Maybe He Just Likes You is a remarkable, timely, and important book that highlights one of the difficulties of middle school relationships: learning to set and honor personal boundaries and the easy slide into harassment.
As hormones flood their bodies and transform them into young women, teen girls are not only excited and proud, they can be confused, uncertain, and intimidated. They enjoy their new grownup look and the attention that their transformation elicits. But they find that some of the attention–and pressure—is unwelcome.
This negative attention can come from girls and boys. Some girls may be both curious as well as jealous. Some boys may find themselves attracted yet don’t respond in appropriate ways that respect the girls without being predatory or intimidating.
It’s a conundrum. It is scary and humiliating. Girls want to be attractive and they want to be respected not objectified. Maybe He Just Likes You chronicles one girl’s terrifying experience of being the object of unwanted attention by the boys in her class. They design a game in which they gain points for touching Mila’s body—without her permission—and for embarrassing her or causing her to respond to their unwanted attention.
When she turns to her friends for support, they accuse her of thinking she’s imagining it and overreacting. As Mila gets increasingly overwhelmed, she turns to a school counselor for help. Unfortunately, her assigned counselor is on maternity leave. The basketball coach is serving in her place. All of the boys who are bothering Mila play on the team. Mila declines to discuss specifics with the coach so he dismisses her concerns, advising her not to be too sensitive because Boys will be boys. Coach’s relief exceeds his concern for Mila.
One of the things I appreciate about this book is that it highlights the need to educate young men on what sexual harassment is. Most of them didn’t intend to actually hurt Mila; to them, it was simply a game. One which they could laugh off. For Mila, the situation was neither funny nor trivial. It was downright scary. Humiliating.
The boys need to gain a sense of what it costs girls who are targeted and harassed. Boys must learn appropriate ways to interact without insulting or intimidating the girls in whom they are interested.
We must discard the outdated idea that if a boy likes you, he might be mean or hurtful to you. If we want boys–and men to treat girls and women better, we must teach them how. If we want girls to have agency and self-confidence, we must teach them how to set and hold boundaries. Being scary or intimidating is not a healthy way to express interest, appreciation, or relationship.
I feel that this book should be required reading for middle schoolers, their parents, and their teachers. We have minimized this kind of harassment and intimidation by boys for too long. The toll it takes on girls and women is high and it must end.
Defining, holding, and respecting boundaries is probably one of the most important life skills which we all need. Yet few of us ever receive specific training in how to establish boundaries or in how to respond to the boundary setting of others. Operating by guess just will not cut it. Everyone needs guidance and practice to refine their boundary skills to proficiency.
Adoption Attuned lens
Like all middle schoolers who face experiences described in this book, adoptees also face additional challenges around boundary setting as relates to their adoption. Puberty imposes a fuller understanding of the extent to which adoption has fully realigned their lives. Identity issues come to the forefront for all teens and are particularly complicated for adoptees. They must wrestle with the multiple strands of their identity—braiding the elements of their biology with the elements of their lives within their adopted families. Like Mila, they need support from adults who empathize and validate the challenges they face.
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