Teenage dating is often, in the eyes of the youth, viewed to be positive towards long-term relationships and negative to short-term relationships. Yet, while we are being raised, our parents tell us to experiment and get to know other people through dating. Granted sexuality is also experimented with, for the sake of arguments this is in reference to heterosexuals.

Dating is possibly the best way to get to know an individual person, if not a stereotype of people. Many people like to say that stereotypes are wrong to apply to people and that it is inconsiderate but they are often true. By dating around, you also meet people through your date’s friends, so why is it so wrong in the eyes of the youth, to not be in a relation for long term. The answer, because we want to be so grown up, we want to believe that we are capable of being like our parents and have the ability to love other people. By doing that, we close off our ability to meet new people for many different reasons; we fail to meet members of the opposite sex due to the fear of offending our “spouse” and we fail to meet members of the same sex due to fear of them becoming attracted to our “spouse”. By going into the relationship with the attitude of it becoming a long-term relationship we do develop a deeper sense of affection, but since the majority of all teenage relationships end up breaking up, this usually ends in self-pity and despair.

Do not take that as me saying that you should go into a relationship with the mentality that it will be a quickie, because that is far from what any relationship, no matter how long should be. The goal of a short-term relationship in some eyes is instant self gratification but that is not a relationship that is abuse of one partner to the other or both partners towards each other and is not healthy now or for future relationships.

In my eyes, the ideal teenage relationship is that which is in between a deeply emotional relationship due to the heartbreak it can cause but more than the instant sexual gratification a one night stand can bring. You should have an attraction to the person but also the ability to live a serperate life from them and the ability to get to still meet members of the same and opposite sex.

-Josh Stewart

Josh2250 @ Teenhut.net

Nor.Cal_09@yahoo.com