Boyfriend : a favored male companion or sweetheart of a girl or woman. At least that's what the dictionary says. But to me, a boyfriend is so much more. He's more than just a person with a title, or someone you see more than others. More than just a lover or someone that you fool around with. A boyfriend, to me, is one of God's greatest gifts.
A boyfriend is someone who can be your best friend. A person that you can easily talk to and trust with all of your heart. Someone who can help you with any kind of problem solving, and you can help them in return. They are people who will always be there, no matter what, to pick you up when you fall, and to give you a push in the right direction.
Boyfriends are people you can have fun with. Whether it's going out places like the movies, shopping, to relatives' houses, or just spending time alone talking, watching movies, or even sleeping. No matter what you're doing, you should always be able to have fun.
With the right boyfriend, you'll also find love. A happiness that no one can describe or explain. A feeling of being whole. In that, you will also find safety and security. Knowing that you have found one of the greatest guys on earth, and can keep him, is one of the greatest security blankets in the world.
Not just that guy down the street, or the boy-next-door, a boyfriend is a wonderful person whom you should always love and cherish.
Teenagers... Are We As Bad As We Seem? (2001)
Most adults in America think that teenagers are nothing but bad
news. But we're not, the problem is that most of America only sees
the bad things we do, no one ever shows on TV the good things that
we do. They never show those of us who help the community, get
great grades in school, or don't drink and drive. We're not little
monsters or spawn of Satan. We're human, and there's more good
in us than people think, and I'm here to prove it.
One of the biggest reasons that most adults hate us is because
they hear that we all do drugs or smoke cigaretts...well, we don't. Only
10.9% of teenagers were currently using illicit drugs in 1999. That
means that a good 90% of us were drug free, why didn't we get
congradulated on that? And where do those 10% of teens get ahold of
those drugs...well, a good 56% of teens said that they obtained their
drugs from someone over the age of 18, which means that it was
an adult that gave it to them, so why are we still the bad people? And
speaking of bad infulences, almost 7% of teenagers said that their
parents wouldn't dissaprove of them either taking drugs or smoking.
So what I'm thinking is that more parents need to start being smart,
don't let your child become an addict to anything, and if they need help
getting off of the addiction, which most young people do, please, don't
get mad, help them!
Another thing that we get dogged on all the time for is teen sex
and teen pregnancy. There could be 1,000 teenagers walking along in
the mall and only 2 could be pregnant, but yet, to the adult eye, we're
all sinners. And when adults hear of those of us having sex, all hell
breaks loose! Did they ever stop to think that maybe it's their fault?
Not many parents talk to their children/teens about sex until it's too
late, and most of the things that adults do it what affects teens
having sex and getting pregnant. The media greatly affects teen sex.
And guess who's the genius running all the things that go into the
media: adults. Do they think that we get the idea on our own? No. It
seems like every single commecial, every single ad, and every single
movie has at least one thing about sex in it. That's what most teens
see, and without the parental guidence that they need, that's what
most of them will do. And do you have any idea how much money
adults spend in taxes on teen pregnancy each year? Almost $7 Billion!
If some of the sex scenes were taken out of the media, I'm sure that
number would reduce a lot.
I think that I'm leading you down the wrong side of the right path
here. I was right by telling you that teen pregnancy was bad, that's the
truth, but not all of teen sex is bad. I'm not saying that most of it's
good, cause it's not, but to that small few who are really in love it's not
bad. The one's it's bad to are those who go around and sleep with the
whole town. And that's what adults hear about, those who go around
and sleep with a new guy/girl each night...forget the ones whom have
only slept with one person, even waited years to do it, and are
greatly in love, adults only want to hear the bad stuff, and sadly, that's
all they hear...
"Oh my God! I just heard that Wilma's daughter is getting
married! She's only 18!" Um...yeah, did they forget that "back in the
day" people would get married extremely young. Some of the kings
and queens would get hitched at like 12! My grandmother was with
her first husband and had her first kid at 14! It's a proven fact that
fewer teenagers marry today than they did 30 years ago, so why do
they flip out when they hear about the one out of 100 that does? It was
so much worse when adults today were teens. The percent of young
people who marry before reaching age 20 has been cut in half in one
generation. So, before adults go flipping out about hearing that a teen
is getting married, tell them to remember back in their day.
I hate to admit it, but we do have one fault, not a huge one, but
we do have one, drinking. In 1997, 21% of the young drivers involved
in fatal accidents had been drinking. But wait! Did you know that teen
drivers only make up 6.7% of the total driving population! Plus, teens
are only 13% of the alcohol-involved drivers in fatal crashes. So I
guess adults are worse than we are in this area too. And adults also
keep us under-informed, 2.6 million teens don't know that a
person can die from an alcohol overdose. Why don't they know that?
Because adults never told them! And do you know that, in single
vehical crashes on the weekend, 72.3% of fatally injured drivers that
are intoxicated, are over 25 years old! And out of all the people
arrested for DWI's, teens are only accounted for 23.4% of that number
in the cities, 23.7% in the suburbs, and only 22.1% in rural areas. "It's
10 o'clock, do you know where the adults are?"...
And we're not dumb when it comes to drinking and driving
either; younger people are more likely, of any age group, to use
various strategies, when hosting a social occasion where alcohol is
served, to try to prevent their guests from drinking and driving. And we
keep getting smarter; between 1988 and 1998, the proportion of
drivers 16-20 years of age who were involved in fatal crashes, and
were intoxicated, dropped 33% -- the largest decrease of any age
group during this time period.
Most teens don't even like to drink. Thirty-five point six percent
of college students say that they wished that alcohol wasn't availiable
at campus events. And what about the adults that are supposed to be
watching the teens that are out on the road drinking and driving? Only
1.7% of teens that have driven intoxicated said that they had been
pulled over. I think we need a better police system. Once again,
something that the adults control.
And what about the adults that do horrible things, why don't we
ever hear about them? Well, I'm going to tell you some things about
them that I bet you don't wanna hear. Did you know that 127,100
children are kicked out of their houses each year? And that there are
500,000 non-runaway children that are homeless? There are 1 million
cases of child abuse each year! Another scary fact is that 2,000
children are killed by their own parents each year, and 200,000 more
are beaten badly enough by their parents to require medical treatment.
At least 70% of adolecent female prostitutes have been beaten by a
family member. More than 20 million children live with at least one
parent with a serious drinking problem. Forty-eight percent of
adolecent female prostitutes were sexually abused within their family.
Virtually all types of adults solicit adolecent for prostitution. And five
thousand children are buried in unmarked graves each year, all
because adults couldn't take care of them.
And now I'll give you more on the wonderful people I call
teenagers: In school, the dropout rate for students is 11%, a huge
decrease from 1990. Teens aren't stupid, we know that we need
schooling to get us somewhere, and no matter how much we hate it,
we still go. And for those of us who don't finish High School, there are
other opportunities, and some of us take those. Most of those drop-
outs go and get their GED. Eighty-six percent of young adults (ages
18-24), who were not currently enrolled in high school, had completed
high school either with a diploma or an alternative credential such as a
GED. So see, even though adults might not think so, we know what
we're doing, and where we're going.
The dreaded 16, that means driving! I know that every adult in
this country must think that teens are the worst drivers in the world.
Well, some of us aren't, but for those of us who are, it's not our fault.
We need someone to teach us how to drive before we can, and in
most states, there's not even a drivers ed! And a scary fact is that in
the overwhelming majority of states, a drivers licence can be (and is)
issued to a teen (16+) without an official ever seeing the teen drive!
So see, we're not really all that bad. And those of us who are, is
it really our fault? And there's not that many of us either, we only make
up 10% of the United States population. So if you think we're taking
over the world, we're not even close. But I think I speak for all
272,690,813 of us in the US when I say "Give us a break!"
