This one might get ridiculously soppy but I have been thinking recently about first love. I often seem to hear people – both in real life and in fiction talk about their inability to ever move on from their first love. This has been backed up by Dr Malcolm Brynin who has (or had, if he’s changed jobs) the title of principal research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. His research indicated that intense first love can have the effect of blighting all future relationships for the people involved.i He found that the intensity and excitement of a very passionate first love experience led people to be dissatisfied with all future relationships – seeing them as boring in comparison.
And yet I wonder. I’m not doubting the validity of Dr. Brynin’s research. I suspect that what he reports happens lots. What I wonder about is whether it happens because of the way we talk to each other about first love? In the book, Anarchism and Sexualityii, Jamie Heckert writes beautifully about how humans weave spells in the form of the stories we tell ourselves about the world around us. Maybe those spells are enough to cause the results that Dr. Brynin’s research uncovered? If that’s the case, could we tell ourselves other stories that might make the intensity of first love a positive force in our lives?
I wonder if a broader definition of first love might help? In fact, I often wonder about broader definitions of romantic love. Romantic love is almost exclusively associated with relationships that involve some amount of sharing bodily fluids – from passionate kissing to all manner of other sexual activities. Does this add to the idea of first love as a first and only type activity? Something wonderful that can never be recaptured? Could we tell ourselves new stories that do something to break the link between first sexual experiences and romantic love?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines love “as an intense feeling of deep affection or fondness for a person or a thing, a sexual passion, or sexual relations.”iii Tobias Esch and George Stefano mention “attachment, commitment, intimacy, passion, grief upon separation and jealousy” as being among the emotions associated with love.iv It seems to me that neither of these descriptions about love necessarily indicate any sort of sexual activity.
They don’t even necessarily describe relationships between humans. There are plenty of people who experience feelings of jealousy if their dog shows the same level of or more affection to another person as it does to them. And even more people experience pain on being separated from their pets. And yet it’s very rare to hear anybody talk about being in love with their dog (or their platonic friends).
If we could be more upfront even just privately with ourselves and describe relationships with pets and platonic friends as being in love, might it make a difference? I struggle to identify a single first love in my life. So far – I think there have been five of them. Firsts in different ways. Each one valuable and each one positive in my life. At least those are the stories I tell myself.
So here they are. If you want, let me know what you think. Are these positive tales or am I deluding myself in an attempt to feel better about the fact that I have avoided being swept off my feet by a masterful man and then glided up the aisle in a long, white dress!
My first first love happened when I was very young – I’m sure teenage hormones played a large part in the profound effect it had on me. This one is a first love because this relationship involved the first time I ever kissed somebody else with passion. Although I don’t yearn for a repetition of that experience, it has resonated down through my life. My first first love was a smoker (probably still is) and even now – more than 25 years later – I find kissing smokers a wonderfully sexy experience. My first first love remained in my life for many years afterward, becoming a friend and occasional protector who would irritate me sometimes by visiting me late at night and keeping me up talking.
My second first love is a platonic friend and came along at at time in my life where most of my friends were either people I’d met at school or the children of my parent’s friends. That love was the very first time I’d ever experienced the heady feeling of meeting somebody new, connecting strongly with them and having the feeling reciprocated by the other person. What a joy that feeling is. The first time we ever met up on our own was for lunch and we talked for hours. Very quickly we graduated to speaking almost every day and spending several days and nights a week together – mostly talking! Our lives became enmeshed – we spent time with each other’s friends and families. We had a serious, caring relationship that wasn’t lessened by the lack of us sharing bodily fluids.
Thinking about my third first love still makes me smile. This was a first love because it was the first time I had ever had an intimate relationship with a close friend. I remember going through a stressful time then trying to decide if I should leave a degree course I’d started. My third first love was important in making that decision – an ability to listen and ask useful questions without trying to direct the decision is a rare and valuable skill. One that my third first love used to great effect when helping me decide.
The other thing that sticks in my mind from that relationship is just how uneasy it made some people. That we didn’t formalise things by describing ourselves as romantic partners seemed to be at the root of the unease. There seemed to be some anxiety among our friends about us having a sexual relationship, caring about each other and yet still describing each other as ‘just friends.’ At that time, I was young and inexperienced – I didn’t have the confidence to point out that friends are important. There is no ‘just’ about a good friend. Plus – the relationship that my third first love and I had suited both of us. At that time, I wanted to be free to spend my weekends skiing and my summers working in whatever remote Highland hotel would give me a job. The experience of that relationship too has remained with me through my life and is one of the reasons that I am keen to remove the ‘just’ part from the phrase ‘just friends.’
My fourth first love was a much more recognisable first love than some of the others. My fourth first love was the first person I was with in a committed, sexual relationship of the type that most people would see as a ‘proper’ relationship. For ten years we traveled through life together. We bought our first flat together, finished university together, we helped each other through the experience of getting permanent jobs – no more summers working in Highland hotels! We got our first pets together. This was the first time I had experienced a relationship where friends and family started to see me as one half of a couple.
Possibly because of the experiences I’d had with my second and third first loves, the friendship that fourth first love and I shared was something I valued. We both did. When it came time to for us to part company, the breakup was handled with compassion and kindness. I still think of my fourth first love often with great affection – the relationship taught me lots about my own needs and limits. And reinforced the value of friendship yet again.
My fifth first love is a dog and the relationship is, of course, platonic. This relationship is the first time I have experienced the sort of love where I would try anything, keep on trying and turn my life upside down for the other. Until this relationship, I had always retained a strong sense of my own independence from others. Indeed, I had gotten this dog envisaging long walks and having a peacefully sleeping dog lying under my desk as I got on with writing. Really, in my head, much of the relationship was around my needs and wants.
When my gentle companion had a traumatic experience which left him unpleasantly different – and sometimes frightening, things changed. Suddenly the relationship was not all about my needs. I found myself investing time, money and energy in learning what I needed to in order to help my friend over his problems. I stopped writing for myself and started studying – for 8 years I studied. First, learning a gentle method known as TTouch and then going on to gain an honours degree in canine behaviour and training.
The end result of all of this was uncertain and I found that didn’t put me off. My companion and I worked together for several years on helping him get over his trauma. Over time, he did and over time, I learned to trust him again. That relationship taught me much about the difficulties of love and about how sometimes things take a very long time to heal – years rather than months in some cases.
So I find that rather than being blighted by my first loves, my life has been enhanced by each one. Not only that – I think that each of my first loves has helped me learn things that make me better able to be a good friend to the other important people in my life. Maybe talking to ourselves and others about love in a way that is different from the norm is one way to counteract the negatives that Dr Brynin found with first love? Maybe perspective is the key thing rather than first love itself?
i Amelia Hill “Why We Can Never Recover from First Love” Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/18/relationships-love
iiEdited by Jamie Heckert & Richard Cleminson (2011) Anarchism and Sexuality Routledge, UK,
iii Tobias Esch & George B. Stefano. “The Neurobiology of love” Neuroendicronology Letters Vol. 26, 2005 Available at:http://www.nel.edu/pdf_/26_3/260305R01_15990719_Esch–Stefano_.pdf
ivTobias Esch & George B. Stefano. “The Neurobiology of love” Neuroendicronology Letters Vol. 26, 2005 Available at:http://www.nel.edu/pdf_/26_3/260305R01_15990719_Esch–Stefano_.pdf
The Joy of Thought 