A few people have asked me lately exactly why I hate guys so much. I want to clear this up. I do not hate guys in general. What I do hate is the way they behave in the context of high school relationships, just as I hate girls in the same context. When people are just people, they are who they are, good, bad, whatever. People in relationships totally change who they are. They get all emotional lovey-dovey, dependent, obsessive, neglectful of other things in their life like friends. They're stupid and blind-sided, and I really believe that.
When you're an adult, usually you date to find someone cool to hang out with for the rest of your life. When you're a teenager, you do it for fun. Of course, this isn't saying that adults don't do it for fun. They do, all the time, but the difference between an adult and a teenager is practice vs. experimentation. High school relationships are about experimentation when people are still figuring out who they are. If they haven't figured out who they are, letting someone else in is playing with fire. When kids try to light fire to unknown chemicals, there's a pretty good chance it's going to blow up in their face.
Three things get mixed together in teenage relationships: Emotions, peer pressure, and thoughts about sex. Everyone wants to connect to someone, everyone feels like there are certain things they need to do to be socially normal, and to some degree, everyone thinks about sex. The volatile chemicals of these awesome teen years. Mix them together, light a match, and see what happens.
I think wanting to connect to someone is a big part of it. A lot of people don't have good friends, and they like the commitment of a relationship to give them some assurance or guarantee that someone will always be there to make them feel like they matter. Teenagers are babies when it comes to dealing with emotions. Quoting Zac Efron in 17 Again, "When you're young everything feels like the end of the world, but it's not. It's just the beginning." Emotions get tangled in a complicated web, and since these relationships are destined to end as everyone is subconsciously using everyone in their own experiments, the emotional strings attached get cut and people fall.
I think everybody needs to realize that they are going to get hurt. They can decide whether or not it's worth it, but they need to expect it to end. They make the decision to put their emotions on the front line, but they need to realize that the front line takes the first hits. When babies (dirty babies?) play with fire, they're sure to get burned. If they think they're adult enough to handle the flames, they still must remember that once they've thrown fuel to the fire, it's harder to put out.
Love,
Juliana
Well I was gonna leave a comment a little while ago but Blogger decided to be retarded and not let me post it. So now I have to rewrite it as I seethe so hopefully I don't put angry stuff here.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I love how you somehow worked dirty babies into this post about high school relationships. And you talked about fire a lot which reminded me of that question that I want an answer to and also reminded me of Buffy. But I agree with this stuff. People rush into relationships in the drama of high school when there's a 99.9% chance of it not working. I actually am going to see if I can find a statistic. Here's something I found "less than 2% of high school sweethearts get married and stay together (don't get divorced)". That's pretty bad I must say and there aren't even very many high school relationships that get to marriage. I'm really upset I lost that other post cuz now I have to think back to what I talked about. I had to put a sentence-rant there. The sad thing is that most people that rush into relationships end up in a worse state friend-relationships wise at the end when they need close friends to talk to after the bad breakup. The worst is when the boyfriend doesn't let the girlfriend hang out with her friends. When people become so dependent on someone such as in a relationship it's like they lose themselves. Sure, some high school relationships do last a few years, but once you go to college it doesn't work. And don't even get me started on the girls that ALWAYS have to have a boyfriend. If you need someone to be there to make you feel special about yourself, then you have ego problems. And friends can do that too. Romantic relationships also come with pressure, not wanting to make your boyfriend/girlfriend dislike you because you try so desperately to make it last. Friendships are so much better, you know your friends won't judge you for what you do; it's who you are that made them want to hang out with you anyways. So now I'll stop ranting :D
I totally agree with that. People lose their friends over that, and friends are much more important. I understand the having a boyfriend for fun thing if there's no strings attached, but there are always strings attached and people always get hurt while messing up important things in their lives like friendships. I love your comment.
ReplyDeleteThe saddest thing is when two people that are good friends decide to go out and then at the end of the relationship they have a bad breakup and hate each other. If they were good friends before, they should be able to understand that maybe it needs to stay that way and they don't have to make it romantic.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think trying to turn a friendship into a relationship screws up the friendship. I know you actually have experience with it and I don't, but I would think the friendship could never go back to being the way it was.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about my relationship was that we never really did anything non-friendship like. So I don't really even count it that much. So really we just went back to the way things were before. For the most part.
ReplyDeleteAWKRJKLFJSL
ReplyDeleteYou know my thoughts.
I can count the number of happy marriages I've seen on one hand.
I wouldn't mind people dating so much if they didn't rush everything. I wonder how many teenagers go around all the bases within a month or two of being together.
There needs to be a 'like' button for both the post and Jessica's comment.
Believe me, I TOTALLY agree with what you guys are saying. However, I'm such a pathetic loser that I still want a relationship before graduation.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I actually know 2 pairs of high school sweethearts that are still together. 1 is still married. If you went to my party, you know who they are. I guess that my problem is that I want to end up like them instead of the huge number of unhappy people I know, like my parents.
It's a huge issue that I have to deal with and most likely will rant about on my own blog.
Lauren, it's really not worth it. Even if you do get into a relationship, at this point in high school you'd just get heartbroken when you both go off to different colleges or when the guy is a jerk and dumps you. Plus, you'd have even more to worry about and if you're anything like me, there's no possible way to try and worry about something else.
ReplyDeleteJessica, like I said before,you're right. I'm not arguing with you on that. Irust me. I just don't know what it'll take to change my mind.
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