“Excuse me beautiful, can I talk to you for a minute?” “Hey girl!” “You got a boyfriend?” All a girl wants to do is get to her destination without being harassed, young women say. But nowadays, they say, they can’t even go to the corner store without being heckled. The taunting takes place in many neighborhoods, teens say, and can grow more belligerent in areas near liquor stores. “Being approached by a guy on the streets can really be a turnoff and I consider it to be creepy,” says La`Neece Byrd, a senior at Boston Community Leadership Academy. “I much rather be left alone.” Byrd says that when she ignores the hooting, some men become more verbally aggressive. Some guys have progressed to touching. Shayla Carranza, 16, from BCLA, says she was walking one day when she felt someone grab her elbow while trying to hit on her. “I felt so uncomfortable,” she says. “I told the dude, ‘Can you not?’ I had to raise my voice because I felt so creeped out.” Ivana Guity, 16, from Boston Arts Academy, says that she doesn’t respond to the come-ons. “I don’t say anything back,” she says, “because if I do I would…make guys believe I’m easy.” Instead, she says, she puts on her headphones and keeps walking. “I just want to go where I’m headed,” she says.

Fifteen-year-old Marinela Seiti believes that everyone has a dark side. “Sometimes, the nicest people are the meanest,” says Seiti, who goes to Boston Community Leadership Academy. “There comes a day where they explode.” Seiti knows there is a give-and-take to this dynamic. “I am nice to the people who are nice to me, and I am mean to the ones who are mean to me,” she says. “If someone bullies me, I bully back.” Psychologists say that good people can become evil at their most vulnerable times, when friends and family and tight controls may not be around to keep their bad behaviors in line. Wendy Zheng, 17, believes in the overall good in people. “Some people go through depression, family issues, stress, and can act a bit mean at times,” says Zheng, who goes to the John D. O’Bryant School of Math & Science. Angie Miranda, 17, however, feels that even so-called sweet people have their bad traits. She says she was surprised how mean a friend had become. She was in a bad mood and wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t answer questions. “In order to find out their dark side,” says Miranda, from the O’Bryant, “you have to find their weakest point.”

Fourteen-year-old Matty Jobarteh, from Hyde Park, thinks someone’s appearance makes an impression but personality keeps it going. “If someone looks pretty, people are going to make them memorable but if the person is arrogant and irritating, it doesn’t make any sense,” says Jobarteh. Even though we all want to look good and are attracted to physical beauty, many teens say that personality is the more important asset. Someone with great features may turn heads in a crowded room, but, teens say, it’s those whose personalities draw us to them who will win our deep affection and esteem. Lansana Fofana, 15, from Dorchester, thinks physical appearance is a very shallow thing. “For example, someone can get into a terrible accident and destroy their looks and also people grow old – their good looks start to vanish,” says Fofana. “What is left? Personality.” Bintou Conte, 16, from Mattapan, believes that looks do matter at some point because if you’re going to marry somebody, appearance counts. On the other hand, she says: “Those who have the best personalities are the winners in life.”

Kianah Moss, 14, from the John D. O’Bryant School of Math & Science, often sees dispatches about perfect relationships on her Instagram feed. “I believe that those kinds of posts are real,” says Moss. “When I am in a relationship I want something like that to happen to me. However, I do not expect it to happen.” Some teens feel that social media pressures them to live up to a certain storybook standardin their relationships. A few of the popular sites that feed the images are Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook. Kharliyah Ortiz, 14, from the O’Bryant, has Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram apps on her mobile phone. “I go on social media every day,” she says. Ortiz figures that about 25 percent of the time she is on Twitter she sees tweets about perfect relationships. Still, she says she’s never felt the need to meet somebody else’s expectations. “I don’t want a boyfriend that does what a picture on social media does or says,” says Ortiz. “I just want a relationship that will have both mates be able to work with what we have and not live up to what the Internet says.” A popular picture trending on Twitter showed a text message a boy had sent to his girlfriend containing a Victoria’s Secret bag outside her door. Meryl Bantefa, 14, said she does not want to live such a fantasy life. “I don’t want a relationship where my boyfriend has to buy clothing for me before we go out on a date,” says Bentefa, who attends the O’Bryant. “I do not expect anything like that to happen to me because it isn’t real.

Julia Malita, 16, from Boston Latin Academy, lost her great grandmother a few years back. This death was prepared for; the great grandmother was 107 years old. Knowing that she’d die, the great grandmother asked her family to wear colorful clothes to her funeral. Of course, no one did. This was Malita’s first funeral and recalling seeing her great grandmother in the casket, she says, “I remember she looked like an angel. I know that sounds corny.” Now that the time has passed, Malita has moved on. She takes comfort in knowing that her great grandmother is in heaven and is still alive in memory. Grief: Intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one. It’s the stress that comes with death that gets to teens. There are many ways of dealing with loss, and one of the best ways is to just release it, specialists say. It’s never good to keep things trapped inside, they say. Sometimes, just crying is the best way to get over death, teens say. Pamela De Jesus, 14, from Boston Community Leadership Academy, hasn’t lost anyone close to her. She believes that when you die, you just die. “Death isn’t good because you could lose someone loved or have feelings for,” she says. “I thank God that hasn’t happened to me personally.” Jeff Hines, 18, from Dorchester, lost his cousin to cancer last summer and isn’t over the death yet. He continues to think about him. “It’s been really hard but getting better,” says Hines. “I loved him.”