The Cure

On Saturday I went on a real live date! With a guy and everything! Like a real adult. Can you believe it? Oh the horror!

Well, I’ve decided I actually enjoy dates. At least, I enjoyed this one.

It wasn’t one of those ‘let’s go for drinks so I can get in your pants’ dates. Neither was it a ‘we need to talk’ date nor was it one of those awkward ‘my friend set this up’ dates.

No, it was a real honest-to-god date. One of those where the guy picks you up at seven, takes you to an amazing restaurant with really good food and lets you order your own meal and ends of the evening with some sort of activity that you’re supposed to enjoy and then takes you home and leaves from your doorstep not from your bedroom after an awkward morning-after chat.

Anyway, that’s not the point; the point is that after dinner we went ice-skating (which I really enjoyed) and to my utmost surprise the arena was filled by well-dressed teenagers from about 9 o’clock till about 12 o’clock. Now maybe this is because I grew up in the middle of nowhere but I know for a fact that when I was in high-school we never did anything as safe on our Saturday nights.

We had nothing to do but drink, do drugs and have sex (in no particular order). We didn’t have the option to go ice-skating and if you weren’t into the whole ‘rebellion’ thing then you found yourself alone, in hostel on your Saturday evening or watching your friends getting high in some dodgy corner.

I think it is amazing that teenagers are going ice-skating instead of drugs and sex and at the risk of sounding like an old woman; I think it is FAR better that way!

So, the solution to underage drinking, and really high pregnancy rates amongst teenagers is to build ice-skating arenas all over South Africa. But I bet it isn’t the only thing that will attract bored teenagers. What about ten-pin bowling? I rate teenagers would go for that just as much. Cure the boredom and I am sure that the stats will improve.

But the fact that I even have to mention half of the things that I have mentioned in this article is proof of just how far our generation has slipped into the deep abyss of mayhem that awaits us with open arms.