THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS
Growing up, I considered dating an essential part of the complete teenage experience. If I wasn't dating a girl, I had a crush on one.
This started in junior high when my peers and I treated dating as a game, a chance to play at love and experiment with relationships. Having a girlfriend meant little more than saying you were "going out." No big deal. My friends and I would go out with girls and break up with them at a frightening pace. The only worry was being dumped--you never wanted to get dumped, you wanted to do the dumping. One girl I knew had the fastest breakup routine ever: When she was ready to end a relationship, she'd say, "Skippy-bop, you just got dropped."
But soon, just saying you were going out with someone wasn't enough. Instead, we began experimenting with the physical side of relationships. Going out with someone came to mean you made out with that person, too. I remember standing by as a girl I liked called her boyfriend and broke up with him over the phone. As soon as she hung up, she kissed me. That meant we were an "official couple." Looking back, I can only shake my head at how immature we were. The physical intimacy of those junior high relationships had nothing to do with love or real affection. We just mimicked what we saw older kids do and what we watched in the movies. It seemed grown up, but in reality it was lust.
I'm thankful that junior high didn't last forever. In high school, I got serious about my walk with God and became actively involved in the church youth group. I put an "I'm Worth Waiting For" sticker on my NIV Student Bible and promised to stay a virgin until I got married.
Unfortunately, youth group did little to improve my immature notions about relationships. Even in church we played the dating game with passion--more passion, I regret to say, than we gave to worshiping or listening to sermons. During Sunday morning services we passed notes about who liked whom, who was going out with whom, and who had broken up with whom.
Wednesday night youth group meetings served as our own opportunities to play "Love Connection," a game that resulted in broken hearts littering the foyer.
In my sophomore year, my involvement in the dating game took a more serious turn. That summer, I met Kelly. She was beautiful, blonde, and two inches taller than I. I didn't mind. Kelly was popular, and all the guys liked her. Since I was the only one in the youth group who had the nerve to talk to her, she wound up liking me. I asked her to be my girlfriend on the youth groups water ski retreat.
Kelly was my first serious girlfriend. Everyone in our youth group recognized us as a couple. We celebrated our "anniversary" every month. And Kelly knew me better than anyone else. After my folks were asleep, Kelly and I would spend hours on the phone, often late into the night, talking about everything and nothing in particular. Wethought God had made us for each other. We talked aboutgetting married someday. I promised her that I would love her forever.
But, like many high school relationships, our romance was premature--too much, too soon. We began to struggle with the physical side of our relationship. We knew we be as close physically as we were emotionally. As a result, we experienced ongoing tension, and it wore on us. Eventually, things turned sour.
"We have to break up," I said to her one night after a movie. We both knew this was coming.
"Is there any chance we can have something in the future?" she asked.
"No," I said, trying to add resolve to my voice. "No, it's over."
We broke up two years after we'd met. Not quite "forever," as I had promised.
