, but why even let it be a possibility?

It probably goes without saying, but do not consume alcohol around guys. For that matter, don’t consume it anywhere, anytime when you’re underage. I would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize that alcohol consumption lowers inhibitions and clouds judgment. Even if you’re not drinking but a guy at a party is, call your parents or a cab and get out of there.

Brand this into your brain: no one, NO ONE, has the right to touch you in any way that is unwelcomed by you. That means uncles, cousins, brothers, stepfathers, or steady boyfriends. If someone is forcing himself on you in any way, or has done it in the past, put this book down and go to the nearest adult you trust and tell that person.

An adult female will be easier to tell. Even talking to a male pastor can feel humiliating.

A doctor or a teacher or a counselor is required by law to report the abuse, which would mean great support for you.

An adult who doesn’t know your abuser is also a good idea.

If you don’t know anyone, there are numerous rape hotlines and organizations that you can contact. These people will make sure you get the help and support you need.

You’ve experienced sexual assault, which is a crime. You are the victim. If no one believes you or you’re told it was your fault, that you “asked for it,” go to someone else, and someone else after that, until you find somebody who gets the FACT that your body is your own private property and no one has the right to touch it unless you give permission. You understand that, right? No one.

Basic Truth #5

No one—NO ONE—has the right to touch you sexually. Period.

If you’ve already had consensual sex or are only what some call “a technical virgin” (you haven’t actually had intercourse but you’ve gone way past kissing, hugging, and holding hands), please don’t feel like you’re damaged goods. You’re a human being who has made a mistake, and who among us hasn’t messed up somewhere? When you turn away from it, toward God, that’s repentance. You’re now headed in a new direction and God has forgotten about the old one. That’s forgiveness. Everybody else might have a different opinion. You may not change that. But you know you can change your own opinion of yourself, to match the one God has of you. You have a clean slate. You’re no longer a non-virgin or a technical virgin. (Who came up with that term, anyway?) You’re pure in your soul. You can start over.

Maybe you don’t see it as a mistake, even if you got hurt. Perhaps you’re thinking it was worth it, or that it will turn out better next time. Could be you’re still in the middle of it and it feels pretty good to you right now. Those are things you’ll need to work out with God, and if you stick to those quiet talks with God, you will. Give some deep thought to what you really want. I suspect it’s love, acceptance, and security, not sex. And just so you know, sex can’t give you any of that. If this seems too big to face, get someone to help you; an adult you trust, someone who won’t waggle a chiding finger at you. If you have no one like that in your life, you can go to my website to contact me.

The Twitter Version

Sex doesn’t happen just because you spend time with a boy But it’s still important not to put yourself in situations where it might.

Making It Real

I hope at this point you’re saying, “Yeah! I get it. That’s what I’m going to do.”

I’m also a realist and I know how hard this can all be to put into practice. It kind of makes you wonder why God gave us these desires and urges so young when our ability to really handle it doesn’t come until so much later.

I may be able to help you with that one. In 1900, the average age of the onset of puberty was fourteen. That was the onset. Girls’ periods didn’t start until eighteen months to two years later. They could be sixteen before they broke out the maxi pads (which they didn’t actually have, but you get my drift). In those days, since most girls didn’t go to college or train for jobs, because most women didn’t work outside the home, they married a whole lot younger than young women do now. It wasn’t uncommon to become a bride at seventeen, and if a girl hit twenty-five and still hadn’t taken a husband, she was considered an old maid. So what was that, a year, maybe two, to stay pure while battling hormones? Plus, there was no dating as we know it. Any contact with young men was done under the supervision of chaperones, so if a couple did want to get physical, they had to go to great lengths to make it happen.

In the 2000s, the average age for the onset of puberty for Caucasian girls is nine years old, and eight for African Americans. No one is entirely sure why, but some scientists are studying whether it has something to do with all the hormones that are put into our food, particularly meat and poultry products. (Not exactly a God-thing.) At the same time, because girls pursue college and careers and know they need to be able to provide at least half of the support of a future family if not take care of themselves entirely (because remaining single is a godly option), the typical marrying age is no longer in the teens. In fact, if a girl marries at seventeen, everyone shakes their heads and says, “It’ll never last.” So that comes out to fifteen, sometimes even twenty years or more of maintaining abstinence. Even as an adult looking back, I have to say that’s asking a lot of young people, especially in a society that says, “What are you thinking? You’re crazy to even try.”

What that means is that if purity before marriage is your goal (because according to Jesus, it’s God’s goal), you’re going to need to do more than believe in it. You’re going to need a plan. Just as with almost everything else we’ve talked about, your plan for your physical relationships with guys will have to be shaped around your unique personality. You all have the same goal — you’ll just get there in different ways. This template might assist you.

Step One: Write down what you want in detail. (In a safe place, obviously. Under industrial-strength lock and key is best if you have siblings.) Do you want your first kiss to be at the altar? (And by the way, I’ve heard that some people have fulfilled that goal, and I respect that, but don’t beat yourself up if that doesn’t turn out to be your experience. The Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not kiss before thy wedding vows.” Just saying.) Do you want no physical contact with guys beyond friendly hugs until you’re engaged? Do you just want to abstain from physical intimacy and sex until your wedding night? Whatever it looks like in your mind, write it down — even if right now it’s “I just don’t know what I want and here’s why.”

Step Two: Take it to God. Lay it all out. Pray. Listen. Journal what you hear or sense. Complain in writing if you hear nothing. Keep at it. (This isn’t a one-day thing.) What you sense God saying may differ somewhat from your goal, in which case, adjust the goal. After all, it’s God’s will be done, not yours. Most of the time, after this kind of committed communication, the two become the same.

Step Three: Make an honest list of what reaching that goal is going to involve. Hopefully what you’ve read in this chapter will help you. The answer to these questions might be included:

Will I date?

Will I leave myself open to deeper-than-friendship relationships?

Will I give hugs? Hold hands? Kiss?

Will I have to change the way I dress?

Will I need to take a look at the way I behave? Do I flirt? Lead guys on? Fall in love every time a guy pays any attention to me?

Will I need to look at the people I hang out with? Do they share my views and values? Am I going to get support from them or be the misfit? Do I need to think about making new friends?

Will I need to consider the kind of guy I’m attracted to? Is his type going to make it easy to achieve my goal, or way too hard?

Step Four: Make any changes in your current lifestyle that you know you need to. You don’t have to stop volleyball practice, for instance, and announce to your female teammates that you’re no longer going to laugh at their sexual innuendoes in the locker room. Just stop laughing. In any of the adjustments you’re making, remember that it’s you you’re working on. It isn’t up to you to judge and try to fix the kids around you who in your view are making a total mess out of their lives. Set the example. Pray. Tell them the truth if they come to you and say, “So what’s going on with you?”

Step Five: Imagine and practice. Think of scenarios in which your commitment could be put to the test. Imagine yourself in those situations, doing and saying what you hope you’d do or say. Practice out loud if it doesn’t make you feel lame (and if annoying brothers are out of the house … way out of the house). You could even run it past a woman you trust. “If a guy does this and I say this, how do you think that’s going to work out?”

Step Six: If you’re dating, be prepared to state your case clearly as soon as you start seeing someone. By the time you get to that point, hopefully you’re comfortable enough with the guy to be able to say before he makes a move, “Just so you know, here’s how I feel.” Why wait until something’s about to happen and then put the brakes on? If you’re not going too fast to begin with, there will be no need for an awkward squealing of tires.

Trust me, ya gotta have a plan. Even if you have convinced yourself that Godzilla is more attractive to guys than you are. Even if you’re every guy’s little sister and can’t imagine any of them wanting to touch you. Even if you haven’t spoken to a boy since third grade — make a plan. Better to have one you won’t use for a while than be suddenly caught wondering, “What am I supposed to do now?”

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

Even the calmest of parents tend to flip out (at least internally) when their teenage daughters talk about sex in anything but the most general, this-is-something-that-happens-to-other-people terms. Most dads especially don’t want to even think about some pervert (which to him may be any teen boy) touching his little girl.

The Twitter Version

Sex is a one-case issue with parents: They don’t want you to have it, you’ve decided not to have it? Case closed. All they need is reassurance.

So don’t let your folks go there. Before the worrying even starts, take the initiative. Tell them about your goal. Assure them you’re serious about it. Explain how you plan to stick to your commitment. Ask for their prayer and support.

After they recover from the shock (or dead faint, loss of teeth, etc.), they will be proud and impressed. That’s all the discussion you’ll really need to have. What is there to talk about when it comes to sex? They don’t want you to have it, you’re determined not to have it. You can move on to whether you can paint your room lime green or why your older sister still acts like she’s your other mother. So much of relating successfully to parents is about choosing your battles. This is one you just don’t have to fight because you already agree.

You may still run into the argument that if you have anything whatsoever to do with boys you’re tempting the sex devil. Feel free to show your parents this chapter. That website address is here for them too.

If I’m Totally Honest

I have some fears about sex that I’d like to talk to someone about but I’m embarrassed to …

6
“So, What About Dating and Boyfriends?”

“I try to stand up for my parents’ belief in not dating. When I tell people that, they look at me like I’m strange. It can hurt sometimes.”

For some of you, the dating decision has been taken out of your hands. Your parents have said not until you’re sixteen … until you’re eighteen … until further notice. Or your church has taken a position on teen dating and everybody has to wait until they’re nineteen to court (not date).

Others of you haven’t given it much thought because you think no one’s ever going to ask you, or because you don’t know any guys you’d want to borrow a pencil from, much less go out with.

“I haven’t even run into a guy who’s worth a second look. Most of them don’t seem to have enough brains for anything deeper than today’s weather or can actually have a real conversation for longer than five minutes.”

Still others among you already have boyfriends or have reached the age where you’re allowed to date and are waiting for the whole thing to start.

What the Guys Say

“I’d rather be friends with girls and go out in groups than actually date.”

“If you don’t date or put any interest in boys until you’re ready to marry, you won’t know what you like. I’m not saying move IN with them, but it seems like being a little more than friends would tell you some things about relationships.”

And then there are those of you who have decided for yourselves that you’re not ready and don’t know when you will be.

“I’m cool with other girls having boyfriends, but I would rather wait a little bit.”

Which is why this chapter is not designed to give you rules for when you should date and whether you should have a steady boyfriend. Now, if you were younger, there would be no discussion. When girls ten, eleven, or twelve say they’re “going out,” I always wonder where they’re “going” and how they plan to get there. Usually what they really mean is that they’re passing notes and having their BFF ask their crush’s best friend to ask him if he likes her.

Since you’re way past that, this chapter is just here to present some of the questions girls like you ask me and to provide answers for you to consider. As always, whatever your parents say on the subject is the law for you right now. But even if they’ve said no dating, no boyfriends now, period, when you do get the go-ahead to make that first date you’ll want to be prepared. You’ll need to go into it knowing what you want and what you don’t want from a relationship and what you want to put into it. Hopefully this chapter will help you reach that point.

For starters, let’s see what your uncensored views are.

What’s Going On with Me?

Choose your answers to the following as if the decision to date and/or have a boyfriend were entirely up to you.

1. If a guy moved from sticking gum in my hair to emailing me for the homework assignment (when I know perfectly well he’s already done it) I would:

a. be totally annoyed.

b. think, “Oh, guys are finally starting to grow up. Awesome.”

c. realize he probably liked me.

d. start dreaming about our first date.

2. If a guy I liked had a conversation with me that lasted more than ten minutes and wasn’t about something totally lame, I would:

a. wonder if somebody dared him to do it.

b. be mildly amazed.

c. hope we’d talk again—soon.

d. text him or Facebook him later that day.

3. If a guy I liked asked me out, I would:

a. ask him if he was on drugs.

b. be surprised and tell him I’d have to get back to him.

c. smile and say yes.

d. smile and ask what took him so long.

4. If a great guy I went out with a few times said he wanted to be my boyfriend (wanted us to be an item, wanted us to only date each other, etc.) I would:

a. not ever be in that position.

b. tell him I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship but I’d still like to go out with him.

c. say yes and suggest we discuss some ground rules.

d. start looking at engagement rings.

5. If there was a guy I wanted to have a more-than-friends relationship with, I would:

a. go, “Oh, well, not gonna happen.”

b. wait to see if he liked me that way too.

c. be the best friend to him I could be and see how it went.

d. go after the boy with everything I had.

6. If I met a guy my age who was everything I want in a future husband, I would:

a. get depressed.

b. hope he’d still be around when I was ready to get married.

c. get to know him and enjoy being around him.

d. tell him he’s husband material.

7. If I liked a guy and found out he’d already dated a bunch of girls, I would:

a. not ever want to get involved with him.

b. wish I’d been one of them.

c. find out who those girls were and how he treated them and what their relationships were like.

d. not care as long as he was mine now.

8. To me the biggest drawback to having a steady boyfriend is:

a. all the drama, because guys are still so immature; girls too, for that matter.

b. getting hurt if a guy breaks up with you.

c. having it get too serious.

d. Drawbacks? What drawbacks?

You know the drill. Count up your a’s, b’s, c’s, and d’s. Then check out what your results might mean.

If you had mostly a’s, it looks like you have a fairly negative view not only of dating, but of boys in general and possibly even of yourself. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to become involved with guys right now, especially if the ones you know are still acting like chimpanzees. But if your big-time disillusionment with boys comes from the belief that you’re never going to be “good enough” for a guy to like you, we’ll work on that. It’s hard to be happy when you don’t like yourself, with boys or without them. For now just know that you were made beautiful. It’s all a matter of discovering that self.

If you had mostly b’s, you’re probably not ready for a steady relationship at this point because guys are still a bit of a mystery and you’re not quite sure how to be around them. That’s okay, though, because your attitude is pretty positive. Let’s build on that so when the time comes for dating, you’ll be wise and confident.

If you had mostly c’s, your dating ‘tude is quite healthy. You don’t have a lot of experience, but you have the blossoming maturity to be able to handle what comes along, even if that means knowing when to run the other way. You may have some lingering questions, which hopefully will be answered in this chapter.

If you had mostly d’s, you’re ready to jump into the whole relationship thing with both feet and may already have. No one’s going to accuse you of being afraid of guys! Your challenge is to think carefully with your head before you completely open up your heart. You’ll learn about areas of caution in the pages ahead that will help balance that bring-it-on enthusiasm.

God on Guys

“Is it, like, biblical, that I have to wait until I’m marrying age to even date?”

Actually, the Bible doesn’t make a clear statement about having a boyfriend. Jesus didn’t say, “Consider the lilies, how they don’t date until they’re sixteen.” Of course, dating hadn’t been invented then. Fathers were in charge of making good marriages for their daughters, and until the wedding day guys were off limits. The custom of courting has been reinstated in many Christian communities by parents who feel God has always intended for it to be that way.

The Twitter Version

God’s more concerned about the way we treat each other than about the customs we follow. The Sermon on the Mount is a good instruction manual for that.

If parents have been led by God to believe that to be true for their daughters, it’s obviously what needs to happen in their households. However, there are many customs and rituals in the Old Testament that we no longer observe, from sacrificing goats on the altar to separating women from the household while they were menstruating (although I’m sure you’ve wished some months that someone would do that for you …). The truth of God’s love and power is remains the same, and that manifests itself in so many different ways — in the parents who help their daughters decide when they’re ready to go out with boys in groups as well as in those who put a firm age on dating. Whatever is decided prayerfully and with love is what God wants you to honor.

In the Bible, God seems far more concerned with how we treat each other than about what dating customs we follow. Just read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1 — 7:27) and you’ll see that Jesus never stops talking about how we are be in relationship. We’d do well to focus on that, with all the people in our lives.

If Jesus had given tips on dating, they might look something like this:

“You are the light of the world, so if you decide to date, be sure you’re reflecting me in everything you do out there.”

“If you’re totally focused on how great it would be to be in bed with the guy you’re dating, you’re already in dangerous territory. You need to stop that, my dear.”

“Enjoy your time with this great guy, but keep it in balance. My words about storing up for yourself treasures in heaven totally applies here.”

“If you feel like nobody will ever want to date you, don’t worry. God takes care of the lilies of the field and God will take care of you. Seek God first.”

Kind of makes you want to keep talking to him, doesn’t it?

Guydlines

So what is the big issue with dating and boyfriends?

On the one hand, there’s the point of view that since teen relationships seldom last, it’s ridiculous to have them in the first place.

“I’ve seen girls date a guy, and then he does some heinous boy-like thing and she doesn’t like him anymore, or he gets tired of her and they break up after, like, two weeks and she moves on to somebody else. Who needs it, right?”

It’s true that if taken too seriously, a boyfriend-girlfriend thing can lead to a deep hurt that no young person is emotionally equipped to handle. And as we said in chapter five, if sex is involved, the heartbreak can be even more painful. The thinking is that if you run a chance of having your heart broken, why even go there in the first place?

“Even if a relationship doesn’t work out, you’ve still learned something.”

The opposing argument is that a dating relationship can be a great teacher. Getting to know boys, the proponents say, is a good way to learn what a healthy boy-girl relationship is and what it isn’t, which is something you can only truly learn by doing. The question is, is anybody in her teens mature enough to figure that out, especially when she’s dealing with a man-boy who by nature probably loves his soccer cleats more than he loves her?

What the Guys Say

“Guys take things faster than girls. Girls like to get things going at first, but then they slow it down a bit.”

What’s the answer? Be safe—and possibly unprepared for the future? Or take some risks and chance being hurt, perhaps even badly?

“Is it okay to have a boyfriend? Some Christian girls I know are against that, but if you just hang out together in groups and text and email and talk on the phone, what’s wrong with that?”

Perhaps there’s a middle ground that looks like this:

If you aren’t that into guys and would rather eat large quantities of Brussels sprouts than go out with one, you are not abnormal. Readiness to date happens to different girls at different ages. If your aversion to dating is because guys are horrible to you, forgive them, ignore them, and focus on being your best self. Let everybody else play the dating game if they want to. There is nothing wrong with you if you don’t.

If you want to get in there and see what this whole boy-girl deal is about, develop some friendships with guys who have emerged from their purely annoying days. Get to know them as people. If you crush on one, that feeling is also normal.

The crush—the fluttering stomach when you see him — the inability to speak anything coherent when he says hi to you — that’s the fun part. It’s okay to enjoy that. It’s part of being a girl. Admire him. Figure out what it is about him that makes you want to know his class schedule so you can just happen to be there when he walks by.

“In my mind, someone who would let me be myself would be a good boyfriend.”

We’ve discussed all of that already. Now we get to the part where he shows his hand — he has a crush on you too — and the question arises whether to “go out” (a term that makes more sense now that you’re a teenager!). I suggest that instead of making it an either/or decision, you decide what “boyfriend” really means to you. A healthy picture might look like this:

What the Guys Say

“Although going out with multiple girls can teach you things about dating, why would you need to learn how to date if you can have one successful relationship?”

You like each other.

You have fun together.

You hang out with groups.

You keep it light, never letting it get so heavy and serious it looks like it could be on a daytime drama.

The minute you start fighting or playing jealousy games or considering sneaking off for a make-out session, it stops being fun.

If you can work it out and get back on track, great.

If not, you agree to stay friends and let it go at that. Knowing you’re not mature enough to deal with all the drama is maturity in itself.

“It can’t be as simple as that,” you say? Actually, it can if you keep the thing just fun in the first place. Friends — good friends — don’t really “break up.” If you’re so far into a relationship with a guy that not being his girlfriend anymore would mean never speaking to each other again, that isn’t a relationship you’re ready for. Maybe nobody is. The mistakes you make with a boyfriend can help you tremendously in the future, as long as going in you don’t ignore what you already know, and that is that the goal is to enjoy.

That has to start, of course, with dating someone you really like. Too many girls make the mistake of going out with somebody just so they won’t feel left out of the dating circuit.

“I didn’t really want HIM, but I liked the idea of having what so many other girls seem to have going.”

You may know how that is. You see a couple laughing together over a private joke or you watch your older sister blush when she gets a text message from her guy or you see a bevy of boys and girls going into a restaurant in their prom clothes and you think, “I want that!”

Of course you do. We all want to be loved, first of all.

Second of all, as females we’re hardwired to want to be swept off our feet in a whirl of romance, which can be anything from the two of you shooting baskets in the moonlight on your driveway to playing Juliet to his Romeo in the school play. The only danger is in wanting that experience so much that you’ll have it with just any old guy who shows some interest. Trust me, it really isn’t any fun when there’s no feeling behind it.

As for thinking it’s never going to happen to you if you wait for the right guy, don’t even go there. If you’re concentrating on becoming your true self, your day will come. You’ll have satisfying relationships, even if they don’t involve candles and I-love-you emails.

And really, high school isn’t the only chance you’ll have. This is the time when all the clumsy, immature, I-can’t-believe-I-said-that stuff goes on. The best is yet to come when the hormones settle in and the guys figure out the world isn’t all about them and you yourself become more poised and confident. Ask anyone who’s ever been to a class reunion: Which formerly popular kids obviously peaked in high school and which band geeks and wall flowers have become so intriguing they took everyone’s breath away? You really don’t know who you’re going to become. This is only the very beginning.

“What should you do when you really, really want a boyfriend, but you know that dating just because you want to feel loved is not the right reason?”

Most important of all — and you haven’t heard me give many this-is-the-way-it-is statements, so listen up — do not ever accept the current idea that if you don’t have a boyfriend, or if a whole mob of boys isn’t clamoring for your cell phone number, your email address, and your presence in the seat next to them at youth group, that you are someone “less than.”

Basic Truth #6

No guy can ever define who you are, or determine your worth.

No guy should ever define who you are or determine your worth, even if you marry the man. The only “guy” who does that is God. Since when did the opinion of a kid who still thinks flatulence is hilarious matter more than the One who actually made you? That’s like taking beauty tips from your little brother. It’s great to have a guy like you, there’s no denying that. But to have one you can call your boyfriend just because not having one means you’re nobody?

I’ll let you answer that one.

The Twitter Version

It isn’t unbiblical to date. What’s unbiblical is to do it for any other reason than that is authentic for you.

Making It Real

Now that we’ve explored the whole concept of dating, it might be helpful for you to return to the questions your fellow sisters in bewilderment asked and shed some light on them for yourself. Again, imagine that you’re free to make your own rules (even if that’s a stretch right now) and give each of these some serious thought. Journaling your thoughts really works, but remember that we’ve talked about other options as well. As long as you can go deep, this will be effective for you.

Consider these questions:

What is God saying to me personally about dating?

Am I emotionally ready to date?

Do I really know any guys I’d want to go out with?

What would having a boyfriend look like for me?

Could I keep a relationship in balance with the rest of my life, especially my relationship with God?

Do I really want a boyfriend, or do I just want what everybody else has?

(If applicable) Is the relationship I’m in right now a happy thing? Am I learning from it?

Don’t try to answer all those in one day. Think of each one as a conversation topic for you and God. You bring the café mochas.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

Everything we’ve said in other chapters concerning how to talk to your parents about guy issues is certainly true for this one. So let’s take a little different approach this time. In addition to the above, if in fact you disagree with your parents’ dating rules, ask them to tell you what they think makes a successful relationship. Either they have one or by now they’ve learned what doesn’t work, but in any case they do have wisdom to share. Why not get some of that for future relationships of your own, while at the same time creating some common ground with your parents? (This is not, incidentally, a trick to soften them up for the next argument.) Just because under their rules you can’t pursue a relationship right now doesn’t mean you can’t prepare yourself for one when the time comes.

Prepare to be surprised.

The Twitter Version

Ask your parents about THEIR relationships—past or present. Don’t assume staying together doesn’t take some skill on their part. You can totally tap into that. Sweet.

If I’m Totally Honest …

I think I’ll be really ready for a serious relationship when I …

7
“Oh, the Drama.”

It has to be easier for the non-human mammals when it comes to male-female interactions, don’t you think? Most get together, have some babies, move on. The guy cats don’t seem to care whether the girl cat is overweight or has funky markings. She’ll do just as well as any other feline, even if all the toms aren’t crowding around her or she doesn’t look fabulous in a flea collar. It’s just, “You’re a cat, I’m a cat—let’s get together.”

But, alas, we’re the unhairy mammals, the ones God gave the smarts to select our mates and live meaningful lives that go beyond catnip and naps on the windowsill (although that actually sounds kind of lovely at times …). Which leaves us with the task of untangling yet another boy knot: why do there always have to be issues?

It was bad enough when you were in your tween years and some girl was always running to the bathroom crying. Sometimes even you. You could have a fight with your BFF, make up, vow your undying friendship to each other, and have another knock down drag out, all within twenty-four hours. If that only happened once a week, you were doing good. Then of course there were the RMGs (Really Mean Girls: this is tween lingo — try to keep up) whose main purpose in life seemed to be to wreak havoc on the emotions of the girls not deemed worthy of their clique. Sure, the boys were pesky, but they only accounted for about two percent of the drama you endured before you were twelve.

Just when you were starting to learn how to choose your battles with the other girls and not turn every minor slight into a soap opera plot, boys got in there and the crises picked up again. But it’s not just the guys who are stirring it all with a stick. It’s the girls yet again. That BFF who swore she’d be your maid of honor one day if you would be hers? It seems that all bets are off if you both like the same guy. Aren’t there some days when you look back at the secure, all-girl life you once had and wonder how it got this crazy?

“The worst part about guys is when you just want to talk to them and hang out with them, but they like your best friend and just talk to her.”

“One of my best friends has been going out with a guy for over a year now. They’re really close and show no signs of breaking up any time soon. I’m immensely jealous, both because she shares with him all the things she used to share with me and because I don’t have a relationship like that. Then I feel bad about myself.”

“There’s this obnoxious boy who has liked me for the whole school year. In class he stares at me and then between classes talks endlessly to me. He sits next to me on the bus every time we go on a field trip and somehow gets partnered with me in every activity. No offense, but he’s a little weird and I don’t like him. I’m not sure how to get out of this situation.”

“I’ve had this thing where I meet a guy, start thinking about him a lot, hang out with him, and then realize the more I get to know him he’s not that great.”

“I just got an email from the guy who broke my heart. I’m just not really

What the Guys Say

Guys say the drama comes from:

“Not knowing how to talk to each other.”

“Not having the guts to ask a girl out.”

“Not understanding what girls want.”

“Not understanding a girl’s behavior.”

sure what to do. I tried to be friendly but I’m pretty sure I came off upset and mad. I guess I haven’t really forgiven him.”

All of the above and other situations like them are the main reason people, including some teen girls themselves, think being involved with boys at your age is a bad idea. With his well-known book I Kissed Dating Good-Bye, Josh Harris started a whole movement of people who agreed with him that all the conflict and heartache connected with boyfriend-girlfriend relationships actually interfered with eventually finding a life partner in a healthy way. He said dating too young was a big obstacle to growing in Christ. Josh’s book didn’t become a bestseller because he was spouting off nonsense—he was right that avoiding serious, unhealthy dating really is a good plan for young people.

That’s where I think we need to make a distinction, in the “serious, unhealthy part.” Here’s what I mean.

Conflict in relationships is a part of human existence. Part of your job growing up is to learn the basics of how to deal with it, and nobody gets that solely from being given instructions. You definitely need on-the-job training, and that’s most assuredly what you’ll get when there are boys in your daily life. And not just boys but the other girls who also play, worship, and go to school with them. Yeah, you’ll be more mature in general when you’re eighteen or nineteen than you are now, but if you have had zero experience with the special kinds of conflicts that seem to billow around boys like the cloud of dirt around Charlie Brown’s friend Pigpen, you’ll still have a deficit in that part of your growth.

I hope you know by now that I’m not saying everyone needs to throw themselves into the fray and stay in there until they figure out … whatever it is that needs to be figured out. What I am saying is unless you’re growing up like an orchid in a hothouse, guy-related issues are pretty much unavoidable. Even if you’re guyophobic and avoid voluntary contact with them, they’re still in your classes, worship at your church, and pass you in the halls. Seriously, they’re ubiquitous. If you have some as friends, are dating one, or have a steady guy relationship, then it’s no news to you that issues come with the territory.

The Twitter Version

The boy-girl drama can be a bad scene, but if it’s kept in perspective, it can actually teach you a lot about handling conflict.

This chapter is about how to deal with some of the common struggles that girls talk to me about. From that you’ll be able to gather some general guidelines that apply to the personal things that come up in your experience, whether that experience is now or later. As in the rest of the book, the stories you’ll read about are real — no fictional scenarios, no composites. Your concerns are too. Some adults may say to you, “You think these are problems? Wait until you grow up — then you’ll know what trouble is.” I hate that. The things you’re facing today affect your life today — your mood, your self-confidence, your growth as a young woman. Even as I try to help you keep it all in perspective, I won’t minimize any confusion or pain you’re feeling.

Before we delve into the drama, take a few minutes to discover what your conflict resolution style is.

What’s Going On with Me?

Read the following true story written by a teenage girl. Only a few details have been changed to protect her privacy:

“He was dark and gorgeous. I was klutzy and could never seem to keep my mouth shut. I liked him. Like, a lot. My friend told me to tell him because I was flipping out, so I did. And he told me he liked me. For three months (exactly three months yesterday) I had that high feeling. We flirted, we laughed; he made me smile and made me forget to breathe. I was totally taken by this guy. I knew it probably wouldn’t end up in long-term dating or marriage, but I was in love with being in love. We were talking yesterday, and I got the news I never expected. He told me he lied. He told me that he didn’t like me and that he never did. He led me on for three months, flirted with me, told me all those sweet things and played with my heart, only to tell me he was lying and that he didn’t mean any of it. He said he didn’t think I was worth the truth.”

After you finish muttering a few words about this creature and get that out of your system, write down what you would do if this happened to you. Get past, “It would never happen, because I am never going to get a crush on a boy like that, etc., etc.” Just put yourself in her place and answer honestly.

Now read the following types of conflict resolution and see which one comes closest to what you wrote down.

Lock Up. “I would totally shut down and not let anyone, least of all him, see how I felt. I would tell myself it didn’t matter and that he wasn’t worth my truth either. In fact, I would know that I can’t trust any guy from this point on. That’s okay. At least I’ll never have to go through that again.”

Smooth Over. “I would tell him that I was fine with it, that at least he was telling me the truth now before we got in any deeper. I would say, ‘I know this stuff happens with relationships and maybe we could just be friends from now on, although I would appreciate it if you would be honest with me in the future.’ I would rather do that than make a big scene out of it.”

Smack Down. “I would totally blow up and tell him that I was so mad I really wanted to punch him in the face. It would be hard not to call him some serious names, but I would definitely let him know that what he did was despicable. Yeah, by that time I would be screaming at him. I wouldn’t care if he never spoke to me again. He would deserve it. I just have to get things like that out.”

Break Down. “I would be so devastated, all I would be able to do was cry. I’m not sure I could wait until I’d walked away from him. I would be depressed for, well, for a long time. I would have to go to my best friends and have them talk to him and find out what was going on all that time, why he would do that to me. I couldn’t face him myself, but I would have to know. And I would totally tell other girls not to ever be taken in by him.”

Turn In. “I would be so upset, of course, mostly because I didn’t see it coming. Why was I so stupid? Why didn’t I know he was playing me? I wouldn’t have conversations with him — I’d have them with myself. I’d be yelling at me for being such a total fool. Yeah, I’d have to figure out on my own what I did wrong to make him hate me like that.”

Face Off. “Once I got done sobbing in my room, I would think it through, maybe talk to my mom about it, and then I’d figure out a way to go to him and say, ‘Look, you really hurt me and that’s not okay. I hope you never do this to another girl.’ I might even say, ‘I thought you were better than this.’ It would be hard not to talk him down every chance I got, but I hope I wouldn’t. He obviously has issues.”

If your response is to Lock Up, you probably react to conflict, especially when you’re hurt, by closing off your feelings. You chase the pain away. The problem is, you chase all your other emotions off with it, even the positive ones. Nothing is really resolved, and you wind up feeling numb.

If your tendency is to Smooth Over, you hate conflict so much you’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. You might even convince yourself it doesn’t matter, just as long as you don’t have to talk about it. Trouble is, resentment builds up and eventually you’ll blow, which creates a bigger conflict than the one you started with.

If you’re one to Smack Down, your emotions go right into gear and you speak your mind, probably at the top of your lungs and possibly with your claws out. You attack the issue head on. Unfortunately, that often happens before your brain has a chance to engage. You definitely make your feelings known, but you also run the risk of making things worse than they were to begin with. One thing is for sure, the chances of the attackee wanting to work anything out go right down the drain.

If it’s like you to Break Down, you do know how to own your feelings, which is healthy. It’s just hard for you to talk about those feelings directly to the person who has done you wrong. You’re more likely to discuss them with other people and get them involved. The perpetrator may never know how you feel, but everybody else will. There’s no resolution in it for either of you, and in fact, a new conflict has been born.

If your reaction is to Turn In, you put the fault on yourself when conflict arises. If you can’t find a way to take the blame for what happened, you beat yourself up for letting it happen. You’re mature enough to know you need to think things through, but that’s usually as far as it goes. It’s difficult for you to confront the other person about his share of the blame because you feel so guilty about your own, whether it really exists or not. As a result, people practically get away with murder with you.

If to Face Off is your operating system, you let yourself feel the pain and move through it and then, when your head is clear and maybe you’ve gotten some input from wise people, you go to the person you’re having issues with and lay it on the line. If there’s another side to be heard, you’ll listen. In a case like this one, where there’s clearly nothing to be “worked out,” you express your feelings with as much self-control as you can muster and then you’re out of there. You might still sting from the experience, but it’s a non-issue now.

Obviously Face Off is the approach that actually resolves conflict, even if the resolution is just in your own soul. I wish I could tell you that reading the rest of this chapter will make you a pro. The fact is nobody is totally perfect at it. If you were, the United Nations would hire you. But what you can do is take the best from your natural response and combine it with the Face Off. Locking down your feelings can get you through the confrontation so you don’t pinch somebody’s head off. The nice factor in Smoothing Over can prevent the face off from turning into a shouting match. The feistiness of wanting to Smack Down can give you the energy and passion to stay with it until the thing gets resolved. The let’s-get-everybody-involved thing in Break Down will give you support as you go to the person yourself and put your cards on the table. And the analytical side of the person who tends to turn in can be a huge plus in getting your head clear before the big talk.

The point is that no matter what your style, you can tackle conflict without doing a number on yourself or anyone else. And when it comes to the issues guys can put out there, you’re going to need to.

Guydlines

While the kinds of issues that surround the very presence of guys are more numerous than actual guys, I’m only presenting four here. Otherwise we’d need a miniseries. With each one, we’ll talk about why it happens (if there is indeed a reason beyond “Guys do stupid things and we do too”), how you can approach it, and what, pray tell, you might learn from it. Then we’ll sum it up so you can hopefully apply it to other situations that snag you.

Guys being fickle.

Do you still use that word? If not, you should, because it so perfectly describes this kind of behavior on the part of guys.

What the Guys Say

“The drama comes from guys not treating girls with respect.”

“I liked a guy my friend was dating, and he knew I did. I told him I wanted nothing to do with him except be friends, because I didn’t want her to get hurt, but he was like, ‘No, I like you way better.’ So he dumped her for me, and now she hates me.”

“What do you think I should do if a guy that just broke up with my friend is now talking to me a lot and acting like he likes me? I like him too, but they had a really bad breakup and I’m afraid it’ll be a mess if I go out with him.”

Why on earth? There are like a bajillion girls out there. Why does he have to pick you, the best friend to the girl he just dumped? Are they just brainless, these guys? They aren’t, but it can seem that way. It’s mostly because he likes a certain “type” of girl, and who’s going to be more like your BFF than you? And then there’s the fact that in getting to know her, he’s gotten to know you, and now he wants to know more. Not to mention that some guys just like to throw stones at the hive and see what kind of nasty confusion they can stir up. It’s like an ego thing, you know? If he can get two girls fighting over him, that’s a rush for him, because he’s a cad. I know that sounds heartless, but remember that guys don’t always view a relationship at this stage the way you do. To you it’s an emotional attachment. To them it may be more of an experiment. When it’s over, you grieve. They may go on to try another experiment. The good news is that does change as they mature, but right now for the fickle type it’s a game called “How many different girlfriends can I have before I’m sixteen?”

Come to think of it, don’t you know some girls who seem to be same way about boys?

So what do you do about it? My best advice is to put the friend first. Think about it: you don’t go through girlfriends the way boys go through girlfriends. There’s a good chance you and your current CFFs (Close Friends Forever) will remain close through high school and maybe even beyond. The guy you have a crush on right now — including the one who just ditched your best friend?—you may not even remember his name a year from now. Look at his track record. How many girls has he thrown over for somebody else this semester? Do you want to risk a great friendship just to be on that list?

As for the Face Off, involve your girlfriend as little as possible in this drama. You don’t even have to tell her he’s hitting on you. Why let her feelings be hurt any more than they already are? There’s a little pride thing in all of us that wants other people to know we’re wanted and pursued, but deny that and keep this one to your yourself. And if you can’t trust your other CFFs not to be all Chatty Cathy about it, don’t tell them either.

If she knows, that’s another story. The issue there is usually that she doesn’t believe you didn’t go after him and didn’t flirt him into falling for you. Tell her you’ve passed on his offer and then don’t bring it up again. If she simply finds it easier to blame you than accept the fact that he just flat doesn’t want her, maybe the friendship wasn’t that strong after all. Maybe she never did know who you really are — a person of integrity and loyalty. Grieve, and then find some friends with a little more maturity.

It’s Fickle Boy you really need to confront, calmly and firmly. “I don’t think so, pal” should do it. If he can’t get any turmoil going, he’ll move on. Most guys this age just aren’t going to work that hard.

What can you learn from going through a situation like that?

Most guys aren’t ready for long-term relationships (meaning longer than their attention span).

If you have to make a choice, it’s best to go with the deeper friendship, the one that brings out the best in you (as opposed to the one that feeds “Am I irresistible or what?”).

Honesty doesn’t always mean confessing everything. Be mindful of people’s feelings and don’t hurt them unnecessarily.

Breaking a boy’s heart

Or at least bruising his pride. In situations like these, wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to be like guys and not put too much thought into how you turn somebody down?

“This one guy likes me a lot and I can’t do anything without knowing he’s staring at me. Double worse, I’ve gotten to be friends with another boy and the one who is crushing on me is, like, all annoyed.”

My next-door neighbor has this HUGE crush on me! He would do anything and everything for me and I don’t like him the same way.”

For a lot of girls, this wouldn’t be a big deal. They’d just say, “In your dreams, pal,” and walk away without a thought to his feelings. When I was teaching high school, I saw girls do that kind of stuff all the time, as if the less-than-hunky guys didn’t have hearts. You, I’m sure, are of a different sort — as in, you care about how that poor guy is going to feel when you reject him. Being a Christian does that to you. It’s part of the “love one another as I have loved you” thing Jesus told us we had to do. (More on that below.) Which doesn’t solve the problem of how to handle it when Mr. Wrong is staring at you, waiting for a word, while you have eyes for Mr. Right over there — or nobody at all right now. If you love that boy the way Jesus says to, won’t he be drooling in your direction forever?

Why does this even happen? Why can’t guys get a vibe from you or read your body language or something? For the same reason you can come to the dinner table puffy-eyed, tears streaming down your cheeks, and about the time dessert is served, your father says, “Is something wrong?” They just aren’t always as tuned into other’s people’s emotions as you are, especially at this age. Besides that, if you’re the kind of person who wants to let him down easy without bruising his feelings, that explains why he likes you in the first place. Guys who don’t fit the total-babe-on-the-football-field mold are especially susceptible to crushes on girls who are nice to them. That’s what you get for being a decent human being!

What the Guys Say

“Drama gets started when a guy wants to date a girl and pushes it on her whether she wants to go out or not.”

What the Guys Say

If she’s going to let me down:

“I want her to be honest with me.”

“I want her to tell me in a courteous but honest way that she doesn’t feel the same way I do.”

“Just keep it plain and simple. Just tell me she’s ‘talking’ to someone else.”

“I want her to just say it: she doesn’t like me.”

“Honestly I’d want it put right out there. It would hurt, but with time I would get over it. It’s better to stay friends.”

So, you handle this how? Love the kid. Obviously not romantically or even necessarily as a friend. We’re talking spiritual love, which has nothing to do with liking the person. It’s about:

doing him no harm (and that includes gossiping, telling everyone he’s a dork, laughing in his face).

realizing he’s one of God’s children too, and therefore deserves your respect (which means not looking at him like he’s invisible, acknowledging his good points, resisting the urge to say, “What exactly is it that you’re staring at, buddy?”).

helping him out if he needs it and you’re the one to do it (as in, squelching the false rumor everybody’s spreading about him, letting him know he sat in the ketchup some moron put in his chair, praying for him).

If the Face Off is necessary (he’s just not picking up what you’re putting down) be honest (though kind) and tell him you’re just not into him. There’s no need to go into why (“You drive me crazy talking about your video games” or “Seriously, it’s your breath.”). He may be crestfallen, but it’s better that he hears it straight, rather than your making excuses (“I have to go floss,” for instance), or watching him suffer and hoping he’ll go away, or getting somebody else to tell him to back off, especially another guy.

What the Guys Say

“Don’t accept a date with me and THEN tell me you aren’t interested.”

What if he doesn’t give up? Bless his heart. Tell him as often as you need to, and be sure you aren’t doing anything to encourage him because, after all, it doesn’t hurt your self-esteem any to have somebody swooning over you. Even if you’re going all out to guard his feelings, they’re going to be hurt, just like yours are when somebody you’re crushing on makes it clear the feeling isn’t mutual. You can’t help that. But you can do a lot to make sure his ego isn’t smashed and he doesn’t end up thinking he’s a complete loser.

What can you learn from that squirmy situation?

You can’t please everybody. (Hard for you soft-hearted ladies.)

Honesty can be hard, but you owe it to someone who sees something in you he likes.

Once you’ve had to turn down a guy’s affections, you gain some pretty interesting insights into how you are with the boy you like.

Being dumped

“When he told me it was over, it’s safe to say I was devastated. I trusted him and he threw it back at me. I’m still not totally over it.”

If a relationship, even a friendship, means anything at all to you, you’re going to be upset when it’s over. That’s not just because you’ll miss the fun you had with the guy or the talks you shared. It also hurts because it feels like a rejection of you, personally. Who you are, it would seem, was not good enough. Not only that (as if we needed more!), but you may feel sort of stupid. Why did I believe him? Why did I trust him? Why did I show him how much I liked him? Needless to say, the more involved you were in the relationship, the worse the breakup is going to feel.

Why do guys do that, anyway? Why do they act like you’re their princess one day and then totally dethrone you the next? Are they cold-hearted beings, or are they just determined to break every female heart in the class by graduation so they’ll feel like Mr. Man?

Maybe there are some who think they’re Don Juan, but if you’re paying attention at all you’ll pick up on the ones who are just racking up a body count and you’ll steer clear. But most guys don’t go into a relationship with a girl planning to break her heart. It’s just that their dreams for the relationship may not be the same as yours. I asked the guys I interviewed if they ever daydream about marrying their girlfriend and I got a unanimous, “Are you serious?” But they do look for the fun, the talking and listening, the satisfying feeling of being seen for who they are. That’s why they ask you out.

So they break if off why? That depends on the people in the relationship, but more often than not the reason falls into one of four categories:

Restlessness. “I’ve seen all there is. I’m ready to move on.”

Too much responsibility. “This relationship is getting too serious. I’m not ready for this.”

Distraction. “I like you, but I just noticed this other chick over here …”

Incompatibility. “I didn’t see this at first, but now I get that you and I are not going to get along.”

Notice that none of that has much to do with you. Yeah, maybe you pushed a little too much for a steady commitment or you took him for granted or you wanted to watch a chick flick when he wanted to watch the playoffs. But those are mistakes. They aren’t flaws in your personality. Let’s face it, most teen relationships don’t last into eternity —or even until graduation. Mostly, breakups happen because the two people in it aren’t ready for the serious stuff yet. And there is nothing wrong with that.

What the Guys Say

“I broke up with a girl because she was always whining and saying I was cheating on her I totally wasn’t.”

How do you deal with it? I don’t think I can give you a better answer than the one Corrie ten Boom’s father gave her when as a young woman she was in a relationship with a guy who then married another girl. In her book The Hiding Place, she says this is what her father told her:

“There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel. God loves Karel (the man Corrie loved)—even more than you do — and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”

If Corrie could learn to love with God’s love a man she truly expected to marry, seems like it could be done over a short-lived guy-girl thing that just didn’t work out.

As for the Face Off, once you’ve been told it’s over, it’s not good form to ask why or beg for another chance. You’re already miserable enough. You probably don’t want to add desperate on top of that. Your guy may not even know why, or at least he can’t explain it. You’ll come out of it with your self-esteem still intact if you don’t act like this is the end of life as you know it.

If he has behaved like a complete jackal, however (he broke up with you in a text message, posted his intentions to the world on Facebook, had his best friend give you the news, that kind of thing), he needs to know that the way he’s handling this thing is not okay. Using the Face Off style we talked of earlier, go to him—unarmed — and be straight with him. Then it’ll be your turn to walk away, head held high.

What the Guys Say

“When I caught my girl hugging on some other guy, that was it. I told her it was oven.”

What could you possibly learn from being tossed aside, besides that love can hurt?

A breakup doesn’t determine your worth as a person. Seriously, we’re talking about a person who can’t seem to get his pants size right. He gets to decide if you’re “good enough”? Really?

You now know how to deal with loss, at least on a small scale. The fact that you survive it and get over it is reassuring, isn’t it?

You’ll know the signals when you have a girl-of-the-week kind of guy on your hands. You’re sadder-but-wiser now, and that’s called maturity.

Being in constant turmoil

You start off being with a guy, even as friends, because you like each other, you make each other laugh, you like yourself when you’re with him. You’re thinking, “What is so hard about being in a relationship?” Then one day you realize you haven’t felt like that in a week because he gets jealous every time you mention another guy’s name (good grief, you’re talking about your brother!) or he ignored you during the entire World Series or you forgot to text him when you promised you would. You argue, you make up — which is great — and then a day later you’re at it again. What happened to holding hands at the duck pond like you did on your first date?

Several things could have happened. You aren’t as meant for each other as you thought. You haven’t figured each other out yet. You’re expecting too much. I could go on (ad nauseam) but you see what I’m getting at. Because you both have little to zero previous experience in being in a relationship with a person of the opposite, confusing, mysterious sex, you’re bound to have issues. People who don’t get married until they’re thirty-five have issues. Why wouldn’t you?

So — what do you do? Do you decide you’re not ready for all this and call it quits? That’s definitely an option. If it’s not going well, why keep at it? It’s not like you’re saving a marriage. But if you really do care about each other and you either have only the occasional spat (what couple doesn’t?) or your battles are always about one thing (him teasing you in front of his friends, for example), it might be worth trying to work it out.

That calls for a mini Face Off. Get clear in your own mind what you think the problem is. Let him know you want to talk about it soon. Not while he’s watching the Super Bowl or studying for his American history final, but at a time when you can both focus. Be direct and brief about what you think and how you feel. One thing guys hate is a lot of prologue and repetition. As one guy asked me, “Why can’t girls just say it?” Then—and this is huge — listen to what the boy has to say. It’s going to take him a minute (or fifteen) to respond, so don’t decide his initial silence means he didn’t hear you and or doesn’t care what you said. He’s processing. Once you both have it out there on the table, suggest some options for solving the problem. Important: don’t go back to “You do this and it drives me up the wall.” That part’s done. You’re into solutions now. Keep it simple. This is not marriage counseling. You’re just trying to get back to enjoying each other. If it looks like fixing this is going be like a new career, be honest with each other about whether it’s how you want to be spending your youth. Dating just shouldn’t be that hard.

There are some signs that it is too hard, that you’re in over your head. Don’t consider yourself a relationship failure if you bow out because of one of these:

You fight more than you laugh.

Your arguments upset you for more than a very short time.

The relationship isolates you from your friends and activities.

You feel like you have to tiptoe around your guy so he doesn’t get mad.

You ever feel threatened by your guy. (Ever.)

He’s pushing for sex even though you’ve said no.

You’re depressed because of the relationship.

Other guys are looking really good to you.

Your friends are commenting that you don’t seem happy.

Those are things that go on in a relationship just before it becomes abusive. Knowing what they are and getting out as soon as you see them may protect you from a really bad scene. If you have ever been afraid that your boyfriend was going to hit you, don’t break up with him alone. Do it over the phone. Better yet, do it in person and take your dad or another adult you trust with you. Potential abuse is nothing to fool around with. Care not what the other kids are going to say —”She’s overreacting. He would never do that.” Trust your instincts.

If the guy you’re seeing ever has hit you, grabbed you roughly, pulled your hair, or done anything else physically that hurt and or frightened you, go to the nearest adult you trust right now and tell her. You aren’t being a snitch. You are protecting yourself and every other girl he might become involved with. And in a way, you’re protecting him from hurting his future wife and kids someday. Please don’t be one of the victims. Speak up.

On that cheery note, what can you learn from mucking your way through boyfriend issues?

What the Guys Say

“It gets messed up when you have trouble controlling your emotions or your hormones as a guy.”

The Twitter Version

Conflict is inevitable. Being miserable is optional. There is a way to deal with everything, even it means walking away.

It’s okay to walk away. Life is wa-a-a-y too short to waste on a temporary duo that just isn’t going to work out.

If a relationship is worth working on, there’s a simple (though not necessarily easy) way to do it.

You aren’t perfect. There’s always something you can focusing on that will make you a dream to be with when it is time to get serious.

Before you decide, after reading all this, that you’re never going to get involved with a guy if it’s this much trouble, let’s go to God. There’s a whole lot of divine reassurance there.

God on Guys

Jesus is your go-to guy when it comes to resolving relationships. You’ve got:

“If your brother or sister has something against you … go … be reconciled. Come to terms quickly with your accuser” (from Matthew 5:23 – 25).

If someone gets in your face, don’t get in his face back. Turn to him (or her!) and say, “I’m not doing it this way” (paraphrase of Matthew 5:39).

Don’t just be decent to the people it’s easy to be decent to. Treat everybody that way. Even the jerks (paraphrase of Matthew 5:43 – 48).

The one thing underlying all of them is the thing that’s hardest to do.

“I try to forgive and move on, but I just can’t get over what he did.”

“The biggest reason I’m having trouble letting go and forgiving him is because he hasn’t even admitted he did anything wrong. He just goes on.”

“How do I just get rid of this I-hate-you feeling forever?”

Jesus says we have to (as in, it isn’t optional) forgive other people exactly the way God forgives us (Matthew 18:21 – 35). So you make up your mind you aren’t going to hold a grudge against Mr. Fickle anymore for treating you like one of his harem. You decide it’s time to stop being resentful of that guy who said “We’re history,” or the one who doesn’t understand any part of no. You even try to forgive yourself, for breaking Nice Guy’s heart or for putting up with the twisted-up guy who tried to cut you off from all your friends. Okay. Clean slate. New day. No more gnawing on this thing. It’s yours, God.

Seven seconds later (or sooner) you’re back at it again, and it colors everything gray. If Jesus would just give some how-to instructions to go along with that command …

Actually they’re there, right there, in your relationship with God. God shows us all the time in the way we are forgiven. Just consider these questions:

Does God wish you harm because you’ve messed up countless times?

Does God keep wanting you to provide some kind of payback for all the times you’ve disappointed him?

Does God keep throwing your mistakes in your face?

Does God stop loving people in general because at times you haven’t loved him with your whole self?

The answer is no on all counts. That’s the way God forgives and that’s what forgiveness means for us as well. You want to forgive the guy who made you feel like a loser or the friend who betrayed you over some boy?

Don’t hope bad things will happen to him. Refuse to wish that something heavy would drop on her in her sleep. And don’t put harm in motion by bad-mouthing him all over campus or jumping at the chance to dis him to his new girlfriend. God doesn’t seek revenge. Neither should we.

Don’t hold him accountable for your pain. The old version of the Lord’s Prayer says, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Release him from any debt to you. Don’t expect him to ever make up for the hurt he’s caused. Clear the books. When you stop waiting for him to pay up, you too are free. Besides, even if he did, it wouldn’t make you feel any better.

Don’t bring the travesty up every time you have a chance, whether to the ones who betrayed you or in conversations about them. When it comes up in your mind, tell it to get lost. Eventually it will give up and go away. As soon as you repent to God of any wrongdoing, it’s forgotten in the Divine mind. Stop holding it over everyone’s heads, including yours.

Don’t let one person’s bad treatment of you make you less loving. If you become all bitter and suspicious, you cut yourself off from the possibility of real love in the future. And since God is love — well, there you go.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean, “Hey, it’s all right. It doesn’t matter that you hurt me. Matter of fact, come on over here and I’ll let you hurt me again.” It just means the hurt no longer controls you. That could take time, but in the end, forgiveness is the ultimate resolution to conflict.

That Jesus, man, he has an answer for everything. Come to think of it, he’s a guy, so they can’t be all bad!

Basic Truth #7

Forgiveness isn’t a suggestion. God forgives us, and we have to do likewise.

Making It Real

What’s the biggest guy-issue you’re involved in right now? What keeps you tossing in bed until the covers are in a giant wad? What makes you bite your fingernails or twist your hair or whatever else you do when you’re stressed out? What’s making you snappier than usual with your siblings? What are you frantically texting your friends about or bringing up every time you have a phone conversation? (Come to think of it, they’ve stopped returning your calls.)

It doesn’t have to be potentially heartbreaking. It can be anything from being annoyed with your best guy friend for teasing you about your cluelessness in chemistry to your best friend flirting with the guy she knows you like. It can even be wanting your secret crush to even know you sit next to him in English.

Write it down. Go ahead. It doesn’t have to be a three-page essay. A sentence will do. Couple of words maybe.

Take it someplace where you can usually think clearly and without interruption (although in some households, good luck with that, right?). Bathtub maybe? Your room after everyone’s asleep? Some outside spot where you always seem to run into God? That’s where you’re headed, to a place where you can run that issue past God and see what happens.

You may get the courage to have the Face Off that’s called for.

You might get some clarity on why your current conflict management style isn’t working out for you (bursting into tears every time your boyfriend mentions his ex-girlfriend’s name, for instance).

It could be that you’ll realize it’s time to end that relationship or get over yourself and make friends with that artsy guy who fascinates you, even though your friends think he’s “odd.”

In the silence you may hear that still, small voice that tells you it’s okay to let go and forgive, because there are better things ahead for you.

You could come away feeling no different than you did when you started. Give it some time. The answers may come in some pretty far-out ways (a song lyric, a billboard, an off-handed comment from your brother … now that’s far out.)

Maybe you won’t feel like you’ve gotten any help at all. But if you don’t go there and ask, you definitely won’t. Besides, is there some time limit on when God can answer?

When you get even a small inkling from God on what to do about that issue, put it together with all the information you’ve learned here and all you’re finding out about your own self and take one small step in that direction. There’s power in that. The issue will no longer run you. Who knows? Your nails might even have a chance to grow.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

It may seem to you that your parents are the last people who would understand what you’re going through in guy-world. If they do, great. That’s one issue you don’t have to deal with, right? But in many cases, girls know from experience that if they bring up some deal they’re having with a boy, they’re going to hear:

“I said you weren’t ready for boys.”

“This is why we don’t want you dating. There’s too much drama.”

“You’re spending too much time on all this. You have more important things to think about.”

“I don’t know what you’re going to do when you have real problems to face.”

Some people sure know how to shut down a conversation, don’t they? Kind of makes you not want to mention it at all — except that it sure would be nice to be able to talk to your parents about the things that are really bothering you, even if they don’t think that stuff should be bothering you. I keep telling you that they have both the wisdom of experience and your best interests going for them, that they’re a veritable treasure trove of things that could help you through this milieu you’re trying to navigate. But if you can’t get past, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, don’t make such a big deal out of this silly stuff,” how are you supposed to find that?

For starters, it might help to understand what’s going on with them. We’ve said it before, they love you and they don’t want you to be hurt. In the past they’ve always been able to divert you from harm by saying, “Don’t do that. Don’t go there.” That’s what they’re still trying to do. Except that there’s a difference between hurt and harm.

Harm is of a more permanent nature. There’s harm in staying out all night. Running around with a kid who does drugs. Getting so strung out over a guy you stop eating. Keep participating in harmful behavior and you’ll be damaged as a person. Parents can’t let that happen.

Hurt, on the other hand, is more temporary. It hurts to like a guy who doesn’t like you back, or to find out a friend is talking trash about you and your guy friend, or to back out of the dating scene because it’s turned into a mini version of Survivor. It could be avoided, sure, but it also teaches. Strengthens. Builds that character everybody’s always talking about.

Parents don’t want you hurt, either. The only one who can convince them the experience is okay is you. As always, there are ways to go about that which are going to get you grounded until you’re past marrying age.

“I’m the one who might get hurt, not you, so why can’t you just let me do my thing?”

“While you weren’t looking, I grew up. I can handle this, okay?”

“I just want to be able to ask you for advice without you telling me to just go study or something.”

It’s the “you’s” that get you into trouble. Not to mention the “I know more about this than you do” attitude. Neither is going to get you where you want to be. Do an attitude adjustment — “I have a thought I’d like to share with you” — and turn everything into an “I” statement.

“I really want to talk to you guys about something. It might seem silly, but it’s important to me and I’d like some input.”

“I know you think I get too worked up over all this relationship drama, but really, I’m trying to work it out so it isn’t drama. I thought maybe you could give me some advice.”

“I need to just vent to somebody and you’re the only one I can really trust right now.”

Can you honestly imagine your parents saying, “You’re right. It is silly. Come back when you have something significant to say”? Come on. They’re going to come back with, “I have no advice for you,” or “Go find somebody else to trust”? Not on their worst day!

Once you get the conversation going, you can reassure them that you aren’t about to go off the deep end over some guy or devote all your time to Conflict Resolution 101. A clear picture of what’s really going on is probably a whole lot less dramatic than what they’ve dreamed up. Again, you’re the only one who can provide that picture. And it isn’t going to take a Face Off to do it. After all, these people are way more mature than the ones you’re used to dealing with!

The Twitter Version

Parents are the perfect people to go to when you’re hurting. Really.

If I’m Totally Honest …

The one issue I wish everybody would just get OVER is:

8
“And All of This Is Important Because …?”

Let’s face it: life would probably be much simpler for you right now without guys in it. That throwing-climbing-jumping-concocting-punching thing they were into as little boys is all but over —but the flirting-hugging-strutting-confusing-the-snot-out-of-you thing that has replaced it does an even more thorough job of frying your brain.

If you just didn’t have to cope with their bewildering behavior, you could probably, oh, I don’t know, get through a day without wondering if that one will throw a glance your way or if that other one will finally stay out of you way or if any one of them will ever realize that you are not as invisible as a piece of Saran Wrap. Whether you really care about a date to prom or even think you want to complicate your life by saying, “So — how do you like your Droid?”, teenage males are there to be dealt with. And the fact that you’ve just read an entire book on the subject tells you it definitely isn’t easy. There are probably days when the next adult who tells you that guys aren’t that important to your life right now is just asking for an eye roll.

I’d be right there rolling with you. Of course guys are not the most important thing. But they are undeniably a significant part of your development into a young woman—not so you can check “having a boyfriend” off on some list of milestones to becoming one. (In the first place, what list? But that’s for another book …) The importance of guys to your development is not the guys themselves and whether they adore you or ignore you or think of you as their little sister. It’s what you learn about yourself when you’re dealing with whatever they throw out there. (Huh. I guess they are still throwing …)

If you didn’t have to decipher their language and their mental processes and their body language (Is he trying to impress me or is there some other reason why he does a chin-up on the door frame every time I walk by?), you wouldn’t become a shrewd observer of people as a whole.

If you didn’t have to become comfortable enough to talk to one without sweating like a prize fighter and losing your entire vocabulary, you’d have a harder time becoming a poised, confident young woman across the board.

If you didn’t discover that being friends with one isn’t like befriending a creature from another planet, you’d be slower to learn that there is something potentially valuable in every human being.

And if you didn’t have to work through the issues that are as much a part of guys as their ball caps and cell phones, you’d be slower to become compassionate and assertive and just plain forgiving.

As infuriating as they can be, teenage boys have as profound an effect on who you become as just about anything else. Fortunately (ya gotta love that word right now!), what effect they have depends entirely on you.

And, of course, God.

God on Guys — and the Guydlines That Follow

I’ve said that in the Gospels, Jesus didn’t directly address “what should a girl do about boys?”, but I have to say I think he came pretty close with this verse:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45).

Okay, so I know that the pearl of great price Jesus is talking about means salvation, the Kingdom of God. That’s the first layer. But you are a pearl worth saving. Each of you. Whether you’re voted Most Likely to Break Every Heart in the Freshman Class or the girl who’s taking it all in from behind a copy of Pride and Prejudice. You are — all of you—pearls of great price in the kingdom of God.

Some of you have already realized that and are taking great care of your pearl-ness. You know the difference between flirting and being friendly, and if you flirt at all you’re cautious about who you bat those baby blues (or browns or greens or hazels) at. You understand guys because you’re friends with some, and you know enough to make sure none of them are going to make off with that pure, perfect treasure that is you.

Whether you have that down or not at this point, I’m sure that the very fact you’ve read this book means you aren’t careless with your affections. I have a feeling you’re not succumbing to the, “Boy? Where? Is he cute?” mentality that a lot of girls are operating under.

Just consider this about protecting your pearl-self— the wonderful, feminine, growing-into-a-woman you.

Do you think the jewel merchant is so afraid the pearl of great value is going to be stolen that he hides it in a safe deposit box at the bank so no one knows it even exists? What good would it do him — or anyone else — there? He would be wise to let people see it and appreciate it, even while he was protecting it from harm.

The smart jewel merchant would see how it could best be displayed — in a tie tack? A necklace? An earring? He wouldn’t let fear drive him to bury it in a chest in the ground. Again, what would be the point?

What I’m trying to say is that as you’re figuring out how you want to be around these boys-who-are-soon-to-be-men, fear is not your friend. Going into a panic about these kinds of things is not protecting — it’s paralyzing:

“What if I get to be friends with a boy I really like and then he thinks I want to have a girlfriend-boyfriend thing?”

“What if I’m friends with a really cool guy and then I get a crush on him and have to stop being friends with him?”

“What if we’re just friends and everybody thinks we’re a couple and it ruins the friendship?”

“What if I become his girlfriend and it gets too serious?”

I haven’t lied to you. Any of those things could happen. Maybe you’ve already experienced them. But you’re still here, aren’t you? You’re still a beautiful pearl of a girl. Maybe an even more beautiful one because you’ve learned and grown and, most important of all, you’ve loved.

So, one more word of advice from someone who, yes, had her young heart broken and broke one (or two) herself back when— but who wouldn’t give up the deep friendships with guys that I still count as treasures in my life. Here it is:

Protect yourself out of wisdom, not out of fear. Don’t let the near-terror of what-if-what-if-what-if deprive you of godly relationships with anyone.

Fear is thinking you’ll be swept away by the tide of peer pressure if you even dip your toe in the water. Wisdom is simply being aware of how strong peer pressure can be.

Fear is being convinced that other people will consider you Uncool for not having serial romances like the Very Cool. Wisdom is caring more about what you and God think and letting that determine your choices.

Fear is refusing to even get to know a boy as a person because there’s the chance-in-a-million that one of you is going to get a crush on the other one and … and who knows what then, but it can’t be good. Wisdom is letting a guy friendship be the beginning of learning what relationships are all about and how to be honest and express your feelings and enjoy somebody’s company without worrying if “something” is going to happen — because you get to decide what happens.

If you bury your precious pearly self, you let fear make your decisions for you. That isn’t going to take you anyplace you want to be. Yes, if you’re not comfortable around boys yet, by all means stay away. But promise yourself that you will pray to be released from fear if that’s what’s keeping you from showing anyone what a priceless pearl you are. Don’t live anxious because you’re afraid to do life “wrong.” One thing Jesus did not say was, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” He said to have life and have it abundantly. (Again, that’s John 10:10.) That doesn’t mean have 208 pairs of shoes. It means celebrate your pearl-ness. Share it with people you sense you can trust.

The Twitter Version

Don’t hide your pearly self out of fear Wisdom is a far better guide to making good decisions.

Be clear on this: the pearl we’re talking about is not your virginity — it’s a given that your goal is to give that only to the person you marry. This pearl is your true and beautiful self, a self you can never really know until you share it. The pearl that is worth being saved. It sure looks better next to the other pearls on the life-necklace than it does in the fear-box with the lid on.

What’s Going On with Me?

This is our eighth “quiz” together. I hope all the checking and circling and scoring we’ve done has helped you see what you’re doing that is so very right-for-you as well as what you might want to work on. In fact, let’s take a look at the big you-picture at this point and see where you are now that you’ve had a chance to spend some focused-on-guys-issues time with God and maybe tried out the “guydlines” on your own stuff.

Put a big ol’ check next to ALL the statements below that you can honestly make about yourself.

____ I don’t always get guys (who does?) but they’re not a total mystery to me either.

____ I realize the amount of attention I get from guys is not a true measure of who I am.

____ I can have a conversation with a guy without losing track of my personality.

____ When I see a girl totally throwing herself a boy, I think, “Oh, sister, you’re so much better than that.”

____ I can be friendly to a guy without worrying if he’ll think I’m flirting.

____ If I flirt, I still feel like me.

____ If I want to talk to a guy I like I can do it without feeling like my arms are too long or my mouth is too big or my whole face is saying, “You think I’m a total geek right now, don’t you?”

____ I know guys I’d like to be friends with.

____ I’m good friends with a guy or two. Or three.

____ I love being in a group where there are fun guys (who don’t need water balloons or beer hidden in the bushes to call the evening a success).

____ One of my best friends is a guy.

____ I don’t date but it isn’t because I’m afraid to.

____ I date for fun.

____ I know having a boyfriend won’t automatically make me okay.

____ I have a boyfriend because the guy is great and we have a blast together.

____ I know what “too serious” looks like and I’m not going there.

____ I don’t let myself get into situations where sex is even a remote possibility.

____ I don’t feed my random thoughts about sex.

____ It isn’t easy to totally avoid sex in the media, but I give it my best shot.

____ I know the signs of potential abuse in a relationship (but I don’t suspect every guy of being a closet monster).

____ I don’t judge girls who’ve made mistakes with guys. I get how hard the whole thing is even if I haven’t been there.

____ I know God forgives me for the mistakes I’ve made with guys.

____ I’m letting God help me get past my mistakes with guys and turn me in a new direction.

____ I’m honest with my parents about where I stand on guy issues.

____ I honor my parents’ rules, whether I agree with them or not.

____ I know I’m a girl that a guy could enjoy being with — whether any of them actually do yet or not!

By now, I don’t think I have to guide you through interpreting your results. You can see how far you’ve come and where you might want to focus. You can even just take a look at your big picture and let the next brush strokes fill in as you naturally grow as a young woman. Knowing it’s happening, though—that’s satisfying. That’s maturity.

As a matter of fact, that’s God.

Making It Real

“My longing is kind of old-fashioned and probably comes from too much Jane Austen. What I would love is for a guy to be chivalrous and honorable. My mom says that I have such high standards for guys that no one will ever be able to meet them.”

I know that if I suggested you make a list of the characteristics of the man you see yourself marrying, you’d come up with a list that would have your mom saying the same thing. I’ve seen those lists, and they include everything from “never gets mad” to “has to know Chinese.” As much of a hoot as it may be to describe Mr. Perfect, the fact that he doesn’t exist makes it just that: a hoot.

Even if you’re more realistic and limit your requirements to “he has to want to be in some kind of ministry” and “he must want children,” that doesn’t help you much with the guys you’re looking at right now. They aren’t even close to being who they’re going to be when that list even becomes useful. What guy absolutely knows what he’s going to do ten years from now? (Do you? Really?) And just mention having kids to a guy and watch him panic. He’ll cut and run like he’s being chased by the SWAT Team. You can look for future husband traits in the guys you know, but you can’t expect to find more than a trace or two. They’re not supposed to look like spouses yet. Nobody has the maturity of a thirty-year-old at age fifteen or sixteen. Not even you. You’re not the woman you’re going to be either. She’s starting to show up in beautiful glimmers, but the real thing hasn’t been fully formed.

So as much fun as it is to daydream about the guy who’s going to take you to the altar, it makes more sense here to think about the vision of your life as a whole. What glimpses of that is God giving you right now? What kind of person do you feel yourself becoming? What passions are starting to stir in you — things you find yourself really caring about in your soul? What gifts and talents are surprising you as they show up in your behavior? What positive direction do you suddenly find yourself moving in?

I suggest that for your last “making it real” exercise—at least in this book! — you consider, with God, where you’d like to be just one year from now. These questions might be a good start, but of course feel free to let your own experience take you farther:

What challenge do you want to have met by then? What current issue do you hope to have resolved? (In other words, what thing that’s driving you crazy do you want to no longer have sending you up the wall?)

What friendships do you want to be significant? Some you already have that could use some growing? People you don’t know that well and want to?

What confusion do you want to have untangled? Something about guys? Something you just don’t get about parents? Something on a more spiritual level?

What passion or personal gift do you want to have done something with, even on a small scale? How do you want to be able to say, “I don’t just dream about this anymore — I’m actually into it because I _______.”

How do you want to be able to fill in this blank: I know I’m more confident because ______.

If you go to God with your answers and pay attention to God’s response over time, and you sense that those really are good goals for you, then do this. Figure out one small step you could take in that direction, something that would get you an inch or two closer to where you and God want you to be.

Whether it’s breaking the ice with someone you’ve never talked to or googling organizations that share your passion or biting the bullet and apologizing to your parents for making them want to send you off to a convent—make like a Nike commercial and just do it. It’ll be easier if you remember you’re not doing it alone.

Keep that written-down vision where you can look at it every time you’ve taken another baby step. If you forget about it for a while, that’s okay. When you remember, go back to it and pick up where you left off. The more progress you see, the more progress you’ll make.

And although “feeling more confident with the whole boy thing” may not be one of your goals, doing the above intentionally and prayerfully might just accomplish that anyway. Guys won’t know why they’re suddenly finding you interesting, but then, when did a guy ever analyze that anyway? If you find yourself enjoying that, then there you go. But more importantly, you’re going to be God-confident overall. And it doesn’t get much better than that.

Mom, Dad … Now Don’t Freak Out

If you thought they were going to freak before if you approached them with the topics in the previous chapters, that’s nothing compared to what their reaction is likely to be when you go to them with what I’m about to suggest. However, this kind of freak-out is the kind every girl longs for from her parents. The kind where they go, “Okay, who are you and what have you done with our daughter?”, or at the very least, “Wait, is this maturity that I’m seeing?” Whether they actually voice it or not, your parents will be impressed if you say:

“I’ve been thinking about some personal goals for this next year and I wondered if I could run them by you and get your opinion.”

“I’ve decided I need to be more intentional about getting to where I want to be a year from now, so would you mind hearing me out and telling me what you think?”

“I didn’t like the direction I was going in and I’ve been praying about how to turn that around. Do you want to see what I’ve come up with?”

What father isn’t going to put down his iPhone and give you his undivided attention? Is there a mother in the world who wouldn’t stop folding the laundry or checking her email or driving the car, for Pete’s sake, to listen to what you have to tell her? Most of them would pull into the nearest Starbucks and buy you a venti anything and say, “Tell me everything. I love this.”

If for some reason you don’t get that kind of response (you’ve approached your dad when he’s in the middle of doing the taxes or your mom has the mother of all migraines), find out when would be a good time. Or just keeping taking those tiny, shuffling steps and let them see that you’re serious. You do have the Ultimate Parent in your corner. Know that God’s working on them too. The bottom line is they want you to be your best you. If you’re headed there, eventually they’re going to get on board. And heaven knows they have wisdom to make your journey even deeper.

The Twitter Version

Share your personal goals with your parents. They may freak out. That’s a good thing.

If I’m Totally Honest …

I see a new possibility for me with guys, maybe even just with life, and that is:

My Hope for You

I can’t wrap up this conversation with you without making sure you know that my life’s passion is you. My entire ministry is about giving you every chance to be the person God made you to be—your awesome, authentic self. That goes beyond just writing this book or any of my other titles for young women.

It’s there in my prayers that you will embrace what the whole guy thing truly has to offer to your growth. It’s there in my commitment to answering every email that arrives in my inbox asking for help with why boys are being stupid. It’s very much there in every twice-weekly blog post I write called “In Real Life” and every response to a comment. If you haven’t checked out that community, please do. We would love to have you. It’s always here in my soul where God quietly whispers, “Tell them I love them. Tell them I have made them worthy. Tell them there’s a reason I made boys the way I did and to hang in there with me. Make sure they know that who they truly are was created by me, and I’m here to make sure they flower into that with grace. Tell them. Tell them.”

So I’m telling you: you do have the ability to make good, godly choices about guys. You can be wise, not fearful. You can be attractive as your child-of-God self. You can make your parents your allies instead of your opponents. You can do this.

And all God’s fearless, beautiful young women said — amen.

To join my blog community, go to

tweenyouandme.typepad.com/in_real_life

Or, email me directly at nnrue@att.net

Preview

Check out this sample chapter from Nancy Rue’s Motorcycles, Sushi & One Strange Book, book one of the Real Life Series

CHAPTER ONE

I guess my life was crazy even before the day it really lost its mind. I just didn’t think it was.

I did think my friend Chelsea’s life was a little weird. Her parents had been married to each other for twenty years and her family sat down at the table to eat supper together every night. They always had dishes like broccoli-and-cheese casserole or green beans à la mode. Or something.

I definitely considered my friend Marcus’s life to be strange. His family went on a two-week vacation every single summer to places like Key West and the Grand Canyon. The day my world went insane, he was off with his parents and his little sister in California where they were staying in hotels and eating in restaurants that had tablecloths. Totally off the wall.

Okay, so I need to get to the point, which as you’ll see I sometimes have trouble doing. I was like that even before that Saturday morning in late June—or was it early July? Doesn’t matter. It was summer, so there was no reason to keep track of what month it was. At least not until August, when it would be time to think about going back to school. I tried not to.

It was going along like any other day in the life of Jessie Hatcher— that would be me. I was cleaning the house, sort of, and watching “I Love Lucy” reruns on TV Land — now there was a wacko, that Lucy woman — and talking to Chelsea on the phone. And she, as usual, was giving me grief.

“I wish you’d get a cell phone,” she said.

“What’s wrong with a landline?” I said, although I knew. We’d had this conversation before. I always pretended to forget.

“What’s wrong with it is that you can’t text on it.”

“Why do I need to text? We’re talking.”

“No, you’re whispering. I can hardly hear you. It’s like you’re in a library.”

“Or a bank,” I said. “Why do people always whisper in banks? Are they afraid somebody will find out how much money they have? Or don’t have?”

“I don’t know!”

I could imagine Chelsea raking her hand through that ginormous head of butter-blonde hair. She has enough for thirty-seven people. I barely have enough for me, which is probably good because it’s bright red. The kind of red that makes people stare at you like you’re Raggedy Ann come to life. So the less of it the better.

“Why are you whispering anyway?” Chelsea said.

I shifted the phone to my other shoulder so I could lift the corner of the dining room rug and slide a pile of crumbs under it with my foot. I’d already put the Swiffer away. Not that my mother would have noticed anyway. Those crumbs must have been there awhile, because the last time we ate in the dining room was probably four years ago on my eleventh birthday.

“I’m whispering because my mom’s asleep,” I said.

“At one in the afternoon? Oh, I forgot she works at night.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Okay, it wasn’t true at all, but I must have led Chelsea to believe it at some point. I tried not to out-and-out lie. Usually.

“See, it would be so much easier to have a conversation if you could text,” Chelsea said. “I’m totally getting you a cell phone for your birthday.”

“Oh no — the whole thing’s overflowing. I knew that was going to happen.”

“What’s overflowing? What are you doing, anyway?”

“I’m watching Lucy.”

“Lucy who?”

I changed which ear was on the phone again and used my forearm to shove all the random stuff on top of the buffet into the drawer and craned my neck again to see the TV in the family room. Lucy and Ethel were knee-deep in suds pouring out of an industrial-sized washing machine. Speaking of which …

I darted for the laundry room.

“Lucy Ricardo,” I said.

“Who? Never mind. I need to talk to you about Marcus.”

Good. A safe topic. I hated it when Chelsea went off about text messaging. I couldn’t have done it if I had an iPhone in my hand at that very moment. Not so anybody could understand it, anyway. Writing of any kind wasn’t one of my talents. Actually, I hadn’t really discovered any talents —

“Are you serious about him?” she said.

“Who?”

“Marcus.”

“Define serious.”

“You know what I mean.”

Chelsea’s voice dipped into that rich place where only the most delicious news can dwell. I knew her huge brown eyes were bubbling like chocolate fudge. My blue ones were so small compared to hers, I always imagined myself looking cross-eyed when I was around her. I looked in the round glass on the front of the washing machine. Okay, not exactly cross-eyed. But definitely too close together. My nose didn’t help.

“Did you hear me?”

“What?” I said.

“I just think that for as long as you and Marcus have been together, it’s time to either get serious or move on.”

“Uh—hello—you know I don’t do ‘serious.’ “ I picked up a hunk of clothes out of the dirty clothes hamper and dumped them into the washer. “I want to be able to flirt with whoever I want. Aw, man, we’re out of detergent. Can you use dish soap in a washing machine, I wonder?”

“Huh,” Chelsea said.

“Is that ‘huh, yes’ or ‘huh, you’re an idiot’ or ‘huh, I don’t know’?” “Okay, could you focus for like ten seconds?” That would be about it, yeah.

I heard Chelsea sigh like she was practicing to be a parent. “Before Marcus left for California, he told me he was getting ready to ask you to go out seriously. Would your mom let you?”

I stopped with the thing of dish soap in my hand and considered that. Right now Mom might, since she was going through one of her In-Bed Phases. Actually, she might have let me take her credit cards and go to Acapulco if I’d asked her during an In-Bed Phase. Which I didn’t, because I never knew when she’d emerge from her dark-as-a-movie-theater bedroom and go into one of her No-Bed Phases, where she polished the doorknobs and put the spices in alphabetical order. During her last No-Bed Phase, during which she didn’t sleep for seventy-two hours, she “housecleaned” my room and found that letter from the school that said I needed to repeat ninth grade English, and the note from Adam Ackerson telling me he wanted to take me out as soon as he got his license in two years, and that other letter addressed to “Jessica Hatcher” that I got in the mail from somebody in Florida but never opened because it looked official and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was talking about anyway.

Fortunately, that was all just a few hours before Mom returned to her bedroom. Most of the time I wondered which was better, the In-Bed Phases or the No-Bed Phases — but in situations like that, when she was too busy sleeping to call the school or Adam Ackerson’s mother or whoever the stiff-looking letter was from, I had to go with the In-Bed Phase. I might have to clean the house, sort of, and do the laundry when I ran out of underwear, but it was better than having my space invaded and my CD collection arranged by album color.

“So would she?” Chelsea said.

“Would who what?”

“Would your mom let you date Marcus?”

“I don’t know!” I said.

“Do you want to get serious with him?”

“Do I have to make a commitment this minute?” I squirted some dish soap into the washer.

“No,” Chelsea said. I could picture her folding her arms like the guidance counselor who was constantly calling me into her office. “So what are you gonna tell him when he asks you? He’s so going to when he gets back. Tonight.”

I heard a door click down the hall, and I shut the door on the washer and tiptoed through the kitchen to peek. Mom was just crossing into the guest room, half-blonde, half-roots hair falling out of that attempt-at-a-bun thing she did when she was about to spend a week with the covers over her head. She squinted as she shuffled through the doorway. The sun was coming down on the west side of the house, which meant cracks of light were breaking in around the edges of the shades in the bedroom she’d just vacated. She was moving to darker territory.

Which put her closer to where I was. I padded to the back door and stepped out onto the porch, immediately scorching my bare feet on the blinding-white decking. It was hotter than the surface of the sun back there, so I slid down into the only corner where there was shade and let my feet stick out into the Alabama sunlight. My legs were as white as the floorboards, and they kind of reminded me of the skin on the chickens Mom had made two gallons of broth from during her last No-Bed Phase. I’d never figured out what she was going to do with all that juice, so I’d stuck it, pot and all, into the freezer.

“I wish I could get a tan,” I said.

“Could we puh-leeze get back to Marcus?” Chelsea said.

“There’s nothing to get back to. He’s my best guy friend. Period.”

“Then what about Adam Ackerson?”

“Why are you all over my love life today?”

“Because.”

Silence. Which meant she was about to drop some bomb on me. As long as it wasn’t, “You’re too weird for me to hang out with anymore,” I was okay with a bomb. It was better than discussing my mother and why I didn’t text message and why I couldn’t stick to one topic of conversation. Chelsea was my best girl friend, but I already knew what happened when somebody else figured out that my normal wasn’t the same as their normal.

“Because why?” I said.

“Okay, I wasn’t keeping this from you. I was just trying to figure out the best way to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” I watched a spider swing on the tiniest thread from one porch rail to the other. I really did try to stay with Chelsea, but — had I taken my medication that morning?

“I’m just going to come out with it,” Chelsea said. “Donovan and I are going out.”

“Going out where?”

“Going out. He’s my boyfriend. It’s a serious relationship.”

“Well — so?”

“Aren’t you upset?”

“Why would I be? He’s an okay guy. I think his teeth are kinda weird, but who am I to talk? Mine are like Bugs Bunny’s.” No, I had definitely not taken my meds. Later. Right now I toughed out the hot decking and stretched so I could prop my feet on the porch railing, just a few inches from the spiderweb. It would be cool if she would attach her web to my big toe. Not that I could sit still that long …

“I like his teeth, but that’s not the point,” Chelsea said. “The point is, now that we’re together, I’m going to be spending a lot of time with him.”

“And not with me, chasing guys and getting them to chase us,” I said. “I get it.”

“You’re mad.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, I can tell.”

“How?”

“Because you’re pretending you’re not.”

At the risk of waking my mother, I laughed out loud. The spider skittered up the pole and out of sight.

“What’s so funny?” Chelsea said.

“Since when did I ever pretend not to be mad?” Chelsea giggled. “Oh, yeah, huh?”

I didn’t add that I pretended a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. It was one of the curses of being a redhead. So people told me. Mostly the people I went off on.

“So you’re really not mad that I won’t get to spend as much time with you?” she said. “I know it’s bad timing with Marcus being gone too.”

The phone beeped its Call Waiting signal, and I could have kissed it. Maybe she’d get off the whole Marcus thing while I found out who it was.

“I’ll call you back,” I said, and punched the button. “Hello?”

“Is this Jessica?” a man’s voice said.

“This is Jessie,” I said. I got an automatic burst of bad energy up my back. Nobody ever called me Jessica except substitute teachers when they were taking roll. Or people who were about to tell me I was in trouble. Again.

“I’m sorry.” The guy took in such a huge breath I wondered if he was locked in a walk-in refrigerator and was running out of air.

The big inhale turned into an even longer exhale. Okay, so maybe he was trying to sell me a yoga course.

“Well, Jessie,” he said. “This is your father.”

I froze, there in the cooking heat on the porch, and I forgot about spiders and Chelsea and Marcus and Lucy and Ethel. I tried to funnel what focus I had on that voice on the phone.

Because I didn’t have a father.

Okay, so, weird. Very weird. My father died before I was even born. Were we talking psycho here? The man would have to be to want to be my father.

I stood up and shook my feet so the pant legs of my shorts would straighten out. “Sorry,” I said. “I think you have the wrong number.”

“You’re not Jessica—Jessie Hatcher? Brooke Hatcher’s daughter?”

“Yeah,” I said — and only then remembered that you’re not supposed to give out personal information to strangers over the phone. Or was that the Internet?

“Then I have the right number,” he said.

It occurred to me that he sounded kind of nervous. Weren’t psychos usually pretty jittery? In movies they always showed them sweating and pacing when they were holding people hostage in a bank vault.

“You didn’t get a letter from me, Jessie?” he said.

“You sent me a letter?” Did that mean he had my address too? Now I was starting to sweat and pace.

“A couple of weeks ago. From St. Augustine.”

“Where’s St. Augustine?” I said.

“St. Augustine, Florida.”

“Oh,” I said. “That St. Augustine.”

I could feel the perspiration running down between my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t seem to get it together to go back into the air-conditioned house. I just stood there in the middle of the frying porch and saw the letter Mom had confiscated from my room wiggling in my memory the way the hot pavement ahead does when you’re going down the road.

“Maybe we should start over,” the man who claimed to be my father said. “If you didn’t get the letter, I could see how this would catch you off guard.”

“Ya think?” I said. “I got a letter but I didn’t open it.”

“That would make sense then.”

Uh, no, none of this made sense.

“I’m Lou Kennesaw. Apparently your mom has never talked to you about me.”

I added the psycho-pacing to the psycho-sweating. “No,” I said. “I mean, yes, she told me about Lou Kennesaw, but you died before you could marry her. You’re dead.”

There was a silence so long I thought he’d hung up—which was fine with me because I was ready to unzip my skin and jump out of it. I even had my finger on the End button when he said — in a voice like that spider web I was toeing earlier as if I didn’t have a problem in the world —”Jessie, I’m so sorry you were told that, but I am very much alive and I thought it was time I met you. If I’d known you thought I was dead, I never would have called you like this.”

“Okay, so let’s pretend you never did,” I said.

I didn’t mean to say it, but like most things I haven’t meant to say in my life, it just came out. I called that a Blurt.

“I don’t think we can do that,” he said.

“Maybe you can’t, but me, I’m great at pretending. Lou who? A wrong number, you say?”

“I know this is a lot to take in, so I’m going to let you soak it up a little — but I would like to see you.”

He was actually sounding fatherly. Not that I’d had much experience with having a father. Okay, I’d had exactly none. Except my grandfather, who I hadn’t seen much since he married that woman Mom didn’t like, which was before I even started wearing a bra so he didn’t count. But I’d heard Chelsea’s dad say stuff like, “I would like for you to clean your room,” in a way that sounded like she’d better do it or she was going to be placed under house arrest. This Lou person had that sound down. I always wondered why Chelsea went right up and cleaned her room instead of telling the man how stupid it was to tidy up a space you were only going to trash again an hour later. Until now.

But this dude was not my parent. I only had one parent, and even she —

Might come in handy at that moment.

“I’d have to ask my mom,” I said.

“Well, of course. I didn’t mean I was going to come by in the next ten minutes.”

“Don’t come by,” I said. “Call. No, I’ll call you. After I ask her. Which could be tomorrow, maybe Monday, depending on —”

I chomped down on my lip. When it came to certain subjects I did have some control over my mouth. But it never lasted long, and once again I had my finger on the button that could end this call so I could go back to arguing with Chelsea about Marcus and wondering how I was going to wash clothes without laundry detergent.

“I tell you what let’s do,” the Lou-person said. “You talk to your mom, and I’ll call you later tonight. If you want me to talk to her, we can do that too.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll do it. You can’t do it.”

“I’ll call tonight,” he said. And before I could beat him to it, he hung up. That ticked me off more than anything. Well, almost anything.

I went inside and pitched the phone onto a pile of laundry and charged down the hall to the guest room. I was about to break the one and only rule I had never broken before. I was going to wake up my mother.

About the Author

Nancy Rue has written over one hundred books for girls, is the editor of the Faithgirlz! Bible, and is a popular speaker and radio guest with her expertise in tween and teen issues. She and husband Jim have raised a daughter of their own and now live in Tennessee.

Books by Nancy Rue:

Fiction for Teens:

Real Life Series:

Motorcycles, Sushi & One Strange Book* (Book One)
Boyfriends, Burritos & an Ocean of Trouble* (Book Two)
Tournaments, Cocoa & One Wrong Move* (Book Three)
Limos, Lattes & My Life on the Fringe* (Book Four)

Other Nonfiction:

That Is SO Me: 365 Days of Devotions
Girl Politics
Everybody Tells Me to Be Myself But I Don’t Know Who I Am
The Skin You’re In: Discovering True Beauty
Body Talk
Dear Nancy

* Also available as enhanced ebooks

ZONDERVAN

The Whole Guy Thing
Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Rue

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

EPub Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 978-0-310-72685-2

Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rue, Nancy N.

The whole guy thing : what every girl needs to know about crushes, friendship, relating, and dating / Nancy Rue.

    p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-310-72684-5 (softcover)

1. Teenage boys—Psychology—Juvenile literature. 2. Teenage girls—Psychology—Juvenile literature 3. Interpersonal relations in adolescence—Juvenile literature. I. Title

HQ797.R84 2012

305.235'1—dc23                 2012007294

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Scripture quotations are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of Nav-Press Publishing Group.

Quote on page 139 taken from The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, 35th Anniversary Edition (Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group), page 60. Copyright 1971, 1984 by Corrie ten Boom and Elizabeth and John Sherrill, and 2006 by Elizabeth and John Sherrill.

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Founded in 1931, Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Zondervan, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers, is the leading international Christian communications company, producing best-selling Bibles, books, new media products, a growing line of gift products and award-winning children’s products. The world’s largest Bible publisher, Zondervan (www.zondervan.com) holds exclusive publishing rights to the New International Version of the Bible and has distributed more than 150 million copies worldwide. It is also one of the top Christian publishers in the world, selling its award-winning books through Christian retailers, general market bookstores, mass merchandisers, specialty retailers, and the Internet. Zondervan has received a total of 68 Gold Medallion awards for its books, more than any other publisher.