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@the-inkspiller @anne-of-lothlorien

Yes, and it depends on personality as well. My boyfriend and I(dare I say it) are *slightly* more mature than most teens(I hope), being both Christian, homeschooled teens. We both have our futures thought about and careers that we want, which happen(surprise!) to be in the same area: horses, ranching, and the country life. Plus, we both work full time and he(he just turned 19 last month, I’ll be 16 in two and a half weeks) travels around the area to work as well. So that limits our time as well. But we were friends long before we were a couple. We’ve known each other for almost five years now, after all.

I guess what the whole point of my rant above was that romance doesn’t happen overnight. Maybe kids like to decide to go out with a guy or girl then get together and break up a week later, but real, actual, “I want to marry you” romance does not happen quickly. At least not for most people.

Basically, make sure you make your couple become friends before they think about dating or anything like that. Like Inkspiller mentioned, friends before fiance. You can’t love someone you don’t know enough to marry them.

Also, a lot of what I put in above was to warn you away from getting into the physical aspect of dating to much. Don’t just make your characters(and I doubt you’ll do this) decide to go out just because both of them think the other is good-looking. That doesn’t mean you have to write a re-telling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, it just means that you shouldn’t make it based on purely physical attraction, at least not after they get to know each other. Sure, they may think straight off that, “oh, he/she’s cute”, that’s normal. Everyone thinks someone is cute at one point in their life. But after they get to know each other, make sure you don’t keep it at just physical attraction.

Get my meaning? Basically, friends before fiance. Kapeesh? Good. And @the-inkspiller if you’ve got any advice to add to that, be my guest. You are more experienced in this matter than probably 98% of ST put together. 😉