Do senior relationships work?
The stereotypical college life is free of worry, responsibility, and commitments: the exact opposite of how many Mustang seniors are finding their reality nowadays. The question I have is, how exactly are we supposed to make the transition from one extreme to the other? In other words, what should we be avoiding that would allow our transition to be completed with ease? And is a high school relationship on that list?
“As a mother, I wouldn’t want my daughters to date until they’re 35, I just see relationships in a school as a distraction,” senior house social worker, Mrs. Polavieja said. Every teenager in a relationship has heard something like this at one point or another; and technically, it’s true. Time spent with your boyfriend or girlfriend is time that could possibly be spent doing homework, but it can be argued. “If you really care about that person, you will find a way to make it work” senior Sammie Gari said. I mean, let’s be realistic: a majority of students find a way to balance school, a sport, a few clubs, and maybe even music on top of that. What’s one more commitment?
But, it is impossible to talk about relationships senior year without addressing the effects it will have on college. “Having a girlfriend in high school could make it harder to leave for college, some people choose to go to a certain college because their boyfriend or girlfriend is going there,” senior Brian Denton said. We hear about this all the time; it’s the senior year curse. “After graduation, everything in your life changes and it becomes very difficult to hold on to a part of your past,” senior Jill Sellers said.
Maybe this is one of those things that doesn’t have a right or a wrong answer. Some relationships survive college and high school sweethearts do get married. But there is a significantly higher amount of people that don’t marry someone they dated in high school. There is really no way of knowing how someone will be in the future: their priorities may change or their feelings may change; however, I will always be a firm believer in the concept that ‘you’ll never know unless you try’.
After all, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
-Alfred Lord Tennyson