Teens@Random

Hi Random Buzzers,

Ruby Oliver here, guest blogging and answering some of your questions.

I am  not an expert. In  anything. I am seventeen year-old mental patient/social leper. Also, I am fictional.  I am the heroine of The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book and The Treasure Map of Boys. Plus Real Live Boyfriends, which came out December, 2010.  All books by E. Lockhart.

Here's where you can read all about E. Lockhart: www.e-lockhart.com.

AND NOW FOR YOUR QUESTIONS!!

Q: Ruby, what do you do when a guy you have a crush on is way... (cooler? hotter? higher up on the social scale?) than you are?

A: I'd like to say social scale doesn't matter, but truth is, sometimes it can be a major obstacle.  Seems like at most schools there are like two or three popular guys that everybody crushes on.  Is your guy one of those?

In other words are you:

A)  crushing on him because he's popular and cute in the way that's considered cool at your school?  And does he never look your way/notknow you exist?  Does he even speak to you from his lordly position of popularity?

OR

B) crushing on him because some part of him seems to really connect to some part of you--because there has been a spark between you--something more specific? If he's just a generic popular guy to crush on, I say, find a new crush.  Someone who has qualities besides being one of the hot guys at school. Someone who talks to you is a start.

Q: I've never been good with sports or anything that remotely involves athletics. I'm in the marching band, but that doesn't really mean much. My friends in the color guard keep asking me to do the indoor color guard, but I'm not so sure I can. They dance and spin objects that I'm not so sure I'll be able to do. I'm a klutz. What should I do?

A: Hello!  You are labeling yourself a lot I notice.  Doctor Z, my shrink, forced me to be kind of conscious about the labels we put on ourselves: bad a sports, klutzy, stuff like that.   It's like telling yourself bad stuff about yourself over and over until you've put yourself in a little box that's hard to get out of.

So. Stop doing that.About the rest of it:

First, doing something sporty on a regular basis --  even it's like walking or stretching or splashing around in a pool -- is good for you in all kinds of ways.  So you should probably find something you think is fun and start doing it even if you don't have mad skills.

Is that color guard? I don't know.  Your friends want you to do it.  But do you want to? Does it look like fun to you, if you forget about the fact that at first you  will have to LEARN HOW? If it does, try it.  If you hate it, quit and find something else. If you'd secretly rather do marching band and a little yoga class on the side, do that instead.  I was a compete fool when I started playing lacrosse.  I had no idea what the rules were or how to catch the ball, nothing.  But it had always looked fun to me, when I saw the upper classmen playing it, so I stuck with it.  Now I'm varsity goalie.

Q:  What do I do if my BFF is crushing on my boyfriend?

A: Ag. This is a sucktastic situation for your friendship and your romance.  Trust me, I know, because (as you can read in The Boyfriend List) my best friend went off with my boyfriend sophomore year and my heart was broken and my life became a complete debacle and I ended up having panic attacks and needing psychotherapy.

I know. Blargh.

Anyway, somehow you KNOW this about your friend, right? But probably she hasn't told you because that would be kind of weird if she said, "by the way, I have a crush on your boyfriend." So you will have to bring it up yourself because she's being all secretive. Probably, you say something to your friend, like:  "I notice you flirt with Rodolpho, and I have to tell you it's upsetting me."

Then she says, "I am not."

And you say, "Well, it seems to me like you are, even if you're not aware of it, and I would be grateful if you could stop, because it really bothers me." Then hopefully she stops. Because that is what a good friend would do. E ven if she can't help crushing on him, she can leave him well alone.

Q:   Hey, there's this girl who won't let me talk to someone else because she's trying to protect me, but it just isn't working. What should I do?

A: Excuse me! You are allowed to talk to anyone you want to. No one is the boss of you in that department except you.  I would tell the girl that same thing next time she tries to stop you from doing whatever. Okay.

Now I need to ask: why would you need to be protected from this other person?  Let's call that person Taylor. Like, does your friend not want you to talk to Taylor because he's a guy who's been called into the cops twice for hitting his girlfriend and now he's flirting with you? Or is Taylor a  girl who's using serious drugs on a regular basis?  In other words, maybe this IS a person you would someday need protection from, and though she's not the boss of you, your friend has good intentions.

OR

Does your frined not want you to talk to Taylor because Taylor is a social leper for some reason, not as cool as your friend, and she's fake-protecting you from the damage to your reputation, or something like that? In which case, your friend probably does not have good intentions but is trying to keep control over you and the people you're friends with.  It might be worth thinking over why she's bossing you.

Q:   He always asks for your advice, and you like it! You're really good friends but he doesn't see you as girlfriend material, how do you change that?

A: I say, wear fishnet stockings.  But then, everybody at school thinks I'm a skank, so you probably don't want to take that advice. What if you kissed him?