Dear high school couples,
It's second semester senior year, and you guys are looking forward to anticipated high school events like prom and graduation. You're looking forward to sharing those moments, those coveted memories, with someone whom you'll look back on fondly, reminiscing the sublimely awkward and equally precious moments of your first relationship.
High school relationships are the hackneyed milestones for adolescent love. They are a peek through the peephole of the front door of your life, offering an infantile glimpse at love. If you’re reading this, I'm guessing you opened that door and let your relationship plateau into the quintessential high school relationship (butterflies in your stomach, giddy flirtation, blushing cheeks), and you’ve embarked on a personal pursuit into the unchartered territory of your heart.
I’m also guessing that the end of senior year incites conflict in your relationship if you and your significant other are heading off to college. You have the big decision of whether or not to brave the distance or call it quits looming ahead. Almost everyone –– your friends, your parents, the know-it-all kid you babysit –– is telling you that there is no way it will work out, that it's never worth the effort, and that you'll miss out on the freshman experience. And maybe that's true for a lot of puppy-love high school sweethearts, but if the thought of saying goodbye at graduation to not only your girlfriend or boyfriend, but also your best friend, feels like an anchor weighing down on your heart, then you should rethink your plan to break up before college.
No matter how much you mull over the situation, contorting it into different shapes and scenarios, you'll always conclude that breaking up is the only logical thing to do. Long distance relationships are hard, especially when you and your boyfriend or girlfriend are about to transition from high school to college. You'll live entirely separate lives and you'll know completely different sets of people, and the disparity between your two lives may cause rifts in any semblance of cohesiveness your relationship might presently exhibit.
Although the circumstances don't easily facilitate a single social sphere of existence, it's possible to integrate each other into your separate lives; you can both remain entirely and wholly a part of the other's day-to-day life. And if you're willing to put in the extra time –– the hour long phone calls, the trips to visit each other, the constant thinking about one another –– then, why not just try? Of course, some people's relationships draw to a natural conclusion that coincides with the close of high school. For others however, the end is ambiguous and unpredicted. If you think you'd be staying together if the daunting long distance wasn't bound to plague your relationship, then I say, you should give it a shot.
The problem with breaking up just because of college is that you could be truncating your relationship prematurely. You'll slam the door shut, your feelings getting caught in the hinges, your heart jammed in the doorframe, and that's it. You'll walk away feeling empty and confused, forever wondering "what if."
Long distance is an adjustment, but college itself is a huge adjustment, and having a companion going through the exact same stages can be helpful. As your paths diverge, you can try to chug along tracks that somehow, one day, might possibly intersect geographically later on in life. However, staying together with your high school sweetheart doesn't have to mean you'll be together forever. It just means that you're letting things unravel in the magical, elusive way that love seems to work.
So in my humble opinion (only a year past your current situation), leave the door open. Let your plateaued high school relationship reach its potential peak –– or, worst case scenario, let it plummet naturally. At least that way, you won't be futilely willing your attraction to just end--because trust me, it won't. Let the emotions –– the relationship –– evolve and dissolve naturally. And in the end, at least you'll know you tried.
Sincerely,
