Insider's Guide to High School The Tattoo

Everything you ever wanted to know … about girls

BRISTOL, Connecticut, U.S.A. — Girls, Girls, Girls. That’s right, boys — the main event.

High school will mark the earnest beginning of your meaningful relation to the opposite sex.

You will, in all likelihood, fall in love for the first time, experience your first intense romantic involvement and you might even lose your virginity in the next four years.

All right, down boys — before you get all hyped up you should know this is all going to be much more trouble than it’s worth.

Noel Fahden/YJI

The best I, or any other male survivor of the Four Years War that is high school romantic relations can do for is draw on our experiences and try to advise you accordingly. The rest is up to you.

And so:

1. RELAX. If you don’t conquer some of your insecurity and suppress some of your fear about girls, you’re going to spend four years playing Dungeons and Dragons with four guys named Alex.

Here’s why: Truth is, girls are just as nervous about all of this as we are, and they don’t know what’s going on either.

2. ALL GIRLS DATE JERKS. It’s a fact.

Although there’s no sound scientific explanation for this sort of teenage female masochism, any grown woman will tell you it’s true.

Don’t spend four years torturing yourself over why the gorgeous, sweet, intelligent blonde who sits in front of you in English will walk on hot coals for the captain of the date rape team but won’t give you the time of day, just accept it and move on.

3. AVOID DATING GIRLS WHO SAY THEY ALWAYS END UP WITH JERKS. Here’s why: It’s the truth.

You’re just the latest in a long series of jerks and it will never work between you. If it did, she’d be happy and she will never allow that.

4. If at all possible, DATE UPPERCLASSMEN. Dating someone older will allow you to benefit from their experience and may help you avoid dating people as immature and screwed up as you are.

The theory is that they’ve already made some mistakes and they’re a little less insecure and they’ve already tripped over stones on the path you haven’t even seen yet. They can guide you.

This may also spare you the guilt and anxiety associated with dating a virgin, though this isn’t always the rule.

It’s true, most girls don’t like to date below their class (some basic problems with male maturity have cemented this rule for many of them), but there are girls out there willing to look past that, if you prove worth it.

5. DO NOT MAKE ENEMIES. If you have to break up with someone, try to do it nicely.

The last thing you can afford at this early a stage in the game is to provoke female wrath. The reason? Girls talk.

You establish a level of intimacy with one of them and then do her wrong, and you’ll be lucky if she only tells everyone she knows about your odd birthmarks. Hell hath no fury, kid…..

I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you. The rest you’ll have to figure out on your own. It’ll be fun. It’ll be hell. And then you get to start over again in college.

Joe Wilbur is a Reporter for Youth Journalism International. You can read Natalie Minor’s companion piece about boys here.

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