Teenagers

I have been lucky enough to be able to attend all of Alyssa’s track meets this year. I’m in a job where I can work extra today and take off a little early tomorrow.

One of the benefits of going to the meets is being able to take Alyssa with me when she’s done with her event (she’s only high jumping this year.) After a particularly far away meet, I signed Alyssa and her friend Tessa out of the meet and they rode home with me. For those gasping that I signed out a student who is NOT my child, whatever. I had her mom’s permission.

The ride home was fun. I got to listen to all the teenage gossip and was brought up to speed on all the drama that’s happening between a freshman boy (B) and a junior girl (G.)

See, this freshman boy has a crush on a senior. We won’t name the senior. B, the boy, started dating G, the junior girl after he realized that the senior girl wasn’t going to date him.

Wait, let’s stop here and remind everyone that freshmen in high school are fourteen and fifteen years old. This kid, this BOY, is the same age as Olivia. Let that sink in. He’s fourteen and making a play for a senior who is 19. The junior, G, is eighteen, which is still icky when you’re talking about a fourteen year old.

Anyway, as Lyss and Tess talked, it came about that B tried to break up with G but G didn’t accept his break up. She told him, “No, we’re going to work on this relationship.”

And…he just accepted that.

I was saddened by this. I quickly reminded the girls in my car that it takes two people to make a relationship work and one person to break up. B didn’t have to accept G’s insistence in making the relationship work. He could have walked away, blocked her on all social media, not answered her calls/texts/tweets/chats, etc. But, alas, he fourteen and she’s eighteen and she decided they were going to make it work so apparently they’re ‘making it work.’

Can you even imagine this scenario if the genders were reversed? The ick factor is already high but imagine a fourteen year old girl telling her parents that she’d tried to break up with her eighteen year old boyfriend and he’d told her no. There would be restraining orders and possible arrests and what have you.

I don’t know if B told his parents about trying to break up with G. I don’t know what they know but if I were his mom and I knew the situation, I’d be all over that girl, letting her know that she was not welcome in my son’s life.

Sigh. I wish I could say that B and G looked cute at prom, but they just looked awkward. G was smiling as if nothing was wrong and B just looked out of place and uncomfortable.

Yes, yes, I know. Alyssa was a freshman and N was a junior when they started dating. But Lyss was fifteen and N was seventeen, so…not quite the same thing. And, as far as I know, Lyss never tried to break up with N only to have her breakup denied.