by Olivia Snyder ’12

When it comes to relationships, high schoolers have either said or heard the phrase, “It will never last.” These days, high school relationships are branded as hopelessly superficial and fleeting. Though teenagers pretend to be content with these frivolous love affairs, doesn’t every girl secretly wish for a serenade outside her window or a lasso around the moon? Today it seems the closest we can hope to get is the occasional emoticon heart or wink-face smiley. It would be considered “stalker-ish” to even call someone for an initial chat.

The abundance of technology teens are exposed to nowadays is one main culprit behind our shallow relationships. Texting, Facebook and Skype are replacing the traditional “dating” stage of the relationship process. We teenagers seem to be under the impression that screen-to-screen contact is just the same as face-to-face, and with the ability to easily and frequently have these “conversations” with possible crushes, dates have begun to seem unnecessary. The traditional purpose of dating was for getting to know and expressing interest in a person. Now, the same can be done through technology but with one fatal flaw; it’s just a screen. Even with webcam Skyping, there’s just no substitute for physical presence. Afterall, it’s easy to be suave and witty at a comfortable distance. Because of the separation that screens provide and the ability to express messages without facing the person’s intimidating presence, it’s easier for texters to build false confidence. Screens allow people to concoct a different personality.

And so herein lies the trouble: without the open, casual dating stage, teens rush into relationships with people they only think they know. Pairs can flirt so easily that each just seems to slip into that boyfriend/girlfriend role without spending a real length of time with one another. So rather than a relationship beginning only after the couple has gotten to know each other, the relationship begins almost immediately with this ‘get-to-know-you’ stage. Becoming a couple has become the means to finding chemistry, rather than the celebration of building on already discovered sparks. Instead of relationships being momentous, they have become simply experimental and therefore disposable. But this can change.

Guys can take the reins and find the guts to take that girl out to dinner, and girls can think twice before sending that suggestive emoticon to a guy they’ve spoken to perhaps once. We must take the expiration dates off high school relationships to make them something more than flimsy flings and half-baked hypotheses.