Pink, red, white and sometimes pastel purple. Love is officially in the air.

According to ny.gov, healthy relationships require work and compromise from both parties and are characterized by open communication, honesty, trust and respect. There is not any power disparity. Partners share decision-making authority, respect each other’s independence, and are free to act independently without fear of reprisal or vengeance. Relationships take a lot of work and patience.

Ann Marie Meiman, 12, has dated Wendell Tchallassi, 12, for one year and nine months. They started off as not friends but not in a relationship either, what Meiman described as a “situationship,” lasted for about six months.

According to Dictionary.com, a situationship is often discussed as relationship tendencies without a commitment to be exclusively dating each other.

Of course, relationships can also be a fearful part of life. According
to webmd.com relationships can be frightening for many reasons these days, such as the inability to handle current dating dynamics and technological advances, the fear of being vulnerable, past experiences of grief or betrayal, and pressures from society.

In high school, it is a mixture of both, but some can keep a long relationship and work through every challenge.

“[Communication] it’s the most important thing in a relationship, it’s not love its communication,” Andrew Brave Heart, 12, said.

Brave Heart and his girlfriend, Arryanna Nunn-Swan, 12, have been going strong for about ten months. They have never taken any breaks and did not have a friendship beforehand.

According to a German study from edoc.hu-berlin.de in 2010, conducted that the typical duration
of a long-distance relationship was three years, which is less than half the duration of a typical relationship. In another study from onlinelibrary. wiley.com, statistics on long-distance relationships revealed that both parties believed they were likely to stick together despite their distance. In reality, they split up about as often as a married couple would.

DaMarion Middlebrooks, 12, explains that space is a necessity in a relationship. Him and Charlie Kaaa, 11, have been together for ten months.

“We were both real emotional, so I said, hey, we just need to take a minute, all this animosity and negativity is not directed at the other person so let’s just take a deep breath,” Middlebrooks said. “Communication is going to be the biggest factor, if something happens or if anything they

PICTURES BY CHRISTINA LOPEZ, ASHLEY PHIPPS AND BELLA BLAZEVICH GRAPHICS BY ASHLEY PHIPPS

do bothers you, you can only ask them so many times what’s wrong before they actually tell you”.

Darius Richardson, 12, and his girlfriend Dominque Cook, 12, have been together for about ten months. Cook was the first to say the three big words “I love you.”

“We were together for about five or six months; we were at a pool, and I was just swimming around and she had come up to me and she had said “I love you.” I was in shock but then I said it right back as soon as possible because I felt the same way, I just didn’t say it first because I was scared, she didn’t feel that way at the time” Richardson said.

Tchallassi favorite memory with Meiman that makes him laugh every time is when they made heart shaped pizzas together.

“She said hers looked better than mine, and I said mine looked better, so we did an anonymous poll on Instagram and I blew her out of the water,” Tchallassi said.

As eventful as high school is, it does end eventually. Long distance is a topic that sits differently with everyone. With senior couples graduating, most of them plan to stay connected over facetime calls and social media even if they are moving away from each other.

According to medium.com, the distance may not make your relationship harder, but it will make it different. Two hard things that couples face in a long-distance relationship are the lack of physical intimacy and distrust. Lack of physical intimacy can lead to cheating and lack of clear communication can prompt jealousy.

Richardson is not afraid of going long distance.

“I think we got what it takes to communicate when we go long distance because we have it all figured out. What we will do when we are long distance is talk to each other as much as possible, when we can we’ll facetime or whatnot. It’s going to be hard, but I feel we’ll make it work, definitely,” Richardson said.

Meiman admits that she is scared but is hopeful.

“I’m a little scared to go long distance because we’re so used to seeing each other on weekends and at school. It’s definitely going to be a big change, but we’ve had conversations about it, and we are going to make sure we are still communicating and using FaceTime so that things will be less scary,” Meiman said.

Goodbyes are hard, but as Beyoncé once said, “They say true love’s the greatest weapon to win the war caused by pain, but every diamond has imperfections but my love’s too pure to watch it chip away, nothing real can be threatened.”