The one piece of advice Em Rusciano wants all teenagers to hear

GET ready to cringe. Em Rusciano spills on the teenage dating disasters she’d rather forget and drops the F-bomb (the other F-bomb).

The one thing we’d all rather forget

I stood in front of 600 people last week and talked about how as a teenager I didn’t get the point of having a boy get handy with my lady garden.

When you really boil it down, it’s just a poke with hope and no real end game.

My nearly 14-year-old daughter was among that crowd of 600.

HELLO AND WELCOME TO THIS WEEK’S EDITION OF MY COLUMN!

Are you awake now?

For those of you not formulating an outraged, snippy comment to pop underneath this post saying how I am an unfit mother, are you having acid flashbacks to the underage discos you once attended?

Do you recall wearing a pair of tight, checkered Stussy pants that cost $59.95? (In the early 90s, money that was about $1000, you guys.)

Were your feet adorned with Blundstone boots, white Reeboks or a pair of 8up cherry Docs?

Did you rock a hint of stomach in your mustard, pirate-style, off-the-shoulder top and upon your lips wear some cement-like, wine-coloured poppy lipstick?

Did you drench your lady garden and pits in Impulse Merely Musk before leaving the house?

Just me?!

I don’t know about you, but I still wear the highs and lows of being a teenager on the outside of my skin like an invisible trauma coat of many colours. I should tell you that the reason my child heard my theories on fingering was because I was doing some stand-up on how tragic 14-year-old Em was. Chella was there to sell some merch for me. It was a quick $50 for her and a chance for me to send some subliminal parenting messages via my stand-up routine.

Em back in the day.

Now that I have a teenager of my very own, and I hear snippets of what is going on in her group of friends, the urge to go back and give hairy, tragic, teenage Em some much needed guidance and advice has become almost too much to take.

By the time I was 13, I had hair sprouting from every surface area, I was essentially a hobbit with a taste for glitter. I had a pair of koala ears that poked out the side of my school bathers in the crotchal area and was called “Emy Hairyano” by one particularly sadistic cow.

I fell in love with a different boy every day. I was a walking ball of pent-up emotion. I was not popular. I hung on the fringes of the popular groups but that was only because I was kind-of funny, gave away food and was good at sport.

I would get so worked up over the boys I loved, that if a male accidentally touched me during a game of dodge ball I would imagine our wedding three seconds afterwards. Of course, I never acted on these feelings, I didn’t kiss anyone until I was 15. Everything happened in my head.

I would spend HOURS working out love percentages using my name and the full name of the unobtainable hotties I lusted after. I would read the Dolly horoscopes with forensic intensity looking for a hint, any semblance of a clue, that Pisces could get a boyfriend that week.

Once, oh GOD once ...

I stole a possession of someone I had an epic crush on. His name was Chris. Even saying his name now makes my heart race a little. His coolness factor was off the charts. His father drove a vintage Porsche, he had blond hair that was styled similarly to Kurt Cobain’s (who was hitting his peak at the time). He had amazing eyes, tanned skin, long muscular limbs and could sing.

All the girls in the year below, in his year, and the one above were all in love with him. Obviously not that same love I felt, silly superficial molls. My love was real and deep and belonged on The Wonder Years with Kevin and Winnie.

We could have been like Kevin and Winnie from The Wonder Years.

One afternoon, Chris was running to catch the bus and as I watched him run, wondering what we’d call our kids, I noticed something fall from his backpack. I checked no one was looking and I swooped in on it and, to my absolute delight, I saw that it was his deodorant. Something that had touched him! Something that SMELLED LIKE HIM! For a small, apprentice stalker that was a jackpot.

Full disclosure: I still monitor Chris on social media to this day.

WHAT?! You can’t judge me for that. Surely by now we have transcended you judging me?!

I told my daughter this story as we drove home from the gig. She’d asked me what was the most embarrassing thing I had done when I was her age. Obviously I had a plethora of material to pick from. I lived my life in a fantasy world that unfortunately spilt over into reality on a regular basis with horrific outcomes.

So what do I want to go back and tell teenage Em? Besides maybe to stop telling people that she thinks Bastian from The Never-ending Story is based on her …

What do I want to impart on all teenagers?

This: CALM THE F**K DOWN, DUDE!

It’ll happen, I promise you. Life will happen and you’ll be OK. Just try to relax. Try not to analyse and read into everything that happens. Don’t assist it or resist it, just let it be what it is: a glorious cacophony of teenage hormones swirling in the universe.

You’re going to feel like your heart may cave in from love, hate, injustice and all that falls in between but I promise you, it won’t. You will never feel emotions this strongly again so enjoy them but try not to get drunk on them.

After I said that very thing to my teenager, she rolled her eyes, turned the radio up and looked out the window. But in the reflection I saw a teeny, tiny smile spread across her lips. Yaaaaas! I GOT TO HER! I am 86 per cent sure she took in my words and maybe, just maybe, she feels a little less anxious about what lies ahead. I’ll bloody take that!

Em Rusciano is a comedian, writer, singer and regular news.com.au columnist. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.