I'm Feeling Blood Thirsty (Episode 5!)

Hey guys!
It's Noelle.  In case you confused me with the other authors, who haven't been posting (*glares at JJ*)
...anyway.

I had a lot of options for today's post, including (though most certainly not limited to):
-the Giant City RV trip that I Went on months ago and still havne't posted about, and it's partially drafted and floating around on blogger like it owns the place
-the STL adventures I promised last week
-the Waco adventures I promised last week
-literally any post that I promised to do and never wrote
-a post talking about the novella I recently finished
-a post talking about the short story I'm working on right now called Reality Shift
-literally I had so many options

....nahhhhhh.  Let's be a bit more....spontaneous!  Yeah, spontaneous (and-totally-not-too-lazy-to-write-out-those-super-long-professional-posts-no-not-at-all)  Today, I'm feeling spontaneous and....bloodthirsty.
Ehehehehe.

Y'all know what that means.  Let's redo this intro, shaaaaall we?

Hi, adults, it's me again.  If you don't know me, I'm the part of Noelle that actually has a backbone and would rather wreck people's lives via intense sarcasm and deep, meaningful topics about the world, especially pertaining to teenage/adult relationships.  Basically, I think for myself.  Scary, I know.

So I was doing that awful thinking thing again and a question occurred to me: Why do you think kids dating is okay?

(Note that there are some people who will disagree with this post, since they come from different moral backgrounds and believe different things, and that's okay :) You're still respected and your opinion is just as welcome as mine)

Ok so, I was socializing at a party the other day (apparently that's what you're supposed to do, instead of sitting in the corner and drawing the whole time) and one of the mothers said something to the extent of, "My son and his girlfriend have been dating for three years now!!  They're so cute."

And I just stared at her, in total disbelief.  Her son was thirteen.  He'd been dating this girl for three years.  He was dating at age ten?!  That's not cute!  That's creepy.

Now I can hear some of you saying, "Hey, this is kind of a lame start.  Usually, you come in with a bang and you're all fierce and stuff," and to that I say, shhhhh.  Let me do my thing.

When little kids date, and you as parents (or any adult figure in their life, really) allow and encourage such a thing, you set them up for a life of heartbreak and insecurity.  You set them up to believe that they require a significant other to be complete, and that they're only cute and loveable if they have a S.O. holding their hand.

As a girl, I can say that it's even worse for us.  I'm sure you all know the magazines in shops talking about how to lose 50 pounds, how to love yourself, how to please your man.  Did one of those things sound out of place to you?  It should.  'Loving yourself' means being happy with your body, your beliefs, your stance in life and the way you hold yourself when you walk down the street.  It means being proud of that.  And in the world we live in, that's heresy (it's right up there with, 'So what do you want to be when you grow up?' Ew.)

Those magazines?  Yeah, they haven't changed in fifteen years, which means, when I was little, I saw those headlines.  Every time I walked through the grocery store, every time I bought some yummy skittles at the gas station, I saw bright yellow headlines telling me to lose weight, to put on a mask of makeup and Photoshop, to wear sexy clothes, to get a man and to serve him like a slave, not like the partner in life that S.O.s are supposed to be.  And yes, it matters.  It matters so much.

But let me talk about it from a different angle, because here at Dear Adults I like to provide more evidence than our national media!

"Or are they?  I dunno, we're reporting live and we'll probably have to fact check tomorrow"

...that's a topic for another time.  For now, let's talk peer pressure.  And if you say the words, "Just say no," I will punch you, because peer pressure is so much more than that, and I'm getting off topic already.  Ahem.

I get along with both genders.  This is something that everybody should be able to say, but of course, some people never quite grow out of the cootie faze and hang out solely with girls or boys respectively.  I never really had that cootie faze, though, and I am best friends with both boys and girls.  I'm going to talk about one guy in particular who I'm very good friends with (he'll go unnamed, for safety purposes). Let's call him Evil Muffin (It'd make sense if you knew him)

Prior to his move, Evil Muffin and I hung out regularly, watched (and CinamaSinned) shows together, and were pretty good friends.  Let me say it, before you ask:  no.  We were not romantically interested in each other, at all.

Despite this, though, his parents thought that we were.  So did the neighbor girls that I tutor.  So did his gaming friends when we asked them to join us and play Minecraft (upon which they wrecked everything.  Ugh -_-). So did two of my girlfriends.  Basically, we were everybody's ship, and they were determined to make it sail (for any old folk reading this, I'll explain what a ship is down at the bottom of this post*)

Did we do anything to cause this ship?  Did we formerly date, or go out exclusively?  Nope.  We were friends, being normal friends.  However, because of that friendship, we both had to deal with endless questions, teasing, and, 'Oooh, so it's not official yet.  Got it.'

Now, yes, it was just harmless teasing most of the time, but this has happened to me, over and over throughout my life.  And that's not healthy!!

It's not healthy because boys and girls are pressured constantly to be in relationships.  It's not healthy because they think- they're trained to! - that a friendship is the same thing as romance and that romance is validation.  Even adults are affected by this mindset:  we learn to believe that a single man is sad and probably lives in his parents basement, and that a single woman is heartless and so focused on her career that she'll never really be a woman (or she's a nun.  *shrug*)

To sum up:  You're not cool if you don't have a boyfriend (as told to me by the eight year old girl I tutor)

But hold up, though.  This only applies to high schoolers, right?  Those pesky hormonal kids-

WRONG.

I was asked out twice in sixth grade, the only year I attended public school.  Neither of the times were because I was interesting to the person.  It wasn't because I was beautiful, smart, fun to hang out with.  It wasn't because I'm hilarious, or that I'm passionate about my opinions.

(By the way I'm like none of those things, I am an jellyfish with mediocre art skills and bawse self confidence.  Those were just the first reasons to ask someone out that came to mind)

You know why I got asked out?  Because I was single, so I would say yes.  The mindset that sixth graders, eleven year olds, have, is that if you are single, then you will say yes to anybody just so you can have someone to call bae.

I wonder where they got that idea?

Could it be that when they were toddlers and they kissed an oppositely gendered toddler on the cheek, their family said, 'Awww, they're so cute together!'?

Could it be that when they were in kindergarten and they went home, happy to have made a new friend, their mother said, "Oh, is Billy your boyfriend?"

Could it be when they were eight, they heard songs and read books that promote hook ups, quick romances, and never show examples of healthy boy-girl relationships?

Could it be that when they were in sixth grade, girls started getting dress coded, because, "You're growing up, you can't dress like that.  Men will stare at you," and the boys learned that it was okay to see the girls as a set of boobs and a butt that they could date, not a person with their own mind and interests?

Could it be when they got to their freshmen year of high school, they realized that everybody expected them to be with someone and so they found the first conventionally pretty girl to ask out?

Next time you laugh at a story about teenage pregnancy and think of it as an isolated case, I want you to stop.  I want you to look around.  Chances are, you'll see a kid programmed to believe that the sooner they're allowed to date, the better, and until then, they can just pretend that so-and-so is their S.O.  It is not the kids' fault, it is not the parents'.  It is us, a society as a whole.

When children date, and their parents allow it, they are set up for a lifetime of heartbreak.  That's what I said at the beginning of this post, and I mean it.  When children 'play boyfriend and girlfriend,' or when kids say they're in love, or when middle schoolers date simply so they can have someone, and this behavior is tolerated or allowed, then they are never taught the meaning of love. They're taught that love is something cheap, to be given and taken like a fruit roll up at a lunch table.

They're not taught about relationships, because they are given a false one, and when they get into a real one, they have no clue if it's healthy or not, if they're compatible with this person that they've already declared their love for and maybe even given themselves to, they don't know!  And how could they?

They may have been cute as little toddlers but the results of it are not cute.

They are ugly, messy, and heart breaking.

Diagnosis:  unhealthy and creepy and needs to stop

Solution:  There's no easy clue for this.  It's a widespread, part of our culture, and a deeply-ingrained thing.  My suggestion  is to stop implying relationships where there are none.  If your kid has a crush, that's fine.  If your kid has a new friend of the opposite gender though, don't call it a crush.

Sincerely,

Teenagers

"Dang, Noelle, that's deep."

You think so, Mr. Strawman reader?  Thanks!  Or maybe you disagree with something I said, or have a story to tell!  Whatever the case, tell me about it in the comments!  And if there's something you want me to tackle (no matter how petty), tell me!  I promise I might get to it at some point in the next decade.  Have a great day and see you next week!

*Mom wanted me to explain what a ship was because she insisted that the adults reading this wouldn't get it. Ok Mom, here you go, the denifition of ship according to the dictionary Google:

noun

noun: ship; plural noun: ships

1. 1.

   
   

   a romantic pairing between two characters in a fictional series, often one that is supported or portrayed by fans rather than depicted in the series itself.

   "Percy and Annabeth is my favourite ship"

verb

verb: ship; 3rd person present: ships; past tense: shipped; past participle: shipped; gerund or present participle: shipping

1. 1.

   
   

   support or have a particular interest in a romantic pairing between two characters in a fictional series, often when this relationship is one portrayed by fans rather than depicted in the series itself.

   "I'm still shipping them lol"
2. 
   

There you go.  In case you didn't get it.  :|