By Abbey Huffer
Relationships are an important part of your life, especially in high school. They can teach positive habits and lessons that you will use later in life, such as communicating effectively, respecting others, and being responsible. High school relationships can vary from romantic to platonic but the psychology behind them is what’s really interesting.
Students should date because dating has lots of benefits, such as emotional support, higher grades, maturation, self-discovery, and happiness. Having a high school sweetheart can be good for you, but it is not always likely that it will last beyond high school. Less than 2 percent of marriages belong to high school sweethearts, showing the highly unlikely event of high school couples actually lasting. Although the likelihood for high school sweethearts to marry is slim, if they do marry, their chances of surviving the marriage become even slimmer. Fifty-four percent of couples who married high school sweethearts get divorced. It’s difficult to maintain a high school relationship as you’re continuing to grow and discover yourself, and you may discover that your high school sweetheart is not the one for you. Don’t let this discourage you, though. Communication is always key, and if you continue to work together throughout your relationship, you can forget about depressing statistics.
“I believe a relationship can work after high school,” sophomore Rae Johnson said. “Just because an individual is in high school, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have the intellect or maturity of a high schooler. Not only that, but people can also be more developed in certain aspects but not all. A stable relationship just needs communication, trust, empathy, and sympathy.”
Platonic relationships can be as important, if not more important than, romantic relationships. Friendships during your adolescent years can have many benefits like having the feeling of acceptance and belonging to a certain group. The people you surround yourself with can shape your personality which makes it important to surround yourself with those who are a good influence and make you feel involved. Just like romantic relationships, it’s not always likely that your friendship will continue after high school. Fewer than one in ten friendships lasted into high school from middle school, and only 1 percent of friendships continued to the 12th grade. It’s easy to grow apart throughout life. Romantic and platonic relationships can be similar as they both teach you lessons and shape you into the person you are now, but with romantic relationships, there’s more intimacy.
“Platonic, I feel lasts longer but romantic relationships are important as well,” freshman Andrea Tavárez said. “Friendships for teenagers are important for their social life and even their mental health. For many teenagers, having a romantic relationship will and can help them out of mental issues that they may be experiencing, but sometimes with platonic relationships, they can become more toxic than a romantic relationship. Like mentioned before though, it really just depends on the people you are surrounded with and how you are, as well as how you were brought up and how you experience and process different things. Many factors go into what is best for you during these stages of your life.”
Whether your relationships and friendships last beyond high school or not, it’s always good to have someone by your side during these years. Your time with someone may not last forever, but that just allows you to enjoy the precious moments you have together. Relationships and friendships can be important to others for many different reasons.
“In high school, it’s a lot easier making friends because it’s a group of diverse people in one place,” sophomore Luisa Burnett said. “People of similar age, and of similar understandings of the world which can be hard to find later in life. These connections are important to make in high school because it heavily influences who you’ll become.”
