Biology of Love

High School is like a minefeld, minefelds are designed to destroy and disable the enemy. A direct blast from the land mine causes damage to the enemy by shrapnel. The enemy, in this case, is us; teenagers. We are responsible for the fragments of those mines that are memories of cliches, social groups and the hatred of being uncool. These pieces of shrapnel bury deep and you’ll carry them forever. Pubescent love doesn’t help navigate the war of the teenage years. School is already tough as it is, I don’t need to see faces that are going through puberty, swap spit. Not now. Not when I could possibly be standing on a landmine.

Everyone says love is overrated. I actually mean it. I am in no way a “hater of love” but I struggle to understand the obsessions and desperation some people have to be in a relationship, especially at the age of ten. Foreigner once sang, “I Want to Know What Love Is”. Well, Mick Jones my friend, scientifcally if you boil down love, it is essentially just a bunch of happy chemicals. No soul mates or the perfect match or true loves, just chemicals that you also get when looking at food or listening to Teenage Dream by Katy Perry while driving in a pink convertible of to start the best summer ever. You can’t do that here, not without your hair becoming a bird’s nest and at least three bugs in your mouth. You even get these chemicals when taking a walk, so the next time you are feeling horny don’t hit up that one mate and be horny dumbasses with regrets the next morning, instead go check your mail. That’s defnitely a better walk of shame. Feel shitty about the lack of mail instead of the boy you left in that bed. Life isn’t as easy as a supposedly sexy vampire coming in and claiming you as his. Edward and Bella’s love doesn’t exist, I mean hell, he doesn’t even exist. Twilight was a shitty flm. And anyway, according to Dr Helen Fisher, an American anthropologist and human behaviour researcher, “Romantic love can be broken down into three categories: lust, attraction and attachment… Testosterone and estrogen drive lust; dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin create attraction; and oxytocin and vasopressin. We are all simply just horny and trying to convince ourselves that it’s more than our primal needs, because who doesn’t love Hollywood? So why are we so stressed about being single? We’re making a big deal about the absence of a few chemicals we have romanticised because of Hollywood’s soulmates trope. You’re a teenager… you don’t have to fnd the one right now, or anyone. Being single is the new cool (despite the fact the only people who say this are single people trying to convince themselves that they are in fact okay alone). Own your confdent sexy self and strut that single ass down Lambton Quay. People are taking relationships a little too seriously. I watched a comedy special on Netfix by Daniel Sloss and he’s right when he says that “If you only love yourself 20% that means someone can come along and love you 30%. That’s less than half. If you love yourself 100%, a person that falls in love with you has to go above and beyond the call of duty to make you feel special.” There is nothing wrong with putting yourself frst or being happily single.

Now, I’m not completely oblivious to how important love is to some people, nor is my heart made of stone. The idea of love itself is beautiful. It’s been the subject of some of the greatest songs, flms and literature of all time. William Shakespeare, Frank Sinatra, Al Green and the old Taylor Swift have all fallen into the hype. However, just like Russian novelist, philosopher, and journalist Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.” I blame unrealistic expectations of love for this global and timeless hype. I blame Disney. I mean who falls in love with a glass slipper wearing girl just by dancing with her once? Or who trades their voice for a pair of legs in hopes that a boy she met once falls in love with her? I blame human nature for romanticising every little thing. Not to keep quoting Daniel Sloss but he sums it up, “Some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece and jam them into our jigsaws anyway, denying that they don’t ft. We’re gonna force this person into our lives because we’d rather have something than nothing.” We are more in love with the idea of love than the actual person we are with. I’m guilty of that. My bad, Jake. I blame the fact you asked me out in that underwater aquarium at the mature age of 12. How can a chick say no to that?

55% of marriages end in divorce, and 90% of relationships that started before they are 30, end. If that 90% was the death stats for fucking sky diving, I’m positive no one would drop out of a plane and depend their lives on what’s basically a sheet to hold them up and make you foat instead of fall back to earth. I mean if these were stats for surgery, almost all of us wouldn’t jump onto that operating table and say “cut me open Doc!”. If those stats represented your chance at falling of a bridge every single one of you wouldn’t walk across one. Where’s the Disney princess who spends the entirety of the flm striking out, and in the end sits at home alone? But because it’s love, and we’re horny eggs, we just lie on the operating table hoping that this time you’re not one of the 90%. That this time I won’t die, but that everything will end happily ever after. I have mixed feelings about love and that’s all good. I’m too busy dealing with land mines to really fgure out everything to do with love. I’m trying to make you all realise that we are still young and have plenty of time to chase the ‘one’. Ultimately, just like Foreigner, I can’t decide what love is. This is just a plea to open your eyes a little wider and create a more physical distance between your hormone-flled bodies at school. A plea to stop looking for your ‘better half’ and recognise that you aren’t a half by yourself, you’re whole. Don’t settle for crappy water as that kind of love is (as Hillary Duf in A Cinderella’s Story said) useless and disappointing. Instead, follow the motto, I’ll always take the opportunity to quote Hannah Montana, “chill it out, take it slow then you rock out the show.” by Emma Kane

1. In the doorways of your next class: Not seeing the “love of your life” for an hour must be rough and I’m sure you would all describe it as the exact same feeling you get when having to rush to the ocean’s surface as you’ve misjudged how far you can dive but imagine me in this situation…Waking up at 7am and rushing out the house with a slightly brown banana and a handful of biscuits because I know I should have packed a lunch the night before but the third and fourth season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had been just put onto netfix and god damn if I don’t fnd out what Brandi spilled about Adrienne…and then having to sit on the god awful 2 and then switch onto the 3 Metlink bus at 8am and listen to the RC boys play the occasional old Miley Cyrus or Demi Lovato song in between bad rap and their target quality freestyles is already a nightmare enough. Then having the last 50 meter stretch to class being blocked right by the fnish line by two 15 year olds reenacting the one kissing scene between Cry-Baby and Allison. I mean Johnny Depp being that hot in the flm almost makes watching that kiss alright but I promise you these 15 year olds are no Johnny Depp look-alikes and they are standing between me and passing the last year of highschool. I’m not above shoving these kids out of the way, especially if they ruin my chance of getting out of this water stain on the ceiling of my life.

2. Between the stacks of books in the library Though this is rarely seen, I know that this is a keen makeout hang out. We’re not even allowed to eat here so surely swapping spit is also included in that ban? 3. In the linkwells Come on, this place is a constant ice box. How can kissing anyone here be enjoyable? I doubt the energy you create when kissing is going to make you less cold (although as someone pointed out to me, kissing technically does create heat… but to hit back at that argument, not enough to make it worth it. You wouldn’t kiss someone with hypothermia to try and keep them warm). Plus only juniors really hang out in between the M and S block during breaks so if you’re trying to impress the seniors, by showing that you can pull and you have pulled, that is not going to work. That’s not impressive, especially because most of us (or maybe this is just me) don’t look back at our frst makeouts with much fondness. All that you are accomplishing is scaring the little guys. 4. Level 4 bathrooms The stalls? That amount of desperation you must need to swap your gross DNA there is bigger than my need to be validated constantly… and I have some issues. Well, not really. I just said that to make you guys feel like I’m not this unfawed god judging you from my place up in the sky. (I totally am.) Seriously though, there are people around you pissing… if that is modern romance then I’m going to pass away. 5. Between the gyms Come on, you’re surrounded by sweaty, greasy kids who defnitely don’t shower before heading to their next period. The stench oWf pubescent teens is overwhelming when I seek a dry passage to any of my classes in the M tower and although it doesn’t have the bitter icy temperatures of the linkwells, that link between the gyms is not warm.

6. Down the hill to the Basin Maccas I just want some cheap greasy food that is 100% gonna lower my life expectancy man. Lunch is a little breather from my gray, bleak 6 hour school existence, don’t ruin it by touching tongues. Also poor Shona… Directly outside her home? I don’t think she wants to see you guys make out either. And especially don’t make out in the booths in the corner inside Maccas. You are still seen, even if they can’t see you. Number one rule of tag: if you can see them, they can almost 100% see you. (WC boys also don’t make the greatest audience for all of this). 7. Memorial Not exactly school property but come on, do you even wanna go that public with your love? And everyone who is allowed to leave high grounds goes there. I just want to eat my diy-under-$10- the warehouse-picnic with my mates and swap shitty gossip. Swap gossip… not spit.

8. In a cloud of vape at a party Guilty as charged. Alcohol mixed with our young impressionable minds is not the wisest idea but it is certainly fun. A vodka cruiser (bought by your 3 day old ID) and the colourful fashing lights creates a romantic space where PDA is bound to happen. Now making out at a party is defnitely not as bad as any other place as you’re drunk, they’re drunk, everyone is drunk, meaning there is defnitely more than a 30% percent chance no one will remember seeing the tangled limbs in the corner. 9. In the back of a white sketchy van that your “almost but not quite boyfriend” picked you up in and drove you to go around the bays This would appear as so sketch to anyone who is viewing this walking past, especially if there is groping involved (and there is always groping involved in cars.) Put some pillows down or add something so it doesn’t look like you are the potential victim of sex trafcking and please don’t go at it in a public place. Being in a car doesn’t equate to no one being able to see you guys. Install curtains or just park somewhere else.