LIFE LESSONS
Your First Love Doesn’t Have to Be Special
The thing about love is that there are plenty of beliefs about it that people have taken as gospel truths even when they aren’t — certain things that can happen but won’t always have to.
You can forgive and forget before you move on, but it’s not a requirement.
Some things take time, while others come naturally.
And your first love can be special and unforgettable, but it doesn’t always have to be.
There’s No Love Like the First
In terms of order, sure.
Your first love will always be number one, but that’s mainly because nothing else came before.
Anything that happens for the first time will always be memorable, at least in the sense that it’ll become a core memory to which others of its kind will be compared. Generally, human beings value experience and lessons from the past are integral to progress.
The same goes for individuals and relationships. Your first friend will affect the kind of friendships you will have for the rest of your life.
A person’s dynamic with their parents will determine how they’ll view adults and authority figures in the future.
Someone’s first love, on the other hand? He or she will set the bar for every succeeding object of affection, every relationship, and every heartache moving forward.
That’s just how life goes.
So if you find yourself comparing all your lovers to your first partner from university who you always thought you’d one day marry, that’s just normal. You don’t have to beat yourself up over fleeting thoughts about finding them again to see if you can give each other a second chance.
Some firsts can be the last. Others can also remain the best for a very, very long time.
But if your first love happens to be the cute childhood neighbor who smiled like the sun but whose name you can no longer recall, that’s also valid. Just because you never got around to exchanging more than a handful of “hi”s and “hello”s, it doesn’t mean your feelings weren’t real.
And if your first love is someone who broke your heart and gave you every fear and insecurity you’ve ever had about romance — if they’re someone you’d rather not remember ever again — that’s okay, too.
It’s not necessarily a mistake, and it certainly isn’t a failure.
Not All Firsts Are Created Equal
The belief that first love is always special can make people hopeful.
It gives everyone something magical to look forward to, something to strive for when most of life is still unknown. It allows people to dream.
But that same belief can also create impossible expectations. If someone’s first love turned out to be ordinary or brief or even traumatic, it can lead them to think that they did something wrong. That they didn’t follow the rules.
If people can’t live up to these expectations, they may never believe in love ever again.
So the next time someone asks you to describe your first love and you’re worried they’ll judge the short and simple story of a boy you forgot when your family moved to another city, you can breathe easy. It may not be exceptional, but it’s still a story worth sharing.
And if you ever feel insecure because your friend married his high school sweetheart while yours left you for some other guy a long time ago, acknowledge the feeling and carry on. There’s no use dwelling on the past when you can choose to move forward.
Your first love doesn’t have to be special; it just has to happen. And all the loving and leaving, the falling and aching will only prepare you for the love that is right. The love that is meant to last.
And your last love won’t just be special. It will be perfect.
