Help, my teen Sims are trapped in a vicious cycle of misery and crushes

When I play, it is normal. Sims 4, I don’t make any Sims younger than a “young adult.” I tend to make original characters or re-create my friends in the game, but I never had interest in controlling young sims and dealing with their learned traits or school issues.

My manager told me to check out the The High School YearsIn order to create gameplay guides for the expansion pack, I did what any other person would: I made my husband, my best friend, and myself teenage Sims. Then I put them all in one house without supervision.

This is my responsibility, I realize that the teens’ excessive sexual desires and rages are my own. That was something I forgot. Sims 4 added sexual orientation and preference, and I forgot to set the two guys’ orientations to straight (as they are in real life) in-game.

Right off the bat, my husband’s Sim entered a “flirty” mood and began to flirt with the Sim that looks like me. She became his crush, something I found funny and very endearing. However, things shifted almost immediately after, as his Sim turned to our friend’s Sim and began to flirt with him, too. Both of them developed crushes. Awkward.

However, I was unable to make them sexually compatible in Create-aSim. Everybody had crushes. At that point, I didn’t know that I could make them get over their crushes, so I panicked. There was now a complete love triangle-circle-oblong in the house, which consisted of the teenage versions of myself, my husband, and a close friend. Unfortunately, it caused the teenagers to be moody and horrible.

Image by Maxis/Electronic Arts via Polygon

Teen Sims were able to switch emotions at will. If they weren’t in a “flirty” or “very flirty” mood, they were “tense” from being around a crush, or even angry from seeing their crushes talk to somebody else. Since they all were crushing on one another, this kept going. It was hell.

Normally with my adult Sims, they retain positive moodlets: happy, inspired, confident — and it’s easy to keep their spirits up. My teens were an absolute mess. Their jealousy from hearing their crush talk to someone else would overpower any positive moodlet that they might gain.

It also didn’t help that when making our Sims, I thought it would be funny to give us all realistic traits from our teen years. I gave my Sim the “gloomy” trait because, well, I was a depressed emo kid! In addition to the terrible moods, Sim would also cry in her own bed. Her crush roommates, who would then see her in distress and be sad for her, would worsen the situation.

Between school, part-time jobs to keep the household afloat (remember, there’s no adults living in here, because I did Not think this through), and making sure the Sims’ needs were met, I had to force the teens to take cold showers, talk themselves down in front of mirrors, and essentially just spam any action that would drag them out of whatever fit they were currently throwing.

Image by Maxis/Electronic Arts via Polygon

After scrolling through pages of actions by chance, I noticed there was an option to force your Sim to “get over” their crushes — which only worked sometimes. While I was able to snap our friend out of a cringe crush on me, my husband was too enamored with the friend and he couldn’t get over the crush. It was his fate.

I ended up pairing up my Sim with my husband’s (as one does, in The Sims), in the hopes it would squash any lingering crush problems in the house. But even while in the relationship, my husband’s Sim kept crushing on his friend. My Sim was in a very bad mood. It was not fixed.

So now I continue on, attempting to soothe my hormonal Sims before they go to school or work so their crushes Don’t negatively impact their careers. Going back, I realized I should have forced our Sims to be related so this wouldn’t happen, but it’s too late. I’m in too deep.

Learn from my mistakes: Remember to set your Sims’ sexual orientation and bloodline so you don’t (or do, if that’s what you want) end up with horny agony teen house.