Sometimes, I feel like I never learned how to date properly. Everyone around me seems to know exactly what they’re doing; meanwhile, I ended my first relationship at 21, and it only lasted for a few of the rockiest six months of my life.
I am going to be completely honest: I had not the faintest clue what I was doing. I ended up dating the worst possible guy for me, putting up with so much simply because I had no frame of reference for what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like. How was I supposed to know what was normal and what wasn’t if I hadn’t dated yet?
Looking around at everyone my age makes me feel like they’ve pretty much mastered the whole dating thing before I’ve even got the chance to get an idea of what dating is. While mastering the art of dating may not be the case, I know they at least have a leg up.
I spent all of high school too fearful of dating for one reason or another: low self-esteem, fear of getting hurt, wanting to focus on school, etc. But sometimes, I wish I would’ve just taken a leap of faith and gained the experience I am now lacking.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone in their 20s has it all figured out because of their high school sweetheart who dumped them after prom, but I’m saying that I feel like dating in high school really teaches some people what dating is like.
It’s like I’m jumping into a whole new area of life right now and it feels like drowning. My one frame of reference for dating is an absolute dumpster fire, so how am I supposed to suddenly know what I’m doing?
Now that I’ve finally gotten out of my one and only relationship, I wonder how different it would have gone if I had just put myself out there more and dated in high school. Would I have had the sense to dump him sooner, the sense to demand the respect I deserved from the start?
Dating when you’re in your teens is supposed to teach you what you want and don’t want out of a relationship. I’m not saying no one met their soulmate in high school, but for the most part, dating during high school serves as a practice run for the rest of your relationships.
How am I supposed to know what I want when I have no frame of reference to base it off of? I feel like my first relationship was like having a colossal puzzle thrown in front of me, and I was just being expected to figure it out.
But it’s not like going into college without dating experience leaves you completely hopeless. Not dating in high school definitely helped me learn how to be independent, lean on myself, love myself, and focus on my goals, but I wish I had learned how to fit someone else into my life healthily. While I learned a lot about myself, I don’t know what it means to welcome someone else into my life in a healthy way.