DR. WALLACE: I've been thinking about writing this letter for a long time because it may be some help to your teen readers. I've decided to share my experience with them so that they will think long and hard before they make a mistake like I did. I'm not a youngster; I'm a young woman, age 20, and I should have known better.

My story begins at a party where I met this good-looking and charming guy. He was friendly and nice and we exchanged phone numbers. I was very happy when he called and we started dating. He was everything a girl dreams about in a guy — handsome, intelligent, a great sense of humor — and I fell in love with him after only a few weeks.

I was not a virgin, but it wasn't like I had sex with every guy who came along. When he started getting a little too aggressive I told him to stop, and after that he just stopped calling. Since I really thought I was in love with him I got up my nerve and called him to ask him why he was avoiding me. He said he wasn't avoiding me — he just thought that I didn't really love him. He also told me that I was the first and only girl he ever wanted to have sex with and that he was a virgin and thought he had found his one true love.

Well, I know it sounds really stupid now, but at the time I fell for this "old line" that has caused so much heartache for so many girls over the years. So for the next couple of months, we were lovers, but only if and when he decided to call me. Then one night he talked about getting engaged — but the girl wasn't me. It turned out that he had only been using me. Because I was so in love, I didn't see it. All the time he was seeing me, he was already engaged to another girl and as I write this letter, they are now married.

So what I want all the young girls to know is that they should be very wary of any guy who wants you to "prove your love." If the guy really loved you, you wouldn't have to prove anything.

I thank God every night that I didn't get pregnant by the guy I thought had "everything I ever wanted"! — Older and Wiser, Brooklyn, N.Y.

OLDER AND WISER: I'm truly sorry you got tangled up with such a deceitful, two-timing jerk, but it sounds like you're well on your way to recovery and are learning the right lessons from your bad experience. Thanks for sharing your experience with other teens.

I'D REARRANGE HIS FACE

DR. WALLACE: I'm writing in response to the letter about a 13-year-old boy who weighed 225 pounds and hit his little sister because she got mad at him and called him a fat hog. You gave him a terrible response. You called him a bully and told him he should go on a diet and lose weight.

I'm a 14-year-old girl who happens to weigh over 200 pounds (I like being big and strong) and if my 11-year-old sissy brother ever called me a fat hog, I'd rearrange his face so bad our own mother wouldn't know him. What do you have to say about that? — Sylvia, New Orleans, La.

SYLVIA: I would say that, if your little brother called you a fat hog, he'd be a sassy little brat who should be punished by a parent, and if you inflicted physical injury on him then you'd be a bully who hid her dislike of herself behind a facade of toughness.

You'd be a lot happier if you went on a healthy diet and lost weight.

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.