# My son really wants a girlfriend?



## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

I don't know what happened to my son, but for the past few months he's been talking about how bad he wants a girlfriend. He says that his friends have girlfriends. I have told him that he should date a girl who flirts with him but he keeps complaining that he does not like the girls at his school and has no interest in dating them. I ask him what's wrong with the girls he just says he's not interested in them. I've dropped him off at the mall and taken him to basketball games so he can meet girls, but he says that he's not interested in approaching the girls he sees. Every day he complains about how he really just wants to get a girlfriend already. I've told him that he's only 16 and that he'll meet a girl soon, but he must be patient. But he continues to complain about how he doesn't want to be patient. I don't think he's gay, his computer background picture and the background on his phone is pictures of girls he thinks are pretty. I don't know how to help him. He's extremely frustrated and upset and he won't shut up about it.


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## nextcommercial (Nov 8, 2005)

LOL... He's only 16. I'm glad he's picky though!

What about his interests? Is he very geeky? Musical? Loves skateboarding? He should look in places he loves, for a girl, who is a friend, who can become his girlfriend. 

My daughter is verrry geeky, and thinks everybody is too dumb for her...so, she limits herself quite a bit. But, that's OK with me for now.


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## MeepyCat (Oct 11, 2006)

At some point, there is an end to my maternal sympathy.

I have every sympathy for anyone who wants a romantic attachment. Romantic attachments are delightful! The road to finding people to have those attachments with isn't always completely straightforward. 

I sympathize with the desire for a partner. I don't sympathize with the whining.

Wanting "a girlfriend" or "a boyfriend" is unhelpfully unspecific. Girlfriend and boyfriend are highly personal relationships founded on personal connections. So if you want someone to play that role in your life, snap out of the generic, and start thinking about what, specifically, you want from that relationship, how you might find people who might be interested in being part of your life that way, and how you might encourage those people to be interested in you. Moaning about how badly you want a girlfriend is not a winning strategy for convincing anyone to give you the time of day.

If none of the people he actually knows and meets in real life are romantically interesting, he is just going to have to be patient. Nobody particularly wants to be patient - that's why parents have to preach about it so much - but there is no alternative. He can stew while he waits, or he could find something to do. Surely there are some chores that he could take care of, or a book he could read, or some homework he could get a jump on, while he awaits the advent of some girl he could bring himself to be interested in.


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## salr (Apr 14, 2008)

You know, it's not a bad time to talk about what he'd want in a girlfriend. Also, you could mention that often people are attracted to those who are doing things they are interested in and being themselves, just putting out a good vibe. So yeah, at least that way you're busy while you wait. 

If he's annoying you with the whining maybe he'd be willing to get into more specifics.


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## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

He likes reading, but there are no book clubs for teenagers in our area. He knows what he wants in a girlfriend already and cannot find it. He's very frustrated and upset. Every time I tell him hee has to be patient he just says he's sick of waiting and doesn't want to wait anymore.


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

Rather than trying to fix it for him (you can't), try active listening. Sometimes when we have a problem that can't be fixed right now, feeling really, truly heard is more helpful than being given advice.


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## chickabiddy (Jan 30, 2004)

fangaroo said:


> He knows what he wants in a girlfriend already and cannot find it.


Perhaps that's part of the problem. He has an ideal in mind, but what's available are real girls with faults and flaws.


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## MeepyCat (Oct 11, 2006)

chickabiddy said:


> Perhaps that's part of the problem. He has an ideal in mind, but what's available are real girls with faults and flaws.


....and needs, values, emotions, opinions...

When I see someone express a strong desire for something, and, simultaneously, a rejection of all the available options for that very thing, I tend to conclude they don't actually want what they say they want.

If you are truly thirsty, you will get yourself a drink of water. If you sit in my kitchen, with a working tap, a tea kettle, and filtered water dispensed from the fridge door, telling me how terribly thirsty you are and how you will not be drinking the available water because it is not water from the magical woodland spring you read about in a magazine, well, I no longer think you're thirsty.

If none of the available girls is interesting, maybe he should stick with not dating. Not dating is a fine choice. While he is not dating, perhaps he could develop a broader conversational repertoire.


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

MeepyCat said:


> When I see someone express a strong desire for something, and, simultaneously, a rejection of all the available options for that very thing, I tend to conclude they don't actually want what they say they want.


They could fear it.

Or lack the skills to get it, but feel safer saying that he doesn't like any of the girls at his school than that he doesn't have a clue how to strike up a conversation with girl, especially one he thinks is pretty.

Does he have any female friends? Hang out in a group that is mixed with both males and females?

It's a lot easier to say that you don't like any of the girls at your school than to put yourself out there, risk rejection, and risk looking like a fool to EVERYONE.

The problem with the glass of water analogy is that a glass of water never turned somebody down for a date.


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## MeepyCat (Oct 11, 2006)

Fair point on the drink of water.

Girlfriends aren't some adolescent inevitability, like molars, that will happen if you just wait. There isn't an entitlement program that hands them out. They are people who make choices.

If this kid is mooning around moaning about lack of girlfriend to his friends and so onas much as he is at home, he's hurting his actual romantic chances rather badly, and that one girl who does flirt with him may be carrying a load of social injury because of it. (She's so unappealing that even this self-identified desperate case won't give her the time of day.) Maybe it's time to temper the sympathy.


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## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

The water analogy is not actually like finding a girlfriend. He has a lot of female friends and he says that a lot of girls flirt with him. He simply does not like any of them. And though he is afraid, he said he would admit to liking a girl if he did. But he does not and he's very frustrated. He wants to date a girl so bad and does not want to wait.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

fangaroo said:


> He simply does not like any of them. And though he is afraid, he said he would admit to liking a girl if he did. But he does not and he's very frustrated. He wants to date a girl so bad and does not want to wait.


As a mom to a bunch of teens, I have a really hard time imagining a kid wanting a relationship but not being attracted to anyone. In my experience both as a person and as a parent, people develop a pressing desire for a relationship _because they are attracted to someone they want a relationship with_. Sure, sometimes the pickings are pretty slim in your social circle, but in that case interest in a relationship becomes more of a 'some day, somewhere else' thing. The kind of visceral pressing need for a relationship that you're describing in your son has always, in my experience, been based on attraction.

It sounds to me like there's something else going on in your son's mind that's the source of this intense desire he has. My guess is that this is how he's processing and expressing his [inevitable, teenage-boy] sexual frustration. He wants to be sexually active with a girl, but doesn't want to deal with the complicated interpersonal dynamics and vulnerability of building a relationship with a real girl. So he's expressing that desire for a sexual relationship as a desire for an impossible girlfriend. Just a thought, reading between the lines.

Miranda


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## arwenevenstar (Mar 25, 2005)

Linda on the move said:


> Rather than trying to fix it for him (you can't), try active listening. Sometimes when we have a problem that can't be fixed right now, feeling really, truly heard is more helpful than being given advice.


oh yes, this!

I think there is so much to be said for just saying 'I hear ya, but I can't do anything about it'

Our teens are going to be far more victim to the 'instant gratification' bandwagon due to the way life is these days, answers at the click of a button, partners from the internet, tv watching on demand, any food, anytime of day... you name it, you can get it, so why not a girlfriend .... NOW !!!:grin:

You can't solve this for him, it can only solve itself.

If, as Miranda above, has suggested, it isn't something more underlying ie: his desire to experiment sexually, then there really has to be some realisation from him that yes, the want to have a girlfriend usually comes from seeing someone you're attracted to.


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## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

He won't stop complaining and he's getting very frustrated. I tell him he should just be happy and wait but he says that he's not happy and just wants a girlfriend. He says he has no patience left. He tells me things like 'you think it's so easy to wait, don't you?' He says he doesn't like any girl at school. He doesn't want to hear anything I have to say, he just wants a girlfriend. He says he doesn't want to go to that school anymore because there are no girls he likes. He complains about it all the time. I told him I'll drop him off at the mall again on Saturday so he can meet girls, but he still complains. He says he doesn't want a girl for sex, he just wants a relationship with a girl he likes and he does not like any girl at school. Yesterday he just went to his room, closed the door and started crying. I don't know how to help him. He's so frustrated and upset.


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## MeepyCat (Oct 11, 2006)

I don't think you can help him in this particular case. It may be subject for therapy if it's interfering with other aspects of his life.

My mom would have offered to ask some people out for me, but she'd have done it to make me cringe.


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## arwenevenstar (Mar 25, 2005)

Does he feel left out of what may have been quite a tight knit circle of lads? If his friends are 'all' getting girlfriends, that might be hard to swallow?

Do you think he sees it as a personal slight?

Might he feel that 'there's something wrong with him'?

I'm just asking to figure this out because it does seem quite an intense reaction to it if he doesn't have an actual attraction to any girl. It's almost as if he's forcing himself to want to have these feelings that he feels he 'should' have because his mates do, yet he doesn't (because he doesn't fancy any of the girls), so maybe he feels that he's not the 'same' as the other boys

I'm putting all these words in inverted commas because you know as well as I do that normal is the biggest spectrum in the world, so much as we can tell them that they'll be who they are at 15/16, they don't want to know!

It's hard to see our teens suffer like this. My son has the most severe eczema and it tends to be exacerbated by pubescent hair growth. He is currently sporting the worst ever RED RAW man moustache in the world as the eczema is all over his upper lip. He asked me today if the girl he has the hots for at school might have been giggling with her friend because she liked him or just because he has this unsightly red soreness on his face. I could have wept for him, because in my heart I think I know the real reason and it isn't nice :crying: He is the most adorable guy in the world and will make a wonderful partner, but now isn't his time. 

It's SO hard!


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## salr (Apr 14, 2008)

Does he seem to be going through puberty at the same rate as his friends? I was interested in pp's suggestion that maybe he wants his idea of a girlfriend but is not really feeling attraction.


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## salr (Apr 14, 2008)

Also, this is seeming to bother you a lot and you keep going over the exact same points. Maybe just letting your mind rest about it and disengaging from this conversation with him for a while would make you feel better.


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## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

I think he feels left out because all his friends have girlfriends. He also says that he wants to experience love as well as the physical aspects of a relationship--holding hands, hugging/holding/cuddling a girl, kissing a girl tickling her, etc. I don't know where to take him to meet girls he likes. I dropped him off at the library after school today to do homework, but when I picked him up he just said no girls were there. I told him I don't know where to find girls, and that he'll just have to wait and he started crying again. AAAAGH!


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

fangaroo said:


> I told him I don't know where to find girls, and that he'll just have to wait and he started crying again. AAAAGH!


This seems rather over the top. He knows plenty of girls; he goes to school, and he's experienced girls flirting with him, and he's in social circles that include boys and girls, and he wants a girlfriend so badly that he's regularly bursting into tears over it ... and yet he's unwilling to consider any of the available options? Really? He just wants "having a girlfriend" to happen to him, without putting himself out there, without developing friendships, without taking chances, without being willing to discover who someone is. He's already decided he doesn't like all of them. Has he had a crushes on girls in the past? Is there _anyone_ in the whole world he is actually attracted to?

I mean, I get adolescent ambivalence, but this seems a really extreme version of it. He wants a relationship to the point of tears but he is categorically uninterested in anyone he knows. You don't need to take him to the library to help him "find girls." You need to help him see how unrealistically he is framing his desires.

Miranda


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## newmamalizzy (Jul 23, 2010)

Perhaps I have no business saying anything as I don't have a teen yet, but it really does sound just like how my 4 year old acts when she has an unmet need that she can't or won't tell me about and wants me to guess. I would really suspect that this issue is deeper or at least less straightforward than what he's making it out to be.


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## fangaroo (Feb 24, 2015)

> He knows plenty of girls; he goes to school, and he's experienced girls flirting with him, and he's in social circles that include boys and girls, and he wants a girlfriend so badly that he's regularly bursting into tears over it ... and yet he's unwilling to consider any of the available options? Really? He just wants "having a girlfriend" to happen to him, without putting himself out there, without developing friendships, without taking chances, without being willing to discover who someone is.


His school is pretty small and he says he's popular, so pretty much everyone talks to him. He says that he's friends or acquaintances with all the girls. He says that he does not find any of the girls interesting, no one he really wants to get to know better. He says that what most of the girls do say and say are turn-offs for him. Hence, there's no one he wants to put himself out there for. He doesn't think any girl is amazing enough to make a fool of himself for. He feels like none of the girls share his interests or think like him. He feels as if he does not click with any girls.


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## rachelsmama (Jun 20, 2005)

fangaroo said:


> His school is pretty small and he says he's popular, so pretty much everyone talks to him. He says that he's friends or acquaintances with all the girls. He says that he does not find any of the girls interesting, no one he really wants to get to know better. He says that what most of the girls do say and say are turn-offs for him. Hence, there's no one he wants to put himself out there for. He doesn't think any girl is amazing enough to make a fool of himself for. He feels like none of the girls share his interests or think like him. He feels as if he does not click with any girls.


Is he _only_ considering the girls?


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

fangaroo said:


> He says that what most of the girls do say and say are turn-offs for him.


Oh puleeze. Does he think it's like the movies? He'll suddenly fall head over heels with some sophisticated woman who is everything that he ever imagined, and she'll be all into him too? Where did he develop this unrealistic view of his romantic prospects? Your son is awkward, confused and immature, just like most teenagers. Why does he expect a girlfriend to show up who isn't also awkward, confused and immature?

Miranda


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

He sounds really immature to me. 


Or like he isn't telling you the truth. 


And I think your desire to find a girl for him is really odd and shows a lack of appropriate boundaries in your relationship.


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## MeepyCat (Oct 11, 2006)

Fangaroo, you seem very invested right now in helping your son find a girlfriend. He seems very distraught, and it makes sense that you want to take him seriously and address his perception of his needs. But maybe the two of you are in a bit of a feedback loop where your distress for him feeds his distress for himself, and you both feel worse.

I wonder if your son might benefit from some adult reframing of his current situation. For example:
Of course it's frustrating to feel lonely and left behind, but parents tend to be relieved when high schoolers don't have partners for sexual experimentation. 

In the long-run picture of your life, dating or not-dating in high school is not important. There's a lot to be done and learned in high school, and focusing on romance to the exclusion of everything else is a bad idea.

The people you could plausibly date in high school are often people you went to elementary school with. That means you've been watching them absent-mindedly do gross things for years. The people you meet in college are just as likely to have picked their noses or chewed their hair, but you won't have seen it, which may be an argument for waiting.

Stop taking him to the library to meet girls. He can go there for books, to study with friends, or do research, but the purpose of the errand is not girls.


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

Any teen crying over not having a girlfriend/boyfriend isn't ready for one. To me, that sounds like a kid who is so emotionally off that they could become a stalker or suicidal when the relationship ends (as nearly all teen relationships do). 


Also, from your post, it sounds like you think your son is always right, that that he should always get wants he wants, and that everything is about him. In my opinion that has not prepared him to be in a relationship with another human being who really doesn't consider his point of view any more important than their own.


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## wildmonkeys (Oct 4, 2004)

My guess is that it have to do with the status of being in a relationship. I was just talking with a friend whose daughter "wants a boyfriend" because her three closest friends currently each have one. The 6 kids have done stuff together without her and she is feeling excluded. Additionally, when the girls are together WITHOUT the boys...it is currently the focus of a lot of the conversation which also leaves her feeling like the odd person out. 

While difficult, this is not unique to teens. Young adults whose friends marry before them experience this. As, I have heard, do folks going through a divorce and even widows/widowers. Socializing is often organized around couplehood. I suggest that he get out there and do some co-ed or single sex group activities that are not based on couples.

Based on how much he is talking to you about wanting a girlfriend - there is a chance he is having the same conversation with his peers. That seems counterproductive and not good for his relationships with girls or boys.


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