“Why First Loves Can Have Lifelong Impact: My Decades-Long Mourning Journey” | Relationships

Do you recall your initial romance? I remember it vividly. He had captivating eyes, a shy smile, and I found him to be exquisite. I made every effort to cross paths with Brad. We had the same tutorial class in secondary school, so I had the pleasure of encountering him daily. I even fabricated opportunities to see him by purposely walking a certain way to the lunch hall or carefully selecting my physical education options. I recorded our meetings in my diary, where I pseudonymously referred to Brad as “Gregory”, a name I considered unbreakable and enchanting. This was probably because my mother adored Gregory Peck. (I later discovered, when she asked if I knew a boy named Gregory, that she had stumbled upon my diary, but that’s another story.) Brad was timid and never went out with girls. I tormented myself with profound metaphysical inquiries, such as, “How well do I truly know Brad?” and, “Is this love or just infatuation?” I couldn’t fathom how Brad couldn’t see that we were meant to be together for life. After two years of unattainability, I decided to move on from my infatuation with Brad. My love for him ended as abruptly as it began. Surprisingly, the following week, Brad caught up to me on the way to math class. “Will you go out with me?” he asked. To my fifteen-year-old self, this seemed unbelievable that fate would work in such a manner. Plus, due to my shyness, I tended to underanalyze signals. “Do you mean it?” I inquired. “Absolutely,” he responded. Two weeks later, Brad and I broke up after a single kiss in the squash court during physical education, and zero meaningful conversations. Yet, for the past 36 years, I have remembered every word of our dialogue on the path to math class, the fact that I was walking ahead of him, the pattern of the paving slabs on the little path, our awkward kiss in the squash court, and the uncomfortable clashing of our teeth. I have loved others much more passionately since then. So why do I remember Brad so vividly? What is it about our first loves that make them so enduring in our memories, and why is it so difficult to let them go? “We have countless relationships, but in some ways, we learn the most from the very first one,” explains Catherine Loveday, a professor at the Centre for Psychological Sciences at the University of Westminster. I’m certain I didn’t learn anything from Brad – but then again, maybe my subconscious knows better. These questions engrossed me while I was writing my novel, Speak to Me. The novel tells the story of a woman who becomes obsessed with her husband’s phone – he can’t seem to put it down – and who in turn nurtures her own distractions. She lost a case of letters written by her first love and must decide whether to search for him or leave the past in its place. Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, who has spent her life studying love, believes that nearly everyone she encounters can recall their first love in detail. “There are certain things about first love that are truly dramatic,” she observes, and these experiences cannot solely be explained by novelty or what author and psychotherapist Philippa Perry refers to as the “social contagion” that drives us to seek “true” love, even at thirteen years old. For her research, Fisher examined brain scans of people in love. “I found activity in the addiction centers of the brain. You’re addicted when you fall in love with somebody,” she asserts. “Addicted to them.” Every time I entered my tutorial class or orchestrated a “chance” encounter with Brad, I was driven by the release of dopamine in my ventral tegmental area (VTA). The depth or practicality of the love doesn’t matter. “It had emotional power,” Loveday explains, “simply due to the chemical reactions occurring in the brain. The activation of the reward pathway that accompanies every interaction or sighting of that person is a significant predictor of whether something will be etched in our memory.” Loveday continues, “When we form a memory, it isn’t some mystical occurrence. It’s a network of cells firing together to give us the conscious experience of recall. We learn through pleasure and pain. We desire to repeat activities that bring us joy and shun those that cause discomfort. On a basic level, this pleasure-pain index serves as a chemical gauge in the brain to determine if something should be repeated, ultimately reinforcing neuronal circuits in the brain.” Nevertheless, first loves rarely end up as lasting loves. One drawback of this chemical system is that first loves often fail due to a catastrophic mismatch between the intensity of emotions and future viability. This can be seen in the accounts of Guardian readers who responded to the request to share their experiences of first loves that have never left them. “She broke up with me one year after we met. I’ve mourned for her ever since. No other girl could compare to her. I couldn’t feel for others, not even for my future wife, what I felt for her,” writes a 78-year-old. “I had a couple of relationships afterward, but they weren’t as good. I spent significant periods of my life single,” shares another reader. “I’ve unconsciously compared every person since,” confesses a 30-year-old. “No one has come close to what I had with him,” writes another reader in her late 60s. Why are some individuals so profoundly affected by their first love that they can never love as completely again? Lance Workman, co-author of Evolutionary Psychology, reveals that this was a common experience for many bereaved women during the first and second world wars. “It’s a form of PTSD – they feel that they can’t love again.” “It’s a very important question,” says Prof Sue Carter, a biologist and behavioral neurobiologist at the Kinsey Institute. “The same chemistry that allows for first love is likely the chemistry we need to overcome trauma.” When someone in their late 70s expresses that subsequent loves never measure up, “what they are telling you is that the first relationship impeded their ability to love later on.” Carter shares an interesting anecdote about William Masters, the gynecologist and pioneer of sex therapy, and his first love, Geraldine Baker. Masters and Baker were married for 20 years before divorcing. Masters then married his third wife, Geraldine Baker, whom he had known during medical school and reconnected with by chance. It has been reported that Masters sent Baker roses and a love note while they were in college, but she never received them. He only discovered this at the age of 79. Carter poses the question, “Could Masters’ young love for Baker have hindered him from forming lasting relationships with his first two wives?” In terms of relationships, one can only speculate, but there is a significant amount of research on how trauma affects individuals. Many people who have experienced traumas seem unable to rewrite those experiences. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that a failed first love could result in a similar lasting impact. Margaret Magee, a respondent to the Guardian’s request, wasn’t traumatized when she broke up with her first love, Graham, at 17. However, afterward, she experienced distress due to letting him go.

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