Personal Essay Example about Relationships in High School

There is a stigma that high school relationships are pointless and aren’t worth it. In a way, this is slightly true, but I mostly disagree with it. High school is a time of learning from your mistakes and preparing yourself for the future. Relationships in high school are one of the ways that you learn from your mistakes and grow from them. There is a reason that most people's very first relationship almost always ends in a short time. It takes trial and error of figuring out what and who you like. High school is the time when most people learn these things about themselves. I am a good example of a kid who learned from their mistakes in a high school relationship and has better knowledge for future relationships.

At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, a guy who was a year older than me started to talk to me quite often. For the longest time, I had been severely insecure and didn’t think boys would like me which made me very vulnerable when I found out someone did like me. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, so without thinking much about this guy and how he might be, I went out with him. When we would hang out, it was mostly just him talking about himself, but I didn’t mind because I was really shy at the time. During this period, I was a pretty lonely person who had trouble getting comfortable with people who weren’t family. As time went on in this relationship, I grew to become comfortable around this guy. For once in my life, I felt as if I could almost be myself and I didn’t feel as insecure about my physical appearance. These new, unfamiliar feelings are what led me to date this guy for one and a half years and made it difficult to let go when things went south.

About a year into our relationship, I got a call at work from one of my friends from basketball. She tells me that he had invited her over the night before and that certain things had happened. Now, if you happened to go to the Tim Hortons drive-through in July 2020 and saw the worker crying at the window, that was me. This relationship was my first long-term relationship and it crushed me to find out that someone who “loved” me so much could betray me like that. After this incident, the rose-colored glasses came off and the red flags were clear as day. I could now see the ways he would talk down to me, the way he would ignore me when I spoke, and the way he wouldn’t take no as an answer. All the things I was once blind to because I liked him so much and didn’t know any better. Why did I even like him so much if he treated me that way?

Alongside discovering what type of person he was that whole time, I also discovered the other things he had done behind my back. I found out that he would cheat on me over text to a dozen girls. All the nice things he would say to me, he would say to another girl. I also put the pieces together and caught him in a dozen lies he had told me. He gave me a million reasons to leave and just move on with my life, but I couldn’t. All I could think about was how he would make me feel back when I had on rose-colored glasses and how someone liked me enough to date me. I ended up making the stupidest, most immature choice I could have ever made in this scenario. I stayed with him. The next six months of our relationship would continue to destroy my mental health and further dig me into my hole of insecurities. 

Eventually, I mustered up enough mental strength to call quits and leave him behind. Despite hating him for everything he did, I struggled to get over him. With time, it got better and I grew to be very independent and happy.  My high school relationship was a lesson experience that I will never forget. It taught me what loving someone and what heartbreak felt like. It taught me what I should be aware of in a relationship and what I deserve from someone. These lessons will help me greatly in the future and I’m glad I learned them at a young age.