Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Teen Scene on Romance

If you were privy to my Facebook feed, you'd know I see a lot of teen drama go down via the internet.  It can be so interesting (and seriously funny to me, though I know it's not to them) to watch the exchanges fire back and forth.

One thing in particular I've noticed about teenage girls:  It's all about the romance.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Teen_love.jpg

The progression every few months goes like this:

Teen 1:  "I'm fine on my own, don't need a man to make me happy!  Life is goooood!"
Teen 2 response:  "I'm so happy for you, you go girl!  You don't need anyone."
Teen 3 response:  "That's right, girl, we don't need nobody."

A month or so later:

Teen 1:  "He makes me so happy, I've never felt so good.  I don't know how I'd live without him!  <3 [boy's initials]
Teen 2 response:  "Awww, that's so sweet.  You'll be together forever!"
Teen 1 response:  "I feel so lucky to have found him at such a young age!  <3 [boy's initials]
Teen 3 response:  "I'm so happy for you!"

Another month or so later:

Teen 1:  Song lyrics to the effect of, "My broken heart will never beat again.  I'll never be happy again.  The skies will always be BLACK. </3"
Teen 2 response:  "You're too good for him.  He doesn't deserve you!"
Teen 3 response:  "Let's kick his ass!"


Rinse and repeat.

My point?  When teens are in the moment, everything is very much exaggerated.  All the emotions run through them at a much faster and more fierce level than they do an adult.  So when you're writing romance scenes for teenagers, you have to keep that in mind.  Remember that they live fully in the moment, without much thought to what could happen tomorrow.  (I'll put a disclaimer here that nothing is true for everyone, this is just an observance I've made on teens via Facebook.)

Have any of you seen exchanges like this go down via social networking?  It makes me chuckle and shake my head, but then it also sends me running back to my WIP to dig a little deeper into that endless depth of emotion teen girls seem to have.

10 comments:

LM Preston said...

Oh my goodness yes! With teens of my own I see my share of online drama.

erica and christy said...

I once mentioned that the teens I know on FB never post anything and someone pointed out that you can somehow block your posts from going to certain adults. :(

But I do have some 30-somethings on my feed that act just like this!
erica

Nicole Zoltack said...

Emotions are so heightened when your a teenager! Everything is either really high or really low. There are no in betweens.

Alicia Gregoire said...

I'm laughing because Hub's 14 yo half-sister posts like this daily. I think teens on FB are the kings of cryptic FB posts.

Meredith McCardle said...

Oh yes, I have seen a lot of that. Younger cousins and all. Sometimes I just want to pat them on the shoulder and tell them things are going to be fine, that this is not the end of the world, but I have my breath. They won't believe me, just as 16-year-old me didn't believe it when people tried to tell me.

Pam Harris said...

LOL--this is SO true! The majority of the drama I see in the guidance office circles back to social networking--and most of them are due to messages like the ones in this post. :)

Marquita Hockaday said...

I see this happen everyday in my classroom and the halls! Teenage girls are so fickle...and so totally caught up in their boyfriends and relationship status. I remember those times...

Anonymous said...

Love this! When I re-read my teen journals, every other page is about how I'd been wronged by so-and-so guy...all these years later, I don't even remember half these people, but back then it was MAJOR...haha

Hannah said...

OMG Yes, This. Love this post!

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