I know how deeply, deeply irritating lovey-dovey types are, particularly when you yourself aren’t remotely close to being in a lovey-dovey stage. The best thing I can say for you in this situation is to keep in mind that A) you’re going to be just as stupidly in love sometime, and annoy your friends by blathering on about how wonderful your guy is (and they’ll return the favor), and B) this girl has a whole new world of stress, disappointment, sacrifice and possibly dead-ends ahead of her. Why begrudge her the joy she’s finding in her current situation? And if it turns out that she’s right – they are in love and are going to make it, dying of old age together happily, well, what’s it to you? You have your own path to follow either way.
I’d also argue that people in high school can indeed know what love is, and truly be in love with each other. I’ve seen it happen, and it was real (for all that in most cases they did break up at some point).
Aaah…the bitter sting of hindsight and knowing what it feels like to be deaf to the voice of experience…
I, too, was engaged in high school. I had a ring at sixteen…boyfriend was two years older, and going off to college. He didn’t go far, and for the first year, when I had days off of high school for whatever reason, I would go with him to the campus and hang out while he was in class. My parents were smart enough not to force their wisdom on me too much, perhaps knowing that the more they fought against it, the more I’d probably rebel, but his parents weren’t. We were in LOVE, dammit! wailing wall, I can’t live without you and all that stuff. We were together for three years, until his second year of college when he moved in to the fraternity house and realized that sluts were a LOT more fun than the ball and chain he’d already had for three years! Wowweee! What was he thinking?! hehehe…but I’m not bitter
Seriously, though. Even though I still love him 12 years later, I’m glad we didn’t continue down that road. We’re both so much different people now, or, at least I am. I haven’t seen him since he dumped me flat that year…I have heard about him, though, every now and then, and he now has kids and a wife who won’t be faithful. I hear she has a habit of taking her wedding ring off before she enters the bar. Eww.
But what I was getting at, is that you can’t tell these kids anything. It really is too bad that there’s now some small human being who’s going to suffer for these idiot’s mistakes. If it weren’t for that, I’d say to let them make their own mistakes and it will all work itself out. It is so frustrating to put up with that level of stupidity in people, especially when it’s so dang LOUD, but don’t make their mistakes, and you’ll be better for it. It really is nice when you get to learn from the mistakes of others and don’t have to do it yourself.
Chin up, SBF. Oh, and yeah, this kind of stupidity never ends in some people. Age doesn’t seem to matter that much.
What your friend is feeling is infatuation. This is strong and emotional and does not contain not much logic.
Love, however, is not a feeling, it is an action, and a lot of work. When the baby is crying and he’s been fired from the gas station and she wonders where the money going to come from so they can buy food and pay rent, and she can still manage to smile at him, that’s love.
I kept thinking “High School Drama and Crap I bet that’s going to win a Turner Prize!”
Oh yeah, on topic. Uh, won’t necessarily work, but might. Hence, engaging=stupid and pregnant=really stupid. OTOH, it is impossible to persuade her otherwise. Has anyone ever managed that? Also, constantly going on about it is a bit rude, but it’s going to be v hard to change.
I was engaged my senior year in high school. IIRC, it lasted about 4 months. In general, people just aren’t mature enough in high school to get married. People grow and change so much in the years right after high school throughout college, it’s not even funny.
Then again, I have a friend who got pregnant and married at 15. 30 years and 4 more children later, she’s still happily married to the guy. Of course, I’m not deluded enough to think she’s the norm. She is the MAJOR exception to the rule.
I also disagree that high schoolers can’t know what love is. If anything, they’re capable of feeling a magnified concept of what love is since everything seems to be a bit more dramatic at that age. When my fiance and I broke up my freshman year in college, I thought it was the end of the freaking world. When another long-term relationship ended years later, it was more along the lines of “well this sucks, but life certainly isn’t over, guess it’s time to get on with my life and move on”.
Looks like this girl’s going to learn all about the sucess rate of high school engagements the hard way, because as everyone knows, the more you brag about and build your relationship up, the harder you fall when the whole thing comes apart.
Ooh, I get to pretend that Sabrina the Teenage Witch is deep! The quote is “Of course it’s true love. It always is at their age.” As in, yes, you experience all the passions, deep feelings, experiences, etc, of love, but OTOH, that doesn’t make you the specialist person in the world, or mean it will last. (Though obviously sometimes it does last. But just because you think you’re “in love” doesn’t mean it necessarily will.)
I had a few friends who were engaged in high school.
Let’s see:
V was engaged as a sophmore or junior. That ended when he raped her.
My dear friend A was engaged towards the end of our junior year. They got married right after we graduated and are now divorcing.
M, a girl I was in band with, got engaged while in high school but didn’t marry until during college. They’re still together, even though her husband is a total wussy. I think she married him because he was the first guy she slept with and she felt guilty or something.
S, a classmate, was engaged to a man much older than us and they got married when she turned up preggers. They’re still together; almost divorced but managed to work it out.
Growing up, though, there was a lovely couple on my block that was my mom’s age. They married in secret VERY young, like 15 or 16. They did it secretly because at the time, if a girl was married and still in school, she wasn’t allowed to participate in any school activities (this was the early 60s). They’ve been together about a million years now, however I think they are a one-in-a-million scenario.
Which, to me, says that love is both a feeling and a lot of work.
I was engaged in my senior year of high school, and I got married about a month after my high school graduation. LadyAvalonian and I are still together, coming up on 13 years now. It hasn’t always been easy, but our marriage has pretty consistently been stronger and more stable than many of the marriages we see around us.
Just this evening, as I picked her up from her place of work, she looked over and me and said “I love you.” Our three kids were making too much noise in the back seat, the front brakes were squealing, and we’re two days from payday and most of the money is already spoken for anyway (some for the brakes)… but she looked at me from the passenger seat and told me that she loved me, for no particular reason. That’s what I call love.
Granted, we are the exception to the rule. Most early marriages fail with frightening speed – we saw a lot of them crash and burn ourselves (and a couple who have succeeded through tremendous hardship).
But the statistics don’t matter to me… I’m so glad that I married this wonderful woman right out of high school. Best decision I ever made.
I think that more than age, the determining factor in whether or not a marriage will succeed is responsibility. The more a person understands what responsibility is and how they can meet it, the more successful they will be in a marriage. I’ve met some teenagers who would be able to put together a strong and healthy marriage because they have a definite sense of responsibility - of course, because of that sense of responsibility, they’re also more likely to wait a while. I’ve known adults in their 30s and 40s who couldn’t be trusted to keep a hamster alive, and not surprisingly, their marriages aren’t in very good shape either.
Unfortunately, there’s no way I’ve learned to dissuade someone from getting married when it’s obvious to me what a bad idea it is. The only thing I can end up hoping for is that I’m proven wrong and they turn out to be much stronger people than I gave them credit for.
Since we’re throwing anecdotal stories out along with the statistics: my parents were married when she was 17 (she dropped out of high school to get married) and 21 (he was in the Navy). Still very happily married after 45 years. They had three kids: my sister, the youngest, was married at just barely 18 to a boy who was 17 and still a Senior in high school. They’ve had their ups and owns, but are still together after 24 years. My brother married for the first time at 21 and I married for the first time at 23 – both of those marriages ended in divorce (although we both remarried and our second marriages have lasted 11 and 18 years).
Despite this, I still feel that it’s foolish for kids to marry so young. It can work, obviously, but the odds are so much against it. On a wedding message board I frequent, there is a young girl who just turned 16 two months ago who is engaged to a 19 year old she met 4 months ago. It is her second engagement in one year. She actually came to the message board while planning the wedding to her previous fiance… They split up and, 6 short weeks she comes up engaged to this new guy. My family experience notwithstanding, I can’t feel positive about this child’s likelihood of achieving a lasting match. Her fiance is planning to join the Marine Corps in a few weeks. BTW, she does seem to be pushing these boys towards the service – the last fiance was enlisting in the Air Force. Anyway, I have hopes that, once in boot camp, the fiance will smarten up and give her the heave-ho. Would be the best thing possible for him – although I don’t doubt that she’d soon have another fish on the hook. Obviously, she just really wants to be married and it doesn’t matter a great to whom.
“a little ditty bout Jack and Diane…two American kids do’in the best they can!”
Yeah, teenage marriages are usually disastrous. Kids don’t realize how much of life they miss by getting married too early.
I wouldn’t say the odds are greatly against them. Just playing simple odds - odds are they will still be married in ten years.
The stats from the NCHS said “nearly 50%” of teenage marriages end within ten years. But 50% of them don’t (granted, I’m willing to bet that by the time you hit "lifetime marriage, you are over the 50% mark - if you are almost there at 10 years). The odds are a lot better if you wait 'til 25 to get married, but individuals are not odds.
This particular story doesn’t sound too hopeful - three months of dating, putting pregnancy before marriage (would they be engaged if she wasn’t knocked up?) And the part that bugs me (like SBF) is that she goes writes an article (I assume published in the school newspaper) - where she apparently doesn’t bother to go dig up any stats and perpetiates the “love is enough” myth.
Most of us tend to put “adulthood” - marriage and kids - off for a little bit in our society. And its always a little shocking to me how many teenagers (particularly teenage girls) really don’t recognize the stage (or are eager to skip it) between adolencence and adulthood.
There is only one high school marriage I’ve known of that did not end in divorce. There was a boy a year or two ahead of me who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He married his girlfriend a few months before his death. All other under-21 marriages and engagements at my former high school (at least of the people I know) have ended in divorce.
What high school students feel is not Love love. It is Infatuation love. You have to be mighty mature to experience Love love at any age.
It’s not that hs kids don’t know what love is. I’m sure they know that part well. What they don’t know is all the mundane and unromantic stuff that is required to be a couple of self-sufficient adults in the real world. They don’t realize that “love” does not pay the rent. You can’t eat love. You can’t sit on love. Love won’t keep the rain off your head or transport you to the mall.
I know a couple of people who are still married to their high school sweethearts 10+ years later. The diference is that they managed to graduate, finish college and then get married (or get married and then finish college, either way they went to college).
