You see it in the movies, hear the great high school love stories and all of a sudden, the pressure jumpstarts. Love is a special thing, but first loves have something about them that brings a different kind of special to the table. Thoughts of first loves are ripe with emotions; whether they come and go as good, bad or a complicated combination of the two. Regardless of how positively or negatively your experience unfolded, your first love influences how you go on to approach romance in significant ways, even if you don’t realize it. They were your first taste of romance–that strange thing people always talked about in the movies that you dreamt about and finally really began to understand. Your first love is your first time experiencing yourself outside of your comfort zone, with feeling things you never thought you were capable of feeling toward anyone.
In the long line of happiness, sorrows, and memories, one word bubbles up again and again. First. My first love. My First time. My first ever. Unlike all the relationships that came after, with this one, the past can’t seem to stay in the past. Whether your first love brings back thoughts of sitting in the back of a Volkswagen, carving your names into a lock, or going on movie dates, they are imprinted on your heart. A significant reason why our first love affects us so powerfully is that they’re connected with all of our firsts. Along with our first experiences partners a vividness that doesn’t fade as other memories do. You may not remember the fourth real kiss you ever had or the 20th, however, you most certainly remember your first.
Dr. Niloo Darashti, producer of the documentary “Into the Twilight Haze” discusses how people often compare their current relationship to their first love in order to determine if their feelings for their current partner align with that definition of love they’ve created from their first experience. However first loves, sometimes so intense, so passionate and so memorable, can sometimes cast a shadow on relationships forever afterward. This is what is detrimental to many people who try to seek love after their first love. Dr. Darashti explains that first relationships become so idealized that they set up unrealistic benchmarks for following relationships. What we forget to remember is that during the time we spent with our first loves, we had fewer responsibilities and more time. We were naive and young. Although this doesn’t make the love you felt any less true, it is essential to recognize the circumstances of the new love that you will discover and the differences between it and your first love.
The first cut is really the deepest. Whether it was a long or short relationship, or maybe it didn’t even get to the relationship stage at all, our first love maintains some power over us. However, Singer, a psychologist says it perfectly;
“I think it’s not just about the other person. It’s about who we were at that time. We are relishing the image of ourselves. They give us license to be the person we were once again-young, vibrant and beautiful.”