When I was a pre-teen with braces and an obsession for MSN Messenger, I would get my hands on as many teen magazines as possible.

If you were a girl this age or had a sister who went through this stage, you know exactly what kinds of magazines I mean. I thought if I read enough Girls’ Life, 17 Magazine or CosmoGirl I would learn all of the secrets about boys, fashion and life in general.

My favorite part besides the embarrassing secrets sections was the advice columns. Mostly I liked it because the girls who wrote in to these magazines were ridiculous and needed to get a grip on life, but every once in awhile someone would ask a question that seemed decent. The best part about these advice columns was the actual advice.

Even at a young age I knew the people writing the answers for these advice columns weren’t worldly 17-year-olds who could tell me everything I needed to know about boys. No, the women who wrote for these magazines were most likely 20, 30, 40 or maybe even older. In other words, they probably remembered very little about being a pre-teen.

No matter which magazine it was, there was always a monthly letter that was some version or another of “how do I get a boy to like me?” Every month, those advice columns would go off on a tangent about how if you would just be yourself, everything would work out!

As a youngster I thought this advice was pathetic. But then again, the advice I took from my friends was that I thought was brilliant usually was something like “since his favorite color is black you should wear black to school.”

But now that I am older, the more I realize just how correct those advice columnists were. Obviously they were giving that advice so young girls everywhere wouldn’t run and dye their hair blonde if they heard the guy they liked prefers blondes. It actually shocks me how often college students will pretend to be something they aren’t in order to impress others.

This could mean pretending to like something that the person you like is interested in just to make an impression on them. This is a classic technique that even D.J. Tanner on “Full House” did, and as we all saw there, it just isn’t a good idea.

So what if you actually hit it off with someone because you pretended to be extremely interested in the topics or hobbies that they’re interested in.

During the entire course of your relationship, you’re going to have to pretend to be passionate about the breeding of Amur leopards or something (which you should be anyway because they are highly endangered).

Eventually you’re either going to have to come clean about how your relationship was built on a lie, or you’re going to have become an expert on Amur leopards.

If you think someone is lying about their shared passion, I think it’s best to try to catch them in the lie. Everyone who knows me well knows that I am a die-hard Duke fan. In the past, guys who wanted to impress me have often pretended to like Duke.

I’ll admit, in theory it works. For eight months of the year, there would constantly be a conversation piece, and it is easy to look up information about it. But when I talk about Duke basketball, I want to have an in-depth conversation.

I’ve unintentionally caught many guys off-guard by asking questions like “If you had to guess right now, who do you think next year’s captains might be?”  When people stammer over a simple opinion question like that, you know something is phony. This method works in all situations, and I suggest you put it to use before you wind up in a fib of a relationship.

Also when I say be yourself, I mean use your own words. College girls have a terrible habit of reading texts from a boy they like aloud to a group of friends, then asking for a brainstorm session about how to reply to his text.

I think this is appropriate in some situations, like maybe asking someone to a special event. If you’re really nervous, it might be best to have a friend proofread it for you before you send it. But the friend should not word for word tell you what you should say in the text.

Mainly I say this because one of the qualities that people look for in a significant other is for that person to be funny.

If you are having a group of your friends help you craft hilarious and witty text messages every time you reply, the person receiving those text messages is going to think that you are hilarious and witty. Then when you hang out in person, they’re going to wonder why all of a sudden you have the personality of a

throw pillow.

If this describes you, it’s time to wean yourself from getting your friends’ help all of the time. Because as my friend pointed out to me, portraying yourself as being incredibly funny or smart through text messages is just as false of an advertisement as wearing a push-up bra. Eventually people will figure out

the truth.

Sure I may have scared off a number of people in the last few years with my weird sense of humor that doesn’t get conveyed well through text messages, but at least it happened early on instead of later down the road.

I know this has been a rather corny topic, but remember if you have to fake anything in a relationship, something just isn’t going the way it is supposed to. Hold out for the person you’ll never have to fake it with before getting too serious. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”