Not many people will forget about their teenage years, both the good and the bad. This is because it is a crucial point in every person’s life. This is the time, as cliché as it may sound, when people begin to find themselves. However, this quest for your true identity is not a lonely search. This journey is filled with family, friends, peers, teachers, and, well, love interests.

Some people may find high school relationships stupid, and they do have a point. Although maybe sometimes I wish that I’ll find my “soul mate” in high school, in reality I know this probably won’t happen. I mean, I believe in true love and happy endings and such, but I’m also aware that life is not a movie. It’s hard to find true love in high school and most high school couples won’t get married. This is just the hard reality of life. The point is not to find the person you are going to marry. The point is to find out a little more about you.

High school is a time to discover who you are as a person, what activities you like to do, what subjects you enjoy, and what you like in relationships. Most people will end up getting married at some point in their lives but in most cases, high school isn’t the place. Instead, high school is the time to try out different relationships to see what works best for you. So what if the person you’re with now probably won’t be your fiancé in ten years? You aren’t fiancé-hunting in high school; you’re experimenting. I would much rather have relationships in high school end badly than a relationship with a possible fiancé end badly later in life.

Not only does having a relationship teach you about what you like and don’t like for relationships later on, it also teaches you more about yourself as a person. If you are in a relationship with someone who is overbearing and exhausting and you find that you don’t like this about him or her, well great. And maybe it doesn’t seem great at the time; maybe it’s just annoying, but now you know that you need your alone time. Or how about a relationship where the significant other doesn’t spend enough time with you? At the time, yes, this may suck. But you are learning. You are learning what you need in a relationship. You are learning about what you need for yourself.

So what if we make mistakes? High school relationships are not about staying together forever or trying to be perfect; they’re about learning and experiencing, because after all, isn’t that what high school is all about?