RELATIONSHIPS AND FRIENDSHIPS
A relationship is the same as a friendship with some added attachments. Friends make and break all the time, but the second they reconcile all the “breaking” is forgotten. I believe that a relationship can be treated just like a true friendship. Mistakes happen but most friends forget and move on. When this happens in a relationship all is lost and the world is over.
In today’s world mistakes define a man or woman. Whatever mistake they make, it is stuck with them; they are labeled forever more with their one bad choice. Relationships are the definition of mistakes. Young teens can become so focused on finding the perfect man or woman that the only thing they see is the mistakes of their perfect partner and then leave them. Friendships don’t work like this. Friends fight all the time and still find a way to ignore the mistakes. So many more relationships would work if only teens could focus on the good.
Being in a relationship for over a year really teaches me to not focus on the mistakes but focus on the good. As a seventeen year old it isn’t easy. We have broken up twice about six months into the relationship. Mistakes were made but when that person became my best friend I learned to forgive. Just like any fight with my friends I got over what had happened and did what I needed to do for myself in order to keep my closest friend around. That is what a true relationship is, a real friendship.
A real friendship is not just break-ups and make-ups. A true friend is someone that is trustworthy even with a deepest secret. For example, my boyfriend knows more about me than my best friend. I feel comfortable enough with him as a friend to tell him these secrets and know that I can trust him. Sometimes I feel that this is what parents do not understand about teenagers in relationships. I hear a lot of parents say that they do not get why their child does not just date and not be so committed at a young age. What I believe they do not understand is that a committed relationship is more than what some time parents worry about. That someone is someone who is always there to listen and can normally have the right thing to say, every time.
I look forward to a phone call every night because normally my day is very stressful. That phone call is what relieves my stress because it is not just a boyfriend calling it is a friend calling because they want to. It is someone who really truly cares to call and ask how my day went, and will listen to me rant about classes and drama. This I believe is what a true relationship is, a true friendship.
Kelsey Hull
