DR. WALLACE: I play varsity basketball for my high school. I am a starter on our team, and I play plenty of minutes during each game, but I feel my coach favors other players on the team over me.
My coach constantly invites other players on my team to attend local college basketball games and he’s also significantly helped them with their recruitment. I’ve never been invited to a college basketball game with my coach, and we barely have any conversations at all about recruitment even though my role on the team is just as significant as others who get this attention.
Should I speak up about this issue or just keep my head down, say nothing and carve my own path forward? — Feeling Left Out, via email
FEELING LEFT OUT: There could be many reasons why your coach has not yet invited you to attend local college basketball games, including requests from those college coaches, parental pressure or any number of other reasons. But it’s better not to speculate about that at this point.
I suggest that you look forward, not backward. Tell your coach one day at practice that you would like to speak to him about your future privately sometime soon. I trust your coach will absolutely provide you with this audience, and when you do sit down with him one-on-one, don’t say anything about other players; simply focus on your own situation.
Tell your coach how much you enjoy playing on the team and how you would like to consider where you might potentially play college basketball once you graduate from high school. Listen to what he says, and then at some point you can ask him if he would be willing to attend a game with you at a school you might fit with (rather than ask if you can attend a game with him). The key is to find out where he thinks you would have the most likely opportunity to be recruited, as it could be any number of local universities or even junior colleges.
Also ask him what you can do on your own to help promote your own basketball future. I trust your earnest, proactive meeting with him will yield you some positive results.
ARE MY ODDS DROPPING BY THE DAY?
DR. WALLACE: I’m a 20-year-old woman and have been dating my current boyfriend, who is 21, for a year and a half now. We get along really well, and we both go to college part time and work part time.
I could see myself being married to this guy, but the subject has not yet come up between us. I have two close girlfriends and both of them got married about a year ago. Their situations have caused me to think about mine in more detail.
This is because one seems to have a very successful marriage, but my other friend’s marriage has already split up! What has me thinking is that my girlfriend who is now very happily married got married after knowing this guy for only two months! On the other hand, my other girlfriend dated her future husband for over three and a half years and once they got married, they split up after only five months together as a married couple!
So now here I am, right in the middle of these two timelines, and I’m wondering if my odds of having a successful marriage are decreasing with each day that goes by. What do you think? — Worried About Time Going By, via email
WORRIED ABOUT TIME GOING BY: I think the amount of time going by spent in a relationship before marriage is likely uncorrelated to the odds of having a successful marriage. First, your statistical group is much too small with only two instances being considered.
But beyond that, focus on your own relationship and think carefully about its strengths and weaknesses. Do everything you can to accentuate the strengths but don’t ignore the weaknesses. Engage your partner in open discussions about points where the two of you could be stronger together. Remember that communication and compromise are the keys to any successful relationship.
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 [email protected] 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.
