essay on young love

Young Loves: The Beautiful and Turbulent Journey of Adolescent Romance

Young love, ah, what a perplexing and exhilarating experience it can be. The innocence, the butterflies in the stomach, and the burst of emotions that come with it can make one’s heart race like never before. It’s a time filled with hope, anticipation, and endless possibilities.

As we navigate through our teenage years, we often find ourselves drawn to someone who makes our hearts skip a beat. This early taste of romance can feel both thrilling and overwhelming at times. We may daydream about that special person or feel giddy when they’re around.

But let’s not forget that young love is also a learning experience. It teaches us valuable lessons about ourselves and others. We discover what we value in relationships, how to communicate effectively, and how to navigate the ups and downs of emotions. These early connections help shape our understanding of love and set the foundation for future romantic endeavors.

In the end, young love is an enchanting chapter in our journey through life. It’s a time of exploration, self-discovery, and emotional growth. So cherish those memories of youthful infatuation because they play an essential role in shaping who we become as individuals when it comes to matters of the heart.

The Magic of Young Love: A Journey of Discovery

Ah, young love. It’s a magical and exhilarating experience that has captivated hearts for generations. In this section, we’ll delve into the enchanting world of young love, exploring its transformative power and the profound impact it can have on our lives.

• The Rush of First Love There’s something truly extraordinary about experiencing your first taste of romance. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, filled with butterflies in your stomach, racing heartbeats, and an uncontainable excitement that lights up your entire being. Whether it’s a shy glance across the classroom or a stolen kiss under the stars, those precious moments become cherished memories that linger for a lifetime.
• Discovering Identity and Self-Expression Young love isn’t just about infatuation; it also serves as a catalyst for self-discovery. As we navigate through relationships during our formative years, we learn more about ourselves than we ever thought possible. We explore our likes and dislikes, discover our values and beliefs, and uncover hidden talents and passions along the way. We gain insight into who we are at our core through love’s lens.
• Navigating Challenges Together While young love brings joy and excitement, it is not without its challenges. From navigating misunderstandings to weathering storms together, these hurdles provide valuable life lessons that shape us into resilient individuals capable of overcoming adversity in future relationships. The trials faced in early romances teach us patience, compromise, empathy, and effective communication skills – all essential tools for building healthy connections throughout life.
• Unleashing Boundless Optimism One hallmark of young love is the boundless optimism that accompanies it. With hearts full of hope and dreams as vast as the open sky, young couples embark on their journey with unwavering belief in their shared future together. This unbridled optimism fuels their determination to overcome obstacles and pursue their dreams, making the path of love an exhilarating adventure filled with endless possibilities.
• Forever Impacting Our Lives Perhaps one of the most beautiful aspects of young love is its lasting impact on our lives. Even if those early relationships don’t stand the test of time, they leave an indelible mark on our hearts and shape our perspectives on love and relationships. The lessons learned the memories created, and the growth experienced stay with us throughout our journey, forever reminding us of the transformative power of young love.

Young love possesses a unique kind of magic – it captivates, challenges, and shapes us into who we become. It’s a journey that awakens our senses, ignites our spirits, and leaves an everlasting imprint on our souls. So let’s celebrate the beauty and wonder of young love as we relish in its enchantment together.

Navigating the Complexities of Teenage Relationships

When it comes to young love, navigating the complexities of teenage relationships can be both exciting and challenging. As teenagers explore their emotions and desires, they often find themselves in a whirlwind of emotions, trying to understand their own feelings as well as those of their partners. In this section, we’ll delve into some common challenges faced by teenagers in relationships and offer insights on how to navigate them.

• Communication is Key: One of the biggest hurdles in teenage relationships is communication. Teenagers are still learning how to express themselves effectively, which can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. Encourage open and honest communication with your partner, where both parties feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and concerns without judgment or fear. This will help build trust and strengthen your bond.
• Peer Pressure: Teenagers are highly influenced by their peers, which can impact their relationships. The pressure to conform or seek approval from friends may lead them down a path that doesn’t align with their personal values or desires. It’s important for young couples to stay true to themselves and make decisions based on what feels right for them individually and as a couple.
• Balancing Independence and Togetherness: Finding the right balance between independence and spending quality time together is crucial in teenage relationships. While it’s essential for each partner to have personal space and pursue individual interests, nurturing the relationship requires investing time and effort into building shared experiences and creating memories together.
• Dealing with Jealousy: Jealousy can rear its head in any relationship but may be particularly intense during adolescence when insecurities run high. Trust-building exercises such as being transparent about friendships outside the relationship can help alleviate jealousy issues. Also, fostering self-confidence within oneself can minimize insecurity that often fuels jealousy.
• Setting Boundaries: Establishing boundaries is vital in any relationship, especially during the teenage years when individuals are still figuring out their own boundaries and limits. Clearly defining what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior can help prevent misunderstandings and ensure both partners feel respected and safe.

Navigating the complexities of teenage relationships requires patience, understanding, and a willingness to learn from both successes and failures. Remember that every relationship is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. By focusing on effective communication, maintaining individuality while nurturing togetherness, addressing jealousy issues, and setting healthy boundaries, teenagers can lay the foundation for strong and fulfilling relationships in the future.

Understanding the Emotional Rollercoaster

Ah, young love. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, a rollercoaster ride that can leave you feeling exhilarated and completely bewildered. Let’s delve into the intricacies of this emotional journey and try to make sense of it all.

• The Highs and Lows: Young love is notorious for its extreme highs and lows. One moment, you’re floating on cloud nine, experiencing the euphoria of being in love. The world seems brighter, colors more vibrant, and every little thing reminds you of your significant other. But just as quickly as those soaring feelings come, they can be replaced by doubt and insecurity. Suddenly, you find yourself questioning everything – their feelings for you, your compatibility, and even your own self-worth.
• Intense Passion: Passion runs deep in young love. Every touch feels electrifying; every kiss holds the promise of forever. The intensity of these emotions can sometimes be overwhelming, leaving us craving more while fearing its power over us. We become consumed by our desire to be with our partner constantly, often neglecting other aspects of our lives in the process.
• Fear of Heartbreak: One defining characteristic of young love is the constant fear of heartbreak looming overhead like a dark cloud. We invest so much emotionally that we become afraid to lose what we hold dear. This fear can manifest itself in various ways – from jealousy to possessiveness – as we desperately cling to what makes us feel alive.
• Self-Discovery: In the midst of this emotional rollercoaster ride, we also embark on a journey towards self-discovery. Young love has a way of unearthing parts within ourselves that we never knew existed – both positive and negative traits alike. It pushes us outside our comfort zones and challenges us to grow as individuals.
• Empathy & Understanding: Despite the tumultuous nature of young love, it also offers us an opportunity to develop empathy and understanding. As we navigate through our own emotional struggles, we learn to empathize with our partner’s journey. We begin to understand that they, too, are grappling with their own insecurities and uncertainties.

So buckle up and hold on tight as you embark on this wild ride called young love. It’s a journey filled with twists and turns that can teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and the complexity of human emotions. Remember, it’s okay to feel overwhelmed at times – after all, navigating the emotional rollercoaster is part of what makes young love so exhilarating.

Building Trust and Communication in Young Relationships

When it comes to young relationships , building trust and communication is crucial for their growth and success. As young individuals navigate the complexities of love, they must learn how to establish a strong foundation based on trust and open lines of communication. In this section, we’ll explore some key ways that young couples can cultivate these essential elements.

• Establishing Trust:
• Honesty: Encouraging an environment of honesty allows partners to feel secure in expressing their true thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or rejection.
• Reliability: Being reliable means following through on commitments, showing up when expected, and being consistent in one’s actions. This helps build a sense of dependability and reliability within the relationship.
• Transparency: Openness about past experiences, personal struggles, and future aspirations fosters a deeper level of understanding between partners.
• Effective Communication:
• Active Listening: Truly listening to your partner involves giving them your full attention, maintaining eye contact, and validating their emotions without interrupting or dismissing their concerns.
• Expressing Needs: Encouraging open dialogue where both partners can express their needs openly ensures that neither person feels unheard or neglected.
• Resolving Conflict Constructively: Conflict is inevitable in any relationship; however, how it is handled makes all the difference. Finding healthy ways to address disagreements while maintaining respect for each other’s perspective promotes growth rather than division.
• Building Empathy:
• Understanding Each Other’s Perspective: Developing empathy involves putting oneself in the shoes of one’s partner and seeking to understand one’s point of view, even if it differs from one’s own.
• Emotional Support: Offering comfort, compassion, and reassurance during challenging times helps foster emotional connection and strengthens the bond between partners.
• Cultivating Independence:
• Allowing Personal Space: Recognizing the importance of individuality within a relationship allows each partner to pursue his or her interests while still maintaining a strong bond.
• Trusting Each Other’s Decisions: Giving each other the freedom to make decisions without constant scrutiny or interference helps build confidence and independence.

Remember, building trust and communication takes time and effort from both partners. It requires patience, understanding, and a willingness to grow together. By prioritizing these aspects in their relationship, young couples can lay a solid foundation for a fulfilling and lasting partnership.

Dealing with Peer Pressure and Outside Influences

When it comes to young love, navigating through the challenges of peer pressure and outside influences can be quite perplexing. The opinions and expectations of friends, family, and society as a whole can have a significant impact on the dynamics of a relationship. Here are a few examples of how to handle these external factors:

• Stay true to yourself: It’s essential to remember that your happiness should not be dictated by others’ opinions. Be confident in who you are and what you want from your relationship. Don’t let peer pressure push you into making choices that don’t align with your values or desires.
• Communicate openly: Effective communication is crucial in any relationship, especially when dealing with outside influences. Talk openly with your partner about the pressures you might face and how they make you feel. Together, find ways to support each other through these challenges.
• Set boundaries: Establishing clear boundaries can help protect your relationship from unwanted interference. Discuss with your partner what kind of influence you’re comfortable with from friends, family, or social media platforms.
• Seek guidance from trusted sources: When facing dilemmas due to peer pressure or outside influences, seek advice from trustworthy individuals who have experience in healthy relationships or professional counselors if needed.
• Focus on personal growth: Remember that being in a relationship doesn’t mean losing sight of personal goals and aspirations. Encourage each other’s individual growth while fostering a strong bond together.

By staying true to yourselves, communicating effectively, setting boundaries, seeking guidance when necessary, and focusing on personal growth within the relationship context, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the complexities of peer pressure and outside influences.

Remember that every couple faces unique challenges along their journey together. Embrace those challenges as opportunities for growth rather than allowing them to hinder your young love’s potential for happiness and fulfillment.

Exploring Boundaries and Respecting Consent

When it comes to young love, one crucial aspect that must be emphasized is the exploration of boundaries and the importance of respecting consent. As teenagers navigate the complexities of relationships , they often find themselves in situations where these concepts become paramount.

• Clear Communication: One key element of exploring boundaries is establishing open and honest communication between partners. It’s essential for young individuals to feel comfortable expressing their desires, concerns, and limits within a relationship. Encouraging them to have conversations about consent can help foster mutual understanding and respect.
• Understanding Personal Boundaries: Exploring personal boundaries involves recognizing what feels comfortable or uncomfortable for oneself and communicating those limits with a partner. Encourage young couples to take the time to reflect on their own values, preferences, and limits before engaging in any intimate activities. This self-awareness allows them to enter into relationships with a clear understanding of what they are comfortable with.
• Active Consent: Respecting consent means ensuring that all parties involved actively agree to engage in any activity without feeling coerced or pressured. Teach young individuals about the importance of seeking enthusiastic consent from their partners at every step along the way. Emphasize that consent should be ongoing and can be withdrawn at any time.
• Recognizing Non-Verbal Cues: It’s important for teenagers to understand that consent is verbal and includes non-verbal cues like body language or facial expressions. Encourage them to pay attention to these subtle signs as well as give space for open dialogue so that both partners can feel safe expressing their needs or discomforts.
• Education on Healthy Relationships: Promoting education on healthy relationships helps empower young individuals with knowledge about what constitutes a healthy partnership built on trust, respect, equality, and effective communication skills. By equipping them with this knowledge, we can better ensure that they are able to establish boundaries while maintaining healthy connections with their partners.

Fostering an environment that values consent and boundary exploration is crucial for young couples. By providing guidance and education on these topics, we can help them navigate the complexities of relationships with respect and understanding.

Embracing Growth and Change in Young Love

When it comes to young love, one of the most important aspects to understand is the concept of growth and change. Relationships formed during this period of life are often characterized by rapid development and exploration, both individually and as a couple. It’s crucial for partners to embrace this growth and navigate the changes that inevitably occur.

• Developing Individual Identities: In young love, individuals are still discovering who they are and what they want in life. As they explore their own identities, it’s common for interests, goals, and perspectives to evolve. Embracing this growth means allowing each partner the freedom to explore their own passions while maintaining a supportive environment.
• Adapting to Life Transitions: Young love often coincides with major life transitions such as starting college or entering the workforce. These shifts can be both exciting and challenging for couples as they face new responsibilities, meet new people, and experience different environments. Embracing growth means adapting to these changes and supporting each other through the ups and downs.
• Navigating Communication Styles: Effective communication is vital in any relationship but becomes particularly important in young love when partners may have differing communication styles or limited experience expressing emotions constructively. Embracing growth means actively working on communication skills and learning how best to express needs and concerns while also listening empathetically.
• Encouraging Personal Development: Young love should never hinder personal growth; instead, it should encourage it! Supporting each other’s dreams, aspirations, hobbies, and talents fosters a strong foundation built on mutual respect and encouragement. Partners who embrace personal development within their relationship create an environment where both individuals can thrive.
• Allowing Space for Change: Lastly, embracing growth in young love requires acknowledging that change is inevitable – both within oneself and within the relationship dynamics over time. It’s essential not to resist or fear change but rather to approach it with openness and curiosity, recognizing that growth is a natural part of life.

By embracing growth and change in young love, couples can navigate the challenges and uncertainties that come their way. Through this embrace, relationships can evolve, deepen, and stand the test of time. So let’s celebrate the journey of young love and all the growth it brings!

Conclusion: Celebrating the Beauty of Young Loves

As we end this article, it’s time to reflect on the beauty and significance of young love. Throughout our exploration, we have unearthed various aspects that make these relationships unique and impactful. Here are a few examples:

• Emotional Intensity : Young love is characterized by an unmatched emotional intensity. The feelings experienced during this phase can be overwhelming, passionate, and all-consuming. It’s a time when every emotion is heightened, from joy and excitement to heartache and longing.
• Formative Experiences : Relationships formed in youth play a crucial role in shaping individuals’ understanding of love, trust, and companionship. These experiences serve as stepping stones for personal growth and provide valuable lessons that can last a lifetime.
• Unfiltered Authenticity : Young love often thrives on authenticity without pretense or inhibition. In these relationships, individuals feel comfortable expressing their true selves without fear of judgment or rejection. This raw vulnerability fosters genuine connections built on honesty and acceptance.
• Sense of Wonder : An undeniable sense of wonder accompanies young love—a feeling of discovering something new and exciting at every turn. Each shared moment carries a sense of adventure, making even the simplest experiences memorable and cherished.
• Hope for the Future : Young love represents hope for the future—optimism that fuels dreams and aspirations with a partner who shares similar ambitions. It ignites a belief in endless possibilities while providing support during life’s ups and downs.

Overall, celebrating the beauty of young loves means acknowledging their transformative power, resilience, and capacity for growth—both individually and as a couple. While not every youthful romance may stand the test of time, each one leaves an indelible mark on our lives—an imprint that shapes our understanding of love throughout adulthood.

So let us cherish those early connections filled with innocence, passion, and discovery. Through these experiences, we learn about ourselves, forge lasting memories, and ultimately grow into the individuals we become. Young love teaches us to embrace vulnerability, foster deep connections, and celebrate the beauty of human connection in all its forms.

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Essay Samples on Teenage Love

If you’re looking to write a teenage love essay or a teenage relationships essay, you’re not alone. These topics are popular among students and for a good reason. Teenagers are at a critical stage in their lives where they experience a range of emotions, including love, which can have a significant impact on their emotional and psychological development.

When writing an essay about teenage love, it’s important to consider the various factors that can influence how teenagers view romantic relationships. Peer pressure, social media, and cultural norms are all factors that can shape the way young people approach love and relationships.

Moreover, exploring the effects of teenage love on individuals’ mental health and emotional well-being is another crucial component of a teenage love essay. While falling in love can be a positive experience, it can also lead to anxiety, stress, and depression in some cases.

When writing a teenage relationships essay, consider discussing the importance of communication, mutual respect, and empathy in healthy relationships. It’s also important to explore how unhealthy relationships can impact teenagers’ emotional and psychological well-being.

By examining the various factors that contribute to successful and unsuccessful romantic relationships among teenagers, you can provide valuable insights into this complex and often challenging topic.

In conclusion, writing an essay about teenage love and relationships can be a fascinating and rewarding experience. By exploring the different factors that shape young people’s views on love and relationships, you can provide valuable insights into this critical period of their lives. If you’re struggling to come up with a topic or need help crafting a compelling essay, consider using our platform. We offer a wide range of free essays, including essays about teenage love and relationships, that can provide inspiration and guidance for your own writing.

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Young Love: Romantic Concerns and Associated Mental Health Issues among Adolescent Help-Seekers

Megan price.

1 Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), School of Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4059, Australia; [email protected] (L.H.); [email protected] (W.C.); [email protected] (A.A.S.); [email protected] (S.R.S.)

2 Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne 3067, Australia

Leanne Hides

Wendell cockshaw, aleksandra a. staneva, stoyan r. stoyanov.

Over 50% of young people have dated by age 15. While romantic relationship concerns are a major reason for adolescent help-seeking from counselling services, we have a limited understanding of what types of relationship issues are most strongly related to mental health issues and suicide risk. This paper used records of 4019 counselling sessions with adolescents (10–18 years) seeking help from a national youth counselling service for a romantic relationship concern to: (i) explore what types and stage (pre, during, post) of romantic concerns adolescents seek help for; (ii) how they are associated with mental health problems, self-harm and suicide risk; and (iii) whether these associations differ by age and gender. In line with developmental-contextual theory, results suggest that concerns about the initiation of relationships are common in early adolescence, while concerns about maintaining and repairing relationships increase with age. Relationship breakups were the most common concern for both male and female adolescents and for all age groups (early, mid, late adolescence). Data relating to a range of mental health issues were available for approximately half of the sample. Post-relationship concerns (including breakups) were also more likely than pre- or during-relationship concerns to be associated with concurrent mental health issues (36.8%), self-harm (22.6%) and suicide (9.9%). Results draw on a staged developmental theory of adolescent romantic relationships to provide a comprehensive assessment of relationship stressors, highlighting post-relationship as a particularly vulnerable time for all stages of adolescence. These findings contribute to the development of targeted intervention and support programs.

1. Introduction

Adolescence is associated with many psychosocial and developmental challenges, including the processing of intense emotions and “first loves” [ 1 ]. There is a growing body of work documenting the normative and salient nature of adolescent romance, as well as the behavioural, emotional and psychosocial sequelae of the experience [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. It is now well evidenced that adolescent romance is an important developmental marker for adolescents’ self-identity, functioning and capacity for intimacy [ 4 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].

There have been a number of important theoretical contributions to the understanding of romantic relationships, from early through to late adolescence and the transition to young adulthood [ 7 , 9 ]. Approaches include evolutionary theories related to neuroendocrine functioning and genetics [ 11 , 12 ] and interpersonal theories which emphasize the nature and processes of changes in adolescents’ social relationships and their effect on cognitions, emotions and behaviours [ 7 ]. Theories of attachment [ 13 ], ego formation and psychosocial development [ 14 ] have been particularly influential.

Adolescent romance typically begins as brief relationships in early adolescence, progresses into sexual relationships in mid-adolescence (14–15 years) and onto more intense, committed relationships during later adolescence (16–18 years) [ 2 , 15 , 16 ]. Developmental-contextual theories of adolescent romantic stages also provide a framework for how romantic relationships assist young adults with addressing their identity and intimacy needs. Connolly and colleagues propose a framework containing four stages of romantic relationships [ 17 ]: (1) the infatuation stage —a pre-relationship stage, where young teens have the opportunity to explore their romantic passions through physical attraction on a personal level, without engaging a prospective partner; (2) affiliate romantic stage —a pre-relationship stage that typically occurs in a larger group context where an acknowledged couple relationship is not yet formed, rather, a decision is made whether or not to attempt entering into a relationship; (3) intimate stage —representative of a formed romantic couple; and (4) committed stage —where an established relationship borrows features resembling a marital relationship and a mutual commitment. According to this model, the evolution of adolescent romantic involvement is highly sensitive to the peer context and corresponds with the course of individual identity development [ 18 ].

Despite the brevity and reduced intimacy of relationships in early adolescence, reports of feelings of “love,” convictions of knowing the true nature of “love,” and feelings of confusion and hurt as a result of “love” have been documented in early adolescence and children as young as nine [ 1 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. While these early attachment relationships may be unreciprocated and/or driven more by social than intimate factors, findings suggest the importance of acknowledging and examining romantic stressors across all developmental stages of adolescence [ 21 ].

Data from both Australian and international youth counselling services report romantic relationship concerns are one of the most common reasons young people seek counselling support [ 22 ]. Romantic relationships have been found to impact on psychosocial development and mental health during adolescence. For example, frequent or early dating and dating multiple partners has been linked with behavioural issues, poorer academic performance and employment prospects [ 10 ], and increased delinquency [ 23 , 24 ]. Similarly, several studies have found elevated levels of stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms among adolescents who engaged in romantic experiences compared to those who did not [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. The breakup stage of a romance has also been specifically examined, revealing links to heightened likelihood of first onset major depressive disorder among older adolescents [ 29 ]. However, little research has examined the association between breakups and poor mental health in earlier stages of adolescence.

A number of variables related to adolescent romance have been associated with the risk of suicide attempts or completions in adolescents. These include incongruent partnership role-identities [ 30 ], negative sexual experiences [ 31 ] and stressful events including breakups [ 32 ] and relationship disputes [ 33 ]. Nevertheless, the extent to which romantic relationship issues contribute to suicide risk remains unknown. For example, one study found 76% of suicide attempts among adolescents who presented at an inner-city emergency department were related to relationship disputes, including peer, family and romantic relationships [ 33 ]. The present study sought to build on extant research by reporting rates of suicidal ideation (and self-harm) associated with romance specifically, including each of the discrete stages of romance, across early, middle and late adolescence.

Most research on adolescent romance has either looked at romantic involvement as a dichotomous variable (e.g., have or have not previously engaged in romance), focused on the various characteristics of dating (e.g., frequency and age of initiation) or focused on one distinct stage of the relationship, predominantly dissolution. Few studies have examined how age, gender and stages of romantic relationships may increase vulnerability to mental health issues. In one of few studies to date, Nieder and Seiffge-Krenke (2001) investigated the influence of relationship stages on stress levels in adolescents ( N = 107) aged 14 to 17 years. They found the initiation and maintenance stages of relationships (e.g., not having a boyfriend or girlfriend, jealousy and developing and nurturing an equal and balanced relationship) were major causes of stress. Clear age differences in the level of stress associated with adolescent romance have also emerged. Two longitudinal studies report that the highest stress levels occur at the age of 14 and then decline with age [ 27 ]. However, small samples ( i.e ., n < 200) and gaps in the coverage of relationship stages [ 26 , 34 ] leave opportunity to improve understanding of associations between stressors of romance and mental health outcomes across relationship stages.

Gender may also be an important determinant of vulnerability to mental health issues related to relationship concerns, although its impact remains unclear [ 35 , 36 ]. Some research suggests that female adolescents are more likely to date [ 37 ] or become emotionally involved [ 38 ], and have an increased capability for developing and maintaining romantic relationships compared to their male peers. Girls with early-onset puberty are more likely to enter into sexual relationships with older boys, to experience more psychological distress during their early teens, and to engage in risk-taking behaviours such as drug and alcohol consumption than their peers [ 39 ]. Whether these characteristics result in the higher levels of interpersonal stress [ 40 ] and depression [ 20 ] among female daters compared to males is unknown. Other studies have found no gender differences in adolescents’ level of dating involvement and its impact on their psychosocial functioning [ 24 ].

The Current Study

This paper examined records of 4019 counselling sessions with adolescents (10–18 years) seeking help from a national youth counselling service for a romantic relationship concern to explore: (i) what types and stage (pre, during, post) of romantic concerns adolescents seek help for; (ii) how they are associated with mental health problems, self-harm and suicide risk; and (iii) whether these associations differ by age and gender.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. participants.

Participants were young people who sought support from a youth counselling service (Kids Helpline) between January 2013 and December 2013 and reported a romantic relationship concern. Kids Helpline is a free, Australian national counselling service (primarily funded by yourtown), which provides 24−7 counselling support to young people aged 5 to 25 years. During 2013, the Kids Helpline dataset captured the details of 72,416 counselling sessions with young people, including 45,176 sessions with adolescents aged 10–18 years [ 31 ]. Support was provided via telephone, email and real-time web counselling. Further details are provided in Table 1 .

Romance help-seeking sample characteristics. N = 3927. Age Mdn : 16.0 (10–18).

All percentages are calculated on the basis of cases where information was available; a Based on postcode information provided by the client, then classified according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ ASGS system as either “major city”, “regional” or “remote”.

2.2. Data Source

The Kids Helpline is primarily funded by yourtown, an Australian Non-Government Organisation providing a variety of youth services. Kids Helpline is Australia’s only free, confidential telephone and online counselling service which provides 24−7 counselling support. Young people’s requests are handled by qualified counsellors, social workers, or psychologists who also undergo specific Kids Helpline training. Counsellors screen clients for suicidal thoughts and self-harm behavior, and assess their background and mental health during the counselling session in order to provide adequate and culturally appropriate counselling service. Assessment is based on self-report of existing diagnosis or counsellor expertise. Counselling sessions are regularly monitored by counselling supervisors and counselling advice or referral to another counsellor is provided when necessary. All data for this study were drawn from the Kids Helpline counsellor contact database, which captures non-identifying information on counselling sessions. It is completed at the end of each session by the counsellor as part of the services’ standard operational practice.

2.3. Sample Selection

The dataset comprises 38 fields for logging data, including ten mandatory fields. Mandatory fields include the date, time, length of session, client’s cultural background and frequency of contact, the nature of the client’s main concern (hereafter referred to as “primary concern”), any secondary concerns, referrals provided, whether the client presented with mental health issues, and thoughts of suicide or self-harm issues. The amount of information captured for non-mandatory items (including age and gender) varies depending on the privacy and confidentiality wishes of each client, the sensitivity of the concern ( i.e. , the nature of some contacts is such that direct information gathering is either contraindicated or proves difficult) and the length of the counselling session.

Recording the nature of the client concerns is done by first categorising the problem from a set list of 12 categories. More specific detail about the concern is then recorded by selecting from a pre-defined list of problem-specific descriptors. All counsellors undergo training on the definitions of each problem category to ensure consistent understanding and reporting. Mandatory reporting requires selection of at least one problem classification per counselling session, with the option to report up to four problems per counselling session. Each counselling session is recorded as a separate contact resulting in some instances where multiple contacts correspond to one client.

2.4. Measures

2.4.1. demographic variables.

Age was recorded by counsellors then recoded into bands that broadly reflect key developmental stages of adolescence to allow for analysis between these stages, following established guidelines [ 4 ]. The three age bands were 10 to 14 years (early adolescence), 15–16 years (mid adolescence), and 17–18 years (late adolescence). Gender was recorded by counsellors as one of three options (“Male”/”Female”/”Unknown”). “Unknown” gender reports are the result of one of three reasons, as described under “Sample Selection.”

2.4.2. Nature of Romantic Concern

The nature of the romance-related concern was assessed by counsellors and classified into one of eight categories (see Table 2 ). For the purpose of this study these categories were aggregated into three overarching relationship stages to reflect the three main relationship/developmental stages [ 17 , 18 ] ( Table 2 ). Descriptive names were then given to the three relationship stages ( Initiation for the pre-relationship stage; Maintenance for in-relationship stage; and Dissolution for the post-relationship stage). Initiation relates to seeking information about dating and initiating contact and corresponds to the affiliate romantic stage. The second stage, maintenance, corresponds to the intimate romantic stage in which a dyad is formed and assumes a more central role in structuring social interactions. Finally, dissolution, relates to the post-relationship stage where a commitment to a more stable relationship has not occurred.

Relationship-specific concern types and stages.

2.4.3. Mental Health

Mental health functioning was assessed by counsellors during the counselling session and classified as Yes/No/Unknown to indicate whether a client was likely to have a mental health issue. An affirmative assessment of mental health is defined by Kids Helpline as representing those clients who disclosed a previously diagnosed mental health disorder or illness or the counsellor assessed the presence of significant mental health symptomology consistent with one or more mental health disorders. This includes physical (e.g., poor sleep), emotional (e.g., overwhelming panic), behavioural (e.g., compulsions) and cognitive (e.g., disorganised thoughts) symptoms. Counsellors are not expected to formulate a diagnosis as part of their assessment nor is it a requirement to report specific details of any symptoms presented. An “unknown” assessment may represent one of several things: (1) the counsellor did not see a need to directly ask the client about this (most likely if no symptoms presented); (2) the counselling session was too short for the counsellor to confidently make an assessment; (3) gathering the information was contraindicated or proved difficult; or (4) there were client privacy or confidentiality concerns.

2.4.4. Suicide Risk and Self-Harm

Risk of suicide and self-harm were also assessed by counsellors. Similar to mental health assessment, these variables were recorded using a three-point scale of Yes/No/Unknown. An affirmative assessment for suicide risk was recorded if the client disclosed that they were experiencing suicidal thoughts and further assessment by the counsellor verified the presence of a risk. An affirmative assessment of self-harm was applied if the client disclosed they had self-harmed in the few days or weeks prior to the counselling session and/or were struggling with the urge to injure themselves. Self-harm is defined by Kids Helpline as deliberate, non-life threatening, self-effected bodily harm with the intent of causing physical harm to themselves in ways that are not intended to end their own lives.

2.5. Ethics Approval

This study was ruled exempt from requiring ethical approval by the Queensland University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee on the basis that the research was of negligible risk, involved the use of an existing dataset and only contained de-identified data collected as part of routine clinical practice at Kids Helpline.

2.6. Data Analysis

Associations between relationship stage (initiation, maintenance, dissolution) and age group (early, mid, late adolescence), mental health, self-harm and suicidal ideation were examined using two-tailed Pearson chi-square tests with the probability level set at p < 0.05. Effect sizes are expressed as Cramer’s V (or φ for 2 × 2 tests). To gain further insight, similar tests were performed for the eight specific relationship concern types. Associations of these variables with age as a continuous variable were analyzed with t -tests or one-way ANOVAs as appropriate.

3.1. Sample Characteristics

A total of 4019 (8.7% of all concerns; primary reason for contact in 6.6% N = 3063) out of the 46,123 counselling sessions conducted with adolescents (10–18 years) seeking help from Kids Helpline between January and December 2013 reported a romantic relationship concern. The four other common reasons for seeking help were mental health and emotional wellbeing (24.9% N = 11,457), family relationships (13.3% N = 6134), suicide-related concerns (8.9% N = 4119) and peer relationships (7.9% N = 3644). In the present sample, 92 cases sought help due to concern for another person. These cases were excluded yielding a sample of 3927. Of these, 21.5% ( N = 844) were male and 77.2% ( N = 3032) were female, with gender not recorded for 1.3% ( N = 51). Males reporting a romantic concern (age M = 16.41, SD = 1.49) were significantly older than females reporting a romantic concern (age M = 15.90, SD = 1.63), t(3874) = 8.21, p < 0.001. Methods of communication with clients were telephone (52.5%), real-time web-counselling (26.0%) and email (21.5%).

The presence or absence of a mental health issue as assessed by counsellors was recorded in 2014 cases. Of these, 36.8% ( N = 742) were assessed to have a mental health issue. The presence or absence of a self-injury was recorded in 2000 cases. Of these, 22.6% ( N = 452) were assessed as engaging in self-harm. The presence or absence of suicidal ideation was recorded in 2417 cases. Of these, 9.9% ( N = 239) were assessed as engaging in suicidal ideation.

3.2. Romantic Relationship Concerns

3.2.1. relationship stage by age and gender.

When the eight types of relationship concerns were aggregated into the three relationship stages, the most common stage was dissolution (40.9%) followed by maintenance (36.8%) and initiation (22.3%). Table 3 provides information on the age and gender characteristics for each area of romantic concern. A significant association between age and relationship stage was found ( F 2, 3924 = 66.40, p < 0.001). Mean ages were 15.50 (SD = 1.82), 16.28 (SD = 1.50) and 16.03 (SD = 1.55.) for establishment, maintenance and dissolution stages, respectively. Similarly, there was a significant association between age group (early, mid and late adolescence) and relationship stage χ2(4) = 120.69, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.12. Help-seeking for pre-relationship concerns reduced as adolescents got older, while help-seeking for ongoing relationship challenges and dissolution concerns increased with age (see Figure 1 ). Help-seeking for post-relationship issues was found to dramatically rise between early and mid-adolescence and then plateau, showing little difference between mid and late adolescence.

Developmental differences in stage for which telationship help is sought.

Romantic relationship concerns, by age and gender.

Note: * Gender-specification was missing for 51 participants.

Gender was also significantly associated with relationship stage, although the effect size was small χ2(2) = 12.92, p = 0.002, Cramer’s V = 0.06. Males were significantly more likely than females to seek support regarding pre-relationship concerns (26.7% versus 21.0%) and less likely than females to seek support for post-relationship concerns (37.6% versus 41.9%). No gender differences in romantic concerns during a relationship were found.

3.2.2. Specific Types of Concern by Age and Gender

Of the eight types of relationship concerns the most commonly reported were (7) relationship breakdown, (4) maintaining and sustaining relationships, and (3) wanting to establish a relationship, being recorded in 35.2%, 23.8% and 14.4% of cases, respectively. When types of concern were aggregated into the three relationship stages, the most common stage was dissolution (40.9%) followed by maintenance (36.8%) and initiation (22.3%). Table 3 provides further information on the age and gender characteristics for each specific type of romantic concern.

A significant association between the type of relationship concern and age was found, ( F 7, 3919 = 20.35, p < 0.001). Similarly, there was a significant association between romantic relationship stage and age group, χ2(4) = 120.69, p < 0.000 Cramer’s V = 0.12. Early adolescence was associated with an increased concern regarding establishment and a decreased concern regarding maintenance. Conversely, late adolescence was associated with a decreased concern regarding establishment and an increased concern regarding maintenance.

A significant association between gender and type of romantic concern was also found, χ2(7) = 42.11, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.10 (see Table 3 ). For most of the eight specific concern types, males showed greater concern in the establishment stage and females showed greater concern in the maintenance and dissolution stages. An exception was faithfulness concerns for which males showed the greatest concern. In all cases, however, effects were small.

3.3. Association between Romantic Concerns and Mental Health Problems

3.3.1. presence of mental health issues.

There was a significant association between relationship stage and mental health, χ2(2) = 50.64, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.16. Mental health issues were most prevalent in the dissolution stage (41.9%) followed by the maintenance stage (39.6%) and the initiation stage (22.5%). Rates of mental health issues did not differ between genders. There was, however, a significant association between mental health and age t(2012) = 8.70, p < 0.001. The mean age of those with an identified mental health issue (M = 16.46, SD = 1.43) was greater than that for those without (M = 15.84, SD = 1.43).

3.3.2. Self-Harm

There was a significant association between relationship stage and self-harm, χ2(2) =44.69, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.15. Self-harm was most prevalent in the dissolution stage (28.4%) followed by the maintenance stage (22.2%) and the initiation stage (11.9%). There was also a significant association between gender and self-harm, χ2(1) = 34.68, p < 0.001, φ = 0.13, with females (25.9%) more likely than males (12.6%) to be experiencing self-harm issues. There was no significant association between age and self-injury. However, age was a significant factor when looking specifically at those seeking help regarding the dissolution stage t(839) = 3.60, p < 0.001. The mean age was lower for those engaging in self-harm (M = 15.70, SD = 1.59) than those who did not (M = 16.13, SD = 1.53).

3.3.3. Suicide Risk

There was a significant association between relationship stage and suicidal ideation, χ2(2) = 43.95, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.14. Suicidal ideation was most prevalent in the dissolution stage (13.9%) followed by the maintenance stage (8.8%) and the initiation stage (3.5%). Rates of suicidal ideation did not differ between genders. Similarly suicidal ideation was not significantly related to age. This remained the case when looking specifically at those seeking help regarding the dissolution stage (see Table 4 ).

Concurrent effects associated with relationship stages of concern, by age and gender.

a Numbers based on the percentage of available data. Missing data not calculated in total percentile; b Percentage of the total cohort ( N = 3927) for whom an assessment was made.

4. Discussion

This study aimed to explore the romantic concerns of adolescents seeking assistance from a youth counselling service, and determine associations between these concerns with age, gender and mental health outcomes. A unique dataset of 46,123 adolescent counselling sessions was analyzed. Romantic relationship concerns were the fifth most common reason for seeking help, representing 8.7% ( N =4019) of all counselling contacts. This finding is consistent with previous research reporting romantic relationship concerns are one of the most common reasons for adolescent help-seeking [ 22 ].

Of the eight specific romantic concern types coded in the data set, breakups were identified as the most common, representing a third of all romance-related counselling sessions across both genders. Levels of concern with this specific concern were also consistent across age groups. The data therefore indicate that breakups are a common challenge for adolescents, with similar impact irrespective of age or gender.

With the exception of breakups, the developmental differences in help-seeking for romantic relationship issues identified in the current study are broadly consistent with developmental theories [ 3 , 5 , 16 , 22 ] and previous prospective research on the developmental stages of romantic stress in adolescence. Younger adolescents were more likely to seek help for concerns related to the initiation of relationships, when romance is typically a new experience and they lack skills and confidence in this area. Concerns about maintaining and sustaining relationships were more prominent in mid to late adolescence, when intimacy levels, emotional investment, skills and commitment in romantic experiences increase.

In counselling sessions where an assessment of the likely presence of a mental health issue was made, over a third (36.8%) involved a mental health issue. For cases where assessments were made, self-harm and suicidal ideation were recorded in 22.6% and 9.9% of sessions, respectively. While these rates are likely to be elevated due to the help-seeking nature of the sample, adolescents reporting dissolution stage issues ( i.e. , breakup-related concerns; problems with the ex-partner), were significantly more likely to present with suicide and/or self-harm issues than those presenting with concerns about other relationship stages. Adolescents with dissolution stage issues were also significantly more likely to present with mental health issues compared to those concerned about establishment stage issues. These results are consistent with previous research finding that relationship breakups are associated with elevated levels of depression [ 18 , 20 , 21 ], anxiety [ 5 ] and stress [ 16 ].

These findings highlight the importance of exploring dissolution-stage issues in adolescents, including coping with and re-establishing life after a breakup and managing relationship difficulties with an ex-partner. Further research examining multiple risk and protective factors for mental health issues, suicide and self-harm among large samples of early, mid and late adolescents is required to better understand the impact of romantic relationships in both help-seeking and non-help-seeking youth.

The use of data on eight different types of romantic relationship concerns among a large geographical and ethnically diverse sample of help-seeking adolescents spanning early to late adolescence is a strength of this study. While 77.2% of help-seekers were female, no significant gender differences were found in the type of romantic concerns reported. A bias toward female help-seekers is also consistent with the characteristics of adolescent help-seekers to helplines [ 13 ]. The presence of mental health disorders, suicide and self-harm risk relied on self-report and the clinical assessments of counsellors with a range of levels of mental health training, rather than comprehensive mental health assessment with an established instrument. Help-seekers reporting romantic relationship issues as both a primary and secondary concern were included in the study, and it is unknown whether any of the concurrent mental health, suicide and/or self-harm issues reported were directly associated with the relationship issue or other additional concerns (e.g., family-related stress, peer-relationship issues) reported during their counselling session. Conclusions about the direction of the relationships reported in this study are also limited by the cross-sectional nature of the study. The limitations of the data collection system resulted in a substantial proportion of mental health, suicide and self-harm assessments marked as “unknown.” Improvements to Kids Helplines’ data reporting system to remove the use of “unknown” assessments were made subsequent to this study and are likely to benefit future research. Establishing mental disorder status using a standard instrument would also benefit future research. As data for this study draws on anonymous counselling contact records, it is not possible to differentiate between unique and repeat help-seekers; hence, reported statistics can only be equated to contacts rather than individuals. Finally, the use of a help-seeking cohort in this study limits the generalization of findings to non-help-seeking adolescents.

5. Conclusions

Despite its limitations, this study provides unique insights into the romantic concerns of adolescent help-seekers. Post-relationship concerns, especially breakups, present significant challenges for adolescents of all ages and genders, and had the strongest associations with concurrent mental health, suicide and self-harm risk. Together, these findings highlight the importance of supporting adolescents seeking help for romantic relationship concerns and the need to develop preventative and early intervention resources and programs aimed at increasing adolescents’ ability to cope with romance, particularly at the dissolution stage.

Acknowledgments

This study was primarily funded by yourtown, the providers of Kids Helpline’s counselling service ( http://www.kidshelp.com.au ). The authors wish to acknowledge their invaluable contribution in making this study possible. This project was also supported by the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre. The Young and Well CRC (youngandwellcrc.org.au) is an Australia-based, international research centre that unites young people with researchers, practitioners, innovators and policy-makers from over 70 partner organisations. Together, we explore the role of technology in young people’s lives, and how it can be used to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 12 to 25. The Young and Well CRC was established under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program. Leanne Hides is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. Finally, the authors wish to acknowledge Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck, a well-published author in the field of adolescent romance, for her guidance, advice and time given in the drafting of this paper.

Author Contributions

Megan Price conceived and designed the study and wrote the draft paper; Wendell Cockshaw analyzed the data; all authors contributed equally to writing the final paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

How Young Adult Literature Taught Me to Love Like a White Girl

Novel Gazing

I modeled my idea of romance on protagonists who, i realized later, were never quite meant for me.

Novel Gazing is Electric Literature’s personal essay series about the way reading shapes our lives. This time, we asked : What’s a book that made you fall in love?

The Prologue

My childhood best friend and I have a habit of approaching moments in our lives like scenes from books or movies (for me, it’s books, for her, movies). We envision soundtracks and meet-cutes and monologues in the rain. Now that I live in New York, every night out in the city holds the potential of a guy and an Infinite Playlist. In case you were wondering, so far I’ve been sorely disappointed.

We’ll start here. In The Clique by Lisi Harrison, a group of young, affluent white girls rule Westchester, NY with super glossy lips, fresh blowouts, and designer clothes. Led by their ruthless leader, Massie Block, they run the suburbs with unreasonably sassy attitudes and a brand of insults that could only belong to people too rich to care about how ridiculous they sound. They talk high end designers and boys they aim to conquer and it didn’t take long for me to become obsessed. In elementary school, I devoured the first book of the series in one night, curled up on the couch in front of the Christmas tree in my family’s tiny, westside Indianapolis home.

I was far from Westchester then, both physically and otherwise. I had no way of fully conceptualizing the wealth and privilege that made a story like The Clique possible, didn’t have the tools yet to unpack what whiteness and affluence meant for the way those young girls were able to navigate the world. What I knew was that I admired them, envied them even. There was something almost effortless about the way they fell in love. There was an ease with which they were able to move through their entire lives, in fact, that I just couldn’t tap into.

Massie could get a blowout and a new outfit and her world would suddenly right itself. She and her friends could plan a spa day and instantly get over whatever boy they’d made their object of desire the week prior. Summer camp wasn’t just summer camp, it was an opportunity for first loves and secret rendezvous and no camp counselor would ever be the wiser.

I bought into the fantasy. Like millions of other preteen girls all over the world, I began — whether consciously or unconsciously — to shape my understandings of romance and freedom around these images. It was a narrow picture of love and the people worthy of it. I didn’t know then what heteronormativity was, but aside from a handful of David Levithan novels (which often dealt with their own issues of centering cisgender, white narratives), I rarely saw much outside of run-of-the-mill, middle-American, white-bread, straight-to-the-point-of-cringing love stories. Boy meets girl. Girl chases boy. No one ever told me what happens when girl wants girl or girl falls in love with someone who’s neither.

I began — whether consciously or unconsciously — to shape my understandings of romance and freedom around these images.

Heterosexual, upwardly mobile white girls were the yardstick by which I measured myself — which meant I was always going to fall short. Their stories, their widespread representation were some of the most salient of my adolescence. My introduction to the emotional realities of sex was my friends and I — mostly other young women of color — in the back of the 7th grade chorus classroom, passing around a copy of Forever by Judy Blume. We giggled as we pored over the passages, both scandalized and enraptured by the story of the protagonist Katherine’s sexual awakening. None of us had yet been awakened, sexually or in any other capacity to be honest, so we found it groundbreaking in its explicitness. The book was our manifesto, our guide to what it would be like to finally Lose It. We didn’t understand yet, wouldn’t understand for years maybe, that those milestones would be different for us, because everything was different for us.

That story, as ubiquitous as it has become in the decades since it was published, portrayed a very specific experience for a very specific type of girl. A girl I would never be. But she was presented as the “coming of age” benchmark for us all.

And I modelled myself after the girls within those pages for years. They would rotate out often, when I read a new book that commanded my attention for the day or the week, but they all had at least one thing in common. They rarely, if ever, looked like me.

Though I did my best to adopt their characteristics, I never really mastered the art of how to be cute and quirky yet aloof and carefree all at once. And all of the girls, the characters that I grew up revering were the perfect cocktail of all of the above. I was intimately familiar with timidity and shame. I could manage being withdrawn and anxious. But the stuff that made up a storybook romance always eluded me.

I remember asking myself, What’s so different, so wrong about me? What was it about living inside of this body that made it so hard to move through the world as effortlessly as them? That made love and lightness so inaccessible?

We didn’t understand that those milestones would be different for us, because everything was different for us.

A friend of mine loves the movie He’s Just Not That Into You. We both did, once upon a time. We could quote it almost verbatim. There’s a monologue in the movie where Justin Long’s character, Alex, finally falls for Ginnifer Goodwin’s unlucky-in-love, Gigi. See, the whole movie he’s been her guide through the minefield of trash situationships. He tells her that girls always want to believe that they’re going to be The One who changes the guy, who makes him follow the straight and narrow path to monogamy, but they’re simply not. These girls are what he calls “the rule” and not “the exception.” After all of that though, she gets the guy and they live headassily ever after, following a scene in which Alex passionately professes (in a whisper, mind you) between kisses, You are my exception .

I was old enough by then to understand that most things in fiction would never come to fruition in my own life. I could recognize that a storybook romance may never manifest itself for me, but I was still bright-eyed enough to hope.

I attributed this, in large part, to the fact that I was — and still am, in many ways — a late bloomer. I was a nerd. And not one of those cool, cynical and abnormally precocious teenage nerds that listens to The Smiths either (here’s looking at you, Sam from The Perks of Being a Wallflower ). I was just a regular, awkward, midwestern black geek. Example one: I was the last of my friends to find myself in any semblance of a relationship (which ended with a very dramatic breakup over a basket of rolls at O’Charley’s). Example two: I had what can only be described as a panic attack the first time I ever made out with anyone. When we finally (blessedly) broke apart, I think he mistook my heavy breathing for passion instead of anxiety.

My love life back then was best characterized as a series of false starts. I got really good at ending things, especially things that never quite got off the ground to begin with. I specialized in the lines I picked up from books along the way. The goodbyes. The sign-offs. The I just can’t be what you need me to be for you ’s. The thing I never wholly managed to figure out was how to nail down the ending. That ride into the sunset that ends with the guy declaring The Motto —“you are my exception,” or some variation of the same sentiment. Maybe we don’t all get an ending like that , I thought. Maybe girls like me don’t get one .

So perhaps instead of a Gigi, I was simply cut from the same cloth as someone like Remy Starr, the protagonist from This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen. Remy had a history of loving and leaving guys. At the beginning of the novel, her schtick is that she holds men at a distance after watching a lifetime of failed romances. She even sets a limit to how long each of her relationships needed to be. Remy was everything I wanted to grow into: smart, driven, confident. She was everything but black, I figured. The thing I already was. The thing I always would be.

She was everything but black, I figured. The thing I already was. The thing I always would be.

I had been sold a dream that didn’t make room for me or girls like me. And no matter how many times I tried to imagine otherwise, the genre that I loved so much didn’t seem to love me back.

The Reckoning

I once had a close friend who was beautiful. Is beautiful, present tense, though the friendship is past tense now. She was tall and had these perfect white teeth and dark skin and great clothes. But she carried herself, in her body, with the uncertainty of someone who didn’t know these things were true — who was waiting to be told. I watched her wait, as many of us did, for the validation of boys to remind her that she was worthy of attention, of affection. Wait for some variation of the compliment that so often spilled from the mouths of guys she liked and who, maybe, in their own way liked her back: You’re pretty for a black girl .

We didn’t talk about it much, but tried to make sense of it, silently, together. It was the reality that always lingered. In this world, the one we occupied and not the one we so often imagined, our beauty would come with a caveat. We would have to wade through a countless potential partners before we would come to one — if we were lucky — who wanted us not in spite of our blackness, but because of the entire breadth of who we were.

No story had ever warned us about this. None of the girls we had fashioned ourselves after ever heard that particular line. The books that filled the school libraries in our suburban midwestern town hadn’t given me the heads up about what it looks like for young black women in the current landscape, about what my body would represent to my eventual partners and to the world.

The books that filled the school libraries hadn’t given me the heads up about what my body would represent to my eventual partners and to the world.

But still, I wished. I waited. I was well on my way to adulthood by then, but I couldn’t help but hold onto some faith that things were shifting. And they did, they have, bit by bit. Eventually the one or two books about black kids on those shelves became 10, 15. Eventually, those love stories became just a little bit easier to find. Not readily accessible by any means, but easier nonetheless. The authors that my nieces get to grow up admiring write about brands they recognize and listen to the same music as they do. They’re so much closer to the thing that I’d been looking for but rarely found. The things I’m still reckoning with, even now.

I was talking to a close friend recently about this essay. She was excited to hear about it because she has this almost religious belief in the universality of love stories. She believes that’s why we cling to them so hard. She says, They don’t look like us, but they are us . I don’t know how much I believe that, though. I don’t know how to read a story where there’s a kiss in the rain without thinking about what happens to my hair when it gets wet. I don’t know how to visualize a meet-cute at a Brooklyn coffee shop without thinking about gentrification and displaced people of color. I want to still buy into the dream. But I can’t. So I stop just short of reminding her, Just because we love it, doesn’t make it ours .

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Romeo and Juliet — Romeo and Juliet As an Example of Powerful Young Love

Romeo and Juliet as an Example of Powerful Young Love

• Categories: Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

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The Dangers of Teenage Love: Why Infatuation at a Young Age Can Be Risky

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Facts About Teen Love

• For those experiencing suicidal thoughts, please contact the  988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988
• For those experiencing abuse, please contact the Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
• For those experiencing substance use, please contact SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357

So many are quick to judge teen love, saying things like “you’re too young to know what love is” and “you’ll never last past high school.” The fact of the matter is that teen love can be an important part of growing up. For better or worse, the experiences we have with our early partners helps develop our foundation for that “true love” that many of us find ourselves looking for as adults. While teen love may not last forever, it can still be an essential part of self-discovery and provide a host of learning opportunities along the way.

The difference between teen and adult relationships

Chemistry can sometimes come easily, but when you must do the work required to make a relationship strong and long-lasting, that’s where many teens and adults fall short. This is not to say it’s their fault. Rather, they may simply lack the skills and life experience necessary to build up a relationship into a more serious one. Teens are more likely to experience shorter-term relationships and need time to learn about what makes a relationship healthy. 

Of course, some teen relationships stand the test of time. There are some couples who graduated from high school alongside one another and who stay together through college and beyond. This is incredibly rare, however, because even if they do get married right out of high school, these marriages often end in divorce. Humans are still growing mentally and emotionally up through their mid-20s, so it is easier and faster for two people with a relationship based on teenage love to grow apart.

This is not to say that two people of any age can’t grow apart – it happens time and time again. However, when you’re constantly put in new and often different situations due to education and employment, it can be harder to stick together at a younger age. Being thrown into new environments can broaden a teen’s horizons and allow them to see that they may want to explore much more than what they thought they wanted when they were still in high school.

For example, a teen may not care about their boyfriend’s career choice while they’re in high school. It’s fair for them to feel that way because normally the job isn’t as important as the skills you learn at that age. However, once they move on to college and beyond, and bills start adding up that parents aren’t around to pay, they may reevaluate their situation. Maybe they want to have children and knows that they can’t survive on their salary alone. Will their partner’s salary measure up then? Did their high school boyfriend progress at the same rate they did? This is when real life can seep in, and many teen relationships can’t survive it.

Teen love for the digital age

Teens do most everything online , so it stands to reason that social media and texting can play a significant part in how many teen relationships get started. Now, teens can send each other flirty GIFs or text messages without worrying about appearing awkward in person. All it takes nowadays is a Snapchat to get the butterflies going (“They added me on Snap – what do you think that means?!”).

It may come as no surprise, then, that most teens in relationships have reported talking at length to their partners by text every day. However, perhaps more surprising is that fewer than 10 percent of teens surveyed by the Pew Research Center have reported meeting a romantic partner online. This may have to do in large part with parents forbidding their children from meeting people in person that they have met online, which can be important for safety reasons.

While technology can bring people together and help them feel closer, it can also easily lead to disputes. A text that goes unanswered for too long or a missed post can sometimes be enough to hurt people’s feelings. A hurt girlfriend may think to themselves, “Why didn’t they respond to my text? Are they out with someone else?” Meanwhile, it may be as innocent as their boyfriend taking a nap or their text accidentally getting missed. The longer that time passes, the more excuses the girlfriend may invent in their head, leading to a major blow-up later for the confused boyfriend.

While most teens think, and rightfully so, that it is cowardly to end a relationship by text message, many have said they have been on the receiving end of such behavior. Once a relationship ends, by any means, about half of the teens surveyed by Pew have reported severing all digital ties to their former flame. This includes removing them from their address books, un-tagging photos of themselves with their partners on social media, and – perhaps the least surprising of them all – unfriending or blocking an ex.

Teen breakups

While some couples stay together for the long haul, many teen relationships break up before teens are even halfway through college. Teen relationships often break up for the same sorts of reasons, like one partner going off to college and simply realizing that life has changed so rapidly that they don’t have as much in common with their partner anymore.

Teen relationships can also outright crash and burn. In other words, when things end, they can end very passionately and poorly. This is because teenagers are still at an age where their hormones are running high, and their emotions are still maturing. What can often make things worse is when their parents and other adults in their lives belittle their feelings and downplay the breakup.

Parents can be much more helpful and supportive by reassuring their children that their feelings about the breakup are normal and that they will be there for their children in any way they are needed. If you are a parent, try to encourage your child to talk to you about how they are feeling. Talking it out alone can be immensely therapeutic. If your child expresses that a breakup is interfering with their studies and other daily activities, you may want to consider getting them professional help  from a mental health expert. A counselor can help teens who are facing challenges with love and other common teenage problems.

Dating violence and teens

Since passion runs high with teens, often so does anger. Anger can come out in quite unhealthy ways, and what makes it more dangerous for teens is that they often don’t realize that what they’re experiencing is, in fact, abuse. This extends to their parents who can’t know their children are being abused because their children don’t realize it and can’t tell them. The teens who realize it may be too afraid to say anything, which can have detrimental results.

What many teens may not know is that dating violence extends to digital communication. So, if someone is tearing them apart on social media or in a text or email chain, this is considered a form of abuse. Put another way, someone does not need to be standing right in front of you to be subjecting you to dating violence. In fact, stalking is a form of dating violence which certainly does not need to happen right in front of you to be considered a major issue. Teens can also be subjected to dating violence from someone they are not currently dating.

According to the CDC, in a survey conducted in 2015, about twelve percent of high school-age girls and seven percent of boys reported being subjected to physical violence. Sixteen percent of those girls surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual violence within that past year alone, as did five percent of boys. Teens who are subjected to dating violence can develop both long-term and short-term effects from such exposure, including:

• Engaging in risky behavior, including promiscuity, or using drugs or alcohol
• Thinking about or attempting suicide
• Exhibiting symptoms of depression and anxiety

Online counseling with Regain

Has your teen started dating for the first time, and you’re worried about the types of people they’re pursuing? Are you a survivor of intimate violence? In either of these cases and more, connecting with an online therapist through Regain could be beneficial. Abusive relationships can be isolating and make it difficult for people to know where to turn. Whether you’d like to talk through phone calls, video chats, or in-app messaging, you can choose sessions with your therapist that fit into your free time. 

The efficacy of online counseling 

Those who have been subjected to intimate partner violence (IPV) or other types of abuse may benefit from online therapy, according to one study . In an assessment of an internet-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention for survivors of IPV, researchers found that participants experienced statistically significant reductions in PTSD, depression, and anxiety. They also showed improvements in their quality of life. 

The teen years can be formative for one’s dating life and future relationships. A positive dating experience can lead to healthy relationships down the road, while a negative experience could create lasting mental health effects and contribute to unhealthy relationships. Parents can be instrumental in the dating process by teaching their teens about safe behaviors and healthy traits to look for in a significant other. If you or your teenager has been subjected to violence or abuse, it can be vital to seek support. Regain can connect you with an online therapist to help you process the experience and move forward toward happier, healthier relationships.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is teenage love so intense?

Teen love  (also known as  young love and puppy love) tends to be very intense because the teenage brain isn’t fully developed yet. The brain’s executive functions are still developing. So, teens lack inhibitions when it comes to falling in love–meaning they go “all in” on a relationship much sooner than the average adult would. Also, teenagers typically don’t have baggage to bring to a relationship, so they’re much more open to love. Fluctuating hormones can also play a part in the intensity of teen love. In many cases, teen love is not “true love.” However, it’s possible for teens to fall “in love,” though this may not be the same as having true love for someone.

Does teenage love last?

Although teen love can last, most of the time it does not. Adolescence is a time of experimentation and trying out new things, so it’s normal for a teen relationship to be shorter than the average adult relationship. Falling in love is exciting, but this kind of love is not generally the type of love that serious long-term relationships have. As the infatuation wears off, teen love sometimes (but not often) turns into true love. Teenagers tend to be more focused on attraction than closeness or commitment, leading to shorter relationships. True love relationships, on the other hand, have chemistry, closeness, and commitment.

Can you stop loving someone if you truly love them?

If you truly love someone, then that love does not go away easily. Think about loved ones or pets who have passed away; your love for them doesn’t fade simply because they’re not around anymore. It can also be important to note that loving someone is different from being “in love” with them. Being in love is typically a combination of lust and infatuation, and over time it can develop into real love. If you truly love someone, then you cannot simply choose to stop loving them. You can, however, work toward it and experience that love fading over time. 

Why do I obsess over crushes?

To a certain extent, it’s normal to feel  obsessed with a crush, especially when it comes to teen love. However, an overpowering obsession with your crush may indicate that you have an unhealthy attachment style. People who grew up with unstable or unloving parents can become obsessive, controlling, and fearful about losing the people they care about. While this is not your fault, it can be important to recognize unhealthy tendencies in yourself so that you can work to change them into healthier ones. If you feel like you’re at a loss or can’t work through things on your own, talking with a counselor or therapist could help.

Is teenage love good or bad?

There are plenty of opinions regarding whether puppy love is a good thing or a bad thing overall when it comes to teens and dating. As with most things, there can be both benefits and drawbacks to teen love. Teenage romantic relationships typically reflect the type of relationships teens had with their parents growing up. These romantic relationships also set the stage for the types of relationships the teens will have in the future. Therefore, they can be a powerful learning experience. Dating teaches teenagers about others, and it prepares them for more serious relationships down the line. Improved social skills and new interests can also arise from teen love–we often discover stuff we love through others.

One often overlooked risk of teen love is partner violence. (If you ever feel unsafe in your relationship or if your partner is abusive, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) at any time for immediate support.) About one in five high school girls report physical or sexual harm from a dating partner. Some research shows that dating as a teenager is correlated with higher rates of depression, delinquency, alcohol misuse, and problems at school and with parents.

• 13 Signs You Know How to Love Yourself
• “Is This Real Love?” Five Facts About Love To Help You Find The Answer

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Definition Essay: Love

Love is something that means very different things to different people. For some, love can be purely romantic, or even purely sexual. For others, real love is utterly unconditional and only truly exists between family members, or between people and a deity. And for some people, love is fluid, ever changing, and everywhere, and is felt for family, friends, partners, pets, and even inanimate objects, dead artists, and fictional characters. None of these people would be right or wrong, but one thing is certain: love is the most powerful force in the entire universe.

Between partners of any description, be they married or cohabiting, boyfriend and girlfriend, straight or gay, young or old, love is a relationship of mutual understanding and respect. Marriages and partnerships are often built on common ground that people find when they first meet; this can be as deep as sharing religious, philosophical or religious beliefs, or as simple as finding that you love the same film, book, or band.

This kind of love is often reliant on some kind of ‘chemistry’: that strange feeling that they give you in the pit of your stomach, and the feeling that nothing in the world is more important to you than enjoying the moment you’re in together. Some people feel that they experience love at first sight, where they know from the minute they set eyes on each other that they want to to be with that person, but something built on common interests and understanding must be stronger.

A parent’s love for a child can also often be described as love at first sight, but this is very strong because it comes from a natural instinct to protect our offspring. This love can often start before the baby is even born: you only have to look at the pride and excitement of many parents-to-be when they have their scans and feel their baby kick for the very first time. This kind of love is also felt by a child for its mother; it is unconditional for at least the first few years of life, and can also be felt between siblings.

It is the strength of this feeling that makes love the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some dreadful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. And it is often love that can cause us to hate, whether it’s out of jealousy, or anger because our loved one has been hurt. Love, ultimately, is a sacrifice, whatever the relationship, and it must be the most powerful force in the universe because as human beings, we make true sacrifices for nothing less.

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Essay on Love for Students and Children

500+ words essay on love.

Love is the most significant thing in human’s life. Each science and every single literature masterwork will tell you about it. Humans are also social animals. We lived for centuries with this way of life, we were depended on one another to tell us how our clothes fit us, how our body is whether healthy or emaciated. All these we get the honest opinions of those who love us, those who care for us and makes our happiness paramount.

What is Love?

Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. So, for example, a person might say he or she loves his or her dog, loves freedom, or loves God. The concept of love may become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love has a variety of feelings, emotions, and attitude. For someone love is more than just being interested physically in another one, rather it is an emotional attachment. We can say love is more of a feeling that a person feels for another person. Therefore, the basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Need of Love

We know that the desire to love and care for others is a hard-wired and deep-hearted because the fulfillment of this wish increases the happiness level. Expressing love for others benefits not just the recipient of affection, but also the person who delivers it. The need to be loved can be considered as one of our most basic and fundamental needs.

One of the forms that this need can take is contact comfort. It is the desire to be held and touched. So there are many experiments showing that babies who are not having contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Significance of Love

Love is as critical for the mind and body of a human being as oxygen. Therefore, the more connected you are, the healthier you will be physically as well as emotionally. It is also true that the less love you have, the level of depression will be more in your life. So, we can say that love is probably the best antidepressant.

It is also a fact that the most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also become self-focused and hence making themselves less attractive to others.

Society and Love

It is a scientific fact that society functions better when there is a certain sense of community. Compassion and love are the glue for society. Hence without it, there is no feeling of togetherness for further evolution and progress. Love , compassion, trust and caring we can say that these are the building blocks of relationships and society.

Relationship and Love

A relationship is comprised of many things such as friendship , sexual attraction , intellectual compatibility, and finally love. Love is the binding element that keeps a relationship strong and solid. But how do you know if you are in love in true sense? Here are some symptoms that the emotion you are feeling is healthy, life-enhancing love.

Love is the Greatest Wealth in Life

Love is the greatest wealth in life because we buy things we love for our happiness. For example, we build our dream house and purchase a favorite car to attract love. Being loved in a remote environment is a better experience than been hated even in the most advanced environment.

Love or Money

Love should be given more importance than money as love is always everlasting. Money is important to live, but having a true companion you can always trust should come before that. If you love each other, you will both work hard to help each other live an amazing life together.

Love has been a vital reason we do most things in our life. Before we could know ourselves, we got showered by it from our close relatives like mothers , fathers , siblings, etc. Thus love is a unique gift for shaping us and our life. Therefore, we can say that love is a basic need of life. It plays a vital role in our life, society, and relation. It gives us energy and motivation in a difficult time. Finally, we can say that it is greater than any other thing in life.

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I Give You an Onion: The Poetry of Duffy and Hill

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In 2000, I began a music degree at Leeds College of Music, studying trumpet performance. I lived in a shared house with five other students—a classical singer, a flautist, and three guitarists. I had two single mattresses that I pushed together to make a giant bed. I fell in love with a trumpet player and told him how much I loved poetry. I showed him my favorite poem, “Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy , and said I wanted to be in love like that. I read part of the poem to him:

I give you an onion. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises light like the careful undressing of love.

For my birthday, he bought me Duffy’s The World’s Wife , published the previous year. He gave it to me, wrapped up, with another gift—an onion.

“Valentine” appeared in Duffy’s previous collection, Mean Time (1993). Mean Time is a perfectly formed jewel of a collection. Whereas most poets might manage to not put a foot wrong in one or two poems, somehow Duffy manages this over a whole book. She excels at what Jonathan Culler calls one of the traditional functions of the lyric poem—allowing the past to be “explicitly pulled into the lyric present.” The first poem in the collection, “The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team,” sets out Duffy’s stall in its intimate rendering of the voice of a teenage girl at a particular time, in a particular place. This continues in other poems, like “Stafford Afternoons,” which seamlessly blends childhood and danger. It was Duffy who showed me that life is art, and art is life. In “Close,” she writes: “In the dark journey of our night/two childhoods stand in the corner of the bedroom/watching the way we take each other to bits/to stare at our heart.” Many of Duffy’s most anthologized poems can be found in this collection—poems like “Small Female Skull,” which manages to be both surreal and hyper-real:

With some surprise, I balance my small female skull in my hands. What is it like? An ocarina? Blow in its eye. It cannot cry, holds my breath only as long as I exhale, mildly alarmed now, into the hole where the nose was, press my ear to its grin. A vanishing sigh.

The final lyrics in the collection, “Mean Time” and “Prayer,” remind me of an orchestral diminuendo—a diminuendo so controlled, so quietly urgent that I’m left straining my ears to hear the final breath, minutes after the poems have finished speaking.

Duffy once said: “A poem can say in so few words something so precious and startling that it almost enters us.” Mean Time entered me—the collection as a whole, but especially the title poem. Walking home late at night from rehearsals, I told the darkening sky that “The clocks slid back an hour/and stole light from my life.” After an argument with the trumpet player, I cried on the bus and whispered to myself: “I felt my heart gnaw at all our mistakes.” And when he left to work as a musician on a cruise ship for six months, I was nothing if not dramatic, writing over and over in my notebook: “These are the shortened days/and the endless nights.”

In 2002, halfway through my music degree, the local Borders bookshop began to stock Selima Hill. Up to this point, their poetry shelves included mostly canonical texts, alongside works by a few contemporary authors—Duffy, Billy Collins , and Charles Bukowski . I wasn’t part of any poetry groups, and didn’t know anyone else who even read poetry, so it was a coincidence that the cover of Portrait of My Lover as a Horse caught my eye—bright orange, with a picture of a horse standing in what looked like a rather grand living room. Most importantly, it had the word lover . I’d led a sheltered enough life for that to feel radical, thrilling—this word on the cover of a book, and a book by a woman, at that.

I read the book cover to cover on the bus on the way home, and then again before I went to sleep. I liked that all the poems had titles that started “Portrait of My Lover as [ ... ].” I loved the transformations that the lover went through in the course of the collection—from a bag of sweets to a goat, from a goat to a bungalow, from a bungalow to a nipple. That the lover was addressed as “O Lord” sometimes confused me. I didn’t know anything about the metaphysical tradition of poetry back then, but I understood that the lover was sometimes worshipped, sometimes despised, ignored, dismissed. I argued with the trumpet player again. I still couldn’t bring myself to call him my lover, but I sent him Hill’s “Portrait of My Lover with a Bag of Sweets” in a text.

Whenever you think I think I need a lover, stop yourself. I don’t. I need sweets.

I read “Portrait of My Lover as a Nipple” and realized I’d never said the word nipple out loud before. The poem pleads with the lover to transform, at first into an ear or “anything modest like that,/anything mute,/that I can lie down beside,/and whisper to,” and then asks the lover to transform into “the ear of a calf,/or a freckled astronomer,” before suggesting that they might become “a tea-bag or herb-bag or old-fashioned lavender-bag.” The poem ends: “I would like you, Lord, to become,/not an ear, like I said/but a little brown nipple./Can you manage that?”

When I read this collection for the first time, I was young and was used to transforming myself to please others, particularly sexual partners. The transformation of the lover into various objects, bodies, and material states, while the speaker—the “I,”—remained stable, felt radical. The way Hill’s speaker changes her mind, asking the lover to be one thing, and then another, and then another, and, in that asking, creates what she desires, felt incendiary. It still feels incendiary.

The trumpet player, the lover who once gave me a perfectly wrapped onion, did not turn up with a bag of sweets. I’m not sure if that’s how I knew it was ending, or if that is just the story I’ve created about that time.

I have been tasked with writing about two UK poets, Selima Hill and Carol Ann Duffy. Both poets have been hugely important to my development as a writer, and to British poetry more broadly. Their debut collections—Hill’s Saying Hello at the Station , Duffy’s Standing Female Nude —were published only one year apart, in 1984 and 1985, respectively, yet they are radically different writers. They have both had their brushes with royalty—Duffy served as the UK Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019, Hill was awarded the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2023.

Duffy’s debut contained a mixture of lyric poems and dramatic monologues. The title poem is in the voice of an art model and begins: “Six hours like this for a few francs./Belly nipple arse in the window light,/he drains the colour from me.” Another monologue, “Education for Leisure,” is spoken by a disaffected, violent young man. The poem opens: “Today I am going to kill something. Anything./I have had enough of being ignored and today/I am going to play God.” An overzealous examiner, Pat Schofield, complained about the poem, calling it “absolutely horrendous,” and claimed it could glorify violence, leading the exam board to ask schools to destroy the anthology in which the poem had appeared. Duffy responded with “Mrs Schofield’s GCSE,” which was published in a national newspaper, and later in her 2011 collection, The Bees . Her riposte begins “You must prepare your bosom for his knife/said Portia to Antonio in which/of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,/insane with jealousy?” Duffy’s commitment to what Deryn Rees Jones calls the “revisionary strategy of recasting myth” was how I first came to know her work.

Hill’s writing has always been characterized by her original approach to the image. Her images are always three dimensional, like sculptures. We don’t just see them, we feel them, too. Opening Portrait of My Lover as a Horse (2002) at random, I find “Portrait of My Lover as a Cockroach”—a four-line poem quoted in its entirety here:

You kiss me like a scratchy little cockroach scuttling across a concrete floor in a wedding dress.

In an interview with Julia Copus, Hill said: “I prefer ‘sensory’ to visual. In fact, things like weight, temperature, viscosity, smell, I would say, are also my subjects.” There is nothing linear about Hill’s work, as she puts it: “I am ‘perseverative: I just go on and on. Plot, no; patterns, yes.’” There is a recurrence of objects and animals: The same flamingo will appear in multiple poems. Mosquitoes make their way from collection to collection. Sherbet lemons and cows appear and reappear. One needs to fully immerse oneself in her work in order to experience Hill’s poetry—its fragmentariness, its circling, obsessive nature, its repetitiveness that is not quite straight repetition.

If this were a well-behaved essay, by now I would have outlined some facts about these two poets. Duffy has published eight collections, her most recent being Sincerity (2018). Hill’s latest, her twenty-first collection, is Women in Comfortable Shoes (2023), and she has a new pamphlet forthcoming, The Bed (2024). Duffy was the United Kingdom’s first female poet laureate, the first openly gay poet in the post. She grew up in Liverpool and works at Manchester Metropolitan University as a professor in creative writing (where I, too, work). Facts about Hill’s life are more difficult to ascertain. She grew up in a family of painters. She was almost killed in a fire as a child. She was selectively mute for much of her twenties. She has spent time in psychiatric hospitals.

My copy of Duffy’s The World’s Wife is one of the few hardback poetry collections I own. There are earnest annotations over most of the poems. The first poem, “Little Red-Cap,” has the most markings—phrases underlined and observations written in pencil in the margins. That version of me from twenty years ago underlined “birds are the uttered thoughts of trees,” a line that made the world come alive in a way I hadn’t noticed before. After reading it, I knew the trees were talking when the birds were flying.

“Little Red-Cap” is a rewrite of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood.” In Duffy’s version, Little Red-Cap willingly follows the wolf into the woods to his lair, with its whole wall “crimson, gold, aglow with books.” She stays with him for ten years, until she realizes that “a greying wolf/howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out.” After this epiphany, Little Red-Cap takes an axe to the wolf (after practicing first on a willow and a fish) and finds her grandmother’s bones. Duffy’s Little Red-Cap does more than survive—she resists and escapes. The poem finishes, “Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.”

Reading this poem was perhaps the first time I realized that the world was made up of patterns, of structures, the first time I recognized my world in a poem, a poem in my world. In my world, in our world, the world of the music conservatoire, masters are often male and a master could be a greying wolf, or worse. A master could also be benign. It was all a matter of luck. How to get through all of this, and still be taken seriously as a musician, as a person? How to get through it and still take yourself seriously?

At music college, I auditioned for a dance band. I was ecstatic when I got the gig. I turned up at the venue to be handed a shimmering, snakeskin dress. Worse than the dress was the matching choker. It felt like a collar around my neck. The male musicians were given black tuxedos to wear. None of the other women complained about the outfit. I felt like a prude. I swallowed my shame, pretended I didn’t care, that it was funny. Did I get the gig because I could play, or because of how I looked? Because they needed one more snake-girl with a collar around her neck, or because (as one of my teachers put it) I could sight-read “shit on a page”? I don’t know the answer. How to get through moments like this, nights like this? The dress glittering in my hands. Shame burning my cheeks. Following the wolf to the cave. The riskiness of living, of working like that.

The World’s Wife was the collection that brought Duffy widespread fame, reaching an audience far beyond poetry. Some of the poems give voice to women who are already named in myths and fairy tales, while others tell a different story through the voices of the wives of famous men. I hadn’t read much Greek mythology back in 2000, so I spent time searching out the original stories, and then reading Duffy’s versions. I felt a visceral shock each time I saw how her version pulled out the inherent sexism, the violence, the brutal misogyny, and held it up to the light. The World’s Wife taught me that poetry could change the way we see the world, that it could change me, that it mattered who tells the story. So, it is no exaggeration when I say The World’s Wife changed my life.

The World’s Wife also depicts women who take revenge, who murder, who don’t wait to be rescued. In “Queen Herod,” it is the queen who sends the soldiers out to kill all the baby boys who might break her daughter’s heart one day. In “Mrs. Aesop,” the speaker manages to silence her boring husband by playing him at his own game, twisting his well-worn proverbs to her own sharp-tongued ends:

               I gave him a fable one night about a little cock that wouldn’t crow, a razor-sharp axe with a heart blacker than the pot that called the kettle. I’ll cut off your tail, all right , I said, to save my face . That shut him up. I laughed last, longest.

What does it mean to be abjected, or shamed, yet to refuse that shame and abjection and move past them? What does it mean to be a self in a world that often tries to objectify the self? How can we truly know ourselves? Hill’s poetry asks these questions over and over again. In “What It Feels Like to Feel Like Me,” from The Sparkling   Jewel of   Naturism (2014), which explores the world of young girls, she writes:

It feels like my body has been trampled on by herds of knitted cattle with felt ears— which leaves me feeling curiously elated for having been mistaken for a field.

Much of Hill’s writing, as Emily Berry points out, is about “roles and the ways in which we inhabit or refuse them.” So much of her work refuses to be pacified, refuses to sit still. She uses simile and metaphor as a mode of discovery, transporting the reader, and herself, into the unknown. I read Hill’s poems and feel delight—for her daring, for the way she pushes past where a lesser poet might stop. Here she is in “Please Can I Have a Man”:

Who, when I come trotting in from the bathroom like a squealing freshly-scrubbed piglet that likes nothing better than a binge of being affectionate and undisciplined and uncomplicated, opens his arms like a trough for me to dive into.

It’s difficult to show her mastery of simile and metaphor and the distances she journeys with them, because I would have to quote whole poems. Another favorite of mine is “Ostriches,” from Men Who Feed Pigeons (2021), which begins: “They run all night like dreamers in a dream.” By the end of the poem the ostriches are “not only young but beautiful, like me,/staring at myself in the mirror/while everybody else is at the funeral.”

I’m supervising a student who wants to write neuroqueer poetry. I suggest she looks at poems by Hill to examine how a neurodiverse approach is captured in poetry, and Duffy to explore her love poems addressed to women. I talk to the student about how poetry can map the movement of the mind. I recommend Denise Levertov ’s 1975 essay “On the Function of the Line,” in which Levertov writes about using line breaks to catch the minute hesitations and pauses in the way that we think and speak. I show her Levertov’s poem “ In Mind ,” and have to stop myself from getting too excited when I say, Look, this is the movement of Levertov’s mind, on the page, mapped out by a poem . I ask the student to think about what the neuroqueer mind would look like, what her own mind looks like. Can she map it? We talk about Hill’s use of patterning, about the absence of linear narratives. We talk about obsessions.

The alphabet is the governing structure of Hill’s Portrait of My Lover as a Horse , which tracks ambivalence and passion, disinterest and desire, eschewing a through-narrative in favor of a lover’s ongoing transformations. Duffy’s prize-winning Rapture (2005) also tracks the course of a passionate affair, though we are left to piece the narrative together from mostly short, lyric poems. In both Rapture and Portrait of My Lover as a Horse , the body of the beloved is everything. For Duffy, the beloved and the act of being in love change the world. In “Absence,” she writes: “Then the birds stitching the dawn with their song/have patterned your name./Then the green bowl of the garden filling with light/is your gaze.” For Hill, it is the body of the lover that changes, moves, and reconfigures—not the world, but the space between lovers. In “Portrait of My Lover as an Engineer,” she writes:

You crawl towards me like an engineer who works all night in dangerous passages crying out for love in ancient languages.

Duffy’s collection Sincerity , written during her tenure as poet laureate, includes many “public-facing” poems that comment on the politics of the time with her trademark wit. “Swearing In” is a kenning-style takedown of Trump that opens: “Combover, thatch-fraud, rug-rogue, laquer-lout”; it finishes with “Mandrake Mymmerkin, welcome to the White House.” British politicians are not let off the hook, either. “Swearing In” is closely followed by “A Formal Complaint,” in which the architects of Brexit are referred to as “Tosser” and “Chancer.”

Much to the dismay of a reporter writing for the Daily Mail , Duffy did not write a poem for the Queen’s anniversary; instead, she wrote a poem called “Stone Love” to celebrate Tracey Emin’s announcement that she had married a stone. The poem starts: “I married a tall, dark, handsome stone/in its lichen suit.” The poem walks the line beautifully between Duffy’s trademark lyricism (“Gulls laughed in a blue marquee of air”) and her irreverent wit (“my vows/my business and the stone’s”).

Hill’s most recent book, Women in Comfortable Shoes , comprises eleven sequences—atypical of the shape of much of her work, which is often made up of many short poems grouped together to form a kind of fragmented narrative. A précis on the back of the collection outlines what each sequence is about. For example, the first sequence, “Fishface,” is about “a disobedient young girl” who “is sent to a Catholic convent school to give her mother a break”; in “Dressed and Sobbing,” “a woman is surprised to find herself getting older and lazier.” These fictionalized narrative frameworks seem to allow Hill the distance to avoid exposure of the self, while also giving her the freedom to explore aspects of the female experience. Her work is often described as surreal, but I don’t think this is quite accurate, and it’s not a label she embraces. She is a poet of interiority, her own and that of other people. She writes about the interior as if it is on display for everyone to see, as if her way of seeing into the heart of things is utterly ordinary.

In “Sketch of the Past,” Virginia Woolf asserts that life can be divided into “cotton-wool, or non-being” moments, and “exceptional moments,” or “moments of being”; the latter are often shocking, sometimes revelatory, even epiphanic. Woolf suggests that most of life is made up of “cotton-wool moments” but that “behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern.” For me, Hill is the supreme poet of the “moment of being,” a poet who reveals the pattern that Woolf points to. In “Gravel in Our Hair,” a poem in the voice of a young girl, Hill writes: “we never stop perfecting our somersaults/because we know how good perfection feels.” Her poems are never mere anecdotes. This is not just a memory of practicing somersaults, but a true “moment of being” about the search for perfection and how it shapes and damages us.

I hope you’ve reached this point, which doesn’t really feel like a conclusion, or an ending, and want to read more of both Hill and Duffy. There are collections I’ve not even mentioned here, movements in their respective work I’ve barely touched upon.

I will leave you with an excerpt from “Last Post” by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem starts “If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin/that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud.” And later:

You lean against a wall, your several million lives still possible  ......................................................... If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would.

Selima Hill’s “Portrait of My Lover with a Bag of Sweets” and “Portrait of My Lover as a Cockroach” from Portrait of My Lover as a Horse (Bloodaxe Books, 2002) by Selima Hill, reproduced with permission of Bloodaxe Books.

Kim Moore was born in Leicester, England. Her first chapbook If We Could Speak Like Wolves was a winner in the 2011 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, and went on to be shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award and the Lakeland Book of the Year. She is the author of the...

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‘Young Love’: Everything We Know So Far About Kid Cudi and Issa Rae’s Max Series

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What christina hall revealed about 'the flip off' before josh hall divorce, 's.w.a.t.' season 8 just added a 'chicago fire' star to the cast, quick links, when does young love come out, where can you watch young love, does young love have a trailer, who is starring in 'young love', what is 'young love' about, who is making 'young love', is hair love available to watch on streaming.

Kid Cudi , Issa Rae , and the rest of a talented cast and crew are set to capture hearts and minds with their new animated family sitcom, Young Love . In 2020, filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry took home an Academy Award for his work on the critically acclaimed animated short film, Hair Love . The simple, effective, and heart-warming short story saw a father try to do the near-impossible task of fixing up his daughter's hair in the morning. The short film completely stands on its own as a short and sweet Oscar winner, but now it's clear that Matthew A. Cherry isn't done telling stories about this family.

RELATED: This Is Why Issa Rae Wanted to Do 'Barbie' Despite Her IP-Fatigue

That's because Hair Love is getting a sequel with Young Love - a new animated series that will continue the everyday adventures of the short's father and daughter as well as the rest of their loving family. While life always seems to give them plenty of challenges, the Youngs always manage to overcome them by celebrating what makes them outstanding and unique. To learn more about the Hair Love sequel series, its cast, trailer, release date, and more, here is everything we know about Young Love .

Season 1 of Young Love is set to be a total of 12 episodes long, with them all released over the course of a three-week period. The first four episodes of the series will premiere on Thursday, September 21, 2023, with the following four episodes premiering on Thursday, September 28, 2023, and the final four episodes premiering on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

All twelve Young Love Season 1 episodes will be available to stream exclusively on Max. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streaming service has amassed quite a collection of solid animated content, especially when it comes to adult animation like DC's Harley Quinn and Adult Swim's Rick and Morty . That said, the streaming platform also has more family-friendly options with the hugely underrated My Adventures with Superman and the recent WB Animation revival Tiny Toons Looniversity .

Max and Sony Pictures Animation released the first trailer for Young Love on September 12th , and it wastes no time introducing the three main characters the series will follow. They consist of music producer Stephen Young (Kid Cudi), hairdresser Angela Young, and their young student daughter Zuri Young ( Brooke Monroe Conaway ). While the two parents struggle with their own career problems, they still make plenty of time to make sure their beloved daughter has the best childhood possible.

Before the release of the initial trailer, Max and Sony Pictures Animation dropped the first official clip for Young Love . Much like the Academy Award-winning short film that inspired it, the clip for Young Love sees Zuri getting ready for her day by doing her hair. Since her mother is an experienced hairdresser, this seems like an easy task for Angela. Angela is proud of her work, but Zuri feels her mother's style isn't hers. Thankfully, her dad is now much more experienced in doing his daughter's hair, as he gives her one much more suited to her tastes—the clip then ends with what is presumably Young Love 's catchy opening credits sequence.

Co-leads Kid Cudi and Issa Rae lead the cast of Young Love as Stephen and Angela respectively. Kid Cudi is a two-time Grammy winner who has also found quite a bit of success in the acting world, having previously starred in the cult-favorite horror hit X as well as the visually stunning animated film Entergalactic . Comedian, writer, and actress Issa Rae has enjoyed an incredibly successful acting career as well, being the mind behind the hit HBO series Insecure and having recently starred in two of 2023's biggest films, those being Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Barbie .

Playing Stephen and Angela's young daughter is relative newcomer Brooke Monroe Conaway , who previously starred in Soul Santa and Sesame Street . Rounding out the main cast of the Young family are Zuri's grandparents, Russell and Gigi. Russell will by played by Man of Steel star Harry Lennix and Gigi will be played by Grey's Anatomy star Loretta Devine .

The rest of the Season 1 cast of Young Love includes Sheryl Lee Ralph ( Abbott Elementary ), Tamar Braxton ( Being Mary Jane ), Jorena Jorge ( Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion ), Debra Wilson ( My Adventures with Superman ), and Mara Junot ( My Dad the Bounty Hunter ).

When Young Love was officially announced by Warner Bros. Discovery , creator Matthew A. Cherry shared the following description of the Hair Love sequel's plot:

“I am beyond excited to continue telling the story of Stephen, Angela and Zuri and further explore the family dynamics of a young Black millennial family we established in our short film Hair Love as an animated series. Couldn’t ask for better partners in Sony Pictures Animation and HBO Max in helping us get Young Love out to the world.”

Young Love is created by Academy Award-winner Matthew A. Cherry, whose reputable work goes well beyond the Oscar-winning Hair Love . In addition to creating the short film and its sequel series, Matthew A. Cherry has executive produced the Oscar-winning BlacKkKlansman and directed several hit shows such as Abbott Elementary and Black-ish . Joining Cherry in the writer's room are Breannah Gibson ( Bigger ) and Willie Hunter ( The Carmichael Show ).

While likely not required viewing to enjoy Young Love , some may be interested in watching the Academy Award-winning short that inspired the series before it premieres. If so, then you're in luck! Not only is Hair Love available to watch in its entirety online, but it's also available to watch completely free of charge. Sony Pictures Animation posted the short film on its official YouTube channel, and if the 100+ million views on the video are any indication, it's quite a popular short. You can watch the full Hair Love short below:

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It was an ordinary weekend with my grandmother, us making mango ice cream by hand at her large table in Kolkata. “You know I was married to a terrible man. Your grandfather killed all my dreams and made me, a college-educated woman, have five children against my will and cook all day.” With these words, my 80-year-old grandmother took her husband of 60 years, a man revered for his scholarly presence and success, off the pedestal. Her confession elevated my standard for love. That day I vowed to shine bright and never let a man or marriage dim my light. — Gargi Sen

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Boniface was the artist-in-residence at my hotel in Arusha, Tanzania. When I said I’d be leaving the next day to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, he set his paintbrush down. “I’m proud of you.” His statement was both honey and venom. The one thing I yearned to hear from my emotionally unavailable father was uttered by a stranger. “Well, I haven’t done it yet,” I said. I was nursing a sore Achilles, frightened, doubting my abilities. “You’ve already done the hard part,” he said. “You’re here. Now you just need to walk up a mountain.” Those words guided me to the summit. — Maggie Downs

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