Shelby+C’s+2016+OpEd+Article

=** Teenage Infatuation with Love **= By: Shelby Collet

We are all aware of that one couple, who has only been in a relationship for say a few months now and yet they are already professing their ‘love’ for each other to the world. Take for example the silly ABC Family show of the 2000s, “The Secret Life of an American Teenage,” literally within the first episodes the main character obtains a boyfriend who she professes her love to within literal hours, with barely knowing his last name. I genuinely laughed out loud at her state of oblivion. As a society as a whole we have seriously taken the words “I love you” or even the word “love” in itself and nearly made it a cliche lacking in substance, however this overall stems from the teenage years of emotional development.

The famous argument of teen’s seemingly inability to love is that they are simply immature, yet according to Harvard Medical, teens intellectual maturity “is fully developed by age 15 or 16.” It was even found that when teens were asked “ hypothetical questions about risk and reward” they were often found to respond the same as the adults. However, the true factor that comes into play in this matter is the emotional state of teenagers. Teens are often impulsive, and though it can offend us when told otherwise it comes down to our biochemical makeup. It has been found that the brain of an adolescent “pours out adrenal stress hormones, sex hormones, and growth hormone, which in turn influence brain development.” It’s this outpour of chemicals within the teenage body which make us the overly annoyed, difficult, confused, temperamental, and often reckless beings we have come known to be.

Thus with these terms teens often impulsively act, especially in things such as relationships. They say that they love someone they barely know and in extreme cases they act upon their sex hormones, unable to control them, and wind up having meaningless sex, which is often depicted in the many television shows depicting ‘real life teens’ that are portrayed by 20 year olds or even books that set unrealistic expectations of relationships. However, overall teens love the idea of being in love, and not even that but they love being in relationships with each other and the feeling that comes alongside of being apart of something that is exclusive. Not to mention the rush of sensations they get with that person that fuels their hormones, only leaving them wanting more.

Although, there is almost a stimulus behind the entire thing of ‘being in love’ for teenagers. Many feel a sense of maturity when saying the words ‘I love you,’ however it is too often prematurely in adolescence. In truth many are oblivious to the idea of what love actually is and the entire purpose behind it, and to be perfectly fair so am I, which further proves my point of oblivious teens. We are driven by the chemicals in our brains and the impulsivity of our hormones to be attracted to a person and then for some unknown reason many attach this very feeling to love, but that is not love. Love happens in the matter of getting to know someone over time, it’s not an impulse feeling that many teens often believe it to be.

Love is not the feeling that one can gets when they are looking at their crush, that is only a rush of sensation that teens are wired to hunger for. Love is sacrifice. However, teens often misinterpret that within their brains leading to premature ‘I love yous’ with no real substance behind them, which genuinely annoys me due to the state of disillusion that many teens in this day and age tend to find themselves in constantly that often leads to unnecessary complications in life.