Narrative Essay

Professor Stephanie Dupal

ENG 112

10 Feburary 2019

Narrative Essay

January 27, 2018, a day that resonates happiness and bewilderment. I was visiting my godmother for a week in Houston, Texas. I was very excited mostly because the guy I was talking to lived nearby. I was anxiously waiting for the chance to meet him, the trip came as a surprise or how I thought of it before as, fate. I was still in high school at that time and about to turn 18. Naïve, 17-year old me felt like a coming of age film where the girl meets the guy and at first it was like that.

I finished getting dressed and putting on my makeup when I heard my phone buzz in the corner. His name quickly popped up, Manny was arriving. I quickly glanced at my reflection in this mirror, my yellow hoodie covered my black tank top, I had on fishnets under my light blue jeans with beige vans. My heart and stomach felt like it fluttered with a million little butterflies. I had eagerly rushed down to wait on his mom’s car to pull up. I saw a grey car get close and I grew anxiously. Mostly because my godmother didn’t know it was a guy I was meeting up with. I quickly tried to leave without my godmother following behind. As the car approached me, I quickly got into the passenger side and I saw him hiding on the floor trying to avoid me getting caught. My godmother and his mom shared a short conversation, I felt bad because I had lied and his mom was covering for me. That whole disaster finally ended and I was able to finally see him. His beautiful brown eyes glanced as soon as I turned around. He had on a thrasher burgundy hoodie with black dickies and of course a beanie to engulf his wavy hair. I could tell he was very nervous by the way he would smile every time I glanced back at him.

The first words he said will always stay with me, three soft spoken words, “You’re so beautiful,” he said it so quietly maybe because he didn’t want his mother to hear. I felt content and delusional towards the risks I had just taken. In that moment everything didn’t matter to me. I realize now that at that age I was living on a thrill-seeking feeling, I feel like my mindset has changed throughout the year. My mind hasn’t been in that spot ever since that day.

Many adolescents seek relationships whether it be romantically or just online close relationships. Generally, people tend to perceive negatively toward online relationships for many factors. Young people are constantly involved in technology which has caused a shift in how they communicate and interact. They seek validation online with individuals who share similar interests, while it is normalized, it can also be considered risky.

Young adults tend to fall into the negative stereotypes due to their adolescent-typical behavior such as risk-taking, impulsivity, and being irrational. During this period, teenagers are able to develop a sense of identity and affiliations with their peer groups. Vulnerability is increased due to psychobiological and evolutionary factors according to Manuel Gamez-Guadix. Meeting strangers online is very common among adolescences, and they tend to ignore many dangerous factors. Some experiences of online behavior can be sexual grooming, in which sexual harassment of children is exploited by adults. Manuel Gamez-Guadix studied the cross sectional and longitudinal relationship between major risky online behaviors that adolescences tend to perpetuate. The study was aimed to analyze the role of impulsivity and irresponsibility of meeting strangers online. It has been statistically proven that 4% and 14% of adolescents have reported contacting with strangers to then meeting them in person according to Manuel Gamez-Guadix.

Impulsivity can be described as explicative mechanism in which teenager’s risky behaviors are carried out due to lack of analyzing the possible consequences it can lead up to.

During adolescence, rick and resilience is a major factor that they face. According to Behavior Reviews “adolescents experience changes in social, emotional and cognitive process