It was great to get to know them and to spend time working and having fun with them. We were included in parties that I would not have been invited to otherwise. Although I had held offices before we began going steady together, I was elected to an all-school position and appointed to hold other responsibilities that I am certain were aided by my association with him. He had an amiable personality and was well liked by the entire school, and I am certain that the students transferred some of his easygoing attitudes to my more individualistic personality. Our relationship raised my social standing.
It is a great opportunity to really get to know how the opposite sex
thinks and acts. This can never be accomplished in random dating,
since the confidence and closeness is not present. One can never
talk as freely on certain subjects if he is just with a random date,
whereas with a steady boy or girl one can feel at ease or secure
when talking about sex or whatever is being said. Furthermore, I
believe if a boy and girl really like each other, their sexual
experience increases without many guilt feelings. The partners
usually become more liberal in their morals as they gain more
confidence and mutual trust in each other.
I would not have traded that senior year of going steady for
anything.
From these experiences, I gained a great capacity to empathize, a
heightened sense of compassion, and an awareness of the delicate
balance that must be maintained in meaningful personal
interactions. Our relationship will always remain in my memory as
one in which an honest love grew for a time. Never will I regret
having experienced the thrill. I love him as someone who cared for
me and gave me love when I badly needed it, who gave me a
companionship I will always treasure and smile on when I look
back at it. He has been a gem in my life, and if he had not been so
much a part of me, I would have been a lesser person for it.
I can look back now over this experience with feelings of
appreciation and happiness. I am happy that I got to know and
understand this person, grateful for the learning experience. I was
attracted to him because he was cute and had a very cheerful,
friendly personality. He treated me like a girl. Another attribute
was his skill in communicating.
I felt very much at ease with him
from our first date, because we had complementary personality
characteristics. He was a talker; I was a listener. Another quality
that I liked was his honesty. At that time, I appreciated it when he
told me frankly whether I had gained weight and whether he liked
my clothing. These things were important in high school. Also he
taught me all I needed to know about sex and what a boy liked in a
girl. He had personality and character traits which appealed to me:
empathy, forgiveness, kindness; the relationship was my idea of a
"typical" high school romance.
In cases to follow, the reactions are essentially negative toward adolescent going
steady encounters.
Going steady was a fad during my high school days. This was
unfortunate because it means that there were very few dates
available for those not going steady.