High school relationship

Eventually, we will have to talk about this - so why not talk about this earlier on this self-help? It is always this age that some of the most innocent loves emerge, when people start to explore their sexual interests and fall in love with different people. Whereas it’s not mandatory to have a liking towards people anyways, but it’s very typical for people to have a feeling for other people - in my school, there are a lot of couples anyways. But since we don’t have much experience with love at this age, plus we can be very impulsive in our choices, it’s important to be aware of different things before you decide if you should pursue a romantic relationship. This lesson, taken from the experience of many people that I’ve known, will hopefully give you a helpful guide in case you feel emotions towards other people. Alright, let’s get right into this!

First and foremost, realize the fact that love at this age is real. When we are younger, we tend to think of romantic/sexual attraction as something very awkward and adult-like. But love in high school is real, and even if you try to avoid it, it’s still going to be there. Being aware of your heart and your romantic desires is very important, because only when you try to listen to your heart and appreciate the fact that you actually like someone, can you try to deal with this in a mature way. High school and teenage years are also when you start to explore your sexual interests, so feel free to be open to it. I know that for a lot of households (especially Asians), they are not very open to homosexuality or the LGBT community, but please, let me emphasize this, don’t let the judgments of other people constrain you from enjoying what you want. I know that this is easier said than done, but the most important thing that you should value is your own feelings, and never let anyone, even your parents, alter that. If you need some inspiration on this, just watch Maurice - such a good movie talking about societal expectations and homosexuality - and you’ll understand what I mean. But, the thing that I want you to take from here is that: be open to possibilities, listen to your heart, and understand what you want in a relationship: are you ready for a relationship, or do you even want to pursue a romantic relationship?

Something that you should be VERY AWARE OF, I repeat it, VERY AWARE OF, is that please, don’t let anyone dictate your feelings! I have seen a lot of cases where one person devotes too much feeling towards a relationship, only to be heartbroken later on. It’s not like I discourage deep relationships (I actually encourage you to do that if you figure out that it’s better for your mentality and your life), but know that sometimes, a person who you are deeply affectionate of may not reciprocate the same amount of love and trust towards you. I’ve actually known someone who really gets crazy into a relationship, where they would use that to judge whether their days are happy or not - the other person doesn’t talk to them much and is cold, then their day will be terrible. The thing here is: you can not control your feelings, but what you can control is your own feelings. I’m sure that if you are a frequent user of Instagram, you have scrolled through some reels which say something like “for the sake of my mentality…” - I know that love feels good and all, but don’t be too obsessed over it: after all, you are human being yourself, and you can get easily affected by things you don’t want to occur. Yet, things don’t always come easy to you], so the important thing here is to judge your feelings based on the interaction with your partner, or just simply your crush.

When falling in love with someone, chances are you may want to spend a lot of time with that person, right? To be able to hang out with one another, to see them and hold their arms - what a good feeling! However, something that you must also keep in mind is that a relationship isn’t all that exists in the world. After all, hate me or not, but there are things of greater importance in life: have good grades, speak with other friends, etc. I have seen a lot of cases where people fall in love so hard that they start to ignore their friends; and only after they have “broken up” with their partner do they start reconciling our friendships. But it doesn’t have to work that way! Know to set boundaries and manage your time well: you can fall in love, but please don’t let that be a challenge for you to keep up with other things in your life. This also depends on the goal that you want to get from the relationship: if you don’t want things to be serious, don’t let it consume too much of your time! Learning and being able to balance things out is the key to having a good romantic life, a social life, while also maintaining good scores.

Next, watch out for red flags! This has been emphasized in A LOT of tiktok posts and instagram reels already (I remember the meme about mickey mouse talking about red flags lol), but let me tell you: sometimes you have to take into account your cool head instead of justin listening to your warm heart - by that, I mean don’t let love blind you! Red signs can exist in anyone, and sometimes, your liking towards that someone can make you not see those signs, intentionally or not. However, if you want to find an actual good person, please, please watch out for red flags! This will help you tremendously later on, I swear!

There are other things that you should also take into consideration before pursuing a relationship, but due to the length of this post, I would like to stop here. But if there are more questions or concerns regarding this, feel free to reach out to me and I’m going to try to respond to your questions to the best of my ability! See you soon!