HEY MIKE! There’s a certain girl I like, but how can I tell if she likes me? Sometimes it’s impossible to read her signals. How should a guy crack the “girl code”?
—C.A., Colorado Springs
Ask yourself three key questions:
Does she go out of her way to be near you? You know, like when you’re sitting with the guys at youth group . . . and she just happens to be in a seat right behind you (on more than one occasion!).
Do you sense that she’s making an effort to talk to you? I don’t mean the “Glad you’re here”-type of small talk. Is she trying to get to know you through conversation? Is she genuinely interested in your life?
Is she flirting with you? Whether we realize it or not, girls and guys flirt the same way: awkward body movements, goofy grins, dreamy stares.
Bottom line: Don’t try to force romance. Keep your cool, muster up the courage and make an effort to befriend a lot of girls. You’ll know when the right one likes you.
But don’t just take my advice. Here’s what J.Y. — a Breakaway reader from Radnor, Ohio — has learned about cracking the girl code: “When it comes to talking with girls, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve acted like anybody but myself. I soon learned that if a girl ended up liking me, she’d be attracted to the person I was pretending to be, not the real me. Now that I’ve made an effort to be myself, I think girls feel more comfortable talking to me, too.”
HEY MIKE! There are so many TV shows, movies, video games and bands that fuel lustful thoughts, it’s hard not to be influenced. Any ideas on what I should do?
—B.T., Novi, Mich.
You’re right, B.T. Media influences and even certain friendships can bring us down — or build us up. The key is to plug into the right stuff.
Here’s what you can do.
• Evaluate your media choices. With every movie you see or tune you hear, ask yourself some questions: Is this going to race my motor into overdrive? Is it going to cloud my mind with a bunch of four-letter words?
• Unplug the pressure. If the stuff bombarding you is impure, then punch “off” on your DVD, video game or change the channel on your radio. While we can’t always stop thoughts from coming into our minds, we can make sure that we don’t entertain racy images and invite them to spend the night.
• Plug into purity. Second Corinthians 10:5 tells us what to do: “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Ask God to help you make the right media choices. Tell Him that you don’t want to take in images or songs that feed your fantasies.
• Go with God. When the Lord says one thing in the Bible, yet the movies, music or your friends say another, then you must follow God — and leave the other. It’s a hard choice, but one Christians sometimes have to make. Our Creator makes it clear how He wants us to live. Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up.” Several verses later, we read, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity” (Ephesians 5:3). 
