As the great consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, once said, “Love is a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive.”

Love is a complex thing that is understood differently by each individual in my life, I haven’t even considered love as a possibility I can have right now. I spend too much of my time on baser emotions–being stressed, overwhelmed and strained.

I think any kind of positive emotion is a form of love. It makes sense. I mean, I don’t know anyone who hates being happy. Love, then, is just a strong positive emotion. It’s all related to euphoria.

When I was little and got in trouble, I thought my parents didn’t love me anymore. They sure didn’t act like it, but, of course, they still loved me. They acted out of love to discipline me. That always confused me, and, to be honest, it still does. I guess sometimes love must be strength and discipline. I guess if they didn’t love me, my parents wouldn’t have corrected me. I guess if I had turned out to be a selfish brat, it would show that my parents really didn’t love me enough to make me a better person.

Love, in its simplest form, is still complicated. Simple love is the feeling you get for an object like shoes or video games. You are attracted to this object; you want to own it. You can completely control it, so, of course, you enjoy it.

The most complicated form of love is the feeling you have for another person. It is a kind of love that you fight for. Despite your differences, you still enjoy his or her presence, and you are able to look past the flaws.

The mushy kind of love is dangerous. It can distract you from other, more important things. Looking around in the morning before school, I count somewhere around 10 couples just in the junior locker area. That doesn’t even include people in a relationships with others outside of our school.

Now let’s do some math. Say there are 10 couples per class equaling 40 couples or 80 individuals in relationships. Relationships take focus so that is 80 people of about 650 students too distracted by “love” to focus on school. That is about 12.3 percent of the school. Let us not forget the couples who are not exactly a couple–those people who are in a flirtationship.A flirtationship is a relatioinship between a male and a female who spend all their time flirting with each other but they never date. They are just “talking”. Let’s say there are the same amount of people flirting as there are dating. So now that’s around 25 percent of the student body.

One-fourth of the student body is caught up in someone else instead of their school work. These people are in LUUUVVVVVV, and they-are-not-concentrating-on-school-work-or-traffic-laws-or-their-part-of-your-group-project-which-is -due-at-the-end-of-the-week-and-you-need-that-grade-to-make-the-honor-roll-and-stay-off-your-parents’-hit-list…See, love is dangerous to us all.

After high school you’ll have plenty of time to look for a spouse, but for now, focus on graduating or at least getting your homework done. Besides, with the volatility and fragility of high school relationships, your next progress report will probably have a longer shelf life than the average high school couple.

Love is a destructive thing if handled poorly. This Valentine’s Day, remember that “liking” someone is fun, especially on that day, but be careful not to get caught in the possible destruction and desolation it can have on an already stressful life.