DR. WALLACE: I'm a 16-year-old girl, and one of my former best friends released publicly some information I told her in confidence. She apparently did this to hurt my standing amongst my peers or make me look bad in public for some reason.

I did some careful fact-checking to make sure she was the one who told other people, and I was able to confirm that through two separate reliable sources. I know we're all human, and we all make mistakes, so this has left me in a dilemma. Part of me wants to forgive her and continue the friendship, but another part of me wants to end the friendship because I know what was said in extreme confidence was repeated intentionally — which in my mind constitutes absolute betrayal.

Do you think I should be more forgiving or more willing to see her betrayal for what it is and end the friendship entirely? — I'm Beyond Shocked She Did This, via email

I'M BEYOND SHOCKED SHE DID THIS: I believe that charting a middle course may be your best path forward.

I agree with your second point that a so-called friend who would spread delicate information told only in strict confidence is absolutely betraying the friendship and the other person intentionally.

Intentional betrayal is indeed good grounds for ceasing a friendship or rendering it so diluted that it never rises to its previous intimacy ever again.

However, rather than ignoring this former friend entirely, or making a sharp or heated comment to her out of frustration, I suggest you take the opposite approach. If you do decide to end the friendship entirely, or 95% of it, simply say to her the next time you see her that you don't appreciate what she did to you, but that you're going to forgive her and not hold a grudge even though you're quite upset with her actions. Tell her that in time you'll get over it, but that you highly doubt things will ever be the same between the two of you again. She'll get the message, and this will allow you to still be able to make light conversation with her when you come across her from time to time.

This will also get your message across that you'll never be engaging her in deep friendship conversations ever again.

I OFTEN DISAGREE WITH YOU IN THIS AREA

DR. WALLACE: I read your column fairly regularly, and I agree with you perhaps as much as 2/3 of the time, but the 1/3 of the time I disagree with you often has to do with high school sports. I can't stand them myself and don't understand why we all pay so much attention to sports at the high school level. To me, it's a huge waste of time, money and energy.

Why can't you stick to just general teenager interaction advice and not bring sports into your columns so much? Did I also mention that the sports columns are boring? — No Fan of High School Sports, via email

NO FAN OF HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS: The short answer is that high school athletics played a large part in my own life, and in my educator career as well.

I played competitive sports both at the high school and college levels, and I originally became an educator because I wanted to teach and coach basketball. I got my teaching credential, applied for various coaching positions and became an English teacher as well.

Sports such as basketball teach teamwork, self-sacrifice, discipline, camaraderie and working within a group toward a common goal. All of these traits are good ones for teenagers to have, and properly applied, help to build great foundations for future life activities. Also, local communities in general do support and follow high school athletics quite closely, so there is both an incremental social and economic benefit to society that is achieved via the existence of high school athletics.

Therefore, I'm not at all ashamed to defend playing, coaching and being involved in high school athletics. I subsequently left coaching to go into high school administration, and I'm also proud to tell you that during that transition away from coaching, I never forgot my core responsibility as an executive educator was to provide the best possible academic learning environment for each and every student. I've been blessed to be able to interact with teens academically, athletically and journalistically for many decades, and they remain my favorite age group.

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.

Photo credit: Kristina Flour at Unsplash