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156 The Teen Survival Guide to Dating and Relating
dolaugh, you’ve given into peer pressure. Even if you don’tlaugh but you don’t
speak out about the joke either, you’ve let peer pressure affect your actions.
What if this group happened to be your friends and not just a bunch of
peers? Sometimes friends do things you’re not comfortable with and problems
arise. For example, what if they smoke and you don’t want to? Or they wear
clothes you can’t afford and pressure you to dress the same way? What if they
skip school, cheat, or shoplift? What if your friends treat other people poorly or
make “rules” you disagree with? It’s tough when friends do things that conflict
with your own values. You find yourself in the awkward position of having to
make a choice: follow the crowd or do your own thing.
No one wants to be without friends, but as you mature, you may realize that
people who put negative pressure on you or expect you to compromise your val-
ues aren’treal friends. They don’t offer the affection, support, trust, and accept-
ance that real friends do. If you have to give up “friendships” that aren’t real, you
may feel lonely for a while, but you can find new people to get close to. In the
long run, your path in life will be much smoother if you choose friends who
share and respect your values.My friend is pressuring me to be cooler
Hey Terra,
My best friend and I just started high school. There’s this group of very popular girls from
another middle school, and my friend thinks that if we try to be cooler, we can get in with
them and the boys will like us better. She’s into this idea way more than I am, and now that
the popular girls are paying attention to her, she’s pressuring me even more. Being cool is all
she ever talks about, and I don’t even care about it!Probably Not CoolDear Probably Not Cool,
Everyone in the world has, at some point, wanted to be cooler or more popular. (Even the
people who the rest of us think are already there!) Most middle-school students want to look