The purpose of this paper was
to describe romantic relationships from the perspective of urban, adolescent
girls, to address gaps in our understanding of their relationship dimensions.
Minority adolescent girls (n =
17) participated in private semi-structured interviews aimed to elicit the
understanding of the adolescents’ perspectives on their own relationship
experiences and dynamics.
The research team conducted conventional content
analysis of the interview transcripts. Four major themes emerged about romantic
relationships: (1) influence of male pursuit and social norms on relationship
initiation factors; (2) a romantic partner is a confidant, friend, and
companion; (3) negotiating intimacy respectfully; and (4) relationship conflict
through control and abuse.
Adolescents described sub-themes of social norms of
male pursuit and relationship pressures that dictated relationship initiation.
Relationships were depicted by emotional support, caring, and companionship.
Adolescents described positive negotiation skills. However, relationship
conflict, including controlling behaviors and violence, was illustrated in
these same relationships.
This study provides a rich description of romantic
relationships from the perspectives of urban, adolescent girls. Most salient
findings included social pressures and a combination of both positive and
negative attributes.
Implications include the need for intervention development
at the community level to address social pressures, recognition of positive
adolescent relationship attributes, and facilitation of skills to identify and
address low-quality relationship characteristics.
TABLE 1
Quotes representing the four themes
| Sub-themes | Quote No. | Illustrative Quote |
|---|---|---|
| Theme 1: Influence of Male Pursuit and Social Norms on Relationship Initiation Factors | ||
| Male pursuit | 1 | ‘He was the one that was chasing me down.’ (Kendra) |
| 2 | ‘I gave him my number, so I just met him, and then in a few days after … is when he gave me a call, and I was like, mm, okay … and he was just calling me and calling me.’ (Rochelle) | |
| 3 | ‘If you want to chill, you come hit [visit or come to] me; I’m not coming to you.’ (Claudia) | |
| 4 | ‘Well, [according to] my rules I think a guy should call the girl more often [than the girl calls the guy].’ (Natalia) | |
| 5 | ‘I don’t like chasing one guy around.’ (Letitia) | |
| 6 | ‘They persist, oh my god, like this guy in the school, he went to [my locker] every single day and you know, it was just like, I didn’t even pass to my locker anymore, because every time he was like there.’ (Angela) | |
| Social norms (related to relationship initiation and partner selection) | 7 | ‘Well, I guess to me I always kind of feel out of place because I don’t have a boyfriend. And with my friends … they’ve been dating boyfriends for two years, a year, and that’s constantly what they are talking about is their boyfriends and what they are doing. And so I guess sometimes I just feel like I can’t hang out with my friends, because they hang out with their boyfriends.’(Natalia) |
| 8 | ‘I didn’t really like him. I just went out with him. I don’t know why I went out with him. You know, to have a boyfriend, I guess. Because a lot of people at school, like just go out with [date]someone just to say they have, with them. But, I don’t think they really like them.’ (Angela) | |
| 9 | ‘It used to be I had bragging rights [because he was a football player].’ (Diana) | |
| 10 | ‘All my friends had crushes on him. They all thought he was cute along with his little group of friends, and so they’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, it is.’ (Diana) | |
| Quotes (11–16) illustrate resistance to social pressures and a pride in independence. | ||
| 11 | ‘I’m trying to be solo right now.’ (Ruby) | |
| 12 | ‘I see the relationships my friends have, and say, ‘I’m okay by myself. I don’t need no one.’ And I know if I go out, I’ll meet a guy, so I don’t need to have one with me, so I think, ‘Whatever,’ I don’t really mind.’ (Rochelle) | |
| 13 | ‘It is important [having a boyfriend] to a certain point, but I don’t feel like I need one.’ (Natalia) | |
| 14 | ‘To me, it is not important [having a boyfriend]. It is not a priority … It is not a necessity … it is good to have someone to keep you from that loneliness that everybody talks about … but in some ways it is bad because it keeps you occupied from other things. Like your work or what you are supposed to be focused on.’ (Jennifer) | |
| 15 | ‘All I wanted to do was like have a boyfriend, and then after me and Kevin stopped talking [broke-up], I actually realized I didn’t need a boyfriend to complete me, which was awesome, and then I was like I didn’t really need anybody.’ (Kendra) | |
| 16 | ‘He was sweet. But people think he was ugly but, OK, he was ugly but I saw the part of him that was like, kind of sweet and ‘cause I like sweet, so that’s why I started going out with him.’ (Laura, describing resistance to social pressures regarding partner selection) | |
| Theme 2: A Romantic Partner is a Confidant, Friend, and Companion | ||
| Emotional support and caring | 17 | ‘He’s [her boyfriend] somebody I could really talk to.’ (Jasmine) |
| 18 | ‘… talk to him about anything.’ (Renee, on why she liked her boyfriend) | |
| 19 | ‘We talked for hours [when dating]. We always talk, every night it’s different because it’s like I talk to him every single night so far since I met him and it’s just like now, all of a sudden, I don’t have nobody to talk to and I feel so lonely.’ (Letitia, speaking on what she missed when relationship ended) | |
| 20 | ‘Like I can tell him anything, and talk about anything.’ and ‘He [her boyfriend] knows all my secrets, and I know his.’ (Kendra) | |
| 21 | ‘Just like a best friend but your boyfriend.’ (Letitia, explaining what a boyfriend was) | |
| 22 | ‘Besides having a best friend, you could have somebody else to be able to trust and talk to.’ (Lena) | |
| 23 | ‘It’s like we have a friendship and a relationship at the same time, so it’s like he feels that, like I said, he can talk to me whenever he needs to talk to me.’ (Mariana) | |
| 24 | ‘… just be completely myself [with her boyfriend] without having to worry about being silly or dumb, just know that if I’m myself he likes it.’ (Natalia) | |
| 25 | ‘I was happy and that went on for eight months and he was such a big part of my life. That was the only person I really ran to for everything. He was my best, best friend. I loved him so much.’ (Diana) | |
| 26 | ‘Because just like we really care about each other and it’s like, you’re intimate … it’s like, me and him are really into each other.’ (Tiffany) | |
| 27 | ‘I had like the flu when I was sick, and he like, he got out of work like one thirty in the morning, came over in the middle of the night and bring me medicine.’ (Kendra) | |
| 28 | ‘I thought it was really fun, we just like always laughed together, we always talked and stuff.’ (Natalia) | |
| Companionship | 29 | ‘We go to his house, watch movies, come to my house, watch movies, go out and just whatever, go to parties together, do a whole bunch of stuff, just be like always together.’ (Renee) |
| 30 | ‘He [her boyfriend] keeps saying that I have a good sense of humor no matter what, I’m always up and about … he’s like, ‘That’s why I enjoy … when I’m with you or even hearing your voice … I get happy.’ (Rochelle) | |
| 31 | ‘We go to his house, watch movies, come to my house, watch movies, go out and just whatever, go to parties together, do a whole bunch of stuff, just be like always together.’ (Renee) | |
| 32 | ‘They [boyfriends] come over and spend time with you.’ (Claudia, explaining the benefit of a boyfriend) | |
| 33 | ‘[He would] be able to take me places, not like with money or but like to go places with me, come around my family and stuff.’ (Teresa, explaining what she would require in a relationship) | |
| Theme 3: Negotiating Intimacy Respectfully | ||
| 34 | ‘He won’t go there to front me off in front of everybody, trying to make me look bad [boyfriend will not publically confront or embarrass Tiffany to address a rumor] But like he would talk to me about it and it’s like, we have a lot of respect for each other, and I have a lot of respect for him and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.’ (Tiffany) | |
| 35 | ‘We usually, if we are screaming and yelling, we figure it out that now we talk, and I be like well you can call me back when you calm down.’ (Diana) | |
| 36 | ‘We talked about it. He said like he wouldn’t rush me.’ (Jennifer, speaking about sex) | |
| 37 | ‘I felt like he respected me to wait and stuff and so I wasn’t in a rush.’ (Teresa) | |
| 38 | ‘We discussed it [sex] before we did it ‘cause like, he didn’t want me to be uncomfortable when the time came so. I said, yeah, ‘cause when I say no, I mean no.’ (Renee) | |
| 39 | ‘Me and [boyfriend] call it making love because it really does, like the first time we did like I cried. That sounds so like a little kid, but we waited like a really long time, and like we almost did it [had sex] … and I was like, ‘No, I want to make sure it’s right.’ And he was like, ‘I don’t wanna do it unless it means something to you.’ (Kendra) | |
| 40 | ‘There’s nothing we really disagree about like, I mean, he knows my limits, and I know his limits, and you know, he respects them, and we respect each other for that and stuff like that so there’s nothing really that we’ve ever fought about that included sex.’ (Diana) | |
| 41 | ‘I did it [had sex] with [current boyfriend], it’s like okay, I trust myself to do this, it’s not even if he wants me to do this cause I want to do this, and I feel comfortable with him. I love him so I was like, ‘Okay.’ (Rochelle) | |
| 42 | ‘We may kiss or hug … it’s been times that it got close to having sex but it’s not like I’ve done it. I’m waiting for my time to come. Not that I don’t love him or I care about him, it’s just not the time.’ (Tiffany) | |
| Theme 4: Relationships Conflict Through Control and Abuse | ||
| Controlling behaviors | 43 | ‘He was smothering me, and I was getting real mad. He was just calling me five times a day.’ (Lena) |
| 44 | ‘It just annoyed me because I wanted my own space and I didn’t have it … I would come home and be home for like 15 minutes and he was at my house.’ (Claudia) | |
| 45 | ‘Each guy wants to go out with me, they want to like call every day … he [speaking of her current partner] is the kind of guy that next day he wants to marry you.’ (Maria) | |
| 46 | ‘I’ve been there and like changed everything for a guy, and I don’t want to do that anymore. Like, I don’t want to be like, ‘Oh, you don’t like my nose ring, I’ll take it out.’ Which I was gonna do that with [past boyfriend]. Like, I was ‘Whatever you want,’ and [current boyfriend] doesn’t like it, but I’m not taking it out …’ (Kendra, after learning from a previous relationship) | |
| 47 | ‘I want to know who he is with, where he at, what he doing, why he call at a certain time, I want to know it all.’ (Jasmine) | |
| 48 | ‘Yeah, it’s like, your old man, it’s your property … that’s my definition of it but you know, it’s like he’s yours. He’s not everybody else’s.’ (Tiffany) | |
| 49 | ‘All the rest of them girls [girls her boyfriend did not have permission to talk to on the phone], you’d better tell them you got to go somewhere, hang up the phone or don’t pick it up because these girls out here nowadays are grimy and you cannot trust none of them.’ (Renee, describing her rules of who her boyfriend is allowed to talk to on the phone) | |
| 50 | ‘I told him he’s on punishment [after a particular offense not detailed]. He can’t touch me, can’t hug me, can’t kiss me. The only thing he could do is shake my hand … That’s how I was and he wasn’t understanding; so I had to let him know, I had to let him feel that I was not playing [she was serious]. (Renee) | |
| 51 | ‘I think if you touch another person or another person touches you, that’s your property or like say here if you are a girlfriend, well if you have that tag, that’s your property. That’s someone to trespass on your property, I think.’ (Jennifer) | |
| Physical violence | 52 | ‘I was yelling at him [her boyfriend], and he got up and he punched me in the arm, and like I flew into the TV, and knocked some stuff over, and I still wanted to talk to him after that happened. He’s like, ‘I just hit you. Why aren’t you leaving?’ … and I’m like ‘I want to talk about it.’ … I was stupid looking back on it, but at the moment I was just like that was my whole world, and I just wanted to talk about it and fix things, and it’s really stupid looking back.’ (Kendra) |
| 53 | ‘[her boyfriend] never hit a girl before and I just pushed the limit so …’ (Renee, justifying her boyfriend trying to punch her) | |
| 54 | ‘So he’s [her boyfriend] like ‘come back over here’ or whatever, and he’ll just grab my arm, but it’s nothing like, he’s never pushed me or anything.’ (Diana) | |
| 55 | ‘I would just hit him [her boyfriend] because I knew nothing else was going to make him mad and I thought that might make him mad … I just wanted him to be mad because he made me mad. I think that was just because like I cared about him.’ (Ruby) | |
| 56 | ‘We fought and he said something that made me so angry and I shoved him into a glass sliding door … because he made me that mad.’ (Kendra) | |
| 57 | ‘I’m gonna come up to you all at the same time and punch you all both in your all lips while you all still kissing.’ (Renee, a hypothetical threat to her boyfriend, if she found her boyfriend with another girl.) | |
| 58 | ‘[hitting him], that’s just how I let him know that I was mad.’ (Claudia) | |
| 59 | ‘I was abusive but he didn’t get mad about it. He didn’t react to me, he’d just stand there and let me smack him … cause he liked me so much, if he didn’t put up with it, then I’d just wave bye.’ (Ruby) | |
| 60 | ‘I was abusive to him, but in ways he deserved it’. [After disappearing for a few days and later finding him she said] ‘And he sees me, he goes up the stairs real fast ‘cause he knew[participant was mad] and then I went in there and I smacked him in his face.’ (Ruby) | |
| 61 | ‘I’ve beaned [hit on the head] him before too though, just because he hit me.’ (Jasmine) | |
| Psychological violence | 62 | ‘He had people calling me and threatening me, and he threatened me and I had a chance to change my cell phone number and … he was so mean.’ (Letitia, after the break-up) |
| 63 | ‘I was so mean to him. He just took it so much from me.’ (Letitia) | |
| 64 | ‘We argue, like I don’t know, we keep arguing about who’s right. I yell at him more. (Teresa) | |
| Sexual violence/pressure | 65 | ‘One guy he just, oh my god, he pressured me so much into having sex … he was just like, ‘I don’t feel like using condom’ … pressured and pressured me on. ‘Okay, you know, just don’t … he didn’t use a condom I think I got herpes from him, like he pressured me so hard, ‘cause we did it like more than once … I wanted to cry and I was just like, oh why am I doing this and it was really too late. I’m like, okay, well it’s too late now. So I might as well keep doing it …’ (Letitia) |
| 66 | ‘If I said no, then I mean he’d question it, but it wasn’t like he would try and pressure me, he’d just say, why not and stuff like that.’ (Claudia) | |
Full article at:
By:
Ellen M. Volpe,
Address correspondence to Ellen M. Volpe, University at
Buffalo, School of Nursing, Wende Hall, 3435 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA. Email:ude.olaffub@eplovme
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv_insight
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