Marrying your (junior) high school sweetheart

[snopes]

Comment: I got a text forward saying that 90% of people marry their 7-12
grade sweetheart. Is this true?

[Mateus]

Go online to find your future spouse

Nineteen per cent of the couples met online, according to the survey, compared with 17 per cent who met at work and 17 per cent who met through friends. In contrast, a similar poll of almost 5000 couples who married between September 2004 and August 2005 found that 14 per cent met online, compared with 20 per cent at work and 17 per cent through friends.

My guess is that it might have been true when Grandma and Grandpa were courtin', but not anymore.

[rujasu]

I don't think 90% of the people at my high school even had "sweethearts." I'm surprised anyone would even believe this one.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by rujasu

I don't think 90% of the people at my high school even had "sweethearts." I'm surprised anyone would even believe this one.

They may have dated, but I doubt that 90% were really serious to the point that they could have made a commitment - especially with many people going out of state for college and moving to other states.

I can believe that a good chunk of married people met their spouses in college and were classmates. Thats a far more recent friendship/dating and you are arguably much older and mature at that point. But even that number is not going to be anywhere near 90%

[snopes]

Also, the wording "90% of people marry their 7-12 grade sweetheart" implies that that phrase uniquely identifies a particular person. If you dated eight different people in high school and eventually ended up getting married to one of them, did you truly marry your "high school sweetheart," or did you just marry someone you originally met or dated in high school?

[Ramblin' Dave]

Anecdotally speaking, I did know a surprisingly high number of people in college - many of them from hundreds of miles away - who went home after graduation and married someone they'd known in high school. (Not necessarily an SO thoughout all those years, but they had at least known each other.) Not 90% of people I knew, though, and some of them have since been divorced - I'll bet that happens a lot. I could see that statistic being not far off among people who either go to college in their hometowns or stay in their hometowns after high school without going to college, but not among the population at large.

On a related note, a girl - now woman - whom I had a crush on in high school recently added me as a friend on Facebook. Based on her current picture, I wouldn't recognize her or be attracted to her if we passed on the street today.

[franjava]

I married my high school sweetheart, but DH didn't. He was in college when we started dating.

[MidgardDragon]

I married and divorced my highschool sweetheart, heh.

[JohnnyLocke]

To me, the wording of the question could also imply that it means 90% of people who had high school sweethearts married them. That would make a lot more sense, as HSS normally refers to people who are together through most of high school; so they would be likely to stay together afterwards.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Most married people I know originally met in their early 20s.

[Hero_Mike]

The people I went to high school with, had either no "sweetheart", or "many" of them. How does that work?

[FullMetal]

interesting anecdote...

I once met a woman online, and dated for about 6 months who
1. figure skated (synchronized skating) with my sister so I watched her skate, (I remember thinking she was cute but thought nothing more of it but never knew her name)
2. went to school with me for years but never saw her (she was a few grades below me)
3. her mom worked with my mom for 15 years.
4. we had many of the same friends.
5. apparently we were tried to be set up about 5 times throughout high-school, but nothing ever worked out like that...

I didn't end up marrying her, but truth be told, if things went another way with her would that have been considered "high-school sweethearts?"

on the other hand I married a woman who...
1. was born close to me,
2. her mother taught at my high school
3. she lived down the street from me for the first 2 years of her life. (what would have happened had they never moved)
4. she moved all over the world (Denmark, Netherlands, Malta, Houston TX.) and eventually settled back home where it all began and thats where we met...

one small glitch she's too young to have gone to high school with me... but the coincidences were staggering especially since she only lived up here for a grand total of 5 years, 3 of which are with me...

I think the high school sweetheart thing is just a phrase. i think the couples may have known each other in high school, but to call them sweethearts is a misnomer. statistically, a lot of people live close to home, get jobs close to home, fall in love close to home, and get married close to home. and as people tend to be attracted to people their same age it stand to reason that the possibility of them going to the same school is very high.
sure many people move away but a lot come home.

just looking on my facebook, about half of the married couples I know know each other from highschool, some were even dating exclusively throughout highschool. some never knew each other until after high school.

[surfcitydogdad]

I think I rec'd that bit of glurge, or whatever it is, in the e-mail once, and thought it outdated at the time.

Thanks to www.classmates.com, I regularly correspond - entirely innocently - with a girl who was in my 5th & 6th grade classes. In the 6th, we were friends and I had a crush on her. I don't recall our relationship in the 7th grade, but I know I had a crush on her in the 8th. And, at a dance towards the end of the school year (8th grade) I remember that she was my first dance (aside from learning in PE or whatever).

I rarely saw her in high school, but by the time I turned 16 and asked her out, she had a boyfriend already (and ended up marrying - and later divorcing -him). So, I am in contact with this person for the last several years, but there was never a marriage, nor even a date between us.

I last saw her a few years ago at a high school reunion. I still like that great personality (and very intelligent - I met her in our school's "gifted" classes). She even had much shorter hair than usual, because being the good person she is, she had donated it, and as it was just a little too short for the required amount to cut, she let them take enough, although it left her hair a bit short, just ahead of a big high school reunion. Obviously not vain; another good characteristic of hers.

I don't care that she's overweight - so am I, and I have a floppy neck, too. BUT we are both happily married, never dated each other, and never were close friends. That we are not the same religion is reason enough for us never to be serious (besides that we love our spouses, 2nd marriages for us both). She's great, though. I tell myself she's too extroverted for me, but in another reality, I can see loving her, just as FullMetal might have married the other woman.

I can see how people are tempted, and some do strike up romance - often illicitly - with old flames. It's not based on reality, though, and it's probably unwise most of the time (especially if one or both are still married to someone else).

At my 20 year high school reunion, I met at least one couple who married, who had been sweethearts in our same school, but it was a big one, and in the mid-70s, when that sort of thing might still happen. Don't know of anyone who married someone they knew in jr high, and had counted as boyfriend/girlfriend at that early age. Also, marrying someone you knew in high school or even jr hi, is different from marrying someone who was your sweetheart continuously since then. That's weird to me; kids need to get out and meet people, and live their lives a little.

As for me, I always figured that I most likely wouldn't marry anyone I even knew before I was 21. I knew a few girlfriends, as a teen, who I might have liked to marry (who knows if it would have worked; probably not), but I pretty much knew it would never happen. Not practical, at the very least. In another place or time, sure, it might have been nice. I knew I'd be a missionary from the ages of 19 to 21, and most guys who do have a girlfriend get a Dear John letter during that period, anyway (and it's for the best).

I never actually had a real "girlfriend" from my own high school, but had a couple of them I'd met at church or elsewhere, who went to other schools. I didn't marry until I was 26, to a woman who was from another state. Married again, at 48, to a woman from another country (just barely). BUT, I think it's great about FullMetal; great stories.

Actually, my parents knew each other when my mom was in jr hi, but my dad was a young high school teacher at the time. He was a friend of the family, as some of her older brothers were (or had been) in his classes. Several years went by, and all the time she had a schoolgirl crush on him. Both dated others. When she graduated, and was almost 18, my dad had a change of heart, and let her catch him. Sounds scandalous, but there was no wrong-doing. It was a long time ago, too. His mother was more worried than her mother. He had been drafted just before they married, and when his time in the Army was up, his old school offered him his job back. He ended up not going back to teaching, but that they offered him his job back means they obviously didn't think anything inappropriate had taken place.

Now that some of you have reminded me of all the people who met in high school, my sister married someone she knew in high school, not her boyfriend at the time, but her boyfriend's best friend! But, that was back in the mid 1960s, when a lot of people married not long after high school. I know my parents weren't happy about it; they had college in mind, but she did finish college after marrying, and before - just before - her first child was born, and my parents got a couple of grandchildren out of the deal. My sister and her husband divorced after about 25 years, though.

When I think back, I'm glad all my early romances are just memories. Had I married any of the girls I knew when I was young, it's likely we'd be divorced now. I sometimes wish I had known my DW since we were young, and been married since our early 20s instead of our late 40s, but I guess I wasn't ready until many years later. For those who can pull it off, though, good for you.

[smackmac]

I only know of two couples who married their high school sweethearts. One got divorced and one, AFAIK, is still together.

I married my prom date. Who I met about 2 months before prom.