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Dear Breakup Girl,

I meet David at Church camp on June 20th. At the time he had a girlfriend and liked one of his friends. Our relationship was strictly friends! I went home thinking nothing of leaving David. When I got home, there was an e-mail from him saying that he really missed me and that he felt bad for not being very nice to me while we were at camp. I didn't really know how to take this e-mail, since practically the whole week we were at camp he would not stop giving me crap and vise versa. I e-mailed him back saying that I missed him and EVERYONE ELSE from camp too and that I couldn't wait until I saw everyone again.

A couple of weeks went by and David and I got closer and e-mailed each other at least 3 times a day, and I really started to like him. The only problem was he lived 20 miles away. Now you might think nothing is wrong with that and it's not that far away. But when you are 15 and David is 14, it's harder then you would think.

On July 15th, my mom took me and two of my friends to David's baseball game where he eventually asked me out. I was so happy, and I knew he was too. He dumped his girlfriend a week before I came and couldn't wait to ask me, to finally make everything official.

Almost three months have gone by, and I've seen him a total of seven times. I talk to him almost everyday, and we e-mail each other at least 5 times a week.

My question is: do you think that we are too young to be this serious? Do we live too far away from each other to really be this serious? Do you think I put too much trust in him, thinking that I'm his one and only?

--Lonely

Dear Lonely and Unsure,

I do know how hard it is to see each other when you're not car-enabled. I remember. Once we were 16 or 17 and looking toward college, all we could think about was "going places." But when we were 14 or 15 and looking toward, like, the next ten minutes, all we could think about was ... going places. Like, physically going to places. Places where our parents weren't; places where our parents weren't supposed to know we were. Places we couldn't bike to, like dances (we'd muss), and oh, truckstops (highway). Our entire lives were structured around who could drive us where and when ... and how we could get there without, God forbid, it looking like A Parent had had anything to do with it. I clearly remember, for this very reason, screaming at Breakup Dad to drop me off half a block away from the door to a Fessenden dance. This no doubt made my entrance very, very mysterious.

I will digress further only to assure you, Unsure, that there is light at the end of the bridge/tunnel. Proud to say, BG has reached the age of 30 having owned on the one hand:

Cars: 0

But on the other:

Boyfriends: Plenty.

Anyway. What do I think of your relationship now? Well, if you guys were, like, planning on renting a storeroom together at some truckstop at the 10-mile mark -- or, seriously, if it sounded like you were totally blowing off friends or homework to hang with your Happy Camper -- I'd say maybe you two should shift into lower gear. But honestly, what you have sounds pretty sweet and cool to me; it also sounds like you two are doing a great job of finding the shortest distance between two 20-mile-apart points. If you're actually concerned about your one-and-only status -- well, frankly, David doesn't sound like the two-timing type in the first place. But it would be okay, if you like, to do an itty bitty status check, as in, "Hey, what with the distance and all, how do you feel about being each other's one and only?" Eeeek, scary, I know -- but a little less so via e-mail, maybe? And again, I'm not sure it's necessary. Just try to enjoy having someone to deliciously miss, and someone to see in between. In fact, BG gives you complete license. I don't fly to dates myself, but let me know if I can drop you off anywhere.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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