Today is a special day, for you are about to receive an answer to the most-often-asked question by Guide-age readers: “How do I let [fill in the blank] know that I like him/her?” Responding to the second-most-often-asked question, “How do I recover from the humiliation of rejection?” will be covered in a future issue.

“How do I let [fill in the blank] know that I like him/her?” has been asked by 13-year-olds since at least the beginning of eternity, if not before. I once heard that during prehistoric times a typical scene may have played out something like this:

Cavewoman: Big hairy man wearing leopard skin and wielding club walk toward me. Me ask him question. What want with me, big hairy man?

Caveman: Me love you.

The sight of a four-foot club was usually enough to elicit a positive response to the caveman’s romantic overture.

Now, I don’t actually believe in cavemen and cavewomen, but I do believe
today’s young person will go to great lengths to grab the attention of the
opposite sex. Sometimes this involves a small army of secret communication agents being enlisted to convey such a message as “So-and-so likes so-and-so.” These agents usually operate undercover as seventh-grade students, passing along the message from agent to agent until the last person in the chain receives the information. Hopefully, this last person is not the school principal.

Still, there is some risk involved, because the message often becomes garbled in transit:

Agent 1 (to Agent 2): Amanda loves Britt R. more than Bree does. Amanda wants to marry him. Pass it on.

Agent 2 (to Britt R.): A panda looks better than Britt R. does! Amanda wants to bury him. Pass the gun.

A second option is to put your feelings into writing. I once did this, squishing the love note into a spent shotgun shell and tossing it across the classroom. The plan was to have one of my agents “accidentally” fumble the catch, thereby allowing my romantic interest to retrieve my “secret” expression of love. In the end, my clever maneuver kindled a romance that burst into full flame and did not die until late that afternoon, when I realized that any romance taking place was inside my head and had nothing to do with real time and space.

In the end, the best relationship you can have at your age is what’s commonly referred to as “puppy love.” Just have your parents drive you to the local humane society and buy you a puppy, then do everything you can to ensure that your new mutt knows you love it. This eliminates all chance of your heart being broken by an actual human being. Sure, an actual human being may not need to be let outside to do its business, but that’s a lot easier than experiencing the pain of rejection at your tender age.

A wise guy once wrote: “There is a time for everything.”* Maybe right now it’s better to spend your energy on things more important than romance, such as homework and brushing your teeth. After all, who wants to get snuggly with an uneducated, stinky-breathed person?

Until next time, when I may have something of real value to say,† I remain your trusted romance and pet adviser.

*Ecclesiastes 3:1
†Don’t count on it.