SHORT TAKES : Selleck Recalls Teen Shyness

NEW YORK — Tom Selleck, best-known for his TV hunk role on “Magnum P.I.,” says he was a shy teen-ager who graduated from high school still a novice in the field of romance.

“The idea of saving yourself was something noble in the back of your head, no matter how hard your glands were pushing,” Selleck said in the September issue of Fame magazine. “I left high school a virgin.”

Selleck said he was “very shy” before he eventually got a steady girlfriend.

“I didn’t have many dates,” he said. “I didn’t have trouble getting dates if I got up the nerve to ask. But I had a tendency to run through a whole relationship before I asked.”