Ask Cristina: Rules on being a good boyfriend (or girlfriend)

Cristina Zirilli, Reporter

Rules on how to be a good boyfriend (or girlfriend as some of these rules could apply to girlfriends)

1)Tell her she is beautiful. Every day. Don’t just say she is hot. She deserves to be told that she is beautiful every day.

2)Spend time together. Do not leave your girlfriend waiting weeks at a time for your time and attention. It is your obligation to spend time with them at least once a week. Time together is necessary for open communication. Otherwise misunderstandings will grow into bigger issues if they aren’t addressed early on.

3)Don’t flirt with other people!!! There are no exceptions to this rule. If you are in a relationship you don’t flirt with other people.

4)Appreciate having her. Notice the sweet little things she does to make you happy. You might not think much of that bracelet she made you, but crumpling it into a ball and shoving it in your pocket tells her that you don’t care about her. You are very lucky to have a girlfriend who cares so much about you, and you should appreciate her.

5)Thank her for supporting you. If you are being moody and going through a hard time like a family issue or depression, don’t take your girlfriend for granted. It is taking a lot of strength for her to stand by your side during this time. A lot of girls would just leave and not want to be bothered. If she sticks around, she is something special, and you shouldn’t let her go.

6)Listen to her when she talks about her feelings. When a girl tells you about her feelings it is because you really mean a lot to her. She wants you to talk to her about what she is feeling and to help her feel better. If her feelings are about you (like she is upset at you), she isn’t being unreasonable and she isn’t getting mad at you for no reason, she is trying to get you to fix whatever you did to hurt her. She wants to forgive you if you are sorry for what you did. That is why she is discussing what is upsetting her. If she was really getting mad at you for no reason, being unreasonable and didn’t want to forgive you she wouldn’t tell you about it.

7)Don’t betray her trust. At the beginning of your relationship, she was probably cautious because she didn’t want you to hurt her. She may have even said that she didn’t want to date you until she felt that she could trust you. Eventually, she grew to trust you. She probably told you all of her secrets, spent a lot of time with you, and let her guard down for you. If you turn around and betray her trust after that, she is never going to forget it. You would have to really explain that you are apologetic for what you did and show her that you are never going to do it again.

8)Fights happen. They are an inevitable part of any relationship. If she gets really mad at you out of nowhere, it probably isn’t actually out of nowhere. She has probably been burying her feelings because she was scared that you would break up with her. If you stay calm, and pay attention, whatever she started a fight over might give you some insight into what is upsetting her lately, and you can use that information to help her feel better, and apologize for things you did that hurt her. If she really didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t bother fighting with you. She would just stop talking about her feelings.

9)Hold her if she starts crying. If you are fighting, or she had a bad day, or whatever is happening, just hold her and comfort her. No fight is worth making your girlfriend cry. Just say that you are sorry because you love her and no fight is worth losing your girlfriend over. When a girl is crying, she really just needs you to be there for her, and sometimes that means surrendering during a fight.