When I was 16 years old, I was in deep like with a guy I was dating. He was purely the anti-boyfriend of my parents' choosing. He drove a black car with a souped up engine. He smoked cigarettes. He had horrible manners. He would beep the horn for me when he came to pick me up. It drove my mother crazy. I mean really looking back - he had no respect.
But that's not why I'll remember him. What I'll remember is that I went to an amusement park one weekend and bought a keychain that had both our names with a heart in between them. I thought it was cute and I thought he'd get a little chuckle out of it. Uh - not! He read me the riot act about how I pressure guys (how he heard about me) and that I was simply too pushy and that he didn't think this whole thing was going to work out. All this on my front doorstep. Needless to say, I was devastated. I hadn't known this about myself whether it was his truth or the truth. I carried it with me up until the point I realized that I was in a fully reciprocal relationship (my wedding day!).
What's the moral of this story? Well, it was kind of pushy for me to buy a keychain with our names when he wasn't my boyfriend and he didn't buy it with me or for me. I was forcing the issue. So take this teenage lesson and apply it to your lives now - never force the issue. It only makes you look desperate or clueless.
-GirlShrink
http://www.girlshrink.com
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