Important but Not Central

With Philip, a whole bunch of things are happening at once. In addition to his junior year of high school being filled with all sorts of important near-year-end tests and assignments, he needs to think about his lacrosse team, Prom, his driving test, the SATs, visiting colleges and completing the volunteer hours he will need to officially log with the school in order to graduate.

A Good Captain Makes a Good Team

This Year Hermes High School’s Lacrosse Coach named four Seniors as Team Captains, including Conrad and Bruce. Over the years I have watched these boys on Philip’s Team grow up. It has been nice watching Bruce grow from being the star player to being a true leader. But the beacon of great leadership on the team this year is unquestionably Conrad.

Less a Child but not More an Adult

We still have the digital photos from hosting Philip and his peers for a party at our house two summers ago. Three then-fifteen-year-old boys Philip, Joshua and Kevin were lined up on all fours. Then-thirteen-year-olds Debbie and Katie got on top of them, and finally with the help of Chloe and Ashley, tween Abby got on top to form a pyramid. There were plenty of smiles, laughs and snapping cameras.

Tough Girls and Predatory Guys

When Philip joined the Hermes High School Cheer Squad as the mascot, Nestor Hawk, we had only one real concern. We knew he wasn’t doing it to womanize. But we were concerned there would be people—especially girls on the Cheer Squad—who might think womanizing was Philip’s primary motivation. Months later, Philip has no reputation for womanizing. Nonetheless many of the girls on the Cheer Squad have been womanized by others.

Cologne for the Prom or Formal

Few events from high school will be as memorable as the proms and formal dances. If you are a guy, this is your chance to make a great memory for yourself and for your date. You get to dress outside your normal attire in a tuxedo, suit or at least something extra special. Philip for example owns a Black Alfani “Red Label” Jacket that fits his tall, lean body perfectly. He has worn it to banquets and other special events with an un-tucked button-up shirt, tight jeans and leather dress shoes. For the upcoming Winter Formal, Philip will combine his Alfani jacket with some new attire to provide the perfect look.

We Let Our Daughter Have a Boyfriend

It has been over five weeks since Lars and Chloe stole away to sit on the bleachers together during a morning break from classes and Lars asked Chloe, “Will you go out with me?”

Their private and special moment was immediately interrupted by Katherine who suddenly found them sitting alone together. Perhaps Katherine sensed the awkwardness because she left reasonably quickly after a quick exchange with Chloe. After what must have seemed like an eternity to Lars, Chloe turned her attention back to him, looked him in the eye and said “Yes” with a cute grin and nod of the head. The two shared a smile but held back any laughter that might have arisen out of Katherine’s untimely interruption before they had to head back to class. But they left morning break officially a couple.

Walking Between Classes with Boys

Hermes Middle School is probably very similar to thousands of middle schools across the country and across the world. The young adolescents like Chloe and her friends are given all kinds of cues to tell them they are older and more mature than they were just a few months back in elementary school.

There is no playground equipment. Instead the school has outdoor sports fields next to the campus and an indoor gymnasium with a full basketball court. The kids change classes for different subjects and see a different set of peers in each class. Teachers do not escort students like they did in elementary school, and in general the number of rules and the strictness of those rules have been greatly relaxed.

Having an Older Teen’s Perspective and Insight

It was only two years ago when Philip entered his freshman year at Hermes High School. Over what seems like an absurdly brief period of time, Philip has grown seven inches taller and perhaps that much wiser. He seems to understand himself better and he also seems to understand why his peers think and act the way they do. When his friend Joshua sent a dozen text messages in a half an hour’s time because Philip didn’t respond immediately to the first text immediately, Philip merely shrugged it off concluding that it is something some teenagers simply do.

Prom: A Guy Needs to Ask with Style

October 4, 2005 is a day that probably almost nobody remembers as special. But its impact on high school prom season is starting to hold out against the test of time. On that day MTV first aired the Our Last Prom episode of their popular series, Laguna Beach. During the first half of the episode, one after another the high school girls from Laguna Beach enjoyed the surprise of being asked to prom in unique and creative ways. In theory it should have been another fun episode for fans to watch. But instead it had a cascading effect. According to Unhooked author, Laura Sessions Stepp, high school girls suddenly had raised expectations about how they would be asked to prom. By the 2006 prom season some six months later, high school boys in upscale, middle class and even economically depressed communities were either going the extra mile or they were being rebuffed.

The Tame Teen Culture of Grinding and Social Networking

On March 4th the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report that showed (with two interesting exceptions) a significant drop in teen sex between two studies for which the data was only five years apart. I’ve copied the CDC’s figures for teenagers ages 15 – 17 into the tables below. In a way, the numbers communicate more than anything I or anyone else could write in comment.

Heterosexual Sex: Ages 15 – 17	Boys 2002	Boys 2006-8	Boys’ Drop	Girls 2002	Girls 2006-8	Girls’ Drop
Vaginal Sex	36.3%	31.8%	4.5%	38.7%	33.0%	5.7%
Any Oral Sex	44.0%	35.0%	9.0%	42.0%	30.2%	11.8%
Gave Oral Sex	30.4%	22.5%	7.9%	28.2%	25.1%	3.1%
Received Oral Sex	38.0%	33.4%	4.6%	40.3%	26.8%	13.5%
Anal Sex	8.1%	6.2%	1.9%	5.6%	7.0%	------
No Heterosexual Contact	46.8%	53.2%	7.4%	50.2%	60.3%	10.1%

Additional Sexual Data: Ages 15 - 17	Boys 2002	Boys 2006-8	Boys’ Drop	Girls 2002	Girls 2006-8	Girls’ Drop
Homosexual Sex	3.9%	1.7%	2.2%	8.4%	10.3%	------
No Sexual Contact	46.1%	52.6%	6.5%	48.6%	58.2%	9.6%

Boys Pick Up Where the Medications Leave Off

With the exception of a few polite greetings, I have never personally interacted with Philip’s peer, Ophelia. But I have interacted a lot with Ophelia’s mother. Ophelia’s mother is part of my extended network of proactive parents in the greater Hermes area. Among those she trusts, Ophelia’s mother openly discloses Ophelia’s basic struggles on both a short-term and long-term basis and occasionally provides specific details.

When Life’s Consequences Overtake Parental Punishment

I like to watch television shows on DVD with each of my kids. So does Amelia. Right now I am watching Season 1 of Glee with Chloe. The show has just about every high school subplot, stereotype and neo-stereotype the authors could squeeze into a single television season of forty-three minute episodes of what Philip calls High School Musical: The Series. Chloe loves it. I enjoy it. And most importantly it launches us into important daddy-daughter conversations.

A Wrinkle in the Age Gender Gap

Some time in the middle of October, Teresa decided to put an end to her long term relationship with Steven. At least that was the official word. But it seemed to contradict her behavior during the lacrosse tournament on the final Saturday of October. A throng of tired lacrosse players arrived at the San Geraldo Sports Complex shortly after seven in the morning. To my surprise, Philip’s teammate Steven arrived with Teresa and she stayed to watch all five games.

Scoring a Fantastic Date to the Winter Formal

Philip’s sophomore Homecoming Dance is a rapidly fading memory. The next dance at Hermes High School is the Winter Formal. Besides the attire, the big difference between the Homecoming Dance and the Winter Formal is the number of people who go with a date. It is not quite the Prom, for which nearly everyone goes as a couple. But Winter Formal is the only other venue in which students who are not officially attached will go together as a couple.

That part of life is decades behind me, but I remember it well. As with many parts of my life long ago that Philip is now experiencing, I think I have learned some things since that time. For Philip’s sake and for the sake of any reader willing to heed my words, here is what I have to say about scoring a fantastic date for the Winter Formal.

When Teen Life Intersects Adult Life

Teresa has been a good friend to Philip. I first saw Teresa at an off-season lacrosse game under the lights in Oxford Hills during November of Philip’s freshman year. While Amelia and I watched the game, Chloe paired off with Teresa’s younger sister to keep one another company. As it turned out, Teresa had a “new” boyfriend named Steven and he was playing Goalie on Philip’s off-season team. Even though she was there for her boyfriend, Teresa still made sure to spend some of her time after the game chatting with Philip.

Glitter on the Floor and Grinding at the Hips

The club’s rules were enforced to the letter. Club Avalanche’s trained security staff ensured no drugs, alcohol, weapons, or anyone out of dress code or outside the age window of fourteen to eighteen made it through the door. Throughout the evening the security staff remained an ever-vigilant presence inside the club to swiftly expel anyone looking for a fight. These strict rules made me as a parent feel good about Philip attending one of their events.

Over the course of four high school dances during his freshman year, Philip had come to like dancing. While the kind of dancing Philip’s generation practiced at Hermes High School was racier than what I had experienced in my generation, Philip seemed to have found a set of boundaries that worked for him and as such I was comfortable as a parent. After reading all of the Club Avalanche marketing material, I encouraged Philip to check out one of their events. But Philip was only guardedly interested.* He decided to check one out. But he specifically wanted to check it out without bringing a friend along, and he specifically wanted to check it out at their event in Oxford Hills, a thirty-five minute drive from Hermes. In short, Philip didn’t want to see anyone he knew when he went to his first Club Avalanche event.

The evening began with a long wait in line outside the club. The doors did not even open until ten minutes after the event was supposed to begin. I promised not to leave Oxford Hills until Philip had sent me a text message from inside the club. I took the opportunity to enjoy a stroll in downtown Oxford Hills. Half an hour before the event was supposed to begin, Philip sent me a text commenting on his discomfort with the crowd waiting outside the club. Most of the teens in line were displaying a tough exterior, and nobody was using the opportunity to meet new people. Philip did not see anyone else who was alone. He saw groups of guys and he saw large groups of girls with just one or two token guys in tow. He was still only guardedly interested when he finally made it inside.

Colored lights waved. Strobe lights flashed. A DJ played all of the most popular dance songs. Philip was immediately disappointed with how loud the DJ was playing the music. It was impossible for two people to hear one another talking. Philip scanned the room before taking any kind of action. And then he saw it. Over half of the kids were grinding while they danced. There were no rules against grinding or any other sensual behavior at Club Avalanche, although the dress code meant everyone kept their clothes on. There were no drugs, alcohol, weapons or threatening behavior inside the club. But any other rules that one might infer were not enforced at all. There were no parents, no teachers, no school administrators, no coaches and no other rules. If it was consensual and could happen without putting someone out of dress code, it was happening in multiple places inside those four walls.

After assessing the overall mood and climate in the room, Philip started dancing to the loud, fast hip-hop beat. He worked his way behind a girl close to his age dancing without a partner. He had learned to approach cautiously, giving the girl ample opportunity to give him a subtle signal of rejection. At Club Avalanche, he found he was more likely to be rejected than was the case at a Hermes High School dance. But he had expected as much, given he was a stranger to everyone there. Some girls simply didn’t dance with strangers and it wasn’t always apparent who would dance with strangers and who would not. If the girl in question leaned back into his chest, Philip would share the rest of the song with her.

From the proximity of the dance floor, Philip saw the grinding live and up close. Some of it was overt and explicit. But much of it merely involved taking the contact he considered to be normal and extending that contact lower. And so Philip decided to try out the less explicit grind dancing. He began dancing up to a slightly older girl he had already seen grinding with more than one guy. As he got progressively closer, she continued to welcome his advances. With his hands firmly on both her hips, he cautiously moved his hip forward until it was firmly pressed against her buttock. The move was welcome, so he slowly turned to press both his hips against her from behind while she leaned her full body back into him and continued dancing. She seemed both satisfied and distant. His mouth was just a few inches from her ear, but he knew that the music was far too loud for her to hear anything he might say.

The song ended quickly and Philip saw his first grinding partner move on to someone else. He continued the pattern of dancing up to a girl, first securing her acceptance to dance in close proximity and then securing her acceptance to grind. Not all girls who leaned back into him agreed to the grinding, but many still did. With the end of each song, a new dance partner needed to be found. Dancing among the grinders, Philip experienced a surreal, high-energy, wordless cross between speed dating and hookup culture. Eventually, he took a break and visited the men’s room. When the door closed behind him, the music volume suddenly dropped. He felt a numb buzzing sensation in his ears. Then over the music and the buzzing, he began to hear a small group of guys talking about the girls they had been with so far that evening. Their misogynistic attitude annoyed Philip. And yet, without the ability to talk, girls and guys who had not met before were reduced to objects of consensual play out on the dance floor. This is just stupid, he thought.

Philip left the men’s room and returned to the edge of the dance floor. He scanned the room with a newly focused set of intentions. This time, he was looking to identify the girls who were not grinding. He picked up that the girls who were younger and avoiding the center of the dance floor were generally non-grinders. Although members is this segment of the population were the least likely to welcome him to dance in his regular fashion, these younger, more cautious girls were the ones on whom he focused his attentions for the rest of the evening.

At his request, I picked up Philip outside the club about half an hour before the evening’s event officially ended. He didn’t have much to say, except to tell me he was not planning on attending another one of their dance events any time soon. A couple weeks later, he told me he had no intention of ever returning. And as time passed, Philip slowly disclosed the full story of the grinding culture and his brief experiment with it. He had no interest in grinding, especially with complete strangers. And he really hated that fact that he could not even talk to his dance partners over the loud music.

While Philip was embarrassed to disclose the specifics of his experience, it was hard not to be impressed with his depth. His morals and ethics did not grow out of a “do and don’t” list imposed from the outside. Instead, he merely values relationships. And there were no relationships—not even casual friendships—to be found on the Club Avalanche dance floor: just glitter.

* See my comment on this post for an important explanation for those of you who read this blog regularly.

The Age Gender Gap

May is Prom month for high school students. Juniors celebrate their final weeks as underclassmen and look forward to their senior year. Seniors celebrate their final weeks of high school and look forward to life beyond high school. And a large number of freshmen and sophomores join in the celebration as dates. And it is here that we find a huge gender disparity. Nearly all the younger dates are girls. According Philip, only one freshman guy at Hermes High School was even asked to the Prom, and the guy in question turned down the older girl’s invitation.

As the spring weeks moved forward, Philip’s female classmates began posting Facebook comments about going to Prom, buying their dresses and scheduling make-up and photo appointments. The comments were followed closely by actual photographs of these classmates posing at various stages of the process with each other and with their older dates, culminating in them all wearing formal attire. And within a few days after Prom, many of Philip’s female classmates disclosed they were in official relationships with their older Prom dates. Formspring then provided the venue where an endless stream of questions about these girls’ sexual activity were first rebuffed and then answered.

In stark contrast, Philip is still saving his first kiss for someone special. At this age, the girls on average have experienced significantly more “relationship firsts” than their guy counterparts: First dates, first boyfriends, first break-ups, first kisses, first Proms, as well as plenty of “first” sexual milestones.

As a parent, I am in no rush to see Philip chalk up a bunch of these “firsts” at such a young age. But it is becoming painfully clear to me that Chloe’s freshman year of high school will be fraught with much more danger as well pressure to enter into “firsts” than Philip has experienced during his freshman year. And it is simply because Chloe is a girl. For teenagers, there is an age gender gap, and there always has been.

For Philip, the age gender gap played out effectively in his favor for the first time one recent Saturday evening. He hosted a teen social at our home that was arguably the best one yet. Its success came as a pleasant surprise.

Philip and Chloe were both at an unrelated early evening event on a Saturday where a bunch of kids they knew were in attendance. Chloe was actually the one to have the idea. “Can Philip and I invite our friends back to our house for a teen social? I thought we could rent the movie, Push.”

“Check with your brother, but sure. It sounds like a good idea,” I answered. An hour later, there were eight kids ranging from Chloe’s age to Philip’s age at our house. We simply brought out soda and popcorn we already had. Amazon.com’s instant movie service allowed us to rent Push for just a few dollars.

Philip was joined, by two other fifteen-year-old freshman guys: His best friend Joshua and another guy named Kevin. Then there were three thirteen-year-old girls: Joshua’s sister Debbie, Debbie’s best friend Katie, and our family friend Ashley. Chloe was joined by Joshua’s youngest sister Abby who was only six months older than Chloe.

We had been observing a relationship developing between Debbie and Kevin for several weeks. Things solidified as Kevin and Debbie sat close with Kevin’s arm wrapped fondly around Debbie’s shoulder. According to Chloe, the two kissed some time at the end of the evening when no adult was there to witness the event. Kevin later told me it was their first shared kiss.

What I think made the evening so enjoyable for everyone was that the guys were not feeling inferior to the girls, and the girls were clearly enjoying the mostly respectful attention from the older guys. The one possible exception might have been Joshua who was more interested in gaining Philip’s attention than the attention of either Katie, Ashley or his sister.

When the movie was over and we were waiting for rides to arrive, the guys got on their hands and knees to begin forming a pyramid for my camera. Philip was in the middle. Katie climbed on top of Philip and Kevin. Debbie climbed on top of Philip and her brother. Ashlee and Chloe helped Abby up to top off the pyramid.

While his girl peers were posting very grown-up looking Prom photos to Facebook, Philip’s image appeared on Facebook at the base of a very not-grown-up looking pyramid. For Philip, the age gender gap is keeping him young for just a little bit longer.

Reflecting on Teen Hookups

I was sixteen. Leona was seventeen. Leona was one of my friend Janine’s best friends. On the day I met Leona, the three of us joined around twenty-five other teens on a trip to the regional Six Flags theme park. The three of us spent the entire day together in May of my sophomore year of high school. Janine and Leona were juniors. Janine went to my school. Leona went to Janine’s old school and I had never met Leona before.

On the two hour drive to Six Flags, Janine, Leona and I shared a wide seat in one of the vans taking us to the theme park. I got to know Leona over a long animated conversation during which it became clear to me that Leona and I shared the same kind of humor that Janine particularly appreciated. Janine was laughing during almost the entire ride sandwiched in the middle of the seat between me and Leona.

As we walked into the theme park, Janine and Leona shared some private words they whispered back and forth to one another. Then at the very first theme park ride, Janine moved forward past Leona, effectively changing the seating order. The significance was not lost on me. Janine got in first, followed by Leona and I squeezed in last. I put my arm around Leona’s shoulders. She made herself comfortable leaning into my side before she looked at me and said, “I have a boyfriend. OK?”

It is possible Leona was making a weak attempt at saying no. But I interpreted her words to mean that whatever was going to happen between us that day would last only that day. And in the last remaining seconds before the first ride started, I decided to accept Leona’s terms. “That’s alright,” I replied and I squeezed her just a little tighter.

Leona and I spent the rest of the day ostentatiously close to one another under Janine’s non-judgmental eye. The closest thing we had to privacy took place in a photo booth after we ate lunch. Leona reminded me she had a boyfriend and I reiterated that I accepted that fact. And then we shared our first kiss. The kissing resumed during the ride home. We sat in the back seat of a station wagon. A parent we didn’t know was driving. Leona sat in the middle between me and Janine. Janine pretended to sleep. Leona reminded me she had a boyfriend one last time and I reiterated that I accepted that fact. We then spent the bulk of the two hour drive home slouched in one another’s arms kissing. After that day, I neither saw nor spoke to Leona again. Every once in a while I would ask Janine about Leona and Janine would merely tell me that Leona was doing fine.

Now I am the parent of a teenage boy and a somewhat soon-to-be teenage girl. I have become aware that hookups are very common among high school students. By hookups, I mean kissing or more between two people who are not in a committed relationship. Decades ago, Leona and I kept our hookup tame; we only kissed. But Philip has peers at Hermes High School who not only hook up frequently, but also sometimes do much more than kiss during their hookups. At this age, it is mainly the girls hooking up with older guys.

From my adult and parent’s perspective, I do not like teen hookups. I would like to tell Philip and Chloe that I carry a great sense of guilt over what transpired between me and Leona that day decades ago. But that would be a lie, and I do not ever lie to them. Instead, how I feel is much more complicated. I have two key regrets about how I handled relationships in general at that age. If I had handled relationships differently, my day with Leona would have played out much differently.

1. I regret that I did not apply myself to developing good relationship skills. Instead, I applied myself to developing my charm. The result was that I became very good at attracting a girlfriend (or the rare hookup like Leona). But I was not capable of sustaining my relationships or even ending them in an emotionally healthy manner. And so the ultimate outcome was a lot of avoidable heartache and fewer happy memories for both me and the teenage girls in my life at the time.

2. I regret that I did not have a clear set of rules regarding romance and intimacy. It was only when I reached college that I set my own rules for what I would permit myself to do outside a committed relationship, what I would do only within the confines of a committed relationship and what I would wait for until I was married. Once I made those rules for myself, kissing was something I did only inside the confines of a committed relationship. Today, I hope Philip and Chloe will decide to adopt rules similar to those I set for myself in college.

With the recent revelation about Erica’s hookup behavior, I find Erica’s words to Philip early in the year about her poor relationship skills quite haunting. Many teens today take the same naïve and unplanned approach relationships that I did decades ago. And many teens like Erica take my naïve approach much further. Teen hookups won’t go away and they won’t be tamed. But I don’t see teen hookups as being universal either. I know that there are also many teens among Philip’s peers who are determined to pursue their relationships in a mature and emotionally healthy manner. Such teens are willing to forego the short term pleasures of a teen romance or hookup in order to stay on course with their more long term goals and values.

Good relationship skills and a sense of direction can be developed over the course of adolescence in step with the development of charm and desire. That is the way I am raising Philip and Chloe. And I know many of my parent peers are giving similar instructions about relationships to their kids. But with the freedoms of adulthood so close on the horizon, this is not something parents can simply control. It is up to our teens to decide for themselves.

Fewer Close Kept Secrets and Less Room for Doubt

Rumors and the juvenile urge to acknowledge private matters to less than trustworthy peers has been a well-observed adolescent phenomenon. But today that phenomenon has crashed head on into one of the digital age’s commonly spoken proverbs: What happens on the internet stays on the internet.

Philip and his friend Vienna had suffered personal violation on formspring only a handful of days earlier. Philip and Vienna recovered well and they recovered quickly. Erica suffered a much greater violation—one to her personal privacy—and it is unlikely she will recover so quickly, so easily or so completely.

Initially, Erica’s peers probably paid little attention to the increasing banter on Erica’s formspring account asking her, “Is it true you are no longer a virgin?” Teenage girls get asked no shortage of rude and personal questions in this venue. The virgin question was tame by comparison. But then one day it seems that Erica caved into mounting social pressure she was getting online and offline to confirm the rumors.

“I regret it, but yeah,” was her first response to confirm the rumors. It was followed by multiple affirmative responses as if she was cleaning out a backlog of questions on her formspring queue that she had left unanswered for a while. At first one might have concluded that Erica’s older sister was playing a prank. But time proved otherwise. Erica never erased her answers. Instead on the following day, she began to answer a next wave of questions that pressed for details. It did not take much intelligence to understand the basics of what had happened.

Erica had indeed relinquished her virginity. Since this was a hookup and not a long term boyfriend, the guy had little motivation to keep Erica’s secret. He probably bragged at least to his closest friends. As the extremely popular girl, Erica would be a prize in the eyes of most high school guys who merely got the opportunity to spend a little time kissing her. Erica’s first time would be the prize of all prizes. He told some friends, at least one of them leaked the story to others and then the rumors spread like fire.

Eventually the direct questions and the ones written to her on formspring reached critical mass and Erica felt compelled to answer. Erica claims it was voluntary, even through she regrets it. As a parent, I wonder whether or not she was knowingly or unknowingly under the influence of Ecstasy or another illegal substance that would make her uncharacteristically agreeable to sex. The thought makes me cringe. That level of detail was not disclosed. So far, Erica has also resisted the many formspring questions that directly ask her with whom she shared her first time. Again I cringe at the likely scenario that it was someone much older and possibly even someone above the age for which state laws would make this a statutory rape. Erica at age fourteen was very, very young.

When I was in high school, I would catch rumors of girls relinquishing their virginity. Sometimes these rumors came with details and sometimes they did not. It was often with a much older guy. As I got older, more and more of the guys I knew would recite both vague and detailed stories of their supposed first experience, best experience or most recent experience. But the girl in question was never named to me. And no girl ever admitted or shared the details of her first experience with me. An admission like Erica’s highly public and highly authenticated admission on formspring is unique to this generation, but it is probably all of the sudden quite common.

With room for doubt only left regarding the minor details Erica still withholds, the rumors will continue while the main facts can no longer be denied. What happens on the internet stays on the internet. And what stays on the internet affects the offline world. It will no doubt affect Erica’s offline world. But what happens to Erica in the real world is a story that deserves its own post.

The Popular Girl, the Nice Girl and Other High School Archetypes

This is an oversimplification, of course. But plenty of truth can be found in oversimplifications. Vienna, the rather nice girl, is surrounded by friends. Erica, the extremely popular girl, is surrounded by worshippers. Philip has a name for the guys who worship but do not date Erica. He calls them her guy-bitches. In contrast, he calls the guys who are friends but not boyfriends with other girls like Vienna metro-friends.

To be clear, the average guy at Hermes High School—in fact the average freshman guy at Hermes High School—is neither a guy-bitch, nor a metro-friend. Most guys merely fall into or not far from one of the traditional categories of scholar, jock, nerd, delinquent, or loser that have existed at least since I was in high school, though under varying names. Philip is a scholar (that is, having the good qualities of both the jocks and the nerds) and I am trying with only limited success to introduce Philip to the idea of also being a metro-friend. Among the freshmen at Hermes High School, only a small handful of guys succeed at being metro-friends.

The guy-bitches deserve a closer look. For some, it is merely the hopeless ambition to win Erica’s love. Self-deception plays a role in these cases. For others, it is an acceptance of the fact that Erica’s love—though still desirable—is beyond one’s reach, so the next best thing is to be in Erica’s entourage, especially since Erica is also surrounded by a bunch of girls who also worship her with an enthusiasm that rivals that of the guy-bitches. And then there are the chief-guy-bitches. The chief-guy-bitches are a handful of jocks—each of whom is popular in his own right—who nonetheless chooses to play into Erica’s guy-bitch game in support of high school’s popularity hierarchy. The chief-guy-bitches also enjoy the benefit of not being fully under Erica’s control. One of the chief-guy-bitches is Walter, who Philip privately refers to as The Chump. Walter defied Erica by calling her parents when Erica got herself drunk at a Halloween party. More recently, Walter waved Erica over to join a group of freshmen celebrating Philip’s athletic prowess in the previous day’s lacrosse game even though he knew Erica was not speaking to Philip.

Not all girls have metro-friends, but Vienna is certainly one of them. Vienna brought her best friend Kayla and two metro-friends Rob and Noah along with her to Philip’s party in late February. It was what saved Philip’s party from being a complete disaster. In early March, Kayla and Noah announced to the world via their Facebook “relationship status” that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. One has to respect Noah for spending a long time getting to know Kayla and genuinely befriending her ahead of asking her out. Most freshmen at Hermes High School rush into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that end up lasting only ten days.

With all the time she spends hanging out and chatting it up with Noah and her metro-friends, one would think Vienna would have no trouble talking to Philip. But this has not been the case. Since his party, Philip has been making a sincere effort to get to know Vienna better, but he has been disappointed by how little she communicates.

“Do you ask her open-ended questions?” I asked Philip when he told me his attempts to engage Vienna in conversation kept falling flat.

“Of course I ask her open-ended questions, dad!”

“Alright. Maybe she is having trouble talking to you because she is shy or nervous.”

“It doesn’t matter, dad! She could be non-communicative because she is shy, nervous, lost interest in me, or was never interested in me in the first place. No matter what the reason, there is no way I can have an actual relationship with her if we cannot actually talk!”

Philip’s astute observation impressed me. And he succeeded in his goal to get me to stop asking him about Vienna. Still, as a parent I like Vienna a whole lot more than I like Erica. Both Erica and Vienna are fourteen-year-old girls who are still growing up. Each is a tangled and imbalanced mixture of maturity and immaturity, wisdom and foolishness, bravery and insecurity. Each wants to be admired by guys, especially the more mature-looking jocks and scholars. And each finds the prospect of a real relationship with a guy both desirable and terrifying.

It is unclear whether either Erica or Vienna is truly ready for a real relationship with a guy. I also wonder whether Philip is truly ready for a real relationship with a girl. But I do think there is a core difference in attitude between Erica and Vienna. Erica wants to get. And Vienna wants to share. And while that core difference in attitude holds, I hope Philip will never fall for Erica or someone like her again. But girls like Vienna deserve a genuine shot at the dear scholar who is my son Philip.