DR. WALLACE: I'm a 16-year-old girl, and my best friend is another girl who goes to high school with me. She's been dating her current boyfriend for the past six months, but recently, he talked with me alone and asked me if I could ask my older sister if she would be interested in dating him. My sister and this boy are both 17.

However, I don't think that he really wants to date my older sister; I think he wants to use this as a way to come over to my family's house to try to spend more time with me.

I say this because I've noticed him looking at me a lot lately and trying to flirt with me. I don't want to cause any trouble for my friend, so I told him I wasn't sure about this and that I would think about it. What should I do here? — Very Uncomfortable With This Situation, via email

VERY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS SITUATION: Stay clear of this mess entirely! The next time you see him, tell him that under no circumstances are you going to serve as a go-between for him and your older sister.

You may also want to tell him that you find it very disrespectful for him to mention this to you while he's still dating your best friend.

Finally, if you value your friendship with your best friend, you may want to let her know what is going on here, so that she doesn't hear it secondhand later on.

She may not like hearing what you have to say, but since it's the truth, you may indeed owe her a "heads up" on what he's actually doing. Think carefully about how you would feel if the positions were reversed, and make your own decision accordingly.

MY BOYFRIEND THINKS I'M OVERREACTING

DR. WALLACE: I am a college student, and my boyfriend and his friends are all 21 or 22 years old. I'm 20.

His friends are pretty heavy drinkers, and they drink hard alcohol, often into the wee hours of the night.

My boyfriend does not drink hard alcohol or any type of wine, but he tells me that he'll sip a couple of beers when he's hanging out with his friends.

I've warned him that alcohol is alcohol and that it doesn't really matter whether he's drinking hard alcohol or beer, because he still faces the same potential to overindulge that they do.

He disagrees entirely and feels I am overreacting. Is his beer drinking less dangerous than the hard alcohol his friends are consuming? — Not a Drinker, via email

NOT A DRINKER: Beer is absolutely not less dangerous than hard alcohol in my opinion. As you stated, alcohol is alcohol ,and the potential for abuse exists for anyone drinking any type of alcohol regularly or even once irresponsibly.

Yes, it's true that one shot or measure of a hard alcohol is roughly equivalent to one full beer, and the smaller volumes of so-called hard alcohol can be consumed more quickly.

However, over the years, I have seen many tragic stories involving teenagers and young adults who started out sipping only a beer or two here and there, and yet they ultimately fell into tremendous addiction and suffered horrific consequences.

In my book, any type of alcohol presents potential danger to all young adults or anyone who demonstrates the potential to abuse this substance.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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