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Test of time
College is usually a time for change but for some couples who are still in their high school relationships, college is a chance to strengthen their bonds
By Matt Hirschfeld mhirschfeld@kansan.com
"I know it's cheesy." Harden says. "But it's what we do."
Home Alone isn't a movie that evokes the thought of Christmas for many people anymore. But it does for Junior Harden and Lindy Johnson, who have watched the movie around Christmastime every year for five years, since they started dating the summer before their senior years of high school.
A family comedy isn't what kept Harden and Johnson together to survive the transition from high school to college. How do couples manage to stay together, with such different educational environments, people and social situations, and is it necessarily good that they did? Have the couples grown to their potential as individuals if they are still compatible with the same person they were with in high school? Or are they just ahead in the relationship game?
Harden and Johnson decided to stay together when they graduated high school. The Larned seniors attended different colleges their freshmen year and saw each other frequently when they returned home. Harden says they eventually came to the University their junior years and decided to live together because Lawrence was too much for them to handle on their own and because of money reasons.
When the couple started living together. Harden expected the transition to be simpler.
"I thought that being together for three years, I knew everything about her," he says. "And we moved in together, and found out I knew absolutely nothing."
Harden says he has never second-guessed keeping the relationship alive. When friends ask him about living with his high school girlfriend, he replies that he was absolutely sure it was what he wanted to do and knew his feelings wouldn't change even when he found out more about who she really was.
Fran Totta, licensed counselor and marriage and family therapist, says couples who have been together for so long can stand back and understand how much they've given each other and how much they really needed and helped each other throughout their relationship.
When Omar Honsy met his girlfriend, Courtney Berger, he had just graduated high school and she was starting her senior year. The couple has been together for three
When relationships begin at a younger age, Totta says, people grow and mature at different rates, and sometimes when people need to mature, they need to be out of a relationship to do so. She says very few couples can survive that. The ones that do, she says, started out with each person already having a strong sense of self.
TV'S High School Couples
Zach and Kelly Saved by the Bell
Angie Cerdes, guidance counselor at Olathe Northwest High School, says high school relationships affect college decision-making more than she would like to see. "But in matters of the heart, I try to direct rather than give my opinion," Cerdes says.
Here are some of TV's high school couples who didn't heed the advice of their high school counselors and ended up together after high school.
Not even Mr. Belding could keep Bayside High's hottest couple apart.The two dated on and off in high school, and both ended up attending the University of California. They eventually married a couple years later in a park after an almost wedding in Las Vegas in the series' finale.
Cory and Topanga Boy Meets World
Cory and Topanga met in middle school, dated in high school and became engaged in college. Topanga gave up her chance to branch off and go to Yale after high school to attend the same college as Cory. The two married while still in college and ended up moving to New York because of Topanga's internship.
Whatever love spell Sabrina cast on her high school honey Harvey must have worked because the two dated for most of high school and ended up together at the end of the series.
Sabrina and Harvey
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
Photo by Alex Bonham-Carter
Kyle Reid and Chance Penner, Andover freshmen have dated for two years. The couple decided to stay together although they were faced with the dramatic changes that college can present.
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October 30,2008