It’s 7 a.m. in the morning and you’re standing in the middle of the school gym ready to be dismissed to class. You see the two JROTC couples practically devouring each other in the back door corner and you inwardly cringe. You say to yourself, “I don’t want that, that’s nasty.” And you’re right. These boys still have seizures at the mention of a tampon, laugh in a sex ed lecture and are still struggling to grow chest hair. 

We can’t pin this PDA all on the boys, though. Girls your age are still going on Buzzfeed and YouTube trying to figure out their “changing bodies”. A relationship should be far from your mind. 

The bell rings and you all walk out, and halfway to your locker, you see a freshman get down on one knee and slide a promise ring on his girlfriend’s finger. You look around in confusion because it hasn’t been a week since you saw the same guy playing patty cakes with his tongue on a completely different girl under a stairwell. “I am so glad I’m not in a relationship”, you whisper to yourself. 

You sit at your desk after you arrive to your first period class, and open Instagram on your phone. A sophomore girl posted her boyfriend’s promposal to her with the caption titled, “We are forever *pink heart emoji* *pink heart emoji* *puppy dog eyes emoji*.”  You smile a bit and double tap, thinking in your head “They are actually pretty cute. Having something like that would be nice.” 

Oh no, you’re starting to fall for the trap set by the puppy dog eyes emoji. 

By your fourth period class, you ask to go use the bathroom. The teacher says yes and you hurry to the nearest one you can find. On your way, you find the same girl, who got asked to prom, and her boyfriend arguing. You don’t know what it’s about, but it seemed pretty heated. 

“When do these people actually sit down in class with a notebook?,” you ask yourself. It seems everyone comes to school to do anything but learn from their core classes. 

You keep walking and enter the bathroom to find another girl crying on the bathroom floor with her airpods in her ear asking, “Are you really breaking up with me?” Snot dripping down her nose and her eyelashes half way off from rubbing the tears, along with the glue, away from her eyes.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you think to yourself in an unimpressed expression. No men, and I mean no men, will hurt me enough to sit on the bacteria infested bathroom floor crying like this is some kind of messed up coming of age movie.

News flash, there’s nobody here to yell “cut!” and make the pain go away. 

A normal person would ask, “What’s wrong, do you want to talk about it?” Maybe on any other month you would, but at this point the best thing you can do is let them have this wake up call.

I’m not saying kids will kill others for the sake of a fairytale love they desire, but let’s be honest; we’ve seen bloody cat fights, future ending tweets, and 11 a.m. ‘it hurts how you treat me but i’m used to it’ google quotes posted on Instagram stories. 

What exactly are two fifteen-year-olds providing each other with in a relationship? Is it advice? You both are at the same age and the worst you have probably experienced is a D in English and your parents whopping you because of it. Half of you kids who are desperate to be in a relationship or having complete breakdowns in a relationship still have 9pm curfews and parental locks on your TV. 

It’s understandable to want to grow up fast, but some seem to forget that the people in your highschool life are not the only ones in the world, making the chances of them being your soulmate less than 0 percent. Prince charming isn’t real no matter how many times Disney makes a live action fairytale about it. You aren’t mature enough to be in a relationship because statistics don’t lie, and according to said statistics, it has been proven that divorce rates lie at 54 percent within the first 10 years of high school sweethearts being together. 

Therefore, if you are still texting your boyfriend or girlfriend about how you can’t wait to buy a suburban house with a Toyota accord in the garage and give birth to three kids named Sun, Moon and Cloud (which by the way does not make them special), then please with the strength of all that is good and the building anger from your single friends that you come disturbing and crying to after your partner accidentally exits the all night facetime you planned to have, I beg of you to wake up and face reality. 

I know it’s nice to think of a future where you will always have the ones you grew up with, where there is no drama and no such thing as stress because your significant other is waiting in the house to cheer you up and make everything better. And for some maybe that future is a reality, but instead of hoping for a possibility with someone else, you should focus on something that has a much more greater impact in determining who you’re going to be in life. 

There are millions of things to do other than dating. 

• There’s studying to occupy time (You need to worry about impressing those college administrators and not the secret crush you think stalks your social media).
• Watching movies and shows about dating (If you want to go through the highs and lows and remind yourself why you aren’t ready for that yet).
• Starting a business (Happiness can be bought with a shopping haul, and if you say no, you haven’t shopped enough) 
• Going out with friends (No, I do not mean the bestfriend you swear you don’t have feelings for, maybe the opposite of your gender preference) 

I am not saying you should become a nun. I am just saying to be patient. When you turn 19 or 20, then you can start living your life and explore. After all, the legal drinking age is 21, and the best thing you can do is wait to turn up without worrying about being caught with a potential fake ID trying to act grown. 

The person you think you want now will not be the same person you find attractive 6 years later. By being patient, you’re saving yourself from heartache. And yes you need to experience things to grow, but it’s important to remember to take things one step at a time. So after your body is done developing and you’re on the right track, career, college or are financially wise, then you can be on all the dating sites the Apple store has to offer without lying about your age.