Coming from personal experience, the number is more than five, but not quite double digits…yet.
Some people are serial daters, not sure why, and no one sets out to be a player, things just happen.
Love has no time limit, there is no solid start or end date on when one starts to love somebody. One could be in a talking for two days or two months, a date can’t be put on a feeling like love. There is a first love, it kind of feels like puppy love because of how new and exciting it is. One’s heart has never felt safer with someone and trust them unconditionally. Falling in love like that is the most amazing, immaculate feeling. The second love is a learning curve, the healed version of yourself after the first love finally loves someone else. One starts to realize what went wrong in the first relationship and starts to find themselves in that second love. The intensity of the second love is like a roller coaster and the heartbreak after it ends up being completely depressing. The third love is the final love, the unconditional love where the only fear you have is losing them. That person is your person and losing them would result in losing oneself too. In this relationship, they work together towards their goals and their future instead of co-dependently and they support each other through it all.
“A healthy relationship means that the people are very independent of each other, they have their own successes and their own lives,” local psychology educator Brigid Clark said.
Although people look down on serial daters and players, the judgement is not needed. If artists like Taylor Swift can write songs about breakups, and then be with a new guy two months later, then it is okay for everyone to move on that fast.
“Teenagers jump from relationship to relationship because they are afraid to be alone,” Clark said.
In high school, everyone is still trying to figure themselves out, so as they change, dating preferences change too. Standards lower or they boost up, bare minimum is rare and could be shocking to receive sometimes. Bare minimum is opening the guy opening the door everywhere they go, paying on dates, and the lowest amount effort possible. These also apply to the five love languages; physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gift giving, and acts of service. What qualifies as the bare minimum can also qualify for the person’s specific love language.
“They see it as a sign of being a grown up, and kids want to grow up really fast, and they’re not appreciating their youth when they can just feel free and single,” Clark said.
There does come a time when people drift apart and effort slowly dies down. Once someone stops giving what the other person wants to be receiving, the love starts to fail. Sometimes, couples make it work and get through fights, but usually teenagers tend to break up and move on. There are different ways to move on, and it is kind of like the five stages of grief. First, the denial; not accepting that the relationship is over and reminiscing on everything that was good. Then, the anger, questioning why the break up happened in the first place and just being angry and yourself for the break up. Then, the bargaining happens where two people attempt to find a common ground on how they could stay in contact, but the result is not always what they hoped for. Once it is not what they expected, the depression hits; the best friend comes over with a pint of ice cream holding you while you cry until the acceptance of the breakup hits.
