Coming clean on July 6, 1998...

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a boyfriend in Japan, and I live in Seattle. We have decided to stay together for the summer and we aren’t supposed to be seeing other people. I, however, have met someone and I don’t know if I should tell my boyfriend or not. It’s just a summer thing and I still love my boyfriend very much. It’s just hard to go from being with someone everyday and then not seeing them for three months. If I told him, I know he would be very upset and would most likely break up with me. What should I do?

— Bridgett

Dear Bridgett,

If you break up with Summer Thing now, like before you even finish reading this letter, then you don’t have to tell your boyfriend. If you let it go until just before Japan Air flight #123 hits the ground, you do have to tell him.

Okay, now that you’re back, let me elaborate. (more…)

Do reality shows like Teen Mom and 16 And Pregnant “glamorize” teen pregnancy? That standard hand-wringer has always struck me as weird. Because um, those shows don’t exactly make teen pregnancy/motherhood look awesome.  They (unlike, SORRY, Glee) actually make it look pretty crappy — a lot more so than, say, carrying around a sack of flour for a week. Even when cute teen moms glam it up for celeb magazines (which are guilty of overglamorizing post-teen motherhood), teens — who, turns out, are also better at condoms than grownups — still know what’s up.

And now we have the numbers to show it: according to two brand-new studies commissioned by The National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, “most teens (79% of girls and 67% of boys) agree that when a TV show or character they like deals with teen pregnancy, it makes them think more about their own risk of getting pregnant or causing a pregnancy and how to avoid it.” Other findings:

·         Among those young people who have watched MTV’s 16 and Pregnant, 82% think the show helps teens better understand the challenges of teen pregnancy and parenthood and how to avoid it.

·         76% of young people say that what they see in the media about sex, love, and relationships can be a good way to start conversations with adults.

·         About half (48%) say they have discussed these topics with their parents because of something they have seen in the media.

·         16 and Pregnant got young people talking and thinking about teen pregnancy─40% of those in the treatment group said they talked about the show with a parent, 63% discussed with a friend, and 37% discussed with a sibling.

·         93% of those who watched [a particular] episode agreed (53% strongly agreed) with the statement:  “I learned that teen parenthood is harder than I imagined from these episodes.”

This is all information we’re not so sure they’re getting in, say, abstinence-only sex ed — which, while we’re on the subject, glamorizes lies, shame, and fear. (And whose funding just got resuscitated, even as the Obama administration also awarded $155 million in federal grants to support evidence-based, medically accurate sex ed.)

Enough with the mixed messages, as Jessica Wakeman wrote at The Frisky, continuing: “If pregnant teen girls get their moment in the media’s graces, the least we can do is use it wisely. The alternative could be much, much worse.” Of course the media plays a role in the whole teen pregnancy ecosystem, but there are a whole lot of other reasons teens get pregnant, most of which are much, much more complicated and challenging than the simple notion of MTV cause-and-effect (which is exactly why we are reluctant to acknowledge and deal with them).  Teens are smarter than we give them credit for. Sometimes, in fact  — see phrases bolded above — they just want to talk.

Inconvenient truths from February 2, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I just broke it off with the guy I was seeing and the reason that I gave him is that we didn’t click. But I also thought that he was annoying. So I told him the truth about that and now he hates me for being honest. Did I do the right thing?

— Turtle Girl

 
Dear Turtle Girl,

Ah, the old “We don’t click.” As Buffy might say, “You wanna vague that up for me?” It is indeed a maddeningly fuzzy thing for a dumpee to hear. Dumpees: you always want to know WHY, like, in the form of an itemized list of grievances. First of all, sometimes dumpers really don’t know why; “gut feelings,” “chemistry,” and “click”-age are mysterious, yet perfectly legitimate phenomena. But when dumpers do have reasons, well, you think you want to know, but you really don’t (much like how we think we want to know how many people our partner has slept with).

(more…)

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, BG’s alter ego’s column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). Today we meet “Is Beauty Only Skin Deep?”, who has met someone of her own — online, anyway. Endless phone calls, round-the-clock IM, talk of marriage, sheer bliss…at least over optical fiber. But when her fella finally sees her photo (yes, after the M-word comes up), it’s perhaps his true face that shows. His response: “You’re pretty, but can you call again when you lose some weight?”

That, or when pigs fly?

Read the whole shebang, and then come back here to comment!