Just an Article about Sharing Personal Stories about Relationships

Now, there are all types of articles about relationship advice, and the main source that people get if from is well, social media or all those gossip magazines. We're exposed to it at such a young age, from movies and television shows, to books and many other things, but from all those mainstream things, nobody really, well, tells us their story. And maybe I am willing to share my stories from the five serious relationships that I've been in during my twenty one-ish years of life.

Ah, a Young Start

Like mentioned in the beginning, I've lonely been in a total of five relationships, serious ones before my current relationship, because dating wasn't a really big deal with me at the time when I was still in school.

Anyways, to the start of my dating experience. I was in middle school, seventh grade, putting me about twelve years old. I had a lot of older friends, and like I tried to make friends within my class but that wasn't really easy, since I was really the odd one out. Plus being bullied didn't help either. So, I started hanging out with my older friends, than I started meeting other kids from my grade through them, thank god. So, I had a group, as well as my other friends from when I was younger, but they had their own friends and I would still hang out with them once in awhile.

Due to hanging out with my older friends and all these new people, I ended up growing a crush on this guy named Skyler. He was tall, cute in his own way, and really funny, not to mention that I had a lot in common with him and could talk with him about pretty much everything. Eventually, maybe after Christmas break, if I remember correctly, Skyler and I started going out, due to the fact that we both liked each other and stuff like that. I was really excited because, whoa, first boyfriend, one that I actually had stuff in common with and pretty much all the same friends, so there wasn't the stress of trying to figure out whose friends should we hang out at lunch with today. It was a good relationship. Even had my first kiss with him, and I actually ended up getting a nosebleed.

Anyways, we broke up after a few months because well, my mother didn't let me stay in town after school on Friday's since I had no friends to really stay with or she didn't know my friends' parents; so it bummed me out, but it was for a good reason, and we at least stayed friends, because after all, we were young, and that shouldn't stop anyone from being friends.

School went on, and summer passed, coming to the moment we enter eighth grade. Again, I had no friends in my class, I was stuck with pretty much everyone from the year before, so that meant everyone that bullied me, so I continued my lunch time fun with my older friends, and doing my rounds to my other friends if the day was horrible outside. A lot of my older friends were also getting ready for the transition into high school, meaning that this was my last year of seeing all of them. During, I am going to say the beginning of October, since the weather was still nice, everyone was started to get into relationships, as for me, I was just hanging out with people, having a few crushes here and there. And apparently one of my older friends, Nick, had a crush on me as well. So, you know what, I jumped on that. He was really nice to me and stuff like that. But once again, my mother was a barrier, so, we cut our relationship off in late January because we wanted to hang out more. And once again, I wasn't hurt, we still stayed friends, but sadly drifted apart once he entered high school.

I continued my school year, and got ready for my final year of middle school before I would be in high school myself. I spent my summer pretty much hanging out with my friend who had just returned from the States, and was having a pretty good time since my mother was actually beginning to give me freedom that I probably should have had maybe last summer. But I totally understand her, because looking back on it now, I knew that I wouldn't be the most responsible if I had that kind of power then. But that summer, I also ended up getting back together with Skyler, and my mother actually let me go spend a day with him, as long as our friend tagged along, which I totally understand.

I started grade nine that year in a relationship and thought that this might even last until high school, but we both had our differences, and there was another girl that was getting between us, and a whole lot of other things, so we broke up, and stayed friends, even if it was pretty awkward since we did things...

I went about school, not really focusing on dating, and with my friend back, I had no reason to really be sad or anything. But with that, I ended up starting to hang out with younger people and making more friends that way. But through that, I ended up dating this younger boy, who was taller than me, Bailey. He was really nice and everything too, and I didn't see anything wrong with him at all. But about three months down the road, I started to realize my mistake, I didn't want to hurt him if things didn't work out in the future, especially if we stuck together when I went into high school... And I didn't want to lose a friend over something like other guys and stuff like that. So, I broke up with him, giving him a valid reason as to why I needed to break it off, and it hurt, we were both crying. But I didn't think of it as anything bad. We both grew from it as well.

I continued to deal with school, not getting into any other relationships after that. I didn't want to go through the pain for breaking someone's heart or someone breaking my own. I spent a lot of time just hanging out with my friends, and just being happy with who I was since I was heavily getting bullied still and was dealing with that pretty much everyday. Plus, I made really good friends at them time.

By the end of that year, I had kissed one other guy, and that was my best friend Jason; who is now in this really cute relationship with another guy, who I completely approve of.

A Quick Break

Now, that was the first three years worth of experience, and this is what I am going to share with you. When you're young, you kind of just don't think about everything completely through. Yes, some of my relationship experiences were good ones because a lot of them involved when we were young, but we were thinking rationally. And it all depends on the person, on their insights of relationships. Some people I knew back in school had like dated about twenty other guys, either the guys were in middle school or in high school. Some just didn't date at all. Every person is different.

When you get into a relationship, you gotta think, especially if this person is your friend, something that I learned the hard way. There is always the risk of losing that person as a friend, making things awkward or everything being fine. With Skyler and I, our friendship was actually fine as we got older, and started hanging out together alone more. With Bailey and I, we're friends, but there was a good amount of time after our break up that we couldn't really look each other in the eyes or be around each other. As with Nick, he was older than me, and we just kind of drifted apart, but that kind of thing happens. What I am saying is, when you think you want to be in a relationship with anyone, especially when you're young, take these into thought. Are you ready to date? You always have to think about how you feel first, because you are more important when it comes to something that involves you. Do you know the person well? If not, it might be a huge joke, so don't do it, especially if you know the guy is a total stick up his butt. You can take the chance, just be ready for some kind of prank or backlash. How good of friends are you? If you are, do you want to risk this friendship? If not, do you still want to risk losing the chance to become friends with the person? There are so many things to consider when getting into a relationship when you are young. There is always a risk. It might or might not come to bite you in the butt later in life, but the good thing is, it's a learning experience.

I'm not saying not to date young, but what I am say is think about yourself, think about what could happen, and don't like your peers pressure you into doing something that you are not okay with. Also, don't date anyone out of pity, that's just like a huge middle finger to the person, and it really doesn't help with their mental state of mind.

Into the Actual Teenager Years

So, I started high school, I ended up going into this outdoor educational class. It was fun, but it was totally a mistake on my part, because our teacher was a complete idiot, and I was so frustrated, just like many of my other friends. I always went home with many things to say to my mother, or to my friend, who was now going to a different school than me. And I mean the one from the States.

This was how my relationship from that year happened, the lovely year of tenth grade. I was at my friend's house, and for the last couple of weeks she's been telling me about this guy, his name was Curtis, and it was hard to get a straight thought about this guy. He kind of reminded me of Skyler, yet he also seemed more like someone I would get along with. Apparently, that weekend he was going to make a visit. That's when I snuck a peek, and he was looking at me the entire time.

We talked on Facebook, and finally, we started going out. My friend was calling me stupid the entire time, and I told her that I was going to take the risk, and that's what I did. I took the risk... Which was really stupid. Remember how I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago that maybe you should question yourself about a guy and if you know him well enough, well, I didn't think about that. We broke up, and well, I got a lot of backlash from that. I should have listened to my friend. It wasn't peer pressure, but because of dating him, I had skipped school, and my mother wasn't too pleased. The events after that didn't give me a really good reputation either, thankfully my friends understood that I took the risk because I wanted to... and told me they are sorry that I had such a bad experience for my first time. Kind of became a joke about it, and it seemed like I managed to get everyone to shut up about after I finally put my foot down and told one of Curtis' friends to shove it, and that anything he said was most likely a lie because I was not that kind of girl, and they believed me too.

I learnt a huge lesson those few months, if your friends tell you that is really isn't a good idea to be in a relationship with a person, maybe it would be wise to take their information into consideration, because after all, if they truly are your friends, they wouldn't be worrying about you all the time if you are in a relationship with that person.

Not too long after that entire relationship ended and my reputation actually cleaned right up, I had joined cadets, and had went to camp, leading to something else to regret after that summer, but the summer was still pretty good, and I have to say, I didn't regret anything after that at all.

Grade eleven rolled around, and the school districts around the province was getting a little, aggressive, annoyed, with the government about wages and education stuff like that. The teachers were trying to get the best for all of the students, so there was a lot of pressure on us as students and things. I went to school, I hung out with people, a lot of my friends were graduating, but I could always talk to them on Facebook.

Now, our extracurricular classes; they were all all mix grades. Some are just coming into the course, or others are on their second or their year of the course. My friend; Jody, and I had taken animations together the year previous, and we grew up together. She was a year older than me, and graduating. During animations, we sat next to each other and listened to music together, it was pretty nice. This year, we were taking both military history and auto-mechanics together. Both classes we sat next to each other, and worked together. It was good. By the end of the year, I thought that I wasn't going to be seeing him as much... but it seemed like things were going to be different.

That summer, Jody was messaging me on Facebook, and we spent a lot of our time talking with each other, and just telling each other about the day. At the end of July, one night on Facebook, Jody asked me out, and I said yes. I hadn't dated anyone more than a year ago, and I thought that it was time to do something like that. It seemed like that summer was just the summer of a lot of huge changes. I was allowed to go hang out with Jody on my own, and eventually by the end of August I was allowed to sleep over at his house, and that first time we did sleep together in the same bed, of course, we did things. It was just a really good time all together.

Like I mentioned before about the whole teacher and government thing, the teachers went on strike. School didn't start until almost October, thanks to a lot of us students that were graduating, that this was going to mess up our entire year, and we didn't want to be put through this anymore because the teachers were trying to get better things for us so we could learn.

That whole school year, I had a boyfriend, who I loved and cared about, who I needed to calm down when he got angry or take care of him when he got sick. We were really serious. We did a lot together, saw him dying on me, and it was good. Or at least I thought that it was good.

A week before graduation, he broke up with me, and I got depressed, because I don't know what happened or what I did wrong. I thought that I did something wrong, but all my friends told me that it wasn't something that I did. I was so sure that it was something that I did. But, I graduated, I went to prom and after grad, and I spent a really quiet summer with my friends and at home with my family.

I spent a lot of time at home, and just took care of my sister since my mother was going through a lot. A couple of months into 2016, Jody just randomly messaged me, scaring, but surprising me with his apology. We started talking again, and eventually started dated again. And it didn't last as long as the first time either. We got into a few spats and towards the last few months of the relationship, we drifted apart. We broke up, and it hurt because I thought that we really had something, but three weeks later, seeing him with another girl, I just blew up. I still have my thoughts towards the fact that he was possibly cheating on me, but I didn't bring it up to him, or did I want to be friends with him anymore.

A Recap

This time, there was a lot more mistakes made on my part than when I was younger. I decided that I should be taking risks, something that I wasn't going to be doing ever again after all of that. But to anyone out there, if you ex comes back to with an apology and sent it to you on paper, or over a messenger of some kind, just tell them that you will only accept it in person, because there is a possibility that they might just might be doing it for other reasons, or that they are crawling back to you until they find someone better.

Also, listen to your friends, if they have good evidence as to why you shouldn't be dating this person, than you really need to bring it up to the person you are dating. If they give you some kind of an excuse or a crazy story or even get mad at you for digging up the past, than they most likely are going to hurt you or do something to you that might not be good for you in the future. So, keep open minded with friends when they are concerned about you.

To Me Now

Now, this is pretty much picking up right after I found out three weeks after my break up with Jody about the girl that he was on a date with and posted a photo. I blew up, and I was at my friend's apartment. His friend was over and they were both playing Mario Maker. There was a total of four of us, and my female friend and I were just hanging out talking, and doing some cooking. After that, the male friend's friend, who is also a guy, who I knew a little bit about when I was younger, and I were in the kitchen together and we started talking about it. I found out about what happened to him, and about the relationship that I knew he was in when I was younger. Apparently his ex cheated on him, and treated him just horribly. I was actually fuming angry, and went on a rant about it.

I started coming to town more to hang out with my friends. Jonah, who was the guy that was cheated and all this other horrible stuff, and I just hung out while our friends, who were engaged, and now married and just doing their thing. We hung out and just had a good time. He was funny. Kind, and was a good drinking pal. I actually started to like him, until our friends approached me and show that I shouldn't go down that path, that it wouldn't be good for me. The same song and dance I heard before, but this time, it was very much different. I felt that it was different.

So, I told them, it was just a mutual friends with benefits kind of thing. At least that's what it started off like. That was how our relationship was like for a while until finally, I was with him one night, on a couch, when he suddenly held onto me, crying into my shoulder. It was now 2017, and we had this friends with benefits thing going on for awhile, but I was half-asleep when this happened, and I really got worried. I was asking what was wrong, and he straight up told me he loved me, and he was crying it out to me over and over again. I never woke up so fast. I calmed his fears that night, and that was how our relationship finally left friends with benefits and became an actual relationship. We became a team.

The entire year of 2017, we supported each other through our lows and highs, we planned out how our days would go. It was something good, it was all something good. The New Year was something magical this year. Everything was just good. It was warm. Nothing really bothered us anymore. We have our fears and worries, but we always tell each other. We both have mental issues but we support each other through it all. He accepts me for me, even if we disagree on something, we don't disregard the other's opinion on topics. It's just all good.

And in the end, I don't regret any of those relationships, because they led me to Jonah, to someone who I love the most, who I've been with for more than a year, who I am going to be with for a very long time.

I say be careful, but don't regret your past relationships, be that they might have been good or bad. They aren't a waste of time, they are just leading you on the path to the one that is right for you. Because you can't just wait for that person to show up on a white horse and take you away from your happy ending, you need to work towards that happy ending too. It's a team job, but like how a relationship is. It's a two person job, and you need to work together, be honest with each other, take on the other person's weaknesses because that's just how relationships are.

I'm glad that I could share my story, that I could speak to everyone about how to look at relationships. Don't be scared to talk to others if you are not sure about something. Also remember, everyone is different, every relationship is different, there is no right or wrong, just as long as there is communication, teamwork, and trust — than there isn't a relationship that is wrong.