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First Loves - Circumstances and Consequences - SBR

  
 
Kiltartan Cross
11:25 / 13.10.06
Prompted by a conversation elsewhere, I thought I'd like to explore here a topic that's bothered me for a long time: what was it that having, and then losing, my first love did to me? I have some ideas, and I'd really like to compare them to other people's experiences of first love, so I invite y'all to post your own perspectives after my sad spiel.

I first fell in love at about, oh, 13, with a girl at school, and fell hard. I was, to put it mildly (astonishingly, considering the people I was surrounded with, but that's another story), naive; my conception of love had sprung from books, and when I was there, I was there. I would be there for life, forever! and to imagine anything else was highly wrong of me. My heart stopped when I saw her; when she was around I was even more of a fool than usual. I stayed that way for four or five years. I rebuffed someone who had the same kind of stupid infatuation with me - cruel of me, but what else could I do? - and I missed all the chances which would probably have done me a great deal of good, just so I could continue crying myself to sleep.

Eventually - eventually - I gave up and let it - let her - go. Partly through choice, I'd been in other (brief) relationships by that time; but we were at different ends of the country by then, anyway. The last time I saw her I was still making as big a fool of myself as ever.

So far so humdrum, I suspect, but what really bothers me is this: it was the first time, I really believed it would be - could be - the only time, and yet, in time, I betrayed that. Broke the promise to myself, the unspoken promise to her that I'd love her forever. It was such a big deal to me to do that. I'd become a liar to myself, broken the holiest promises I could make; what did that make me?

I realise, of course, that giving up was the only sane thing to, but it didn't alter the fact I'd betrayed my love. I can't help but wonder whether it left me with a seed of betrayal - of the knowledge that it was possible, not only possible, but that I'd done it before - which diminished every subsequent love I've had.

Ach. Is this commonplace? Am I making too much of it? Anyone still in the same boat? Let me know. And how about you lucky few who're with your first love - what do you read from this?
 
 
The Natural Way
12:48 / 13.10.06
What is this doing in the Head Shop?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:57 / 13.10.06
Yes, the Head shop is for "Philosophy, Cultural Studies and Identity Politics," none of which really covers this thread. This is more of a Convo topic.
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
13:37 / 13.10.06
Ooops bugger, sorry. Would you mind moving it?
 
 
Not in the Face
14:44 / 13.10.06
I think its commonplace but I think you are also drawing the wrong conclusions. I actually felt stronger from the end of my 'first love' (although I would challenge the term) and didn't see it as a betrayal of that impulse but a recognition of growth and who I was had changed and an acceptance that this was a good thing. I still love that person for who she is and what we had, but it doesn't diminish anything that followed and in fact allows me to be more expressive in how I love because it gives me greater perspective on my own reactions to events
 
 
StarWhisper
14:49 / 13.10.06
I beleive this thread may have a legitimate place in headshop.
I feel kay may be asking essentially, what effect falling in love (especially at such a young age) can have. I think there are many interesting aspects of this to be considered; for example, how this can shape identity, how this and the experience of falling in love effect the reactions of and to society towards and by an individual.
Philosophically speaking there is also an issue here of conflicting morals, psychology, the truth(?) of and power of changes in perception and reasoning that could be explored. Ideals, the origins of how the world is viewed and what happens when the 'model' reality of a person is de-constructed could also be investigated.
Everywhere I look there are broken hearts and un-requited love. I beleive a heartfelt yet serious and analytical approach to this subject would be useful.
That said I think conversation is too casual an environment, things may regress into silliness or carelessness which I feel would be a waste. If you all feel this thread belongs in convo then that's cool, you should moveit to where you feel it belongs. If it does get moved I will happily start a new thread (albeit more formally introduced) here about this myself .
 
 
StarWhisper
14:51 / 13.10.06
You moved it while I was posting!!! grrr ...



Well I don't know if starting another thread about this would be counter productive or if the above should still stand for this thread here or whether an informal chat about this is really what everyone wants. I will start a new thread if it is necessary.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:35 / 13.10.06
Does everyone here know who their first love was? I think it's quite complicated, I find love an emotion without particular definition. It's as if people expect you to just take a stab at what it might be. It's not the same as excitement or jealousy, like, dislike, anticipation, all emotions that you can almost physically feel. Is there a difference between intense like and love?
 
 
StarWhisper
15:57 / 13.10.06
I think there is a difference. In my experience if you are in love then you know it.
Often people describe love as almost bieng like a drug, that something is running through their veins. It has recently been discovered that a chemical exists in the blood-stream of people who say they are in love. It's called Nove, the Nove growth factor, that is, the amount of the chemical found in the blood and its fluctuations are relative to the feelings of that person toward their significant other. It tends to dip suddenly at around eighteen months in a large number of people.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
15:58 / 13.10.06
I didn't want to rewrite this, so this is copied from an early spring blog entry of mine:

I'm sure I'm not alone in this: do you ever have moments when something completely innocuous triggers memories you haven't thought about in years?

I say this because as I was out shopping--rather aimlessly, I might add--for food yesterday, I happened to wander down the soft drink aisle, and there I spied--and I didn't think they made it, anymore--cherry 7-Up. Gasp! Shock! Awe! Horror! That one soft drink alone takes me back to being 17 and having the very first real love of my teenage life. So I thought I'd just ramble down memory lane some and take you along. You're welcome to gag in disgust if you like at the potential for cutesy-ness.

His name was Tom Lightle--and I ain't changing no names 'cause no one's innocent--and he was two years older than me. I met him on Halloween downtown, and truth be told, it was his really his friend Aubrey that I had a crush on. Aubrey was in a gorilla suit, I think I was just dressed in my usual goth regalia, and Tom went as a prison bitch. (Any wonder I'm attracted to perversity?) For some reason, Tom and I ended up talking for a long period of time, and he hoped to see me around even after my friends dragged me to lamest Halloween party in existence. I thought he was cute and funny, but again, I was 17 and didn't know any better.

Fast forward to a month or so later. There were tons of late night phone calls--you know, those earnest adolescent ones where everything has meaning? He worked in an vet's office and would drive a good ways into the suburbs to hang out with me at my folks' house. He always brought small presents for me.

Namely, Cherry 7-Up and Camel lights. Ah, nicotine and sugar. Isn't that what young love is comprised of? Our entire relationship lasted through winter so my recollection of those days is tinged with the sort of grayish-peach sky that comes with those months, with woodsmoke and incense and cold leather. Two punker kids wanting to learn everything about each other because too much was not enough.

He was an artist; a damn good one, too. He painted/drew these strange landscapes. I would sit in his bedroom for hours watching him work. He did the same. He used to watch me clack away on this decrepit old typewriter I used to have. With the door closed, Tom Waits playing like a mad carnival, he would sit on the bed, thumb through 'zines, and ask me about whatever story I was typing.

That Christmas he bought me a silver cross pendant inlaid with a single amethyst. I don't remember what I bought him. I met his family, they all adored me, and at the end of the evening he, his sister, and I sat at a Waffle House strung out on some sort of painkillers. (Hey, I was young and a Goth living in a shitty town. What did you think we did for entertainment?) I remember thinking all that time of a line from Edgar Allan Poe: "We loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee."

When I did sleep with him, it was like touching fire, touching heat, and the impression of that passion has lingered with me still.

But young love doesn't last. It's not supposed to.

One New Year's Eve, he went out with his friends, I went out with mine. My friend Megan and I dropped a good deal of acid and things just went weird from there. A couple of days later I sensed an unhappiness in his voice and knew in my heart that it was over. Just like that. As clean an ending as a beginning. It was the first time I knew that a heart could break. Could shatter neatly in two.

We saw each other from time to time after that. Always in crowds, or at parties, but we never really spoke again.

So...back to the soda aisle. I saw the Cherry 7-Up, I bought it, and upon tasting it, was reminded what the mouth of a 19-year-old boy tasted like. That sweetness, that sorrow, that one moment bottled up inside.

See? I'm more of a softy than you think..
 
 
StarWhisper
08:52 / 14.10.06
A sip of ginger-beer brought back the forgotten piles of autumn leaves and the smell of wood-smoke; I was playing with my dad in the garden when I was three.

I feel really bad about those last couple of posts. Really, really didn't mean all that in an aggressive or prescriptive way at all, or to disregard the actual nature of this thread. So sorry.

I don't know if I can handle posting my own experiences of this here and I guess that explains a preference for the more scientific aspects of emotive subjects.
Yeah, I think first love is forever, naive and that it does change you.
And I think it may be commonplace but not that you're making too much of it.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
09:47 / 14.10.06
I apologise for the abstractness here: I think I have some worthwhile advice but I'm not a huge fan of getting personal.

I think that it's fairly obvious that emotions, love or hate, will always blow apart any kind of saddle or rationale of convention/ontology you try and put on them or fit them into. A pal told me they were never going to be in a serious relationship- bollocks, I said, if you try and force a rule like that on yourself you'll fuck up. Likewise people who think they have to stick forever with the first person they slept with at college.

Why is first love special? Convention, ideology. Is it actually special beneath that? Maybe. It depends on you. Why are we supposed to devote to one person? Convention, ideology. Is it actually a good idea? You tell me, buddy. In some situations it will be, some it won't. Alternatively, why are we supposed to "let go", "move on" (how I despise those words) and have relationships elsewhere? Conventions and ideology also tell us that, just a different set of them. For me, the censorious voice that says "Stick with the first person you kiss or you're going to hell" is odious, but so is the mocking voice that says "What? You only like one person? That's ridiculous!"

As with every other area of everyone's life, all too often conventions and ideology, produced by self or others, get in the way of the actual practical truth. To deal with the issues this thread talks about, you have to look through the always-already haze of religious and social custom (which is what we're dealing with here) to find what works for the specific human beings involved.

So...have I ever acted on any of the above? Well, I've had, and survived, some incredibly strange relationships, such as a multiple one, in which one of the partners was a tutor of mine, which I shan't go into here but which I'd be willing to talk about privately if anyone really wants to. The way I survived was by keeping a free head: basing decisions not on what peers thought, or what magazines told me to do, but on what was the genuine best option for the involved. "Damage Limitation", as it were- no prejudices, pure engagement with the facts of the matter- though I admit it would have been easier to be depressed and fucked up, much easier.

I hope some of you find this useful!
 
 
Disco is My Class War
10:30 / 15.10.06
I don't really know what first love is. This thread reminds me of a Laura Antoniou story called "The First Time I Was Bound," which is not about first love, but the first time the narrator was tied up, I think. It takes you through about seven or eight different scenarios, all starting with 'the first time i was bound,' etc, but involving different people at different times in the narrator's life. Ie, what counts as the first time changes.

Don't people's ideas of what love is change in a similar way, as they grow older? Mine certainly have. And isn't love always different, depending on the object of that love?
 
  
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