How will I know when a boy is trying to deceive me? I mean, when he says he loves me but all he really wants is sex…” Alisha, 16 years old.

In the game called teen love, everybody more or less deceives each other all the time. Don’t your seniors do it?
Many girls know how to string a boy along, trot him on all fours like a puppy on a leash. They know how to say the right sweet nothings, get him hopping like a yo-yo, extract a movie, a big treat, even a date at a nightclub. But they dance at arms’ length, never letting him get too close, watching his hands without ever noticing, growing new pairs of eyes in the back of their heads, cleverly avoiding dark or secluded corners.
Moreover, sticking with other girls — cracking jokes on the very same boys in whispers. Two girls nicely covering up for each other — popping in at the right moment when the guy is drunk or getting too cuddly, and saying cheerful goodbyes when the boys are still reeling with confusion about how their
plans somehow never materialised.
Lots of city girls know how to take care of themselves very well. Even if they decide to get momentarily physical, it is on their own terms, and at any point in time they know exactly where the pepper spray is. They know the fine turning point when a gentleman can suddenly become a brute, and learn to have fun and chill within that safe range. All this is done without thinking — on pure feminine instinct. They can figure out what’s happening inside a boy’s mind. Some can even say the exact line a boy is going to utter a few seconds before he speaks. They have his brain mapped out better than any CT scan in the business.
So if you want to know how to brain scan a boy, learn at the feet of masters. Even though as a writer I keep myself updated with the latest and the smartest moves, I am not the best guy to help out with current male strategies. Seek out an extroverted college girl from a big city. She will certainly know.
I’ll tell you three important basics. Firstly, any teenage male, however well-bred and well-behaved, will certainly want to have sex with the girl he dates. That impulse is too ingrained in the male psyche, and hasn’t changed since the cave man days when he would have a few fermented berries and invite a girl into his cave to… well, see his etchings.
Secondly, at 16 years, you cannot afford to give in and have sex, however, strong your own impulses are. I know that many girls your age are just as keen to get started. It’s like playing with fire. Get too close and you get burnt. Stay too far, and you feel cold and left out. You have to be instinctively at the right distance as far as boys are concerned. Enjoy their company, get friendly, but be on guard while still having fun. And never get drunk with a boy in a lonely place. Remember that always.
Thirdly, keep your cool and watch for telltale signs that spell “deception” in bold italics. A typical boy plan would be to convert a party into a one-on-one session. Once the party actually gets going, all the boys with dates will try and slink away to private sessions. So after a while you find yourself alone with the boy who by then would be on his fourth beer and getting very frisky indeed. There are a dozen other scenarios that can easily be pre-empted by mere careful observation.
Basically, all boy strategies can be understood quite easily if you keep a cool head on your shoulders.
Does all this sound like a date or a duel? All dates have an element of a duel embedded inside, and a portion of your brain must never lose focus. Have fun, as always, but take care.