When I stumbled across one of my childhood boyfriends on a dating app last year, I matched purely out of curiosity: how had his life changed? What was he doing these days? We met at church as teens, and from the start of our courtship, there was a congregation-wide investment in us that felt suffocating. Looking back, all that nosing around the romantic lives of teenagers was bizarre, but we didn’t think much of it. Many of those I attended Sunday School with are now married to each other; had I not moved to Bristol for university, would I have met the same fate? We exchanged numbers and caught up; he’s a father now and seems happy. He’s lovely, but ending up together would’ve been a mistake, and I shudder to think of the ways our lives would be limited if we’d succumbed to the pressure of our elders.
I find the culture-wide obsession with “childhood sweethearts” nauseating and weird. Two people meeting before their brains have properly developed and committing to spending the rest of their lives together sounds nightmarish to me personally. I’m sure many great love stories were born this way, but I can’t help but think about how limiting it is to position them as a superior romantic arrangement. As if young love is purer somehow—or as if you’ve failed if you find a compatible partner much later on, or don’t.
To add to that, pop culture is littered with men lauded as a cut above the rest because of their dedication to one woman in the face of all the lurid temptations that visibility and power bestow on them. Their restraint is seen as a reflection of their good character, their dedication to one woman despite the odds considered a reflection of their values. A man marrying his childhood sweetheart, especially when they’re wealthy, good-looking or famous, is seen as some kind of herculean sacrifice and therefore an example of their moral character. This is because famous men are expected to cash in on their social capital and success by trading in their old wife, who probably made numerous sacrifices for him, for a younger one. When they don’t, they’re considered virtuous. The bar really is that low.
Weirdly, nowhere is this more common than in football. “In a world of conformity and celebrity superficiality, [Harry] Kane stands out”, one writer described in The Times. Why? Because he married his childhood sweetheart and “made a commitment to the woman he calls his ‘best friend’.” Gary Lineker was described as “almost saintly” for marrying his childhood sweetheart. “5 World Cup Players Who Married Their Childhood Sweethearts,” People reports, making sure to note that these women were around before the money and fame. A marriage to someone met in childhood—irrespective of the relationship we don’t know about—sanitises a man’s image. A woman who has stuck around for the long haul becomes an indicator that he is one of the “good ones”; it signals him as safe, responsible, and, most importantly, contained.
It seems impossible to discuss what feels like a growing obsession with young love—an idea that was particularly popular in the 1950s, with its focus on the nuclear family and the invention of the teenager—without also acknowledging rising right-wing populism; the kind that glorifies the tradwife and calls for a return to traditional family values. As men on podcasts continue to compare their sexual relationships with women to locks, keys and even used cars, we’re simultaneously seeing a dated purity culture where women are only as good as their preserved innocence. Of course, none of this is to say that a happy, long-lasting relationship isn’t something to celebrate. But a love borne from childhood often represents the purest, most conservative, gold-standard image of straight partnership within the cultural imagination—and that, to me, is icky.