Puppy Luv

As with many Saturdays between the months of September and April, I was up much too early for a Speech and Debate tournament. My only consolation was the fact that this past Saturday, our team was hosting not competing. So there I was in the school’s computer lab mentally running through some tasks I needed to complete before meeting with all the coaches, when my gaze wandered out through the glass partition of the lab door.

Standing in the hallway, oblivious to my stare, was our team’s resident “It Couple.” Bobby and Sarah had been going out officially since the beginning of the school year. The only way I can describe the couple tactfully is that they are overtly tactile in public. And in that time since becoming “official,” Lenny and I noticed that they started looking more and more alike. Bobby’s normally well kept hair was cut in the same shaggy, androgynous style as Sarah’s. Their hairstyle looked like the lead singer from The Cure. Sarah had dyed her hair black to match Bobby’s naturally dark hair. The only difference is that Sarah had dyed parts of the front section a bright orangey yellow. They would normally be wearing the same colored suit (which I noticed weeks ago at another competition), but only Bobby was performing today. The two of them stood there giggling at each other and practically hanging on each other. It made me think of one thing.

Were we all this stupid about relationships when we were their age?

Working with teenagers, especially this year, reminds me how clueless we were growing up. Surely you remember when you were a teenager. We thought we knew everything. We weren’t yet tied down with phobias, paranoia, or even emotional hang-ups. The one thing that drove us was lust. Actually, we didn’t know it was lust. We thought it was LOVE. But it wasn’t love, but LUV.

L-O-V-E is an all encompassing feeling. It’s when you look at someone and your world stops spinning for thirty seconds. Love is accepting someone’s strengths and weaknesses. Love is a relationship built on respect, trust, and the result of hard (yet satisfying) work.

L-U-V is Love’s annoying kid sister. You know…the one that’s constantly narking you out to your parents. Luv’s biggest accomplishment is making the six week mark and treating it like six years. Luv is fighting over whose turn it is to hang-up on the phone first. Luv is cooing over every single milestone your relationship has reached (“This is the 5th anniversary of our 12th date.”). Luv is fooling yourself into believing that you’re going to marry your current high school boyfriend.

“I really do love Bobby, Mr. White,” Sarah told Lenny one day. “I really think I’m going to marry him one day. I wouldn’t have said that about anyone two months ago, but I really think that this is it.”

This statement just really disturbed me when Lenny repeated it over dinner that night. What girl, at age 15, can even fathom getting married in this day and age? And don’t give me that “Juliet was the same age when she got married to Romeo” crap. If Juliet and Romeo had waited just a little bit longer, they probably would have thought to actually CONFIRM the rumors of each other’s death. But since they were silly teenagers, they went off half-cocked into oblivion. One killed himself thinking the other was really dead and the other one stupidly followed suit because she thought she didn’t have anything to live for.

In over ten years of coaching, I think I have seen it all in terms of teenage relationships. I’ve seen jealousy, I’ve seen game playing, I’ve seen cheating, and I’ve seen (gulp) engagements. Someone needs to shake these kids and shake them until they understand the difference between LOVE and LUV.

I really blame society. And I know that sounds like an easy answer on the surface of things, but think about the environment these children grow up in nowadays. We’re dealing with a generation that doesn’t know life without cable. To them, the Vietnam War might as well be World War II. This generation is growing up with an “I want it NOW” mentality. And we’re giving it to them. Their parents give them just about anything. Clothes, trips, credit cards…some of these kids drive cars better than mine! But since everything seemingly comes easy…why shouldn’t love? Our society is so geared towards becoming faster, that even children grow up faster. According to the latest statistics, the average age a girl loses her virginity at age 13.

I was allowed to have my first sleepover when I was 13. Discovery Channel is now telling me that girls are still having sleepovers, but apparently not the kind where you stay up all night doing each other’s hair and make-up.

I’ve tried my best to caution high school couples about their infatuations. Let’s face it…at that age, that’s really all it is. Being in LUV actually means being infatuated with the idea of LOVE. They don’t have the experience or the resources to understand this. Nor should they. I wish there was a way I could get it through their heads to slow down. But I know this is a futile, uphill battle. You just hope that no one gets hurt in the process.

Bobby and Sarah were caught up in their own little world as I continued to stare at them. Bobby was playing with Sarah’s shaggy hair and Sarah had her arms around his waist. They were making kissy faces at each other. I was about to lose the bagel I had just consumed. But right before that moment of no return, I shook myself out of the moment. Lenny and I had long given up on giving advice this particular couple. We came to the realization that, like the surrogate parents we feel we are to these kids we coach, that we had to let them learn on their own. In the end, all we could do was sit and watch. So, let Bobby and Sarah have their moment in the sun.

And when it all comes crashing down around their feet…we can say “I told you so.”