Walking around in the hallways of Creek, no one expects to hear about teenagers’ relationships and their odd problems.

“We’ve been dating for a week and I’m already sick of her.”

“We said ‘I love you,’ last night. It’s crazy. It’s only been a month.”

“His friends influence all of his decisions and I can’t take it anymore.”

High Schoolers think they have all the answers. They think it’s smart to rush into relationships. But they’re wrong.
As young people, we forget about things like timing, bonds, and trust. The truth is, most teenagers shouldn’t be in relationships this early on because love isn’t something that is simple. Connections and bonds aren’t easy for everyone. Not even for me.

Thinking you’re ready for a relationship is very different than actually being ready. And I speak from experience. When all I thought about was wanting to be in a relationship, it didn’t last.

But there’s a difference between wanting and really thinking through the difficult part.

“Love comes from something that lasts a long time and you feel it a lot deeper,” sophomore Lira Cannon who’s been in a happy relationship for three months said.

Cannon and her partner have gotten to know each other and have talked through what each party wants. For love to thrive, it has to flourish in a healthy environment. Without it, passion deteriorates over time, soon becoming an overload of work and stress.

With homework piling up and students laboring over tests and homework, adding the pressure of trying to make a relationship work is too much. Unwanted emotions come out and they can be impossible to comprehend.

Because these strong feelings are normal, especially in relationships, communication is very important. Talking instead of assuming and making the problem worse is why relationships become demanding, untrustworthy, and toxic. As young people, we forget that being immature could be the root of the problem of being impatient and jumping to conclusions.

According to an article by McLean Harvard Medical School “trusting another person can take time… having a sense of safety is crucial to the long-term success of your relationship.”

This circles back to the idea that rushing into relationships without the skills or patience necessary to maintain them isn’t smart. You should always take time to get to know the person you want something more with. Teens forget to do this because they’re so distracted by wanting to be with that person and the stress of school that they are unable to truly understand their desires.

We have to realize that before we jump into a relationship, we need to think about ourselves too. What we want. What we think. What we feel. If we’re not ready for something this significant, we shouldn’t go into something that might not work in the end.

Making something work takes maturity. And not just for yourself, but for the other person as well. Teens can feel love but we aren’t mature enough to know how to be ready for a relationship yet.