A time when relationships were simple

By Ashley Ritchie

The other day I was looking through an old bag of mine and found a necklace that my sixth grade "boyfriend" had given me. As I sat looking at it, I realized what a truly precious necklace it actually is.

The necklace is a 14 carat gold heart, yes 14 carats even for a sixth grader, with a beautiful red stone in the middle. It was a remarkably priceless gift that made me question why my relationships now are not as simple as they used to be. Maybe the problem is everything has just become too complicated.

I remember the day that Tyler, my sixth grade boyfriend, went to buy my Christmas present. He called me from the mall with his mother and asked me if I had my ears pierced. I did not, so he opted to buy me the necklace instead. He spent all of the money that he had accumulated from his allowance on me, his 11-year-old girlfriend of about three months. It is amazing how generous we once were with our resources.

Do you remember the time when you had that boyfriend or girlfriend in elementary school that you thought you were definitely going to marry? Well, for me this was Tyler. I was undoubtedly fixated on the idea that Tyler was someday going to ask me to marry him and whisk me off my feet and we would live somewhere in Minnesota with our three kids and two dogs. In reality, it wasn't such a foolish thought for that point of time. In sixth grade, all I had to worry about was keeping my diary hidden in a safe place, making sure that all of my best friends would be able to attend my slumber parties, and whether or not my mom was going to be on time to pick me up from school, which rarely happened. Therefore, with the excess time I had on my hands, I was able to aptly plan my future accordingly.

As I think about those simple times, I have to wonder when it all changed and I lost my innocence. When did relationships become more of a struggle to maintain than something that was just fun to have. I suppose it started in junior high when kids started "experimenting" more and I began hearing about it and thinking "my gosh, what have their parents taught them?"

However, even in high school, relationships still seemed so much easier. My boyfriend coincidentally tended to be whoever I ended up going to prom with and the only problems had to do with finding the right dress and going with the right group.

College has been a different story. Relationships seem so much more complicated now that I am older. I went home this summer and became deeply depressed. I realized that about ten people in my graduating class (I graduated in 2000) were already married. I, of course, freaked out because I didn't even have a steady boyfriend. Why couldn't it just be like sixth grade when it didn't matter who was our boyfriend or girlfriend because we were most likely not going to marry them?

Here it seems like there are only two types of guys at this school, or should I say two types of 20-year-old males. 1.) They want to hook up with you and then forget you exist. 2.) They want to rush into a deep relationship that will hopefully end up in an engagement within six months. Why can't anyone just have normal relationships anymore? If you like someone, tell them. If you don't, then leave it alone. It's really not a complicated concept. Just one that requires us to revert back to our childhoods and let ourselves like those people that give us that funny feeling in our stomachs.