Doctor’s Note: I’m on vacation until the 12th of January. Until then, Paging Dr. NerdLove is going to be on a limited hiatus. The podcast will return when I’m back in town and meanwhile, I’ll be answering some quick questions for Ask Dr. NerdLove in lieu of the usual schedule. If you’ve got a question you need answered, now’s definitely the time to ask.
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I really don’t know what I’m doing it seems. So, basically, I’m a girl, 16, and I’ve met a guy, also sixteen. We’ve been dating in this weird on off cycle for about five and a half months and it’s really quite strange to me.
First time he broke up with me because he… well he never really explained, he just said he tried to kill himself that night and we left it at that. Second time he broke up with me it was because I told him I could fall in love with him after he told me the same thing, Oh, and after sex, like, directly after. He just sort of freaked out about the potential ‘l’ word and ended everything.
But lo and behold, we are back together again and I just need a third party’s opinion on these things. I mean, if you take out the fact he’s positively cray-cray when it comes to this relationship business, he’s really a great guy. Funny, geeky (thank god), attractive, kind, straight-forward, did I mention the geeky part? He’s always got something interesting to say and he generally listens.
And then this past week it’s like he’s been ignoring me, I’d message him ask to hang out, and he wouldn’t respond for AGES, even though for some stupid reason facebook let me know he’d seen them. If he does respond it’s in very basic answers and he never tries to continue conversation, and I don’t understand as just over a week ago we were hanging out and everything went smooth as hell. We were like Zoe and Wash in Firefly, you know that good. So I dunno, if you’ve got some kind of advice for me that’d be great, I really like him, I mean I really am kind of in the midst of falling in love with him, but this douchey behavior… yuck. I don’t want to break up with him again, but I don’t know how to tell him any of my nerves without scaring him off, again.
Holly Golightly
Here’s your problem: you’re both 16.
There’re reasons why I recommend not sweating the dating thing in high-school – everybody’s a bundle of insecurity and raging hormones who doesn’t know which end is up, just that they’ve suddenly got all sorts of really intense pantsfeelings that they don’t really know what to do with. Everybody’s convinced that they’re actually much older than they really are, but can’t actually handle or process the parts of adulthood that come with, y’know, actually being an adult.
This isn’t a sleight against teenagers, by the way; it’s literally because your brains are still developing. This is why teenagers do stupid shit all the goddamn time – because they’re not quite done getting their heads wired and aren’t nearly as capable of comprehending the consequences as they like to think they are.
(This, incidentally, is why there are pictures of me with some REALLY ill-advised long hair back in high-school. That and I haven’t managed to track them all down and destroy them yet.)
So why is your on-again, off-again boyfriend’s acting so nuts: he’s 16. It’s also why you drop the l-word on him and why he freaked the hell out about it even though he said it already. Maybe he was only saying what he thought he needed to, maybe it slipped out accidentally and when you responded he panicked… doesn’t really matter.
(Incidentally, for future reference it’s generally advisable to disregard anything someone says about love immediately before or after sex. And making promises while naked are generally bad ideas as well. The blood has a tendency to leave the brain for points south.)
And now here you are again, back in a relationship that’s much more Sam and Diane than it is Zoe and Wash and you’re already unhappy because he’s ignoring you and – let’s be honest here – giving you the “break up with me because I don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ here” maneuver.
So my advice: put on a Taylor Swift CD1 and give the boy his walking papers. Ignore what your heart is telling you right now because, frankly, the heart at 16 doesn’t really get it (Oh, the stories I have about my teenage crushes… most of them under gag orders, sadly) the way your head does: it’s a bad idea and he’s acting like a dickbag, which is not behavior you should be rewarding by continuing to be his girlfriend.
I’m not going to tell you that your feelings for him aren’t real or that it doesn’t hurt… but I can promise you that it’s not nearly as serious as it seems right now. Break up with him. Allow for some time to feel all your feels and mourn the loss of a relationship and then move on to bigger and better things.
Good luck.
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