Winter brings the harshness of the cold and the burn that is “Breakup Season”, where it seems as if almost every young couple is splitting up for many different reasons. This complicates almost everything for a teenagers’ mindset, being expected to balance education, work, home life, and the war that is in their mind. Everything about breakups leads to the question: how are young people supposed to go through all of this and still have the best years of their lives?
“Breakup season” is what social media has coined as a month of breakups in January and February. Couples across many different schools fall apart in a month. This is mostly because January is the most stressful month for students: the third quarter just started, winter sports keep students busy and always doing something, not leaving students much time to spend with their partners.
Most can’t balance an entire relationship at the same time while they have a lot of other things to do in the winter, so does this make teen love impossible? Well, many couples don’t break up around this time and can manage everything else in their lives because of the importance of their relationship, and when love is infallible, everything is worthwhile with them. Of course, that scenario isn’t the case for most teen relationships.
“Teen romances falter and ultimately fail in the end most of the time,” a source says. Most teens can’t handle love, their minds aren’t even fully developed yet and trying to prioritize an entire other person can be too difficult while also attempting to juggle academics and sports. The fact most teens can’t do this can lead to being left on read, short talk, and even cheating.
A lot of freshmen break up during this time, it’s hard to be in a relationship while being in a whole new space, and in a much stricter environment. “Sometimes relationships become too much and I know for me it’s easy to drift apart,” another source reports.
Freshmen are already trying to navigate through their first year and getting acclimated is difficult enough as it is. Another cause for freshmen breaking up is the immaturity of the relationship in general, with everyone’s level of responsibility being different.
The majority of students say the most difficult part about these breakups is having to see them in school the next day. Sometimes they even have mutual friends and have to talk to each other on a regular basis. “I hate having to see her in the hallway, most times I have to see her at lunch and after school too.” a sophomore states. This can bring up a lot of mixed emotions, most times breaking no-contact too quickly can mean a toxic friendship with the ex.
Breakups are also a lot different in high school in comparison to middle school breakups, it’s a lot more serious and can cause a lot more drama. ”It’s not just, like, ‘oh, I’m on the same team as, like, a person, so I’m gonna see them every day regardless.’ It’s a lot more complicated,” a separate source says.
Around this time teenagers are vulnerable to broken hearts but it’s important to know that the feeling is temporary and everyone has gone through heartbreak in one way or another. It’s also important to realise that you don’t need to be in a relationship just because you’re young.
Hard times in the context of breakups can be so difficult, however there is solace in knowing that everyone has gone through that heartbreak in many different ways. Ask any adult and they’ll tell you that time has healed that rift. Everything about relationships is ephemeral and fleeting, the only true thing that you know is that it will end, hence the popular quote “until death do us part.” That doesn’t mean that the memories are temporary; “I will never forget any of the moments I think, I’ll just look at them in a different light.” a source remarked.
