Remember those long gone days of our youth? I do. Even at my age, they are still fresh in my mind.
When I was a teenager, my girlfriend Lisa and I would sit around at her house with her portable record player (yes, I did say record player) and play our favorite 45s like Just the Way You Are from Billy Joel. We’d sit and talk about all the cute guys that we were interested in. You could say we were “guy crazy” at the time. What girl wasn’t? My teenage star crush at the time was Shaun Cassidy. I even had his poster up in my bedroom. I think I was in love with his hair!
My first “boyfriend” was in 7th grade. He was one year older so that was considered cool at the time. Truth be told I didn’t even really know what it meant to have a boyfriend. In my day, having a “boyfriend” meant a guy that you hung out with and talked on the phone with (a lot). We didn’t attend the same school so I actually didn’t spend much time with him. Okay, so there was an innocent kiss or two.
That relationship only lasted a few months. The break up was sad but not the end of the world. As time would tell, there would be more break ups to follow.
So is teenage love the same now as it was back then? I’d say yes and no.
My cousin is newly graduated from high school. She just broke up with her boyfriend that she had been dating for over a year.
As a couple, they spent a lot of time together. I think part of it being the fact that they both drive and have their own cars. Back in my day, I didn’t drive until after high school and I didn’t have my own car until college. Most of my friends drove but they didn’t have their own cars either. They also both attended the same school and participated in many of the same activities. They also have the tools of the electronic age. They are on Facebook or MySpace. They have email and instant messaging. Cell phones are a norm. I only had snail mail and the telephone ( land line). They are very open in what is shared between them. For example. I would have never spoken to my teenage boyfriend about my period or my weight. I would have never gone shopping with him and let him know what size pants I wore. Even if I was skinnier back then. There were just some things that weren’t shared with teenage boyfriends. They also tend to spend a lot more moneyon each other that I did with my teenage boyfriends. I guess inflation affects even teenage love.
Times have changed. Although it seems like teenagers “grow up” faster these days, they are still teenagers. Maturityand wisdom still comes with age, most of the time.
My cousin and her boyfriend obviously had a different kind of relationship than I had in middle school or high school. They seem to have invested a lot of time and money into their teenage love. But alas, as all things of the teenage era go, one day here the next day gone. As break ups go, there were tears along with words of anger and frustration. There were probably things said that shouldn’t have been. She said she didn’t want to speak to him for a while. (Sound familiar?)
I asked my cousin if they spoke recently and she said they did. It sounded like they were on the road to possible frienship even after the hurt. I was happy to hear that. I gave her the usual advice about trying to be friends and not holding on to hard feelings. Of course, I have hindsight on my side.
So I guess you could say that teenage love is pretty much the same these days.
But wait!
The one difference is that my boyfriends didn’t have fathers that called up the ex-girlfriend to give them a piece of their mind. My boyfriend’s fathers didn’t call me to say that their family wouldn’t be attending my graduation party. My boyfriend’s fathers wouldn’t say “whatever” when I asked if my family should still attend their son’s graduation party.
How’s that for teenage love gone wrong as evidenced by daddy’s rants! Scary!
Confessions of a Middleagedmom 