That Boy Needs the Real Facts of Life

A recent Dear Abby letter from HEAVY-HEARTED MOM shows why parents need to give teen boys and young men the real facts of life.

My son, a high school senior, was in a relationship with a young woman who broke up with him and began dating his best friend.

There's your first problem. A high school guy shouldn't be in a "relationship".

He was heartbroken.

He needs to learn not to care. Seriously. I know he's young. But he should still strive to get to where I was at one point: I was dating a woman for a while... maybe a couple of months. One day she told me that she was going back to her ex-boyfriend. Didn't bother me in the least. Why? I hadn't expected it to last, I had already gotten what I wanted, and there were other women to date. Not dating her simply freed up my time for others. I hadn't made her the center of my world. He shouldn't have made this girl the center of his world.

She played him into being friends and tells him he's her best friend, but her actions prove otherwise.

She can't play him into anything if he ignores her.

His father and I comforted him as best we could, but he still has feelings for her.

His father needs to be talking with him out of earshot of you, and telling him the truth.

It was a tough breakup for him, and he says he can't understand why he feels this way for her.

Because he bought into "romantic" dung. He made her important in his life. That was ridiculous.

We are not happy with him still being around her and try to discourage it as much as possible.

You should have smartened him up about girls a long time before this.

We limit the time he gets to be around her, but she has begun flaunting other dates in front of him, which is making it hard for us to be cordial toward her.

She has every right to date others. As does your son. You son doesn't own her. He never did. He never will.

How can I help my boy heal his heart and move on? 

Tell him how to get some. Seriously. It is the fastest way. I guarantee you he wouldn't care a bit about this girl anymore if he was getting some from someone else. If that's not going to work because of morals, then he needs to learn to appreciate himself and his freedom.

Dear Abby responded:

...he's going to have to arrive at the realization that there's more pain than pleasure associated with the girl who rejected him.

And that will be the case for every or almost every woman he's going to deal with, unless he learns to run game.

Here's the problem. His mother, likely his youth pastor, and media gave him terrible ideas about dealing with girls and young women. Media depicts high school as a time every straight guy has a girlfriend unless something is wrong with him. It's a terrible message. Very few, if any, guys should have a girlfriend in high school, or college for that matter. This poor guy was probably told he had to be sensitive, sweet, attentive, and romantic to "earn" a girl.

Nope.

What is the point of having a girlfriend at that age? If he wants companionship, that's what friends are for. If he wants to kiss someone or engage in some form of sex, he doesn't need a girlfriend for that. Females his age are doing it without any boyfriend-girlfriend status, and there are women older than him who like getting with young men. If he's not going to have sex, that's all the more reason not to have girlfriend.

He should, of course, be aware of how to effectively use condoms (including not trusting ones she supplies, and using Tabasco sauce to ensure those placed in the trash stay in the trash), any applicable laws about age of consent and sexting, etc.

He should be focusing on preparing for his future. How is he going to earn an living? What are his dreams? Becoming successful will make it easier for him to get women much more attractive than this girlfriend.

Even if he is foolish enough to want a relationship or marriage, that's at least ten years away. In the mean time, he should spend as little time, money, and effort on women as possible. He needs to learn to NOT CARE. And to say NO. "No, I won't buy you that." If he appears to be successful and confident, he will have women coming to him. Being unreliable and unavailable (except for sex) and appearing to be in-demand and having better things to do, taking charge, being mysterious and revealing as little real information about himself but rather encouraging the women to talk about themselves, being a bit of a jerk - those things will serve him well in dealing with the women of today.

In twenty years, if he's done it right, he will be able to attract women young enough to be his ex-girlfriend's daughter, and laugh his head off when his ex flirts with him.