One of my
favorite movies is Shag, the Movie. It
takes place in Myrtle Beach, SC in the summer of 1963. Recently graduated from high school, four
best friends go off to the beach before one of them gets married and two go off
to college. It’s a fun filled weekend with a bit of romance thrown in. On their
way to the beach one of the girls makes a comment saying if she isn’t engaged
by the time she’s 20 she’s going to kill herself. That line has always killed
me. I can’t imagine being upset at not
being engaged when I’m barely out of my teenaged years. But then again the
setting is in 1963 and people got married at a younger age then. It seems crazy in our day and age people getting
that upset about not being with someone so young. But when I look at some of
the things I see on Facebook, I’m not so sure things have changed.
I constantly
see teenagers lamenting the fact they don’t have a boyfriend or
girlfriend. I see them complaining about
being so lonely. I also see them changing their relationship status constantly
from single to in a relationship back to single, then back in a relationship.
Some of these are middle schoolers! I don’t remember my friends and classmates
going through a series of “relationships” like I see in teenagers today. I don’t
know if it’s because it wasn’t like that or the fact that we didn’t have the
social network sites then so we never really knew about all the break ups and
get togethers. Maybe it was like it is today and I just didn’t know about it.
It breaks my
heart to see how much pressure teenagers and society put on them to be “in a
relationship.” Whatever happened to just being friends and go out in a big
group? Why is there so much pressure to be paired up at such a young age? I’m
not saying dating someone seriously while you’re in high school is necessarily a
bad idea. But the constant changing of a relationship status can’t be healthy
for someone. It’s being in a relationship for the sake of being in one.
Teenagers aren’t the only ones prone to this either.
I once heard
someone say that if you aren’t happily single, then you won’t be happily
married. And I think this could also apply to dating relationships. You have to
be happy with who you are before you can begin to have a healthy relationship
with someone else. So many people are afraid of being alone that they’ll go out
with someone who is not right for them. This isn’t fair to either person. Don’t settle. Be content with who you are
before pairing up with someone else.
Find out who
you are and come to grips with it. No man, woman, boy, or girl is going to make
you a complete person. If that is what you’re looking for then every
relationship you are in will never satisfy you. Look for the person that
compliments you. But you can only find that person when you are happy and
complete on your own.
