Love Or Platonic Friendship?

Each child is unique in the world and his or her development is full of different experiences along the way. It is these unique experiences that make them a real mature human being. Children’s growth is a colorful, comprehensive and improving process which includes physical, mental and moral development. Meanwhile, what can’t be ignored is their emotional growth.As an important phase of life, junior high is a time when children’s attitudes towards the world and life are becoming clearer. Everyone experiences the most variable and needy period when they need to be understood and supported. Therefore, children during this period (also called teenagers) need much help from others. At this time, they are in the face of different problems as they are communicating with the opposite sex. These problems have received sufficient attention from the society. Therefore, it’s necessary to analyze these problems scientifically and carry out a deep research based on effective measures, which will greatly help teenagers to solve the problems.Intimacy and love are often mixed up by most people. That is why they often call the intimate relationship "puppy love". Only a small number of boys and girls experience love during the stage. Therefore, this thesis will focus on the intimacy between teenagers of the opposite sex. If the difference between the two is not made clear, many students will be misled, which will do harm to their emotional growth and mental health.Firstly, the intimacy between the two sexes enlarges teenagers’ circle of social communication and enables them to make friends of the opposite sex. It can also satisfy teenagers’ mental and emotional demands and relieve their feelings of loneliness and loss of identity. Furthermore, it is also helpful to teenagers to know the beautiful complexity of the world and the colorful richness of life so as to develop a wholesome personality. On the contrary, the lack of intimacy between different sexes will influence teenagers’development and even make a twisted character. If a wholesome relationship between different sexes can be maintained, junior high students are apt to have a positive mind.Meanwhile, intimacy is a good way for teenagers to know more about themselves and then render great self-improvement. During this communication, students can learn how to understand each other better and also develop a basic understanding of true love, which will enrich their spiritual world and help them develop a proper attitude towards love. Therefore, intimacy plays an important role in teenagers’physical as well as psychological growth.However, nowadays the social understanding and prejudice of the opposite sex is not specific enough, including that of schools, teachers and parents, lacking scientific analysis and categorization, and ignoring the value of opposite-sex intimacy. At the same time, their ways of solving problems on opposite-sex relationship is not appropriate. They are so rush to call it "puppy love" without getting to know what the relationship is about. Therefore, it’s high time that the whole society should understand teenagers’opposite-sex relationship correctly and guide teenagers to develop a healthy relationship with the opposite sex.Based on literature review, comparative study and interview, this thesis will analyze the differences between intimacy and love, the nature, reasons and factors of the opposite-sex intimacy. The correct attitudes and proper strategies for the opposite-sex intimacy will also be discussed. Hopefully the thesis will be able to help parents, teachers and students deal with problems on opposite-sex relationship and then help teenagers develop a positive wholesome relationship, which is apt to be the foundation of their entire lifetime.