Wilk’s Rant: Relationships

I’ve recently been pondering a fairly easy analogy. Relationships: Academics, as

: Human Body. A) Cancer, B) Flesh Eating Disease, C) Syphilis. If you answered any or all above you would be absolutely correct. The High School relationship is devastating to the academics of students, much like theses diseases eat away at and slowly destroy the body; the relationship does the same to one’s academic standings. The relationship does so not through any physical means, but rather through a slow destruction of the mental and emotional state of the participating students in question.

The beginning of the relationship is a wonderful time in any young lad’s life. He asks the woman he has affectionate feelings for out on a date, in hopes that she will validate his manhood by saying, ‘yes.’ It can be assumed that if she says, ‘no’ he will be reduced into a whiney, demoralized, spineless creature, not unlike a freshman. At this point both students are in a constant state of worry as to whether or not they are pleasing their insignificant other. This worry causes lessened academic activity, as the students are too obsessive over their newly budding relationship than they are doing their important homework or studying. Class participation also drops because teachers lack the ability to monitor and regulate the disruptive thoughts and feelings of the students as they sit there pretending to pay attention.

After the students get over their early relationship ‘jitters’ they move into the mid-relationship. This stage involves both students spending vast amounts of time with one another doing activities that they both find tolerable such as going on dates or even talking. Since the students spend so much time with each other, academic work fails. In a relationship the other person is frequently on the mind of the other person, which also causes reduced classroom activity, especially if the couple happens to be in the same class. This also causes emotional turmoil as the students consider whether or not they are ‘in love’, or if their short time companion is cheating on them. Such feelings can create stifling emotional tension and because of this, grades drop.

As the relationship starts to dwindle so do grades. During this wonderful stage both students begin to feel many inhospitable feelings toward one another and these thoughts tend to consume their very souls. At this point each student spends the day slandering their ‘beloved’ other, and in the process near no work gets done. One or the other will also spend time considering the way to breakup. A disguise of friendship is maintained, but since they don’t want to face the painful reality that this friendship will not remain, they would rather act surprised when it is destroyed.

When the inevitable breakup eventually happens, both students fall into an emotional depression, especially if one was truly under the delusion of love. This causes even less work to happen and grades to plummet even further. At this point both students start to avoid one another in the halls, while discussing what a horrible person the other was. This ‘trash talking’ also leads to lowered grades as each student than moves from depression to anger, and it is hard to work properly when one has a ‘fevered temper.’

From the start of the relationship to the end, it can be noted that the amount of work done by both participating students drops precipitously. It is also apparent that the relationship destroys the emotions of both, and probably results in some sort of emotional callousness that will require many hours of psychological treatment that will only go to show that it probably wasn’t worth it. But I’m not bitter.