ArcaMax

Dear Readers: Every year during this time I step away from my column to work on other creative projects. I hope you enjoy these (edited) “Best Of” Q&As from 10 years ago.

Today’s topic is: Adolescence.

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Dear Amy: I am in seventh grade. I am Jewish. I have a friend in the same grade. His locker is next to mine. We have fun and he makes me laugh, but he makes fun of me a lot, too.

Sometimes he says that I'm fat, but most of the time he makes fun of me because I'm Jewish.

For example, today we were goofing around, and a friend of his said, "What's going on?" and he said, "She was being Jewish." This really hurt my feelings. He has said that kind of stuff before, and I hate it.

I have tried to get him to stop. Sometimes when I tell him to stop making fun of me, he says stuff like, "But you make fun of me, too." I don't make fun of him like that.

I told him I didn't like it when he made fun of me for being Jewish, and he stopped for about a day. My mom knows that he has done this a few times, but I haven't told her that he does it almost every day.

I would feel safe telling a teacher, but I don’t want to lose him as a friend. We have almost all of our classes together. It might make things worse if I tell. But sometimes I want to cry when he makes fun of me.

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