Teenage Love - A double-edged sword.
Hello Teens,
I guess the concept of
‘love’ is something that we have grown too familiar with. So you may be asking,
“What does he have to say about teenage love?” There’s a lot to be said about
this. When teenagers fall in love, we put 100% of our emotions into it. Let me
describe the life of an average teen who is in love from the perspectives of
both sexes.
For the guys: You meet
this girl, you get talking briefly, you chat her, say “Hi”, “Hello”. You ask to
meet at several secluded areas around. You chat, tell stories about your early
childhood, make fun of your silly pranks as a child, then you then take the
‘embryonic’ relationship slowly. Then shit gets serious, you cannot stay a
whole day without calling like four times to hear her voice and make sure she’s
okay (this is the point when possessiveness begins). She takes you to meet her
brother(s). You can’t stop thinking about her. You tell your guys about this
girl who ‘drives you crazy’. You begin to fantasize about making out with her.
You then start making advances to her. She gets the message. You then have your
first sexual encounter. She then keeps talking about how it was (and sometimes
where you got it wrong), then suddenly, BOOM! That girl you met at the coffee
shop who had that attractive demeanour, that gracious poise, those sparkly
eyes, that soothing voice, that sexy body now turns into a totally different
person. She becomes like stale bread. Soup that has lost its flavour. You don’t
want to let her go because you don’t know how to tell her you don’t feel
anything for her any longer. Then you start doing stuff to provoke her, once she
gets pissed and then starts a fight with you, what next? Perfect timing. End
the relationship. I know that only about 10% of teenage relationships may have
a story different from this, from the male perspective.
For the girls: You
meet this guy, you talk briefly, he takes your number, then he starts chatting
with you. You guys meet on several occasions. He calls you very frequently now.
You tell you girls about this dude you caught, and all those mushy stuff. You
notice he starts acting up. It seems he wants to do more than talk with you. You
desperately want to show him how much you love him. Then you let him have sex
with you. After that, the love you feel for him intensifies. Then all of a
sudden, things go downhill. He no longer wants to talk. He hardly picks your
calls anymore. What the f**k is going on? That cute, caring loving, sweet, sexy hunk you fell in love with is now a monster? Then one day when you confront him
(you’ll later realise you did more of nag), he tells you he’s tired of your
complaining and he’s out of the relationship. That’s the end of the
relationship.
I hope I did my best
in portraying the two scenarios for both sexes. What am I trying to say? Most teenage
‘loves’ do not last because, teenagers find it difficult to differentiate between
love and lust. Most teen relationships are built on the solid foundation of
lust. You see this girl and all you want to do is get into her pants; you see
this guy and all you think about is getting under his trousers. This strong
desire to do these things to each other tends to create a force of attraction
between the two of you. You misinterpret it as love because of its intensity.
However, if we want to really experience love, we should be able to distinguish
between these two rather too similar phenomena—love and lust.
LET’S
DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN LOVE AND LUST!
Definition
Love : An intense feeling
of deep affection. Lust: Any intense
desire or craving for gratification; when contrasted with love, lust usually
means sexual desire.
Symptoms
Love: Faithfulness,
loyalty, confidence. Willingness to make sacrifices for another. Working at
settling differences. Able to compromise so that either both win or at least
give the other person's opinion a chance. Lust: Desire, passion, acquisitiveness,
intense emotions.
Person to Person
Love: Commitment to
another. Genuine intentions. Think about other person's feelings before acting. Lust:
Enjoyment of a short-term, mutually pleasurable relationship.
Feels like…
Love: A deep affection,
contentment, confidence. Partners communicate and negotiate appropriate
expectations. Requires a lot of selflessness and polite assertiveness. You are
loving your best friend. Lust: Passion, joyousness, strong
desire, intense and sometimes difficult feelings of need.
Result
Love: Security,
peace, a solid partnership which can provide the ideal atmosphere to raise
confident, secure children. Lust: Unsatisfied lust results in
sexual frustration, increased religiosity and superstition, emotional rigidity.
Lust satisfied in a mutually beneficial way results in pleasure, creativity,
passion, zest for life.
Effect
Love: Contentment,
stability. Lust: fire, drive, activeness.
Interdependency
Love: Partnership. Can
lead to codependency if not tempered with self-awareness and self-guidedness. Often the first stage of love,
and can lead to lasting friendships, romantic or otherwise. Lust: When
not tempered with compassion and empathy, however, it can lead to emotionally
damaging behavior.
Time Period
Love: It will deepen with
the passage of time. Lust: Highly variable -- it may deepen
or dissipate with the passage of time.
Commitment
Love: This feeling may
continue throughout one's life. Lust: Temporary commitment that lasts
only long enough to fulfill desire.
Bottom Line
Love is unconditional and
the real deal. Interested in only what can
be done for self-pleasure. Lust may develop into love, but it is
lust until that time.
I hope after this, we
should be able to differentiate between love and lust, any day, anytime?
So why did I call
teenage love a double-edged sword? This is because it has the power to cause
harm or improve the teenager. Psychologists today believe that falling in love
as teenagers is not the same as falling in love as adults. They believe that it
is detrimental to our mental health and our emotional health. I did a little
bit of research again and here is what a psychologist, Carl Pickhardt had to
say about teenage love:
“When teenagers fall in love, what have they fallen into? The answer is: into a depth of caring more complex and compelling than they have known before.From what little I’ve seen in counseling, the majority of dating adolescents in high school do not fall in love. They don’t experience in a single relationship that magical match that includes: sexual attraction, mutual enjoyment, emotional knowing, social compatibility, sensitive consideration, physical affection, friendship feeling, and romantic excitement all combining to create a sense of caring, commitment, and completeness that make the other person the only one for you. This experience is reserved for a comparative few, for no more than about 15 percent would be my guess.Love is risky because the person we love the most can hurt us the worst. Love that feels forever does not necessarily last forever. And we can’t always measure the other person’s love for us by our love for them.”
Do you believe this? What are your experiences with falling
in love as a teenager like? Was it lust or love? How long did it last? Share
your thoughts on this topic or your experiences with us by leaving a comment
below. Thank you.
Written by your favourite teen blogger - Arinze Obiezue.
0 comments:
Post a Comment