They say that first love is the most sincere. For some people, it is just a sweet memory, but others are more fortunate: they manage to build a life-time relationship early in life. Either way, it’s impossible to be indifferent to stories about the first butterflies in the stomach.
- I was 5 years old, and I went to summer camp. There was a boy, about 3 years older than me, doing martial arts. And one day, a couple of minutes before bedtime, he somehow went around the counselors, opened the door to our room and threw me a note. The girls crowded around me and were like, “Come on, read it out loud.”
I realized then that it would be ugly to tell others about what was written to me personally. And then I did one of the most shameful things in my life. To make sure that no one would take it away from me, I tore up the note and put it under the mattress. I never found out what was written in it. © Kseniya_m / ADME - We were 13. We both came from really bad homes. Our parents didn’t like that we were dating and did everything to keep us apart. We hated everyone and everything except each other. She was the first person in my life I ever told I loved them. We spent every second we could together for about 6 months. Holding hands, cuddling, making out.
Then one day, her parents decided she was going to go live with her aunt in New Hampshire. I got told about an hour before she left. She left me a phone number, but eventually her aunt had the number changed. I had lost the only person in the world in my 13 years I had ever loved.
I spent years on the Internet trying to find her. This was before social media, when the best you could have hoped for was to stumble on her AIM account. I eventually started doing searches on MySpace for anyone her age in the town in New Hampshire. I’d start messaging them one by one, asking if they knew this girl. For a long time I got no responses, or they never heard of her.
Then one day I got a response from her new boyfriend, oddly enough, and he put me in touch with her. We experienced a very passionate re-emergence of our feelings and had a long distance relationship for about 3 months. Then we lost touch again for about 5 years.
Then we found each other again and were going to make plans to be together. Then she told me that I was inadvertently bringing back her childhood trauma and that she couldn’t be around me anymore and that we shouldn’t talk. I was 28 when I lost her again. © Zonerdrone / Reddit - I was dating a popular guy at the university, and then we had a fight. The next day, he pretended he didn’t know me. I didn’t show my feelings, but my heart was breaking. Once I was walking after classes and saw him kissing another girl.
I walked past him, but then our classmate and this guy’s best friend caught up with me. He hugged me, and I stood there sobbing into his shoulder. And then he invited me to a concert that night. The next morning, we showed up at the university as a couple. We ended up dating for 4 years.
- That was so long ago! We’re still friends and hang every so often. He feels like a cousin or extended family member to me now. I love him as a person who has been part of my life for the last 12 years, but I have absolutely no romantic feelings toward him.
He’s not married, but he’s dating an awesome girl. I’m glad I met him, he was a really important part of my life for a long time and helped me through some really tough times. © Forward_Ad6168 / Reddit - I dated my first boyfriend for 2 weeks. And then his ex showed up, and my Andy went back to her. I was very sad. My mom, having found out about it, said, “Believe me, he will come back to you.” She gave me a lot of advice on how to behave with him in the same company. I didn’t think about it and just did what she said.
And after 2 months, he sent me a message saying, “Let’s meet and talk.” So I thought, why not? At the meeting, he repented and said what a fool he was, asked me to come back. I forgave him, and we dated for 2 more years. And my mom’s advice was quite simple: to raise my self-esteem and persistently pretend that I don’t care about him at all. - I was in love with my classmate. I didn’t know how to reveal my feelings and just teased her. At graduation, I ruined everything: I made an offensive joke. Then I moved to another city, graduated from college, tried to build relationships with other women, but without success.
After 5 years, my classmates decided to organize a reunion, and there I met her. She looked even more beautiful! And I made the most reckless act of my life: I asked her to marry me in front of everyone. And she said yes, shocking our classmates even more.
Later it turned out that she loved me very much too. Now we’re doing well. We got married almost immediately, had 2 beautiful children, recently celebrated 10 years of marriage. We love each other more and more every day. I regret only for those 5 lost years. © Overheard / Ideer
- Back in middle school, I had the biggest crush on this one boy. I was never really interested in dating or boy-craziness, but he was different. He made me so happy when he was around, and I thought about him all the time. Of course, being middle school, I was painfully awkward and shy, so I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about my crush.
Near the end of 8th grade word got to him through a mutual friend that I really liked him, but he was painfully shy as well so nothing came of it beyond everyone knowing we liked each other and calling it “dating.” The next year we moved on to high school, and I was still hopelessly crushing on him. Things got even more awkward and we drifted apart.
Sophomore year, another guy asked me out, and I dated him for 2 years. Eventually I realized it wasn’t a good relationship and that I still had feelings for my crush. I broke it off with the guy and told my crush how I felt. That was 6 years ago. He felt the same way, but adolescent awkwardness got in the way for both of us.
We’re moving in together in 2 weeks, and planning to get married. I love him so much and can’t imagine my life without him. © nekobecca / Reddit - When I was a teenager, I fell in love with the most beautiful girl in college. I spent all my money on gifts to her. And she just used me while dating other guys who were richer than me. I barely managed to forget her.
She wrote to me 10 years later and asked me out. And then I decided to take a closer look at her social media page and saw her photo in a wheelchair. Turns out she couldn’t walk anymore. She got in a car accident 3 years ago.
I was so furious. So, she was so hopeless that decided to write to her old boyfriend after she was abandoned by all her rich guys. I refused to meet her, I cut all ties with her. I’m still angry. © Overheard / Ideer - I dated a boy at school. But then my parents sent me to another city. At first, we texted to each other, but then it went quiet. And now I came to the city of my childhood. My friend was like, “Do you want to see who your Mike married?” Of course!
We go to the grocery store, and his wife is behind the cash register. She stared at me and suddenly said, “Excuse me, aren’t you Olivia? I recognized you at once. Mike has a lot of your photos. And a whole bag of letters. I read them all, it’s so interesting! Mike keeps them all safe. How long are you going to stay here?”
I was very embarrassed and said that I was leaving right away, waiting for the bus. The woman said goodbye to us with visible relief. © staloweselo / Pikabu
- We were high school sweethearts, but we broke up shortly after high school because we were no longer good for one another. It was an ugly breakup, and we went several years without contact after I left the state. 5 years later, my mother sent me a box of my stuff, and one of his old creative writing notebooks was mixed in with it.
I reached out over Facebook to ask if he might want it back, and from there, we became friends again. 10 years later, we’re still friends to this day. © MoonMuff / Reddit - An ex-boyfriend, my first love, dumped me after a year of a relationship. And today he showed up and said he was ready to start over because I passed the test of not dating other guys after our breakup and suffered because of him. He read somewhere that this is the sign of true love in a woman.
Yeah, I suffered terribly. But I just closed the door on him. And wept after that. I still love him, but I’ll find a way to get rid of this feeling. © Overheard / Ideer - My first love was a girl I met at summer camp. She lived an hour away and since we were both 13, we relied on our mothers to shuttle us back and forth, swapping weekends at each other’s house. The next summer at camp, we decided that since we would both be going to high school the following fall, we should enjoy that summer camp time together then break up.
The last night, they had a farewell dance, and we spent all night dancing to every slow song. I still think of her from time to time but haven’t talked to her in over 35 years. © StuckInNov1999 / Reddit - In second grade, I had a crush on a boy named Ian. I decided to make the first move. I found out he had a cat. And I couldn’t stand cats... But I decided to draw it for him.
It turned out great: I’m good at drawing. I put this drawing with the caption “To Ian from Sam.” Anyway, when everyone came back, I sat down to watch. He found the drawing, looked at it, read the signature and... crumpled it up.
Needless to say, at that very second all my love was gone, for I was terribly offended. I’d worked so hard, and he’d done such a terrible thing to my gift. So I gave up and didn’t show any more sympathy, but I didn’t hold a grudge either.
- I fell in love for the first time when I was at school. Before I met him, I was a straight-A student, and then, according to the law of the genre, I lost my head and had no time to study. By the end of the year, I learned that the object of my affections was moving to another city.
For 2 years, I couldn’t forget him, my grades dropped. And suddenly by chance through mutual acquaintances I learned that he was going with his family to a ski resort on winter holidays. I found out the name of the hotel, the city, and by some miracle persuaded my parents to go there too.
I saw him after so many months, and he was obviously surprised and happy to see me, too. Now he is my fiancé, and he believes that we met by sheer luck. Let it be so, but I know that everyone is the creator of their own happiness. © Overheard / Ideer - My first love is my wife. We started dating when we were 16 (I’m 33 now). We’ve been married 7 years, have hardly ever even fought. It’s been perfect. I can’t imagine it working any other way. © Atari_Ferrari / Reddit
- When I was in seventh grade, I fell head over heels in love with a classmate from art school. I’d known him for 3 years, and I was terrified of him and hated him because of his sharp tongue. And then all of a sudden, for some reason, I was hooked. I wanted to confess to him at graduation, but he left before I could. I went to his school, but I lost my nerve there too.
I found him 10 years later on the Internet. Meeting him was disappointing at first: he didn’t look as good as he used to. And I didn’t want a relationship with him. But he clung to me and wouldn’t let go.
We were together for almost 2 years, we were going to get married, but we broke up foolishly, because of a simple misunderstanding. Recently I learned from a mutual friend that he married soon after our breakup and then divorced just as quickly. © Elena Melnikova
Some people are lucky to marry their first love, and celebrities are among them. Check them out here.