Question About True Love vs Infatuation for Teenagers

Hello Margaret, I am a faithful listener of radio from hell and love your hour on the show. My question is, do you think true love is attainable at such a young an age as the late teens or is high school purely a source of infatuation? I am the Editor-in-Chief of the high school newspaper. I wrote an editorial on love in the last issue and received mixed opinions about love from my peers. From my observations, the two schools of thought are true love and infatuation. My question is, do you think true love is attainable at such a young an age as the late teens or is high school purely a source of infatuation?

What a wonderful question. Here are just some quick thoughts on why you might be getting mixed opinions on the topic.
True Love is certainly possible for people in their teens. Absolutely. And conversely, infatuation can also occur at any age (Hey! Even at my age…ask me about Harvey Keitel and The Piano..no, actually don’t ask me…gulp).

However, and here is the rub: true love does not mean two people are meant to spend the rest of their lives together. Many people might think that the term “true love” means there is only one, and if you have “true love” then you will ride off into the sunset together (as I think to term it).

Our culture perpetuates the myth that just because two people love each other, it will all work out in the end. Many people have more than one love in their lifetime. And, also, to get married/committed and share a home, maybe a family, also requires some other things other than love.

You’ve probably heard me talk about Margaret Ruth’s Four Things Necessary for a long term, healthy, happy relationship. If not, it is on my Huffington Post and Intent.com blogs.

Reading that, you can see why I think love and connection are only two of the ingredients for a long term commitment. This is in contrast to some widely held (not fully - but widely) notions about what true love means.

Does this make sense?