Students talk about experiences with relationships

 With love in the air, the question arises, what are people willing to do for love?  The sky’s the limit when wooing a special person.

  “I know someone who put roses in the back seat and the front seats of somebody’s car,” junior Lauren Smith said. “They asked the parents for an extra key to do it and ended up with the person the roses were meant for.”

  Money is no object for senior Kwinton Jennings to win the one he loved.

  “I spent a lot of money,” Jennings said. “I was constantly at her house, whether she wanted me there or not. I was hanging out with her family, I was just sitting there talking to her family, and she would be in her room or whatever. 

    Jennings said he liked her so much because there was not another girl in school like her.

        “I pursued her as hard as I could,” Jennings said. “I started even going to church with her. Iwould go there every Wednesday and every Sunday just to be around her. I tried to put  myself around her as much as I could.”

Students with a crush try to put themselves in the crush’s path whenever possible

“I’d be talking to my friends,” junior Gabriel Zubiate  said, “and I’d see her passing by so I was like, ‘I’ll be right back’ and just act like I was walking to my locker or something and bump into her.”

  Another tactic was developing a common interest.

  “I know a lot of people who will just hang out with certain people in order to get more information about them,” sophomore Sarah Teichroeb said. “Then they will do things that a person likes in order to get their attention.”

  Technology plays a significant role in getting into a relationship.

  “I look at their accounts maybe a few times,” Zubiate said, “because if I think they’re attractive, I want to see them more than once a day.”

  The next step is often messaging a crush on social media.

  “I used to do it before I got with my girlfriend now,” Jennings said. “I always just wanted to see what she was doing because with her ex now, I tried to stay away from him so I had to talk to her through Instagram and 

Snapchat.”

  Social media is where students let others know about their relationship statuses.

  “Social media plays a big part,” senior Kassey Gallardo said. “A lot of people have Snapchat  and Instagram so just kind of make it public on there, and also at school, it’s a big thing to be around each other.” 

  When a partner is out of high school, technology plays a major part in daily communication especially if one’s significant other is in another town.

  “When I used to get home, I didn’t have anybody to talk to, so just being able to drive to her house, go out to the movies…” Jennings said. “Now I just have to wait for the weekend, or hopefully she might come down. Just being able to see her, that’s probably a lot of it, seeing her through the screen is not the same.”

  For Gallardo, having a partner out of school is sometimes bittersweet.

  “I’m not depressed that he’s not here,” Gallardo said. “I want him to be here, but at the same time, I kind of get to focus more on my friends. The worst part is him not getting to experience all of my last year with me.”

  High school/college partners look forward to the 

       time when they are not separated.

  “What sucked is that she’s not at school to walk the halls with,” senior Earl Neufeld said, “but I’m happy for her because I’ve got the rest of a semester then I can do the same thing.”

  Even though a partner might be far away, the relationship can grow through communication and trust. 

  “The best thing is just being able to talk about anything with one another and have a conversation–be able to talk things out and just be there for each other,” Jennings said. “With her being over there, it kind of feels like I’m by myself, but it just the trust you have to have in that person. If you lose that trust, that’s what I think loses a relationship.”

  The sacrifices that a student makes for a relationship can often be unhealthy ones.

  “I’ve seen people push all their friends away just for this one girl,” junior Gunner Presley said. “That’s just not OK.”

  Presley also said that stalking someone 24/7 was also not a good idea.

  “Guys try and talk to a girl and not get shut down,” Presley said. “We try to spend more time with her and just try to get to know her better.”

  Presley said that trust issues can ruin a relationship.

  “Being honest with her is important,” Presley said, “because communication really helps. A lot of things can end a relationship especially trust issues. If a girl goes with another guy all the time, he gets jealous and then it eventually ends.”

  One of the hardest things is knowing if a crush really likes someone.

  “It’s very subtle,” Zubiate said. “It’s not obvious, well most of the time it’s not obvious. Most of the time a girl will just give you a little look, and you’re supposed to pick up on their hints somehow.”

              Gallardo said females will change their habits.

  “She will act like a fool to be noticed,” Gallardo said. “She will dress better and kind of get close to him just to get noticed.”

  Smith remembered a trick someone used in a neighboring town.

  “They planned a fake party and then they didn’t say they were going to it,” Smith said. “Then they showed up. That was somebody from Andrews. It was bad.”

  Smith said she also resorted to some violence to get a guy’s attention.

   “You tease them, you push them, you mess with them, you hit them,” Smith said. “I know that because that’s what I did. I did that a lot to get his attention. You have to make him know who you are at least because if you just talk to him then he might not remember you, but if you hit him…yeah, he’s going to remember you.”

   Sometimes the violence wasn’t the friendly kind.

  “People will fight for somebody,” Zubiate said. “I mean literally fight like a fistfight. It happens as if their ex is talking smack or something. That’s pretty crazy.”

  Teichroeb said high schoolers have a more difficult time managing their feelings than adults do.

  “Teenagers, in general, are more dramatic about things,” Teichroeb said. “I think that some people when they are in a relationship will raise their expectations or do things a certain way to fulfill their partner’s expectations, and it can affect their every day lives.”

  The examples that teens see from adults in their own lives can dictate what type of relationships they have. 

  “When my dad proposed to my stepmom, he filled the couch with roses,” Smith said. “There were candles and all this other stuff that he did for it. It was pretty cool.”

  Smith said that the one thing that would make a relationship last was a trusting friendship.

  “It doesn’t really matter about the label on your relationship,” Smith said. “It’s about whether you’re friends or not. No trust in a relationship is important because if you don’t trust them, you’re not going to rely on them for anything, and it will just play itself out.”

  Junior Isaac Castenada said a relationship is an up and down thing.

  “When there’s love in a relationship, I feel it is so nice,” Castenada said. “There are ups and downs, of course, but when there’s love in a relationship, there is much more that you can experience, especially when you have support. You know you can trust the person you’re with.”