Nancy Rue has become a successful, best-selling author of books for ‘tweens, teens, and adults. Over her career she’s written more than 100 books. For a complete list of adult fiction, click here.
by, Nancy Rue
I was thinking about you all through the pre-Valentine and Valentine’s Day season, ladies. It started when a few weeks before February 14 I went into Wal-Mart looking for heart stickers so my granddaughter (age 2) and I could make Valentines for her mommy and daddy while she was spending the weekend with us.
Big, bad mistake.
I found not one, not two, not three but SEVEN aisles packed with heart-shaped, cupid-bedecked everything. Did you know that you can buy a Valentine’s TOOTHBRUSH? I mean, seriously? I was actually hard put to locate the simple stickers because just about everything is pre-made, and what isn’t is in a kit that takes “just minutes” to put together – no creativity required.
Here’s what made that trip a mistake. I left there with Valentine paper napkins and plates for Maeryn’s and my tea party, three packages of stickers because I couldn’t come to a decision on just one, and a package of heart decor cards to send to my friends (something I’ve never actually done before, but there they were.)
However, the trip wasn’t all a bad deal. I became keenly aware (as in it was in my face) of what Valentine’s Day has become: a great opportunity for candy, card, toy, paper, jewelry and flower companies to make an obscene amount of money.
Now, mind you, I see nothing wrong with expressing love on Valentine’s Day, even with the help of heart pendants and red roses and Godiva chocolate. My granddaughter and I had a blast making cards and heart cookies (with more sprinkles than Imelda Marcos had shoes) and putting together our tea party. We (okay, I) have decided to make it a yearly tradition.
What IS wrong with it (besides the money splurge)? What’s wrong is what it does to those people who don’t have “that someone special” when February 14 rolls around. You probably either love the cards, the candy, the frills – or you can’t wait for the thing to be over because it makes you so painfully aware of who doesn’t like you!… continue reading
By Nancy Rue
Wouldn’t life be a whole lot easier if every decision you had to make was as clearly spelled out as the Ten Commandments? Seriously, we don’t stay up nights wondering whether it’s okay to put a hit out on somebody or rip off the local Mini-Mart. We’d get a lot more sleep if Moses had brought down another tablet that included: “Thou shalt not date until age 16.” Think of the parental arguments you’d be spared from.
Of course, if he had, I wouldn’t be writing this post for you. Matter of fact, I’d be out of a job . . .
Since that isn’t the case, here we are, facing a question that usually starts niggling at the edges of a girl’s mind somewhere in her teens, if not slightly before. If we were all hanging out in a coffee shop together having mochas and lattes (how cool would that be . . . for me at least), I could get a sense of where everybody is on the question of dating. If I knew who was under strict parental or church edicts on the subject – and who’s allowed to date and maybe already is – and who’s decided not to date for now — I’d know how to approach this topic.
Since we’re not sipping together and passing the biscotti, (and again, I’m just thinking that would be awesome) and I don’t know who’s where on the dating map, I’m definitely not going to give you rules for when you should date and whether you should have a steady boyfriend. I’ll just take the next couple of posts to explore some of the questions girls ask me about the whole dating thing and offer you suggestions to consider.… continue reading
By Nancy Rue
(Here’s Part 1 if you missed it.)
Do people still hang mistletoe at Christmas time so people can kiss under it? When I was growing up in Florida, mistletoe grew in huge clumps in the trees in our front yard and my mother would insist that my father pull it down so she could tape some over the doorway. She stopped doing it when I became a teenager . . .
Like all good parents, my mother didn’t stop at the ban on mistletoe. She tried to remove as many boy-related temptations from my life as she could. Curfews. No boys in my bedroom. No boys in the house when she wasn’t there. If she’d had it her way there would have been no boys at all, but fortunately she was as realistic as she was protective.
Your mom and dad have more than likely set some limitations for you when it comes to boys, or they will when you start showing an interest in the male of the species. (Actually you probably already have or you wouldn’t be reading this post!) But here’s the thing: the responsibility for what you do and don’t do with guys ultimately lies with you. Your parents can spell out their expectations on tablets of stone, but they aren’t with you every minute to enforce them. Sooner or later you’re going to be faced with a guy who wants you and you are the one who will be deciding what to do.
So you gotta have a plan before that ever happens.
In our last post we talked about that plan being basically, I’m just not going to have sex until I get married. Yeah, you absolutely need to be committed to that.… continue reading
by Nancy Rue
Since this is not my first rodeo in talking about the issue of sex and teens, I know what the possible reactions are to that title:
“I’m sick of hearing about it.”
“I already know I’m not having sex until I get married so why even talk about it?”
“I’m not seeing anybody wanting my body any time in the next . .well, ever . . . . so”
Or, depending on how old you are, just plain:
“Ewwww!”
So let me just reassure you that we aren’t going to be talking about the details, or even whether having sex when you’re not married is the right path to take. We got that part, right?
Where we’re going is into the heads of guys and what their reactions are to the question: “Do they really only want one thing? Is everybody really doing it?”
Here’s what I got from some teenage boys when I was writing The Whole Guy Thing:
“There are guys who do only want sex, but not all of us. Some guys want sex and a relationship. Some guys want to wait until marriage.”
“No respectable guy just wants sex. We do want relationships.
“No way guys only want sex from a girl! Girls are more than that. They’re a companion. They’re someone to just hang out with.”
“There are times when my mind goes out in temptation land, but not every time I see a girl or am with one. Sex is not always the thing that pops into my mind.”
Not all of those guys are Christians. In fact, they represent the 87% of teens fifteen and under who have reported in studies that they aren’t engaging in sexual activity. That means only 13% actually are – according to them.… continue reading
By Nancy Rue
In our last post we talked about how to make friends with guys – and if you missed that you might want to go back and check out “Guys As Friends, Part 2.” I pretty much went on about what great friends boys can make and how to connect with them, but I didn’t say much about the possible snags you could get caught on. There are actually only 3 main ones but they’re worth looking at. They’re not like, “Ooh, beware of this!” They’re more like, “Hey, here’s a heads-up.” Guydlines. I had some help from the girls on my “In Real Life” blog.
Heads-Up #1: “Sometimes my girlfriends drive me nuts because they tease me every time I talk to a guy I’m friends with. If I strike up a casual conversation with him, I get the look from them and the little eyebrow thing that clearly says they think I LIKE him. He’s just a friend!”
Yeah, there are definitely people who think it’s impossible for a guy and a girl to even have a conversation without it turning into a scene from a romance novel. Most of them are other girls who haven’t had the experience themselves or who see every guy as a possible boyfriend and can’t see why you don’t too. What to do?
BAD MOVE: Stop being friends with guys because (a) what if your friends are right? or (b) you can’t handle the teasing.
WORSE MOVE: Tell your friends they need to get lives.
GOOD MOVE: Laugh it off with, “Y’all watch too many sit coms,” and keep enjoying your guy friend. Better yet, get everybody together – with maybe some other potential friend-guys – and let ‘em see how different what you actually have is from what they think you have.… continue reading
by Nancy Rue
Last time we talked about the whole guys-as-friends (as opposed to potential dates, steadies, future husbands . . .) thing and you had a chance to check out where you are on that with the all-important quiz. The next logical step – if there is anything “logical” about dealing with boys — is to look at exactly how to make friends with members of the opposite gender. Because, isn’t it different? Don’t you have to be careful that the guy you want to be buddies with will “get the wrong idea” and think you want to date him and what if he doesn’t feel that way about you, how embarrassing would that be?
Big breath.
Okay, here’s the deal about making friends with boys. They’re people. There’s nothing magical or mysterious about them. Confusing, annoying, irritating, infuriating, yes, but not a mystery you can’t solve. In fact, the best way to make friends with a guy is NOT to look at him as if he’s an extraterrestrial whose alien ways must be uncovered. He’s a human and he needs and wants friends who like and understand him as much as you do.
And then there are the perks that come with a friend-who’s-a-guy.
By Nancy Rue
I get that question all the time, and it comes in a lot of different shapes:
We have our culture to thank for that confusion. Everywhere you look it’s like ‘do this, wear this, be this, have this – and you will snag a boyfriend.’ You don’t see ads in Seventeen or Teen Vogue picturing a guy and a girl studying together or playing a game of Scrabble. They’re always either all over each other or checking each other out to determine whether they want to be all over each other – because clearly having somebody all over you is life’s goal. I mean, seriously?
Don’t get me wrong. Crushes can be fun, and so can having a steady relationship with a guy (more on that in future posts). But going-out kinds of set-ups so often lead to you constantly going, “Does he really like me, as in really like me? How ‘bout now – does he still like me now? Should I have said that? I shouldn’t have said that. He’s going to break up with me. I know he is.” That doesn’t go on in a friendship, which means there’s a whole lot more joy. And it’s the kind of joy that can last.
Think about it. How many “couples” do you know who have been together longer than a couple of months? And how many that do are still enjoying it, without a lot of fighting and drama and breaking up and getting back together for reasons nobody can figure out?… continue reading
By Nancy Rue
Okay, I know you hate it when some sixty-year-old woman says, “When I was your age . . . “ because it’s apparent she was never “your age” and even if she was, she wasn’t your age in this age, the twenty-first century. Yeah, if you’re polite, your eyes glaze over and you just nod a lot. If you’re not so much with the manners you outright say, “Are you serious? Really?”
So I know I’m taking a big risk here by saying: At age 13, I was the biggest geek with boys who ever lived. And I am NOT exaggerating.
Just hear me out, because if nothing else you’re going to get a smirk out of this (and maybe feel a whole lot better about your own level of geek-ness!)
I was taller than all the guys. None of the boys had hit their growth spurt yet and I was five foot seven.
I was really skinny. Not slender, mind you. “Slender” is reserved for girls who can walk all the way across an unfurnished room without tripping over something. Like their own feet.
The largest thing on me was my nose. No exaggeration there, either. I had the Naylor (my maiden name) proboscis and while rather handsome on my father was less than attractive on my small, pimple-dotted face. Most of those annoying zits sprouted from the nose in question. When I got one right on the end it was like a motorcycle headlight.
Somehow I got somebody else’s share of the oil that comes with puberty and what wasn’t on my skin was in my hair. My ultra-short ‘do (my mother said I looked cute with short hair and I was going to keep it short; what my mother said was right up there with the penal code) looked fluffy and shiny for all of about fifteen seconds after I washed it.… continue reading
by Nancy Rue
It’s really weird, right? You’re realizing (or you figured it out a while ago!) that boys who used to be absurd little creeps are actually pretty downright adorable and you want to be around them. But when you get around one who’s particularly . . . well, okay, hot . . . one of the following things happens:
(a) Your tongue ties itself into a knot
(b) You think he likes you, but then it could just be that he’s flirty with all girls, and you don’t want to be a complete fool so you’re not sure whether to flirt back . . . and you wonder if it’s okay to flirt in the first place. You discover your tongue has tied itself into a square knot.
(c) You just want to be friends with him and you’re not sure whether that’s what he wants too or whether he wants to be more than friends and you can’t tell because you don’t know what he’s thinking. You can’t ask because your tongue has tied itself into a double square knot.
Of course, there is the possibility that you are one of those girls who is totally confident with boys and could probably have a nice side business selling advice to the tongue-tied. Even if you are, you might want to read on anyway. Sooner or later you’re going to come across a male who boggles your mind. The reason? Guys are just different from us females.
Well, ya think? If they were just like girls, girls wouldn’t find them so mysterious and attractive. And then the human race would basically come to a screeching halt.
It’s so obvious, but not getting how guys are different is the most common cause of that tongue-in-a-knot thing. So what do you say we take a look at that and get some of those tangles untied?… continue reading
“Where Are You With Guys Right Now?”
That may seem like a lame question to ask a bunch of teenage girls, but there are actually as many answers as there are girls themselves. Contrary to what it looks like in every teen-focused magazine you see at the grocery store, not everybody is having to make major decisions about which prom invite to accept (have you noticed?). Wherever you are on the subject of boys, you’re probably pretty normal. Which means you aren’t alone. Which means you are neither a geek nor a boy crazy wacko. Let’s prove it.
Below you’ll find six scenarios. Read ‘em all. Then put a number between 1 and 6 next to each one, according to how much it’s like you – a 1 being closest to you and a 6 being like the farthest thing from your mind.
BTW, be totally honest. There are no “supposed to” answers here and besides, what good’s it going to do to answer like you’re somebody else?
Here we go:
_____ Girl A. “It seems like every girl I know is obsessed with guys, but I’m never the one to go, “Okay, that guy is HOT!” I’m just not into them, you know, and I’m fine with that until I get in a situation where that’s all anybody can talk about. Then I feel kind of out of it.”
_____ Girl B. “I really want a guy to like me. Or even just know I exist and think I’m not that bad. I feel like I’m missing something but I don’t know how to get their attention without making it seem like I’m trying too hard. Which I probably am. I can talk to guys on line just fine, but not so much in person.”
_____ Girl C. “I just want to be friends with guys at this point in my life.… continue reading
Before I explain that title, can I just say how jazzed I am to be writing a monthly column for Choose NOW? It’s like we get to have this on-going dialog about all things guy. I’m doing the talking this time, but in the future I hope you’ll chime in with the questions that are currently distracting you from your algebra homework. (Although, in truth, what isn’t, right?)
Today I want to set the tone for our future conversations. Here’s what you WON’T find in this column:
Rules about guysHere’s what you WILL find:
The first list contains things we adults would LIKE to be able to put out there and have you follow so you’ll make no mistakes in your relationships and your future marriage will be awesome. Like that’s gonna happen, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be good for you.
The second list contains the things that will help you make your own decisions when it comes to guys – because when you get right down to it, who else is going to make those choices?
You parents can say when you’ll be allowed to date, whether they approve of the guys you want to go out with, where you have the okay to go with said guys, and what time you have to be home. Your father can (and probably will!) inspect the length of your skirt, and your mother can lay down the law on kissing, etc.. That’s their job and you need for them to do it.
But they aren’t there in your head the first time you completely lose your ability to put together a coherent sentence because “He” has just said hi to you.… continue reading
by @LauraKurk Nothing makes me cry harder than movies about dads. A boy in college made the mistake of taking me to see Dad (1989) on a date. I sobbed uncontrollably and uncomfortably loud in the theater AND all the way home in his car. He tried to comfort me for a while and finally gave up,… [read more]
Choose NOW Radio airs Fridays LIVE from 10-11 EST at www.toginet.com! Or you can come back here for the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes for FREE to Parent Talk or Teen Talk. Parent Talk: Brad Mathias, Redemption; Larry Crabb, Inside Out. Teen Talk: Nicole O’Dell on Father’s Da… [read more]
Choose NOW Radio airs Fridays LIVE from 10-11 EST at www.toginet.com! Or you can come back here for the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes for FREE to Parent Talk or Teen Talk. This week on Parent Talk: Lyn Parker on Mentoring Teens, and Yancy First up is Lyn Parker. Lyn… [read more]
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