Dr Sweetie and Mr Snide

The real reason boys change around their mates...

Boys are funny creatures. One minute they're sweet as apple pie, holding your hand and offering to buy you dinner; the next they’re burping, making fun of your friends, and jumping around ‘gangsta’ style, like they’re auditioning for a makeover show for people who want new personalities. Except that unlike the real Extreme Makeover, these transformations are always for the worse, and always connected to one thing – and it’s not a scalpel. It’s their mates.

Split personality

Samantha, 15, thought she’d found the perfect boyfriend in Tim. He was smart and funny, with shaggy hair and puppy dog eyes. More importantly, he was a good guy, who hung out with her when she fought with friends and was there throughout her parents’ messy divorce. Sure, he got a bit silly when his friends were around, but she could handle the fake punches and poop jokes. After all, he put up with her Ashlee Simpson obsession.

But while guys who think they’re Australia’s answer to Ali G are one thing, guys who treat you badly when their mates are around are another. Samantha was happy to put up with Tim’s boy-style comedy routines, but when she was the butt of the joke, it wasn’t so funny. And the less she laughed, the more Tim seemed to turn away from her and towards his friends. The way Samantha saw it, Tim became a completely different person around his friends – not just more immature, but more distant. It wasn’t long before they broke up.

Pack animals

It’s easy to brush off guys like Tim as not worth your time, but as any girl who’s ever sat in class with or walked down the street past a group of teenage boys knows, if guys like Tim are losers, there are a lot of losers out there. When you get them alone, most of these guys are pretty normal (think of your mum’s best friend’s son, or the guy you talk to at athletics training). It’s only when they’re in a group that things turn weird.

So, what gives? It helps if you make like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls and think of school as the African Savannah and the boys you know as a pack of… monkeys. Like monkeys, humans are social animals and rely on the approval of others to feel good about themselves. Also like monkeys, when a lot humans get together, things can get messy. (And we’re not just talking boys. Think back to a moment when you’ve done something with your mates that you’ve later realised must have looked totally stupid to anyone watching.)

Battle of the silliest

When a boy wants to look cool in front of his friends, there are a few ways he can go about it. He can be the best footy player, or he can own something cool they don’t have. But most of the time when boys are trying to impress one another, they do something much more simple. Cameron, 16, says, “When my mates and I get together it’s like a competition to see who can be the silliest.”

And what about girls? Well, you come into it, but having a girlfriend usually isn’t as important to teenage boys as having a boyfriend is to teenage girls. “Girls are obsessed with who’s going out with who,” says Scott, 14. “Girls are hot, but I’m happy just hanging out and doing stuff too.” For a lot of guys, if it’s a choice between impressing you and impressing five guys, their friends will win – if only because there’s more of them. And sadly, for some, looking like you don’t care about your girlfriend has more cred than admitting you do.

Bully boys

This is where things get ugly. Acting silly around your mates is one thing (and admit it - girls do it all the time), but for some guys, being a “guy” means being rebellious, distant and unemotional. GF resident psychologist and boy expert Dr Michael Carr-Greg says, “Boys don't want to come across as soft, sensitive or like they even have feelings in front of other guys. It’s because of the whole 'boys don't cry' pressure that society puts on them.”

And in their efforts to look tough, some boys in groups can be downright rude, yelling out to girls on the street, throwing spitballs at you in class (that’s supposed to mean they like you?), or making their girlfriends feel like they don’t matter. Because being a scumbag is totally cool, right?

How to deal

So what’s a girl to do when her boy turns into one of these losers? Well, it seems the only way to deal with a boy who’s acting like an animal is to treat him like one. ”There's not a big difference between boys and dogs,” says Michael Carr-Greg. “If you want a dog to sit on command, reward the behaviour. If you turn your back and walk away you will, in time, extinguish the behaviour.”

So, next time your boy starts acting like a jerk around his mates, leave him to it. He’ll soon grow tired of all that blokey guy time and ditch his mates to hang with you. Weirdly enough, the boys agree. Apparently there’s no point in trying to reason with them. “If a guy’s acting like an idiot, I don’t know why a girl would want to hang around with him anyway,” says Cameron. He has a point. And hey, when there are tests to ace, movies to see, bands to start, a world to save, stories to write and adventures to be had, who needs a boyfriend anyway?

- Rachel Hills

Published in Girlfriend, February 2007.