DR. WALLACE: I'm a 17-year-old girl and I have a best friend who is really nice. We've known each other now for a couple of years and we get along great. She always treats me well, she keeps her promises and we help each other a lot with our homework and our respective social lives.

But there's one thing that constantly has bothered me about her. Whenever something seems to go wrong for her in her life, she is always very quick to blame other people. She blames her brothers, her mother, her teachers and anyone else that she can attach to any outcome that she doesn't like.

It would be great if you could tell me how to get her to stop doing this because I think it is counterproductive for her, but I'll settle for just knowing why you think she does this? — Her Best Friend, via email

HER BEST FRIEND: The short answer to your question is that it basically comes down to responsibility. She likely has not yet developed a sense of personal responsibility for her actions.

She likely wants her way when it comes to many different topics, and when the outcome does not meet her expectations, she lays the blame out accordingly. This is likely her immaturity showing through, and over time she will soon enough have to understand her own role in her life when it comes to being a responsible adult.

Any approach you may undertake to help her must be extremely tactful and handled carefully. You might start out by explaining to her sometime when things go wrong for you that you were partially to blame for the results you didn't like. She may then be able to experience your situation vicariously and the gears in her mind may eventually engage when it comes to this topic.

Then, at a future date if she again heads down the path of blaming others, you might be able to gently explain that her situation reminds you a little bit of yours, and point out how you have vowed to best try to navigate future situations on your end. She may eventually absorb your subtle hints.

THEY WANT MY DETAILS!

DR. WALLACE: I have four pretty close girlfriends and we often get together and talk about many things including the guys we are dating. Some of the girls go into more "dating details" than the other ones, and this makes me uncomfortable when I hear more than I'd like to know.

I personally don't like to talk much about my personal life, so I generally do more listening than talking, and I'm very careful about what I say when I do speak to them.

Some of these girls have given me suggestions on things to do during our dates, and then they later ask me to give them the results of the suggestions they offered to me. But usually, I don't implement their suggestions at all because they make me very uncomfortable, and that's not the type of relationship I have with my boyfriend anyway. How can I best answer these uncomfortable questions? — Shy About My Guy, via email

SHY ABOUT MY GUY: Simply tell them what you're telling me here. Look these girls directly in the eyes, smile and in a nice tone of voice tell them that you're simply not comfortable going into details about your personal dating life, even though they are happy to openly discuss their own situations.

Then, try to shift the conversation to another topic that you know the girls are interested in, and I trust they'll get the message. Avoiding uncomfortable situations often comes down to just simply stating this, and doing so in a very matter-of-fact yet confident tone of voice.

From there, make it your goal as often as possible to steer the conversations toward other topics that you girls have in common that do not make you feel uncomfortable.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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