They met, unsurprisingly, in the library.
”
I was doing homework, and she came in with friends,
”
Ann Sobrato High School junior Alex Jagiello said of his
girlfriend of five months, sophomore Marissa Supernaw.
Morgan Hill
They met, unsurprisingly, in the library.
“I was doing homework, and she came in with friends,” Ann Sobrato High School junior Alex Jagiello said of his girlfriend of five months, sophomore Marissa Supernaw.
The two stood in Sobrato’s courtyard during lunchtime Wednesday, their arms around each other, Supernaw smiling up at Jagiello as he told the story.
Jagiello said he felt comfortable with her right away. She said the same about him. Soon after meeting, they attended the Sadie Hawkins dance together.
“He’s not just my boyfriend, he’s my best friend,” Supernaw said. “People say you can’t find love in high school, but I think it’s possible.”
Live Oak High School junior Alex Gluck and senior Eric Freda said being together has helped them survive their typically tumultuous teenage lives.
“It can help you get through a lot of hard times,” Gluck said. For example, when she has family “drama,” she can call Freda and talk about it.
“I feel like I can tell him everything. He’s always there for me. He’s really mature. I can actually have an intelligent conversation with him,” Gluck said.
Gluck said they haven’t gone a single day without talking in their two years and three months together. The two wear promise rings on their left hands, which Gluck described as “the engagement before engagement.”
“It’s a promise to stay together, to try to work on our problems instead of storming off,” she said, adding that they’re not officially engaged because of the social mores around teen romance. “I don’t think anyone else would take it seriously.”
Freda was quiet while Gluck talked.
“We talk about this stuff so much that Alex knows everything I would say,” Freda said with a smile in his voice.
Despite the intensity of adolescence, young people can form healthy attachments to each other, said Lara Windett, President of the Santa Clara Valley Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.
“It’s a good way to learn about themselves and what relationships can be like, what they want and don’t want in a partner. And just experiencing things,” Windett said. Relationships like Freda and Gluck’s and Jagiello and Supernaw’s can stay strong for years – or perhaps a lifetime – by working through problems together.
“That’s part of how these (relationships) stay intact,” she said. The formula that works long term is the same in high school as it is in adulthood, she said: they last longest when there’s a “match in relating styles.”
“If you have a person who’s pretty laid back with someone who’s not as laid back, they can connect,” Windett said. “It’s always kind of a happy story to hear about high school sweethearts who are still together 60 years later. Both worked hard to work together towards the goals of marriage, family, a house.”
Morgan Hill Unified School District Board President Don Moody and his wife Sandy are such a couple.
Moody met Sandy in Acton Boxboro Regional High School in Acton, Mass. He asked her to the junior prom. She made him wait a few days for her answer.
“I think she was afraid her mom would say no,” Moody said.
Moody said he was anxious for an answer. With bravado, he added that it was only because he needed to buy the tickets before they sold out.
Her mom said yes, and so did Sandy – six years later at their wedding. The two, who were friends before that fateful dance, have been married for 34 years and survived separate colleges and raising two daughters.
Then as now, high school romance is laced with the same familiar threads: holding hands in the halls and other public displays of affection, attending dances, going to the movies and long conversations.
“If you ask someone (about their first love), most people will remember. It’s a formative time to look back on, and that your own kids will ask about,” Windett said.
So, young lovers, take note: no matter how long your first love lasts, you’ll remember it forever.
