Walking down the Charter hallways are couples who are madly in love… or so they think. Do couples in high school think that the person they are with is the person that will be by their side till death do they part? There’s a chance, but for most couples, it’s unlikely.

Let’s think about it from a real perspective. You are in high school, you meet someone, you fall madly in love and then graduation comes. You are on two opposite sides of the country at two different colleges, and you are becoming two completely different people. The person you are in high school is going to be very different from the person you leave college as. Do you think college students care that you guys were the star quarterback and head cheerleader? Who you are in high school doesn’t depict the rest of your life. So why let a high school relationship depict your whole life?

Some people may think that high school seems like the most important thing when you are in it. However, it seems so small once you graduate. You finally get to go out into the world and become your own person. You can’t become your own person if you are living it for someone else. You need to live your life according to your own needs, not someone else’s. You can’t choose to go to the closest community college because you don’t want to leave your boyfriend. You need to get out and experience the world so you can grow as a human being.

In addition, high school sweethearts may seem super sweet but after a while, the relationship can start to turn super sour. Most marriages that started as a high school relationship won’t make it to their 50th anniversary let alone a 20th anniversary. According to Tenn and Tenn, an attorney website, “The divorce rate for high school sweethearts is 54 percent during the first ten years of marriage.” This means that fresh out of high school, the relationship won’t even make it into its early 30s. They will most likely get married young because they were supposed to be together forever, but let’s face it: if you can’t make it past 10 years, you never stood a chance in the first place.

Speaking as a child who comes from high school sweethearts, it seems so perfect to everyone else. OMG, they’ve been together since high school and have two kids together; they must love each other. Well, you would be very, very wrong. Those high school sweethearts got divorced before they hit 20 years of marriage. They became very different people as they grew up, but it was hard for them to grow up when they were holding each other back.

Think about it this way. If the person you were married to knew everything you did in high school including all the bad things, the rumors, and the past relationships, would you even want them to stay with you? Would you want them to know all those things about you and be able to use them against you? I think most people would want to start fresh and learn everything about their partner without finding out from hallway gossip.

I believe that high schoolers need to graduate, go out into the world, and discover who they are before they give themselves to someone they’ve known since diapers. Especially at Charter, I’ve known most of these students since I was eleven, and I would not want to marry any of them. I wouldn’t want to spend my life with someone who knows how I used to act in 7th grade. A relationship should have a fresh start so there are no previous thoughts about the people involved. “Congratulations to the Class of 2024” isn’t going to turn into “You may now kiss the bride”.