If you don’t remember what the stereotypical teenage relationship is like, here’s a reminder, with a few tech updates: Girl dates Boy. Boy flirts with another girl. Girl gets mad and hands on hips, yells at Boy in high school hallway. Boy and Girl fight, through each others’ friends. Girl cries to girlfriends. Boy wonders, with guy friends, What’s the big deal? Finally, they break up…over Facebook. 

The couple sitting in front of me is, yes, a teenage couple. However, they’re anything but typical. Adam (15) and Rory (16) seem rather unmatched at a glance. Adam looks older than he is; he’s sitting back in his chair, a calm about him that makes him look wise. Rory is leaning forward with a huge grin on her face; she looks giddy and has an innocence about her. One of the first things I ask them is how their relationship differs from other teen relationships. Suddenly there’s a shift in their body language. Rory’s bright smile turns into a meaningful gaze, and Adam perks up, listening as Rory answers, “I’m satisfied and happy with what we have, and I don’t want anything more. I trust him. We’re best friends.” Adam nods and adds, “She gets to see the part of me that no one else sees.” 

As they talk, I find that they’re more alike than meets the eye. They both have the same sarcastic sense of humor, listen to Pearl Jam and Sublime, and talk with a maturity beyond their years. The biggest thing they have in common? It is clear that they like and respect each other – a lot.

When asked how they met, Adam replies, so seriously it’s almost believable, “In a chat room.” But then Rory laughs and tells the real story. When Adam was in Middle School, Rory’s older brother gave him bass lessons, so they saw each other around. They never actually talked until Adam entered High School. “I thought she was too cool and too pretty to talk to me,” says Adam.

One day, Rory saw Adam sitting in the school hallway doing his homework.  “I just sat next to him and started talking,” she says, “I barely knew him, but I felt totally comfortable.” Adam adds, “We understood each other right away.” 

I ask them what first attracted them to one another.  “It was all the beard,” Rory jokes. “No other fifteen-year-old grows a beard like this.”  Adam laughs quietly and asks, “Oh, really?” 

Rory grabs his hand.  “Kidding. I saw him the first day of his freshman year, and I thought, ‘Wow, he got so cute.’”  Adam explains what first made him notice Rory. “She carries this ambiance, sends off these vibes that are like, ‘Hey, everything’s okay.’”

I notice, during our interview, their mutual support. They grab each other’s hands or smile and give each other a look that says, Go ahead, say what you want to say. 

The couple became "official" (Rory finger quotes) on August 14, 2009. “We were watching the stars and I asked her to be my girlfriend,” says Adam, “and she said no.” Rory throws her head back and laughs. “I definitely said yes,” she says, setting the record straight. “I kissed him first, though,” she adds. Adam tells her, “I liked you way before that, though.”

“When?” Rory asks with wide eyes.

“Like, the first time I saw you.” Adam puts his hand on her arm and then they turn back to me, as if they’re remembering they’re still being interviewed.

An interesting fact? Rory tells me the couples’ six-month anniversary is on Valentine’s Day, as she turns to Adam and says, “Good job asking me out on the 14th.”

“Thanks, I planned that.” They laugh, letting me know that what Adam says is a joke. They don’t have any specific plans for Valentine’s Day, their six month anniversary, yet. However, as Adam says, “As long as we're together, I don’t care what we do."

Both say that they have changed since their relationship started. Adam explains that he was at a rough point in his life when he met Rory (dealing with his parents' divorce) and she helped him express the conflicts and emotions. “She taught me so much. She showed me all the good things in life.”

Rory says she started talking to Adam a few months after she had gone through a bad relationship (“One of those typical, immature ones”) and thought all guys were jerks. “Adam proved me wrong. He showed me that there is a good, sweet, amazing guy. For me.”

They say they can be themselves around each other. “I don’t have to wonder if I’m being real. He’s the only one I can be myself with,” says Rory. One of their favorite parts of their relationship is that they’re open and can talk about anything, but they can also be goofy together, keeping their youth. Adam says, “We can make fun of each other and laugh.”

They seem to know each other extremely well, so I ask them to tell me the quirks they’ve noticed about one another. Adam lets out a laugh and says, “When she tells a story, she goes like this: ‘I have to tell you about…a pair of pants. But first, I have to tell you about where they’re made. Oh, but first I have to tell you this! Sometimes she ends up telling so many other stories that she forgets to tell the actual one.” Rory giggles and bumps him with her shoulder, adding, “He washes his hands after he eats. And I always know if he wants to tell me something important, because he’ll start off by saying, ‘You wanna know somethin’?’” 

I ask them what is unique about their relationship compared to any couple, not just teenaged ones. “We’re on the same brain wavelength or something,” says Rory. “Yeah, we can communicate without talking,” agrees Adam. I ask them to elaborate. 

Rory explains that they can finish each other’s sentences, they often say the same things at the same time, and they don’t have to use words to know what the other is thinking. “If he wants to tell me something, he can just look at me, and I get it,” says Rory. “That’s unique, because we’re so young, but we’ve found something most people don’t get to find at our age.” They look at each other for a moment, and I wonder if they’re communicating right then.

They tell me that a lot of people doubt that their relationship will last. “People just see us as kids,” says Adam, “they don’t see us as a real couple.”

“We’ll prove them wrong. We’ll last,” says Rory, sharing a smirk with Adam.

Lastly, I ask them how they make their relationship work so well. They come up with some simple, yet great advice: Find the right person, and it doesn’t take “work” to make it work.

“With the right person, nothing is really wrong,” explains Rory. “We don’t have to try to make it work.”

“It just does,” Adam says. 

It just does.