Do boys only fancy girls in short skirts?

I AM writing in regard to love, relationships and life. I know I am just 15 but I find myself thinking about these things often.

I go to an all-girls’ school so I don’t know too many boys. I can talk to them but I feel I never get looked at or noticed by any boys.

I prefer to dress modestly, decently and with a sense of class but the girls who get noticed are the ones who wear crop tops, short dresses and shorts that can almost pass as underwear.

I’m worried that this will carry on throughout my life. I want to fall in love at some point but I always come to the conclusion that I won’t find anyone — simply because guys with great personalities and guys who are gorgeous (inside and out) will manage to get gorgeous and pretentious girls.

I guess I just want to be given a chance. Do I really have anything to worry about? Are boys always going to be like this?

I think I get way too absorbed in movies. I always walk out thinking that I will meet the love of my life or a boy will approach me for casual conversation as they do in movies. Ridiculous. Am I right?

I hope it all works out, but I can’t help but think I may be one of those people who never experience love. One of the unlucky ones.

Today, the sun is shining as I sit writing, and I wish I could be outside. Instead, I am beaming you all the light and the natural beauty I see from my window because I so want you to cheer up.

Can you get up now and go a nd look at s o mething beautiful? anything will do. a pot plant!

Something to help you make that imaginative leap into the wider world, with all i ts promise, all its hope.

your problem is one most teenagers will recognise — and older readers, too.

Babies i n their cots are l onging f or l ove; it’s an essential part of the human condition. But as we mature and develop the yearning becomes so pressing.

To this day, I can remember being 14 and looking miserably in t he mirror, thinking myself so ugly it was inconceivable that any boy would ever want me.

your observations about fashion, style and popularity are spot on. although i t’s always been the case that overtly ‘sexy’ girls get noticed, the situation seems worse than ever — because when Miley Cyrus (to name just one) dresses like a hooker, millions of young girls assume it’s the way to go. But there are always t he quiet ones who are different. one of the biggest challenges i s being brave enough to be yourself.

It might help to view life as a series of stages. So at your age you are faced with examinations, then comes the time when you (perhaps) go away to college and have more freedom, and then the period when you have to think of jobs and so on.

I want you to see all these stages as positive and exciting and demanding different aspects of your wonderful, many-faceted nature. If only you could enjoy each stage and not waste time by wishing for impossibilities. Let real things happen when the time is right.

Now — come on! you write: ‘I want to fall in love at some point but I always come to the conclusion that I won’t find anyone.’ How come you’re a fortune-teller? you are far too intelligent to think you can second-guess the future so I beg you to stop the negatives and revel in the fact that you have no idea what glorious things are waiting for you in the stages ahead.

‘Unlucky’? Nonsense! you are lucky to be in school, to know who you are and how you want to look, to enjoy movies (nothing wrong with that), to have dreams and to be able to make real plans — unlike so many people in this difficult world.

Everything is waiting for you. and the first step towards being loved is being lovable. Reach out to others (male and female, young and old, rich and poor, known and strange) with all your heart and soul and the rest will follow — like sunshine after rain.