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Adults tend to underestimate and patronize children and teenagers, although I think those attitudes are changing. Romantic love is an interesting topic to consider in the case of young people.
If two people aged fourteen or sixteen have been together for a considerably long time – say a year – is their love real? If they say they’re in love with each other, is that true or is it nonsense? Why do adults laugh and scorn and say ‘they don’t know what love is!’ I find that very patronizing. Love is something anyone can experience. You love your mother, your brother, and your sister too. Unless a person is born a psychopath, they are capable of loving others. So naturally we all know what ‘love’ is. Of course to be ‘in’ love is different from loving someone emotionally/platonically, but it’s still another ‘type’ of love.
I would argue that love is an emotion, and anyone can feel any emotion anytime. Love and infatuation are extremely different. I know I have been infatuated with guys, and they’ve been guys I’ve not known that well or had a romantic relationship with (ironically). Infatuation is obsessing over someone and idealizing them and placing them on a pedestal and not seeing their flaws. It’s thinking you can’t live without them and feeling intense feelings for a person you hardly know. Love is calmer and grows over time. Maybe teenagers are more susceptible to infatuation as opposed to love, but why can’t they feel love?
When two young people have been together for a long time, and they have a deep and meaningful bond and care about each other and feel deep emotions towards one another, why is that not love? If they were just friends you would say they love each other. As lovers/romantic partners the feelings are different but the premise is the same. Love is a strong emotion you have towards someone that consists of empathy and compassion. When you love someone they fill you up, they make you happy, you build each other as people, you enjoy spending time with them, and you make compromises and do things for them.
So how is a teenager incapable of feeling those feelings? Naturally, the feelings are probably more immature compared to a twenty four or forty four year old. As we get older we mature and our feelings, behaviours and outlook upon life matures. Maybe the way a sixteen year old loves their boyfriend/girlfriend is more immature than the way a thirty year old about to get married loves their spouse. When people get married its more than just loving each other, it’s about commitment and sharing and planning lives together. It often includes raising children and deciding how to raise them. Obviously sixteen year olds can’t legally get married and are rarely thinking about something so serious at that age. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love their partner, it just means their attitude to it is less ‘mature’ because they’re not of an age where they need to think about serious things like marriage, children, life-plans and long-term commitment.
I don’t believe in love at first sight. I believe in lust/infatuation at first sight. It’s easy-peasy to meet a person and think ‘wow, he’s gorgeous, I want to take him home with me’ or whatever goes through your (my) crazy head. Same with friendship; I find myself drawn to people almost immediately, but I don’t instantly love them and make them my close friend, it takes time and meeting up and sharing conversation. You can meet a person and find them interesting or attractive or witty, but to have tremendously strong feelings for them straight away is usually a sign of superficiality. We can all meet a person and think we ‘love’ them, but that’s just our brain having been shot with a whirlwind of emotion.
So to wrap up, what’s your opinion, my darling, sexy, scrumptious reader? Do you think young people can’t really be in love or know nothing about what they think they know? Is love at first sight romantic and real or fantastical bullshit? Lemme know as always down under…
i think they can
I think yes, young people can be in love. There is no age to love. You can fall in love when your a kid, a teenager or an adult. It has no age limit.