Shhh! The Secret Relationship

Relationships are usually given a lot of fanfare in high school. It's the beginning of the great dating saga of many people's lives, and, true to form, teens far and wide want to sing it from the rooftops: “I'm dating So-and-So! Isn't it wonderful?!?!” But not everyone is so loud and public. Some prefer to keep their romantic liaisons so under wraps that not even their close friends and family members know about it. They have what you'd call The Secret Relationship.

My sister was a great believer of secret relationships in high school. Her relationships went something like this: lalala, everything's normal, and then all of a sudden Sis broke up with her bf. Wait, what? I'd protest that I didn't even know she had a boyfriend, to which she would nonchalantly answer, “Oh yeah, we dated for like a month. No big deal.” No big deal? Being a few years younger, it was a very big deal to me. I wanted to know all the nitty gritty, all the ins and outs of the glamorous high school dating scene. I mean, none of my friends were dating, and she was all I had to look up to. And yet I knew nothing. I was lucky if I ever even discovered the name of one of her cast-off paramours.

I would chalk this up to Sis being generally cavalier about relationships, except for the fact that one of my friends had a secret relationship too and it was pretty serious. I knew about it, but no one else at school did. They went about campus the same as ever, interacting in class if need be, and then on the weekends, when no one was paying attention, they'd steal off and be a “real” couple. They weren't seeing anyone else, but they weren't seeing each other (wink wink) either.

Personally, when I'm in a relationship, I want to tell everyone about it, so this doesn't make sense to me. But the excitement my friend experienced, how she reveled in the devious little secret, well that certainly seemed appealing.

Have you ever had a secret relationship and, if so, why didn't you tell the world at large?