Eventually I am going to forget my teenage years. A rose-tinted vision of the past will replace reality, and my empathy with giggling girls in cut-off shorts will fade to a mild distaste. I won’t be able to recall the anxiety that comes with being a young adult, and I won’t feel the extreme highs and lows that only that age brings. Already, those feelings of love, lust and loneliness that swirl around you like clothes in a tumble dryer no longer come so arbitrarily. But for now, at 25, I can still recall those feelings that jumped between giddy and glum. Although in five years time, I probably will struggle to recall what it is really like being a teenager at all.
There are many things written of Generation Y. We’re constantly told that we’re self-absorbed and lack focus by people who have forgotten what it is like to be so young. Those journalists of Gen X who have forgotten their wild days, their mini soap operas and how they too drove their parents mad. It’s memory lapses like this that lead to anxious journalists fretting over the state of today’s youth, none more so than Miranda Devine, who recently wrote an article for The Telegraph on the destructiveness of ‘causal hook-ups’.
Hook-ups, according to Devine, are leaving Generation Y’s young women emotionally in tatters. Clearly, she has forgotten those hedonistic years when friends and fashion were the most important things in life. To be fair, Devine grew up a little differently to myself. She went to a Catholic girls school, while I was bundled in with 1500 people in the biggest public school in my town. Perhaps Devine didn’t experience the years of casual encounters and underage house parties I did, which leads me to question why she feels she is qualified to write an article about how teenagers of today feel. After all, she neglected to speak to a single teenager for the article and instead quoted Tony Abbott, who believes virginity is a gift to be treasured. Like Devine, I cannot speak on behalf of today’s college students, but I do feel I can relate to them easier, and that my own experiences probably weren’t radically different.
I was 13 when I had my first kiss. For us, ‘hooking-up’ actually meant kissing, and we counted our kisses like kids do marbles. They were fairly innocent for a time, but eventually lead to those other awkward fumblings, and then later, sex. My friends and I weren’t overly promiscuous throughout school and college, but we all had casual encounters, we all experienced one-night-stands, and we all got too drunk and found ourselves with someone we would later regret. We would laugh so hard, share stories and secretly compete for the most outrageous tale. Most of our real problems stemmed from family and friends, and boys were something you cried over and then forgot a week later.
In Devine’s article she cites a study that found random sexual encounters amongst young people result in regret, shame, emptiness and in some cases, depression. These symptoms all sound rather dramatic, but we need to remember that we are discussing youth, and young people’s lives and feelings are the definition of dramatic. Each of these emotions isn’t particularly surprising; in fact, I’d bet even Devine felt each of these during her teenage years, except, perhaps, depression. Depression amongst teenagers is a common, serious mental health issue, and I highly doubt it has much to do with boys. I’ve certainly known girls to sleep around to try and feel something other than that dark cloud of depression, but these encounters were more a side effect than the actual cause. As for regret, I think we’ve all experienced that, but like shame, it’s an emotion that is usually cured easily with time, and then later laughed about.
Devine doesn’t offer a solution to what she perceives as a problem, other than skirt around ideas of virginity and early marriage. Yet most of us don’t feel ready to get married that young. In fact, I was in a serious relationship with a man from the age of 16 until 20, and we split up mainly because neither of us was ready to commit to each other for life. I wanted to experiment with other people, to experience those random hook-ups and overseas flings. After our four-year relationship ended, I did just that. I had a one-night-stand that was one of the best moments of my life, and another that left me feeling cheap and silly. I threw myself into a casual relationship with a man I desperately hoped would eventually consider me a girlfriend, and that ended in tears and heartbreak. I’d probably even describe that feeling as short-term depression. I had other encounters, some good, some bad. Some lasted for months, weeks or hell, minutes. I experienced pregnancy scares, heartbreak and happiness. All my friends from school went through similar situations on our path to self-discovery and adulthood.
At 22, I was overseas when a casual ‘hook-up’ turned into something more. One drunken night at a club lead to a week in each other’s pockets, and on my return home we moved in together. It was spontaneous and raised many eyebrows, but three years later we are still going strong. I feel settled, in control and loved. I have no desire for casual sex anymore. I want to be with this man for the rest of my life.
Many of my high school friends are also in strong, serious relationships. The others have grown into beautiful, self-assured women who have promising careers and are busy travelling the world. Our experiences as young adults can now be looked back upon with mirth over many wines. Devine may think young girls ‘cry sad, unknowing tears’ after these alcohol-fuelled hook-ups, but in reality most of them know exactly what they’re doing.
They’re responsibility free and making the most of it. Chances are, they’ll turn out all right in the end. Just like I did.
Image credit: Kathryn Sprigg