Love Him, Love Him Not

Dear Dee:
I've been going out with my boyfriend for nine months now and I am so in love with him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

But I just started to like this other boy who sits behind me in homeroom. It's hard because I used to like him a year ago and now I'm starting to like him again. Right now I am really confused, I want to kiss this other boy and spend time with him, but I feel guilty doing it and I just want to be just friends with him. What should I do?

On first read, your question made me roll my eyes. Seriously -- saying you are in love and want to spend the rest of your life with someone in one paragraph, then going on about how you want to kiss and spend time with this other guy is kind of contradictory. But I have decided to look at it differently and give you two perspectives. So hang with me, K?

I have no idea how old you are, so I am going to take the first paragraph at face value and say you really do love your BF and can't imagine your life without him. Hey, that's great. And you know what? Just because you feel that way doesn't mean you all of a sudden stop thinking every other guy in the world is cute. It doesn't even mean you stop thinking about spending time with other guys. You are human! But what it does mean is that you learn to take those urges and put them in perspective. You don't act on them. You don't obsess about them and you realize that you're only human, and can't ignore every single guy in the world just because you're committed to someone. But you also realize that being in a relationship means being true. And if what you feel is real for the person you're in a relationship with, then you know you've already got the real thing -- and nothing else could possibly live up to it. And then you move on.

So that's one way to look at it (and probably more along the lines of the way I'd advise someone in a serious, serious relationship).

Now, for the other approach: You're not married. You're just dating. But that doesn't give you the right to consider ‘experimenting' with other guys just because they strike your fancy. If you want to explore what you might feel for this other guy, then the right thing to do is end the relationship with your boyfriend. Do things the right way. Don't cheat, don't two-time and most definitely don't disrespect the guy you say you really love. And let's dive into that a bit: You say you LOVE your boyfriend, but LIKE this other guy ... those are two very different sentiments. One is worth preserving; the other is fleeting. Also realize that if you have these feelings for this other guy and really just want to be friends, you're asking for trouble -- and putting yourself in a prime position to actually let something happen with him.

Bottom line is, you can't have both guys at the same time and still be trustworthy and respectable. So dig deep, figure out what you're really feeling and don't embellish feelings that may only be a fleeing fancy ... and don't downplay feelings that may be the real thing.