Q - Dear Annabelle, I've been w/ my boyfriend for almost 6 months. He hasn't told me he loves me, and I'm not sure if I love him. Recently, I got drunk and cheated on him. since I believe honesty is very important, I told him. He didn't seem too upset about it. He even told me that the last thing on his mind right now is 'who I'm out kissing', but he always tells me that he doesn't want to break up. What should i do? Talking doesn't help, I've tried. Does he even care? A - Dear Jen, No, he doesnât care. In life, we tend to care about things that have Îperceived valueâ, (and, yes, this is going to sound like a terrible parental nag...) You see, Jen , youâve gotten it into your head that, at 15, getting drunk and having sex is an appropriate activity. That you need to Îzone outâ so you you donât feel the pain of adolescence is perfectly understandable....growing and maturing IS painful. The ÎCatch 22â here is that you have Îvolunteeredâ yourself for a stunted life. I donât know whether youâre using sex as a way of feeling wanted, or for relieving tension, for providing a feeling of warmth and the illusion of love, whatever......itâs not good for you to be doing this. You see, adolescence is not unlike the human version of the chrysalis stage that a butterfly goes through. It is the stage between being a child and an adult. Just as the butterfly cannot morph from being a caterpillar into the flaying adult without the spinning and subsequent breaking out of the chrysalis, neither can a human change from child to a mature adult without going through the painful .........and awkward, adolescence. By Îzoning outâ you are missing a critical developmental stage that you can NOT make up at a later date. (You cannot Îfast forwardâ yourself into another stage without permanent and destabilizing results.) Because you are sexually active you are announcing to the world that you do not value yourself....(something too easily available and shared with almost anyone will be of value to few......certainly not to yourself.) Kissing is fun, all those activities are Îfunâ, but, as with many things in life, there is a time, a place, and a VALUE, real or perceived, of any particular activity. To risk, not only your own life and future, but the life of an innocent child,......(remember sex is the #1 cause of babies),...... is to demonstrate that you are unclear on the concept of maturity. At 15, you ARE immature, .......by definition.....and it is not HE who is hurting you, YOU are hurting you. The reason the fellow didnât Îwant to break upâ, by the way, is that itâs nice to have a Îfall backâ position, a Îhole cardâ, as it were. Having someone is better than having no one......so, there too, youâre just a Îthingâ, and, again, of little value. In order to avoid the pain of aloneness you have devalued yourself and allowed your self to be used. Jen, HE doesnât care, because YOU donât care. You asked me what you SHOULD do. Well, what you SHOULD do and what you are going to do are, probably, going to be two different things. Youâre, (probably), going to Îoffâ this response with a Îwhat does THAT old biddy know, anyway?â, and continue on your merry way..........until, one day, youâre going to feel the pangs of regret and wonder what it would have been like to taken your SELF in hand and treated yourself with the respect that your SELF truly deserves. What you SHOULD do is stop drinking, stop....period.......being sexually active, and START attending to your studies and make a PLAN for you future. A plan that includes your getting your grades up to where you can get into a good college and prepare yourself for an excellent career...to put the choices in YOUR court and remove yourself from the peril of wondering what someone ELSE wants of you. What you SHOULD do is to realize that, youâre probably going to live to your mid-eighties and planning the map of you life NOW will make that journey a good deal more pleasant with some terrific rest stops along the way....of YOUR choosing. That is best done when YOU, Jen, realize that you were actually put on this earth to add to its beauties, not to mistreat your self and waste your potential by not getting in tune with the wonderful person that you were meant to be. - Annabelle Q - Dear Annabelle, OK, a lot of what you said made a lot of sense. but you have one thing totally wrong. i am not sexually active. I'm still a virgin. I DO attend to my studies, I'm an honor role student. I drink, yes, but it doesn't affect my grades. I DO have a future ahead of me, I know exactly what I want to do. when I said I cheated on my boyfriend, I didn't mean I had sex with another guy. We just fooled around. I just wanted to clear that up.