Walking to my lunch table every day, I wonder what I will hear about my friends’ latest boyfriend dramas. Day in and day out, I listen to the complaints, the squeals of joy, and the heartbreak that accompanies a boyfriend. One girl screeches about how her boyfriend never buys her nice gifts, even while wearing a new, silver Mignon Faget necklace. Another remains silent, too afraid to talk about hers because she does not want to listen to everyone else’s derision. One girl panics, as she believes her boyfriend will dump her at any point, while another complains that hers never leaves her alone. Yet another girl claims that she is getting bored with her latest boyfriend, just as someone else attempts to convince the other girls that her relationship is more than perfect. Somewhat outside the circle, another girl covertly texts her boyfriend, only half paying attention to everyone else. These different girls exemplify typical relationship categories of teenagers.

The Queen:
This high-maintenance girl must always have what she wants, and usually, her boyfriend buys her anything she asks for. She will demand expensive jewelry for holidays, and she will never offer to pay for dinner, even at a fancy restaurant. If the boy has a submissive personality, he usually becomes her willing slave in order to please her. However, this type of relationship cannot end well; at some point, the boy will get tired of being treated like gum on the bottom of her shoe, or she will lose interest and respect for him in favor of another boy who will buy her even more material goods.


The Disaster:
This girl has terrible taste in men. She always dates the boys who treat her badly or abuse her emotionally, or even physically. All her friends may beg her to dump this boyfriend, but she refuses because “they love each other.” She almost always is the one dumped, and once she gets over that boyfriend, she will go on to another who treats her just as badly as the last one did. This type of girl is probably the one with the unhealthiest relationships because she will normally end up in a cycle of bad relationships from which she cannot escape.


The Clinger:
This type of girl fears being single, and she has no idea how to function without one or more boys surrounding her. This girl thrives on gifts from her boyfriend and especially craves hearing him say “I love you” or “I will never leave you.” If her boyfriend does not call or text her for a day, she will panic and believe he will break up with her or that she did something wrong. In most of these relationships, the boy does end up breaking up with the girl because he gets tired of her clingy ways.


Miss Independent:
This girl rarely has relationships, if ever. She does not need a man, and she is the exact opposite of the Clinger. She wants her privacy, and she feels that any boyfriend she has is crowding her space. She gets annoyed when her boyfriend wants to see her everyday, and she sometimes even makes up excuses not to see him so that she can get a day to herself. This type of girl usually ends up breaking up with her boyfriend, on the basis that she “just needs to be alone for awhile.”


The Dumper:
This type of girl never commits to one person, and she tends to get bored very quickly with relationships. She usually has a new boyfriend every month, or even every week. For this girl, a boyfriend keeps her entertained during the first few weeks, but then he becomes very “clingy” or “boring.” She constantly strives to have fun, and many times, a boyfriend gets in the way of that. This girl leaves at the first sign of trouble, and she is happy to break up with a boy after only one fight, especially if the argument concerns him “holding her back.”


The Tries-Too-Hard Girl:
This girl must hold on to her relationships, even when she realizes the relationship has fizzled. She truly wants the relationship to work, and she struggles to keep it going, no matter if she no longer has true feelings for the boy. Her arguments for staying in the relationship are usually weak, and they consist of phrases such as, “We love each other; we are just going through a rough patch” or “We have been together so long that breaking up now would be worse than staying together.” This girl can stay with a boy for years, but by the end of the relationship, she is completely miserable. These relationships may last a long time, but the boy and girl almost always break up because one of them becomes fed-up with being unhappy.


The So-Perfect-It-Cannot-Be-Real Girl:
This type of girl appears to have the perfect relationship. However, these relationships seem more perfect than in reality. These girls want others to think she and her boyfriend are blissfully happy, usually in an attempt to convince herself that she is telling the truth. These relationships do not necessarily have to be unhealthy ones, but they come at a price. If the relationship itself does not suffer, the girls’ relationships with her friends and family do. She tends to ignore everyone else who cares about her so that she can be with her boyfriend and continue the illusion of the perfect couple.


I see these types of relationships all the time, not only at my lunch table, but also within the rest of my school and community; fortunately, most girls will grow out of these categories as they mature and gain more life experience. However, a lot of women still have these problems in relationships, especially the Disasters and the Queens. In many cases, the girls I know in relationships appear unhappy, usually because they belong in one of these categories. Although these relationships rarely work out in the end, they are a part of every girl’s life experience. At some point, most girls could classify themselves as one of these types, and even though these categories are unhealthy, they are essential for teenage girls as they go through life and mature into women with potentially loving and long-lasting relationships.