Scarleteen

Hello again,

I will get right into it : I have a friend that has a history of having crushes on guys that don't care about her. She just recently got out of one of those crushes, and now she is beginning to develop another crush already !

The thing is, this new guy is quite nice to her, but I personally think she needs a break from this romance stuff, seeing as how badly her last crush went. And also I don't believe he is quite in her age range (he is 17 and she is 21).

Her last crush went badly because the guy was indecisive, but it was also partly due to the people around her encouraging her. They convinced her to confess to him while she was having a breakdown over him ! And of course it went badly, which I knew it would. I always try to avoid encouraging / entertaining her crushes, to avoid shit like this (pardon the language).

So, back to the new guy. I'm not sure how to go about this, knowing she is terrible at handling crushes. In general she is kind of bad at standing up for herself and she lets herself be walked on too easily. I feel like it's not right that she is already starting to develop a new crush right after dropping a major one. I already see people encouraging her with this new crush, and I feel like this is gonna be an endless cycle.

Hi rolfedewolfe,

Ah, I can tell you really care about your friend and don't want her to get hurt. That's awesome and she's lucky to have a friend who's looking out for her.

Unfortunately, people will sometimes make their own decisions no matter what advice we give them, especially at her age. You could try to talk to her, but it also might end up making her feel like you don't support her decisions, so it's a bit of a toss up. With some friends it's better to just let them make their own choices even if it means they end up with their feelings hurt, because after all, that's impossible to entirely avoid in life anyway. Of course, if you think she's physically in any danger, that's a different story. So while she probably could use a break, it doesn't sound like she wants one, and it might be better for you to just be supportive of her. Do you think that's something you can do?