All right, I received this email last night. I asked permission from the sender to publish this, of course, and she agreed.

Dear MitsuiSelphie-san,

Since you write such sweet stories, I assume you’re great with matters of the heart. I’m so sorry to email you like this, it’s just that I have no one else to talk to. I feel shy discussing love with my RL friends and family. I’m very shy in person and though I have a lot of friends, I don’t usually talk.

There’s this guy in my class who’s really nice to me. We become very close in no time and he often holds my hand. Everybody thinks we’re best of friends, I think so too. But since a couple of months ago, he started sending me letter and text messages with “I love you” but when we’re together, he isn’t saying anything about it. AND he keeps changing girlfriends right under my nose. I don’t know what to think with his “I love yous.” Do friends of the opposite sex usually say that to one another? Thing is, I think I want to misunderstand his messages because I think I’m in love with him. Please help me, I’m so confused.

xoxo,

Eigo-chan

Well Eigo-chan, I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m “great with matters of the heart” because I’m not! I’m telling you now, my life is nothing but a love disaster. However, since you’ve put such great faith in me, I can’t let you down. So here goes. Eigo-chan, boys your age (they’re in high school, I asked her) could be confused with what they really want. Here are some possible scenarios:

• The guy might be head-over-heels for you, however, he hasn’t felt “real love” before and hence he’s experimenting with other girls to determine if what he feels for you is actually “love.”

• His love for you might only be friendly love. Yes, there are friends of the opposite sex who say “I love you” to each other, but frankly, I’ve only seen a couple of those instances (including my own) with people your age. Still, it might mean that. I understand that you might shy away from asking him about it, but why not confront him about his messages once? Go straight to the point, ask him what he meant by his “I love yous.” You don’t want to “misunderstand” forever, do you? You don’t want to keep thinking if this guy really loves you or not.

• He might be messing with you. If you think he’s really your friend, then scrap this idea.

Eigo-chan, the way I see it, you have two options as of now — tell him you think you love him OR wait for him to fall in love with you or something similar. Based on your character, I reckon you’d wait until he tells you he loves you. Well Eigo-chan, if he never comes to doing that, let it go. Think of it like this — he was never really into you from the start. Take it as a learning experience and move on. However, if you want to fight for him, suck it in, gather all your courage and tell him you love him. It all depends on whether you think he’s worth the risk.

And that’s it. Whew…golly! I never thought giving advice on love would be this hard –especially since I haven’t had a happy-ending love story in my whole life! Anyhow, since I already started it, anyone’s welcome to send letters to the DOPAMINE mailbox. You can email me anything from affairs of the heart to problems at home and in school. Just take note that I will publish all letters here in DOPAMINE.

Okay, back to Eigo-chan’s problem. What can everyone else advise her?