The Rocky Road of Adolescent Romantic Experience: Dating and Adjustment

Adolescent romantic relationships have long been a centerpiece of our mediaculture. Romeo and Juliet and Dante and Beatrice are classic love stories thathave enchanted generations of individuals. Today’s movies are full of similartales, such as that between Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater in the movieTitanic. In effect, these relationships are depicted in idealized terms. They areseen as very special and essential in one’s life. In fact, many young adolescentgirls say that they expect to be in love all the time (Simon, Eder, & Evans, 1972).Although our own adolescent relationships may not have been as idealized,many of us still reflect on them with fondness. They were important andexciting experiences in our adolescence. In fact, adolescents will commonlyneglect their close friends in order to spend time with a romantic partner (Roth& Parker, 2001). Consistent with this depiction, social scientists have foundthat adolescents have more strong positive emotions about the other sex thanabout family, same-sex peers, or school (Wilson-Shockley, 1995). Although nodirect evidence exists, we believe that homosexual youth may have morestrong positive emotions about same-sex relationships than about other keyrelationships.Romantic partners also increasingly become sources of support. For example,in an earlier study (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992), we examined age dif-ferences in perceptions of support in different relationships. Mean ratings ofsupport for relationships with romantic partners, same-sex friends, mothers,siblings, grandparents and teachers at four different grades are shown inTable 4.1. Not surprisingly, fourth grade children (10–11 years) were unlikelyto report having a romantic partner, and those who said they had a romantic