A lot of people make dating in high school seem like a bad thing. They think high schoolers are too immature or hormonal to date responsibly, but that's what dating in high school is for. It's to become responsible for your feelings and to take others into consideration as well.

Dating in high school is how you figure out how to handle all of the guys that life throws at you. The players, the guys that think they're too cool to have feelings, the guys that have better things to do, the womanizers, and the ones that are actually decent. But if you do fall in love with someone in high school, people make it seem like a bad thing. They make it seem like you have no "experience," or you're "tied down." When people say people that high school sweethearts don't have any "experience" they're really just putting themselves in other people's business. Only having experience with one partner isn't a bad thing.

But what teenagers fail to remember is that the point of dating isn't to get a ton of sexual experience, but to have an emotional connection with someone and to be together because you like each other's company. If people want "experience", they don't have to date for it. If people wanted experience, they could definitely find it at a party with classmates.

Dating in high school gave me experience with people's feelings. Humans are fragile creatures, and our feelings tend to get hurt. It also gave me the chance to figure out my own feelings, like jealousy, annoyance, sadness, and absolute happiness. It gave me the chance to overreact about things that were completely stupid back then, so now I know what is and isn't a huge deal.

The purpose of breakups in high school is to make a mature decision and to acknowledge significant differences by ending things on a mutual basis. While break ups aren't always clean or mutual, they happen for a reason, and it's better that they do. Break ups in high school taught me how to be mature in uncomfortable situations, like when your ex-boyfriends best friend gets assigned as your partner on a project.

Although there was a rule in my house that you had to be 16 to date, I still dated before then, if you can even consider it dating. Looking back, I realize that I wasn't mentally or emotionally ready for it then, even though I thought I was. I don't have a problem with parents restricting dating until their child is a certain age, but I don't think parents should keep their children from dating in high school at all.

So when people say that dating in high school is a waste of time, or stupid, or anything else negative, I have to completely disagree. I loved dating in high school, because when I was 15 I met the guy that I'm still crazy about four years later.