"My girl broke up with me after her guy friends badmouthed me"

Dear Jeff,

You hit the nail on the head when you said she’s really young. More than needing time to realize you’re the man for her, she needs to time to grow, mature, come into her own and learn to trust her own instincts.

It sounds to me like your girl hasn’t yet learned that it’s okay to make a choice, and stick by that choice, even when others may not agree with it. Rather than stand up to her guy friends when they told her she shouldn’t be dating you, she let them persuade her into ending your relationship.

As ridiculous as it sounds, this type of thing is actually very common among young people who don’t have very much faith or confidence in themselves. Think about it – why is peer pressure so prevalent? Because we’re afraid that if we don’t follow the group, we’ll be ostracized and lose all our friends! So, instead, even when we know the choices are bad, we go against our values and instincts, and give into peer pressure.

Hopefully with age we learn that the people who pressure us into doing things we don’t want to aren’t really our friends anyway, and we begin to make decisions based solely upon what’s right for us, rather than what someone else tells us is right for us. It’s all about learning to follow our instincts and make our own choices.

But the point is, your ex-girlfriend is nowhere near that stage yet. She’s too afraid to go against the pack and make a choice her friends will disapprove of. And at her stage in the maturity game, fitting in is the most important thing to her. She can’t bear the thought of being shunned by the group.

So now you have to decide if this girl – who so easily dismissed you in the face of peer pressure – is someone worth waiting around for. If she is, all you can really do is continue be her friend and hope that she’ll remember all the wonderful things about you that drew her to you romantically in the first place. You can’t really take it any further than friendship though, since now she’s dating someone new.

And if you decide she isn’t worth your time and that you need to move on, I have a feeling a self-assured woman who respects and admires you for the wonderful man you are will be just around the corner.

Good luck!

Marissa