High school relationships are something else, and honestly they aren’t worthwhile in a long run. Now, hear me out, this isn’t some opinion based on experience, rather it is an opinion based on fact. High school relationships moving into high school sweethearts, as in a happy married couple is a rare occurrence. So rare in fact, that a study done January 5th 2016 turned out to say only 2% of marriages are high school sweethearts. This can be for many reasons, and for one reason let’s discuss the science of it all.

For the science of why high school relationships aren’t worthwhile is simply, we don’t have the logic and reasoning to have a functioning relationships. I say this because our frontal lobes are not fully developed. The frontal lobes control logic and reasoning, as stated by Richard Knox in a 2010 article “The Teen Brain: It's Just Not Grown Up Yet”. Because of this, even in a dysfunctional relationship, we as teenagers won’t stop it. We crave emotion and feeling, with no logic and reasoning to put the brakes on it. On to the Stanford Marshmallow experiment, where a researcher tested children with a simple decision. Eat one marshmallow now, or wait and receive a second marshmallow. As most people would expect, the children mostly jumped at the chance for the first marshmallow. Now, the age gap is noticeable, as is the object at hand. Teenagers compared to kids who haven’t hit 10 years old yet, and the object, a marshmallow or a relationship, but the results still hold true. The frontal lobe isn’t there to reason that two treats are better than one, and even if given the reason, they don’t have the patience to wait. Applying that to teenage relationships, teenagers won’t reason for a relationship that will end in ruin, and even if they did, they wouldn’t wait because they don’t have the patience.

For the opinion portion, they really are just not needed. I understand that yes, you need a vent source sometimes. It’s what all teenagers feel, and what all teenagers want. Not only this, but of course no teen wants to be alone. We want to be validated, and we want our insecurities to hide away, unable to show pass a wall known as your special someone. With the good side of an amazing support, there is of course a negative to it all. There is all the stress that comes with a relationship, like jealousy, suspicion, and then the rift formed when you break up. Not only will a rift be formed, but when you break up you’ll become sad, insecurities crawling on your skin like never before. You won’t focus in school in the relationship because you will be all over that special someone. Even when the relationship ends, the sadness will eat at you, which of course lowers your focus in school.

High school relationships can have positive results though. I realize that there are plenty of people who have happy high school sweetheart families. However, the unhappy relationships outweigh the happily married, leading us here.

When faced with high school relationships, creating that kind of stress on yourself just isn’t worth it. Get a diploma, and find a true love in college, in a university, even at the workplace, as farfetched as that last one sounds. The happy relationships however, will go on to ignore such advice, and will power on into a happy family. High school relationships however, in the majority, do not last as long as we would like to believe.