In high school, relationships are no new concept, with emotions and hormones higher than ever before, it is almost inevitable that teens will find romantic interests in their lives.

This time of year is even less a stranger to romance. Having someone to celebrate Valentine’s Day with is on seemingly every teenager’s mind.

While in society today there seems to be a lot less stigma and criticism toward teenage relationships, one must ask, has adolescent culture brought a toxicity to the concept of dating in high school?

From my own personal observations in life, romantic relationships among my own age demographic don’t often end pleasantly.

While this is pretty generalized statement, it holds some weight to it. To me, teenagers today hold relationships on such a high pedestal that there is no room for error or imperfection, and this in itself is purely toxic to the health of a romantic interest from the beginning.

While I would never proclaim myself to be a dating aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, I do have in depth observational skills as any well rounded individual does, and through said observations, it has become not exactly easy, but almost necessary to generalize the teenage population and our flawed relationship abilities.

To put my generalization as plainly as possible, we as an entire age group are not emotionally developed enough to maintain the level of romantic commitment required in an adult relationship.

Teens today seem to neglect this fact, or simply choose to believe the opposite, and this is unhealthy in any case. In a time period of our lives in which schooling and becoming adults is so integral, attempting to build a romantic relationship to the degree that many of us as a demographic attempt to do is absolutely damaging to the overall health of our emotional and romantic lives.

By no means do I intend to discourage dating and romance among my peers, I just hold the belief that our age group as a whole seems to have a very flawed view of such concepts today.

We are all at drastically different stages in adolescent development at this point in our lives, and these differences, while very defining to who we are as people, don’t always mesh very fluidly. As such, stress seems to run rampant among teen couples, and at a period of already peaking stress levels, this is simply not ideal.

Relationships should be about building a connection with someone personally. They should be an experience of joy and excitement, any young couple could likely vouch this as well. But, the typical teen relationship often seems to be one of worry and woe rather than of the pleasantries of a happy relationship.

I personally attribute this to poor communication skills among our age group as well as expectations between couples that are far too dramatic for such a period in our lives.

Expectations in today’s teen relationships are extreme at their worst, with individuals focused on the prospect of marriage and lives together rather than living in the moment and enjoying what they share in the present.

Teens think far too forwardly in relationships today. I’m sure we’ve all heard of someone we know having a significant other talking about their wedding and picking baby names only to scare their boyfriend or girlfriend away, it happens all the time. We need to stop this dramatic thinking of our expectations for our significant others, it is unhealthy when the feelings aren’t reciprocated in the way one could hope for, and in doing so opens a new door for even more relationship disputes.

As an age demographic, we should look to better ourselves as romantic partners as well as individuals. We should live more in the present and allow ourselves to appreciate the value in living for right now. This to me, is the key to hopefully correcting some of the flaws of modern day teen relationships.