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First Dates
"I hate the butterfly feeling in my stomach- right now. I’m more concerned about my breakfast than whether HE likes me back."
By Hannah Johnson
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Many parents feel that their high school aged children aren’t ready for the responsibilities of dating and relationships. And while this is often a bone of contention between parents and their children...17 year old Hannah Johnson from Blunt Youth Radio couldn’t agree more…
First dates. Blind dates. Mystery dates. Movie dates. Strange dates. Great dates. First-base dates. I-Won’t-Call-You-Again dates.
All of these sorts of dates have somehow combined, combusted, and exploded into one idea in my few years of teenage dating: DATING SUCKS!
Maybe it’s not that bad for you. Maybe it’s great. Perhaps you have met your soul mate. Maybe the two of you are walking down the aisle tomorrow. I don’t know.
But I am speaking for the few, the meek, and the shy population of girls and boys who don’t “date,” like the norm.
We’re not hopeless romantics. We’re not geeky, nerdy, or ugly. It’s not our hair, our eyes, our make-up, our clear or blackheaded faces.
It’s that…we’re not ready.
As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, at 17 years old and partner-less, I’m not too ashamed.
Why?
Because my life is beyond crushes, beyond the mystery of boys and love. I hate the butterfly feeling in my stomach- right now. I’m more concerned about my breakfast than whether HE likes me back.
I say again, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve had those dates, those crushes, and in the end I realize how much emotion and time and self-induced wreckage I endured for…a broken heart.
Yes, love is fascinating. Yes, it’s mysterious. Yes, I hope to fall one day. But not today. Not when guys are looking to score and girls are looking for attention. Not when I watch a movie and all I see is sex as if that’s what love is all about. Because I’m not looking for a friend with benefits. Not when I listen to music and all I hear is crappy Shakespeare in modern times. Not when I sit at lunch and hear girls saying “He didn’t call me when he said,” or “he looked at another girl right in front of me,” or “some ugly fat-ass bitches were leaving comments on his myspace.”
Ah yes, now that the internet mixed into the lives of millions teenagers, love has suddenly become a booming online source of “happily-ever-after.” Instead of courtship, which was already lost nearly a decade ago, we can now talk online. To fill that empty void inside, all we have to do is sign onto our facebooks, myspaces, and screen names, and it’s a whole new world of possibilities.
Yuck. I’d rather receive a text message, which is the closest thing to a love letter in my generation.
I don’t date like the rest because I don’t want to. I don’t want to be caught up in “DO YOU LIKE ME? CIRCLE YES, NO, MAYBE.”
I’m searching for something real. And it’s bound to happen with 330 million people in the United States. I believe it’s almost unnatural to spend the rest of your life with one person. And that’s what I see with my fellow teenagers, that once a couple, it’s a marriage, and all fun is lost in the upkeep of preserving your “ever-lasting love” with one another.
I wish everyone would stop being so serious. WAKE UP! This is high school. Life moves on beyond these four years that were spent trying to impress everyone else.
So I’m going to wait around and live a little. I’m going to dream big and do what I want. I’m not going to tie myself down in a relationship because I know I’m not ready. If you’d only listen to me.
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