(December 16, 2005) — The joy of lunch quickly dissipates as I find myself the unlucky trespasser of a high school lovers’ lane. Couples exchanging honeyed words and locked in a sickeningly sweet embrace spoil the pleasant view and immediately ruin my appetite. I soon realize, however, that the public display of affection doesn’t quite bother me as much as the couples’ voluntary inattention to the inexorable fate that looms overhead: their inevitable break-up. The same old drama of a heated argument followed by the girl seeking comfort in a bag of Kisses and a box of Kleenex would result from the same old routine that started back when boy met girl. Most high school relationships end up as failures—more than that, they have a huge possibility of becoming destructive to the two personalities involved. Now I don’t mean to sound like an overbearing parent, but the problem with these relationships is that most teenagers think they’re mature. They think that just because they’ve already been potty-trained and can recite their multiplication tables without stuttering, they’ve seen enough of people to know the personality they’re most compatible with. To make a relationship work, you first have to have a pretty good sense of who you are. Teenagers, in general, are still in the incipient stages of self-discovery. They still lack confidence in their identity; so many young people think they need a partner in order to complete them. This is a fallacy; instead of completing us, a partner may even hinder our growth and distort our malleable personalities. This seems to ring true for girls, who have a tendency to become submissive to their boyfriends. Youth should be a time for teenagers to engage themselves in a self-study of their own unique person, exploring the potentials of their intellect and discovering their passions in life. Moreover, we are still emotionally unstable at this point. Being in a relationship can heighten our vulnerability to falling for things we might regret afterwards. We cannot afford to make the mistake of letting infatuation ruin the course of our lives. The best thing to do is wait and delay having relationships until a more mature age. Enjoy this time of being single because once you’re married, you’ll miss it.