Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/137

 ments, he is likely to become lax in his manners and to ignore social conventions. He comes to know the girl so well that he often does not take the trouble to be scrupulously polite to her. There is likely to develop a dangerous familiarity which breaks down the respect and the courtesy which every boy ought to show to the girls of his acquaintance and to women generally. "Spooning" is ruinous to a boy, morally and socially.

Such a boy I see every day. He is in reality girl crazy. Every morning he walks down the street to meet her and to carry her books to school. Twice a day they walk back and forth together, each quite oblivious of any presence but the other. They hang on each other. Every evening, if the weather permits, they go strolling until long past the proper hour for children to be in bed. Late at night I often recognize his sentimental whistle as he goes back home after being with her during the evening. He is failing in his studies; he could be expected to do nothing else, for he sees nothing, thinks of nothing, dreams of no one but the girl; and he treats her and speaks of her with a suggestion of ownership that is disgusting. In this relation as in many others, there is safety in numbers, for if there were a half dozen he would waste far less time and energy than in the present instance, and he would learn more that is useful and helpful in social matters.

There is the boy in high school also who goes to the opposite extreme—who "can't see a girl at all."