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STUDENT LIFE
Teen Romance in the BY JD GORMAN CONTRIBUTIONS BY ANONYMOUS It’s March 2020 and a teenager who once faced the daily challenge of in person social interaction has now been presented with another obstacle: how to kill time in the seemingly endless monotony that is lockdown. Chris* sits on his bed, strumming a guitar to pass time as he tries to replicate and reinvent the loud shoegaze sound of “My Bloody Valentine.” If he turns the dials and stomps enough pedals, he might just get there. *ding* “Instagram notification: Xx.VickyBear.xX has sent you a message.” Chris looks at his phone, surprised and confused. Victoria was a friend of a friend and they had never spoken before. Maybe she checked out his new EP on Bandcamp and wanted to talk about it. He remembered their mutual friend, Balthazar*, had mentioned to him that she recently got out of a relationship. The pandemic and the social restrictions that have accompanied it have thrown a wrench in everyone’s lives. For high school students who were used to congregating by the thousands in poorly ventilated brick and mortar establishments, these long periods of solitude come as a challenge. This has affected teenagers in a myriad of ways but none more interestingly than our love lives. Teenagers in romantic re-
lationships have been on a decline. According to Child Trends, from 1976 to 2017 the percent of twelfth graders who report dating had dropped from 33 percent to just 14 percent. A separate study from the Pew Research facility says “35% of teens have some experience with dating or romantic relationships.” Of that 35 percent, 14 percent of them reported being in a serious relationship, 5 percent are in a relationship but not a serious one - some may refer to it as a “thing” - and 14 percent report not currently dating. Overall, we see a decline in the social capital given to a committed relationship amongst teenagers. With the rise of hookup culture these statistics are not surprising. However, with the pandemic putting an end to basement pong parties and messy hookups in the bathroom, teenagers are taking a different outlook on relationships. At the beginning of lockdown Victoria had recently gotten out of a relationship and quickly turned to her friend asking if there was anyone else out there. “I just wanted to have fun and get my mind off my previous breakup,” she said. With a large crossover of mutual friends it only made sense that her and Chris eventually got introduced to each other. What would have normally happened in person at a party or “kickback” now had to be pushed to an online setting.
Taking the initiative she slid in his DMs and what started off as something to get her mind off of an ex has become her coronavirus romance story. With little data for how the pandemic has affected teenage love lives, we can only go by what we are seeing in front of us and what we knew before. With the social capital that relationships once brought on a decline we must ask ourselves, what is taking its place? Could it be academic pressures taking priority? Perhaps it’s the rise in hookup culture eliminating the perceived need for them. But with the current social arena that the pandemic provides, all previous data points and trends are thrown out the window. I have seen people fall into long committed relationships within the pandemic at the same rate that I have seen once long committed relationships crumble. For this extra time together with your significant other and lack of other distractions might not always be the best for every couple. “COVID inherently played a role in every decision we made,” Anna* noted when thinking back on the demise of her relationship. Anna had been in a long term relationship since before COVID began, but soon after lockdown hit her state and the full effects of the pandemic started to set in, flaws of the relationship became apparent. “I remember it being very blindsiding, so that makes me think it was very good before COVID.”