We use the word “love” everyday in the English language. It is a word that can have multiple meanings and definitions.

Love is not constant bickering and crying. If you are crying more than smiling when thinking about he or she, it is not love. Love is not depending on your partner, but growing with them instead of together or as one. Love is not just buying each-other nice things and sending sweet texts, but taking care of each-other even when everything else is spiraling downhill.

Love isn’t the persistent paranoia that they found someone better, but knowing there’s someone better and them still only loving you. Love isn’t love if it never lasts. Love is never-ending and a feeling you would not mind feeling for as long as you live.

Love is pain but all pain heals eventually. You just have to find someone that makes the recovery worth it. Love is like the stars- there are billions, but only one stands out to you.

The word love is so complex in today’s society, but is love the complicated part, or is it just the people sharing it? What is love to you?

We asked students of West Morris Central High School what love means to them.

Isabella Ramina, junior, responded, “When you just enjoy hanging out with someone and not have to do anything.”

Senior, Drew Munley stated, “An unconditional affection for someone that persists even after hard times, even in some short cases after a breakup.”

“Caring for someone where you would put their problems over your own and wouldn’t have to think twice about it,” stated by junior, Rachel Wells.

“When their problems become your own,” claimed by senior, Mark Marschall.

High school relationships, based off our questionnaire, vary from roughly one month, to a year and a half.

All of the seven students that answered our form checked the “1 or more” mark next to the question asking how many people you’ve said “I love you” to and meant it.

Say, thirty years from now, when our minds are fully developed and we have experienced more than we could have ever imagined, we are asked this same question.

Will high school relationships be the same as real-world relationships?

Forty-three percent of students that filled out our survey believe that sixteen to eighteen years old is the appropriate age to be in a relationship.

In some ways, that is appropriate. But will these high school relationships last? Or are we just wasting time?

Ms. Cartier answered questions that concern high school relationships. We first asked her if high school relationship have a chance of surviving after senior year.

She stated, “I think that’s a hard question. People change so much over the years. But I have friends that are still in relationships from high school. It’s a mixed answer, it depends circumstances and values. If you grow together with what your values are and experiences you probably can stay together. But a lot of times in high school, you’re figuring out who you are and where you want to be and what you want to do. And if your partner is figuring out the same things then you kind of come to a conclusion you aren’t on the same pages with values. It would be hard for you to work out because your value systems verve in two different directions.”

We also asked Ms. Cartier when is it the right time in a relationship to say “I love you” and her response was, “I think that is always hard because sometimes you are more in love with the idea with being with that person than the actually person. We want to be the best version of ourselves. It takes awhile for us to get comfortable enough to be authentically us. A lot of times, people say it because they feel a connection. But the depth of that love, is hard to excess.”

A converserial question is if high school relationships are appropriate and Ms. Cartier answered, “It has to fix your schedule. [A relationship] can make your life a little more challenging, but that doesn’t mean not to do it. It means that you have to find balance, so that you can get what you need and give what you need to each of those areas.”

Lastly, we asked when should high school relationships end and Ms. Cartier responded, “Relationships are so individualized based on our perception but I feel like if you’re in a relationship when you don’t feel compatable, where you don’t get along and are arguing a lot. I think a lot of the red flags that we ignore in high school have to do with control. If you see [red flags] then you have to consider taking a step back. Ask yourself, is this the type of thing I want to be in?”

Be with someone that encourages you to become a better person and shows you the potential you can’t see in yourself,not someone that leaves you on “read at 10:33 p.m.” when the message was sent at 9:57 p.m.