Why Do Our First Loves Stick With Us?

Image credits to Daren Magee / @realfunwow on instagram

A first love. Whether you are fourteen, eighteen, twenty-five, or eighty years old; we all experience that first introduction to connection. You'll grow to describe it as fireworks, passion at first sight, or simply naive. Maybe you'll tell your future daughter about his temper and his eyes when she's crying over her first heartbreak; or you'll remember the shape of her lips and the way she said your name when your son tells you about his first kiss. 

I asked my Instagram followers to tell me what their first experience with love was like in one word; as an attempt to understand the phenomenon of the first love - and why they stay with us. Even if we can no longer remember the sound of their voice, or feel nothing when "your" song comes on the radio, this experience molds us. 

"Addictive". "Electrifying". "Exhilarating". "Evolutionary". "Consuming". "Intense". "Capricious". "Surreal". "Breathtaking". "Skydiving". 

Some of the words people chose were full with life, adrenaline, and ecstasy.

Our first loves stick with us because they're just that: Firsts. We remember because for all of us, they're a beginning. Life before love feels unreachable and foreign when you're in it. First loves retain this unique quality of memorability because of the shock, and the freshly addictive dopamine. The thrill of being on such a euphoric plane – shared with another person – is one of the most unearthly experiences we can have as earthly beings. 

This is the way I remember one of my first loves. The pounding in your chest as your untouched self becomes the opposite – touched. Fireworks make up your vision. BOOM. It's triumph, even if the high only lasts so long. The rush of the first time he relays that your words are magic to him, or tells you that he loves you. The rush of the moment when you realize you, in fact, love him too.

Our first helps us build our own definition for love. If we graduate from our first love, and move on, we unconsciously search for that feeling in every person we consider after. We build ourselves in lots of ways, around our first great love. 

"Suffocating". "Terrifying". "Fake". "Scared". "Painful". "Shit". "Difficult". "Toxic". "Unrequited". 

Some of the words people chose were full of loss, and breakage. 

We remember our first loves, because in countless cases, it's the first time we feel an emotional pain who's scar is deeper than any of the ones we may physically possess. 

Before your first love, you are unscathed. You have all of yourself to give, with no boundaries or fears – because it's love! We grow up in a world where love is more desirable than currency; where Hollywood paints to us a picture from an early age that love is the epitome of human feeling. So when we meet them, before we have scratches all over our hearts, we are so able and wanting. Pouring our love in such an abundance than any recipient could drown in it. 

This is why the hurt comes in lung-filling waves. Real heartbreak can quite literally register in the brain as nerve damage or strain, causing a spiral of bodily functions that support a breakdown. Adrenaline, but with no dopamine. BOOM. Fireworks in your vision, but with no triumph. 

I can remember sitting on the floor of my shower, burning water clouding my tear-filled eyes, trying to lose myself in Lord Huron's voice on "The Night We Met". I allowed the music to overpower my thoughts – hoping it would prevent me from remembering that this was a kind of sadness I couldn't call them, and hear their voice, to solve. 

You look back and realize what all of the "lasts" were, and wish you would have revelled in them just a little more. 

You promise yourself it will work. That you are soulmates, or twin flames, and that nothing can tear you from this person. Maybe you talk about marriage, kids, or that trip to Paris he swears he'll propose to you on. You build up security, thinking you will be safe from the pain of romantic loss for the rest of your time on earth. 

We love in such an extreme the first time, that we can build blind spots. You convince yourself that when she says she'll never do it again, she won't. You convince yourself that the person you fell in love with is still there, still perfect. 

Acceptance, or the facing of the truth, as love dies, feels like a slap in the face. You have to start over, plan for a new future, a new face to walk down the aisle to, a new set of arms to joyfully throw yourself into when the doctor says “it’s a boy!”. They will have to start over too, a reality that hurts possibly the worst than the loss of them.

The scars that a first love leaves remain fresh.  

"Belonging". "Comfort". "Reassuring". "Safe". "Secure". "Vulnerable". "Beautiful". "Selfless". "Friendship". "Mutual". "Natural". "Self-worth". 

Lastly, some people chose words of peace. Of knowing, of healing, and of finding oneself through another. 

We remember our first loves, because they teach us how to love. They show us that love is in fact, real (and quite a bit better than any hallmark movie you can ever watch). That we are deserving of love, and will continue to be deserving of love, even if it is no longer from them. 

First loves, naive and sweet – or not – shape us as people. 

We remember them because they leave traces behind that stay within us. 

I know every song on George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass", because of my first love. My best friend flinches every time we drive past an all-black Chrysler, because of her first love. My sister refuses to wear too much makeup because her first love told her she was more beautiful without it. 

One person responded to my question with the following, and it was so beautiful that I can't think of a better way to end. To sum up that love is just that, an emotional climax.

"There wasn't a specific moment when I thought I Love Him. Everything he was, was lovely."