Young Love

"I felt that way about a lot of boys when I was your age." "You'll get over that; it's just a passing thing."  "I know how you feel; I was of your age once."  "You're not old enough to love really; it's just teenage infatuation."
These are statements every teenager has heard innumerable times. People are wont to question the depth of teenage love and will very readily and bluntly term that all love that teenagers experience is puppy love – impulsive, impetuous, with a smattering of childish thoughts and innocent promises. However, if you ask me, I don't completely agree with this modern-day notion that a teenager cannot experience the feeling of true love just because they are young, naïve and by all other definitions, inexperienced and immature.
What is the difference between the love of a teenager and the love of an adult, provided that the feeling is  pure and true love?  The difference is only in the quantity, not necessarily in the quality. With age, the quanta of love will be definitely augmented, for with age will come maturity and tag along with it a lot of experience as well, and that helps in bettering our relations. However, the quality of love will remain constant, for it is measured by the constancy in maintaining the relation, and this constancy is always at a singular level in a relation of true love. It can't have a binary value. It can never have.
Infatuations have got more to do with unsure feelings than with age. And this insecurity is equally prevalent among adults, as it is amongst the teenagers. Just because a person isn't old enough to fall in ‘love’, according to the modern stereotypical standards and our archetypal mindsets, we do not have the right to degrade it, and reduce it to a nullity. Society will tell you, as it is used to telling, that it isn't love and you are possibly just having a crush or feeling an infatuation where you feel it is love. You can feel it down to the smallest cell in your body, to the deepest corners of your heart, but even this deep a realization is stamped with the mark of a mere transient love, a passing attachment.
Just because you are young, and the leaves are still green, doesn't mean that you are not in love. Love is a feeling which we can never pen down in words. It's pure and unconditional. We love our parents, siblings, relatives, friends and nobody questions that. But the moment we are in love with a significant other, there will be people judging our love and giving it all sorts of names that are quite unlike a genteel society. 
And the moment we fail in love, they'll run up to us with all sorts of advices and answers. They'll tell us to get over it. They will tell us that we are overreacting. Because it is just a failed relationship, isnt it?. But to us, it isn't. It never will. And we do know, it would almost take a lifetime to get over it. However in life, there are some things we never really "get over''. We just learn to get through them. We just learn to carry ourselves upright during such difficult phases of our life. Age doesn't protect us from love. But love, to some extent, protects us from age. 
People come and go. Some are cigarette breaks, while others are forest fires. If you get into a relationship when you are young and it doesn't work out, don't regret it. It was good and it treated you well. You know what love is and a lot of people of your age, don't. You can regret loving someone before learning to love yourself. Regret becoming dependent before being independent, cause you are allowed to regret that. But never regret being in love, because love is beautiful. Do not let society bring your love down. Certain things don't last long, may even be a transient show on the fleeting canvas of life, but that doesn't lessen its beauty and impact on one's life. Age is just a number but love is eternal. After all, its better to have loved and lost than to have really never loved at all, isn't it?