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Dear Breakup Girl,

I am a teenager and want to know a good way to ask a person out at school. This doesn't mean going somewhere with her right away; it just means that we like each other and publicly let everyone know.

--Krypto

Dear Krypto,

Don't worry, you don't have to quote some old Greek guy when you do it. But I am always interested in the rules and riddles of the high school republic, as in: "Where can you 'go out' with someone without 'going out?'" So let me get this straight: what you do is, you ask someone if she'd like to go out with you, and she says yes, and you're all, "Great!" and that's that, right? And that means you're a couple? Okay, I can work with that.

First of all: Ask her yourself. Do not send a messenger.

Second: Ask her what? Well, I guess all there is to say is, "Hi. I think you're pretty cool and I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me."

Now let's get this one out of the way: If she says no, hold your ground. Say something nice, like, "Well, maybe we can at least hang out sometime. Thanks anyway." Then go home and feel like a big dork. Until the next day, or maybe the next week, when you'll be glad that you at least asked.

And if she says yes? Yay!

And ... then there's the part where you really make an effort to actually "hang out sometime." Lots of teenagers write to me wondering why someone "asked them out" but then never called or really even talked to them. And frankly, I wonder the same. So if you're the kind of guy who can at least work up to actually "going somewhere," then I'd say you're really going somewhere.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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