Teen Lovesickness

Lovesickness. Puppy love. Crushing. Humbling or humiliating, no one crushes harder than teenagers. Witness this in the movie, Dan In Real Life, when Dan Burns (played by Steve Carrell) gathers his teenaged daughter, Cara, into the family car for a visit to his parent’s house. Cara has very recently fallen in love with her boyfriend Marty and doesn’t want to leave him. When Cara’s boyfriend shows up at the family house and Dan sends him home this pushes anguished, lovesick Cara over the edge as she screams, “You are a murderer of love!” The fact that she only fell in love with him three days prior makes no difference to her.

What causes these hot and irrational emotions of teen lovesickness? Beyond hormones, there are some astrological correlations. Between ages 14-16, we’re experiencing our Saturn opposition. In astrology, the opposition aspect brings awareness of other people into our world -- cute ones, lovely ones, people we admire or in whom we see something of our self. They may fall short of our expectations when they turn out to be humanly flawed, but that’s not before our romantic expectations spin a cotton-candy fantasy around him (or her) faster than you can say Robert Pattinson three times. Swoon.

If Saturn brings the stark awareness of an unforgiving mirror, Venus brings high hopes for romance to the party. Venus is a goddess of romance, self-esteem and relationship. In myth, she was constantly chasing her latest object of affection; likewise, the hot pursuit of romantic relationship charges our interactions with the opposite sex during our teen years. Venus is a fabulous purveyor of romance, but with sober Saturn around, we get mixed results. One day we’re happily crushing away; the next, they take a political stance, or say something we don’t like. They have spinach in their teeth. They snort when they laugh. Or they like another person. No matter how fickle or monumental the offense, our love bubble bursts. Conversely, we may be the subject of our own scrutiny as Saturn’s prickly self-consciousness has us questioning our worthiness and desirability. As in, when we walk away from our crush conversation wondering whether we were speaking English or gibberish. Oh, and then there’s unrequited love -- we have notebooks full of their name in all colors of the rainbow and they don’t even know we exist.

Take heart. Venus and Saturn don’t want us to suffer, they want us to open our hearts to others -- and that always means being vulnerable to pain or rejection. In our opening movie, Cara’s love was returned, but sometimes it’s not. It doesn’t mean that we’re undeserving of love; only that we’re still learning what and who makes us happy. Ironically, the only way we can figure out who makes us happy is by being happy. My teen stepdaughter reminded me of this when we were talking crushes one day. She told me about a boy who is crushing on her, whom she says she only likes as a friend. When I asked whether she enjoyed spending casual time with him she replied, ‘Sure, I guess we have fun together. I can relax and be myself with him.’ This sparked an epiphany when, in the next breath, she said around her crush, she feels dorky and unnatural.

There’s no cure for lovesickness, but the next time we’re feeling self-conscious around our crush we might try relaxing, being natural and lightening up a bit. Because, in a cool twist, we attract -- and we’re at our most attractive -- when we’re relaxed, natural and enjoying our self!