With college looming in the not too far distance, seniors are having to make the more difficult decisions about their future. One of these more intense decisions is if they will stay with their high school significant other next year. With some of the longer relationships, the act of saying goodbye can be incredibly difficult.
Others have made the decision to not say no at all. Senior Mackenzie Beaver and her boyfriend have been together for 3 ½ years. With him being a year older than her, she had to have the discussion a while before even having any idea where she would be attending school.
Beaver is going to University of Missouri next year but her boyfriend decided to stay in town with the A+ program and go to St. Louis Community College–Meramec.
“When I was a sophomore I was really worried about him going to college because this was at the beginning of our relationship,” Beaver said. “But him deciding on Meramec just gave me more time to figure everything out. Now I am the one who is going to be leaving so I am a hypocrite.”
Beaver wants to stay with her boyfriend throughout college but chose University of Missouri because of their law program.
“If we are going to stay in this long term relationship we both need to be successful in our careers or we might blame each other,” Beaver said. “Whatever we do, we do it to further each other so that we are both succeeding.”
Even the longer relationships can be harder to keep up at such a distance though. Senior Sam Pannet and his girlfriend senior Sydney Hollett have been together for six years, but knew early on that they weren’t looking at the same schools.
“When she first decided on University of Kansas I thought about going there, but then I just thought about how far and expensive it is,” Pannet said. “I wanted to stay close and save money so I decided on Missouri State.”
For people who have spent so much of their lives together, this separation can be a tricky thing. Pannet and Hollett are going to go from seeing each other on a daily basis, maybe seeing each other once every few months. With FaceTime and text the distance might not seem too far, but being in different states can completely change your college experience.
Senior Abby Brand has had to deal with the separation for the past year since her boyfriend went off to University of Missouri. “The transition was really hard from seeing each other all the time, to not seeing each other at all. He used to live 7 minutes away from me and now he lives in Columbia,” Brand said.
Brand and her boyfriend had only been dating for one summer before they decided that they would try things out for his freshman year.
“We actually originally planned to break up. We had a really great time over the summer and since Columbia is not that far away, we decided to at least try it out,” Brand said. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but at least we tried.”
Though they have not been together as long as other long term high school relationships, they found a way to stay together even with the distance.
Though Brand has not decided on a school yet, her choice will not be influenced by the distance from her boyfriend.
“Obviously you want to be close to the person you are with, but you have to choose a school that is right for yourself and your own future,” Brand said. “We are so young that you can’t really base your future off of another person. It’s not fair to yourself.”
Beaver also made her decision based on the future she wants to have, not solely on her distance to her boyfriend.
“I made my school decision knowing that his opinion matters, but it’s really up to me,” Beaver said. “I think that this is going to further my career and Mizzou is going to help with that. He approves of it but more importantly, I approve of it.”
The hopes of a promising future can be overshadowed by a relationship that feels like it will last forever. Though many people are dissuaded from staying with their high school love because of fear of missing out on the “college experience”, many couples feel that their relationship can pass the test of time.
“I know I will still be able to have fun and be able to have someone that I can always go to,” Brand said.
For Beaver, she is in it for the long run. With hopes for a promising future with her boyfriend, she still took into consideration the distance between her new school and her old home.
“He is my family now,” Beaver said.
Overall, most high school couples can agree that the constant questions on when they and their significant other are breaking up, can really get on your last nerve.
“People doing this little awkward thing where they go “so what is going to happen?” and what they are really saying is “are you going to break up or not?
”This is one, not their business, and two very annoying,”