by Nadine Purdie

Created on: March 27, 2009   Last Updated: March 28, 2009

Hormones, tantrums, spots and exams, not exactly the most attractive features of being a teen, now let's throw in the complications of love. As a teenager it can feel like all the pressures and strains of the world are on your shoulders, that essay deadline looms and your parent's sole purpose seems to be to destroy your life. Sound familiar? Thought so, however it seems that no matter what age no matter what circumstances the constant conundrum of love appears throughout every generation from those blissful pensioners feeding the ducks to the loved up teens that can't keep their hands off each other.

No matter the age love has and always will have a profound and unexplainable effect on us, yes there is that old saying puppy love' but this term seems to be thrown around to any couple under the age of 25, why is it that because a couple are young they cannot be capable of being in love.

We were all brought up with the typical Cinderella fantasy and we all expected it to be that easy, well of course we would because Disney made us believe that all we had to do was loose a garment of clothing and voila, one dress and pumpkin later you will be in Prince Charming's arms forever more.

We carry this ideology through our childhood, we accidently brush hands while reaching for the crayons with that cute boy in primary school then rush home to plan the wedding. This is why it is so crushing when we reach our terrible teenage years, we are like a school full of boiling hormone kettles just one bad day and it feels like the end of the world as we know it, so is it this over hormonal period of our lives that makes love such a difficult feeling for us to understand? It seems that no matter what the age people deal and cope with the wicked feelings of love whether it is a fling with Frank the milkman or a golden anniversary in the Caribbean.

Don't forget that teenagers get the same butterflies, the same tingly shivers and the same ridiculous ear to ear grin, the difference being with teens yes we are inexperienced in life yes we have lots to learn and yes occasionally we can maybe possibly be slightly overdramatic about the glowing spot on our chin that is seems to have a pulse of its own but this does not make our feelings about love any less significant, if anything it magnifies them.

By no means does this mean I believe that every Fred and Maggie will meet at the blissful age of 15 and spend the rest of their lives together. I am a generally positive person but I am not stupid. Of course there are going to be those teens that are going to feel that their first love is going to be there future husband. That sneaky kiss behind the classrooms sets the wedding bells off in every girls head.

The truth is we just want that Cinderella fairytale it doesn't mean we believe we will get it but surely everyone remembers how wonderfully magnificent it was when young and with the person of your dreams. That stage where you can't keep your hands off each other, the constant thought of them throughout your day, the heart doodles with their name on the back of your book. Yes its naive but isn't it just fantastic? So let's just have a little faith in our old friend Cinderella and her perfect theory on love because you never know, those loved up teens you saw at the park may just one day be the loved up pensioners feeding the ducks and quite frankly love is a fantastic beautiful feeling that we should all experience whether teen or old, everlasting or not we all crave those tingles and butterflies.

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