What Are Boyfriend /Girlfriend Relationships All About? 41
Dear Silly Tilly,
Maybe you fall for guys who are attached or otherwise unavailable (like fictional characters
and movie stars) because you’re not ready for a romantic relationship, except inside your head.
By fantasizing the entire relationship, you completely control both sides of it. This isn’t neces-
sarily a bad thing. Many people use fantasies or dreams to understand their emotions and to
practice what they would do in real-life situations.
Another possibility is that you don’t believe that you’re good enough to be in a relation-
ship with the guys you have crushes on. This is a self-esteem issue, and you might want to
talk to a school counselor about it. If you want to work on your self-esteem, consider getting
involved in a sport, a service project, or another challenging activity, which can help you feel
good about yourself and your personal skills. Sports, activities, and hobbies (other than reading
romance novels!) can help you focus less on falling in love and more on making yourself the
best person you can be. Thanks for writing.
In friendship,
Terra
LOVE VS. LUST
What is love? No one has it completely figured out. That feeling we call love
remains magically mysterious because it’s different for everyone. Plus, there are
many kinds of love: love for a parent, a close relative, a best friend, a sports hero
(that’s admiration), a mentor (that’s gratitude), a total stranger in need (that’s
compassion), and so on. Then you have the stuff that poets and songwriters
have tried to describe for centuries: the ever-intoxicating, pump-up-your-heart-
with-“joy juice,” got-to-have-it romanticlove. That’s the feeling you get when
you think you’re with “the one.” The one you love may not actually be“the
one,” but you believe he/she is until you discover otherwise.
So when you’ve found that special someone, are you feeling love or is it
simply lust(an intense physical attraction)? Figuring out the difference can be
difficult because intense physical feelings are hard to separate from intense
emotions. Love includes feelings of contentment, affection, attraction, and
belonging, plus a connection with and concern for each other. Mature adult
love may include commitment and a desire to build a lasting partnership and