Why our first love is usually so unforgettable, according to science – 01/02/2024 – Science

In 1989, British Kate was 17 years old and was on holiday with her mother and best friend in Devon, in the south of England.

They were having lunch at a pub when Kate saw Günther for the first time.

“I saw her at the bar and noticed that she smiled at me,” recalls Günther, originally from Bavaria, Germany.

“He was eating dessert and saw me, but he seemed more interested in finishing it,” says Kate.

“I remember she was wearing a black dress. And what a smile! I was speechless. And I said to her: ‘Let’s have a coffee,'” he adds.

“The next day, we were walking along the pier and he took my hand, turned towards me and kissed me. It was romantic. It was sweet. It was the perfect first kiss.”

“I immediately fell in love with her, but two days later I had to return to Germany.”

In a matter of hours, Kate and Günther were 1,500 kilometers apart.

Günther and Kate knew they would stay in touch, but back then everything was much more difficult.

There were no cell phones, emails or text messages. It was a world of landlines, phone booths and postal mail.

Günther traveled to England to celebrate New Year’s with Kate and returned again to celebrate her 18th birthday.

Four months later, it was Kate’s turn to visit him in Germany.

However, that time was different.

“We were in bed together and he said, ‘We have to find a way to be together. Would you come to Germany?'” Günther asked.

He had tried several ways to move to the UK, without success.

The decision was in Kate’s hands.

“I called him to say no. It was the hardest decision of my life, and I never told him why. My mother didn’t want me to leave, and besides, at that time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career. It was harrowing.”

“She gave me her nightgown with her perfume on it, and I kept it for years. One day, unfortunately, it just disappeared. We kept writing to each other — ‘we just couldn’t say goodbye’ — but in 1993 we lost touch completely.”

Teenage love

There’s nothing like first love.

We can love many people and have very meaningful relationships in our lives, but that initial spark is something mysterious and profound, regardless of how long it has been.

However, to understand why these first loves are so unique, it might be a good idea to look inside our brains, not just our hearts.

“My research looks at people’s memories across their entire lives,” says Catherine Loveday, professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Westminster in England.

“I’ve interviewed people in their 80s and 90s, and some of their most important moments are related to those first loves.”

Loveday’s current research focuses on autobiographical memory, and she believes that adolescence is the perfect breeding ground for crystallizing the most vivid memories.

“The brain is at its best time to record information: at this stage, we can form memories very, very easily,” he explains.

“Additionally, the brain registers anything highly emotional better: for example, if something happens for the first time or has a high level of reward or a high level of pain.”

“And first loves have all of this in abundance. Every time we remember these experiences, we reinforce these neural pathways in the brain,” he adds.

This time, considering the impact of these experiences, we cannot underestimate them.

What we now know from developmental neuropsychology is that these early romances are not just significant, but fundamental.

“Human beings survive thanks to social relationships. Falling in love for the first time is probably one of the most important experiences of our lives, as it has different characteristics compared to previous relationships: we need to learn to trust someone outside of our inner circle. next”, explains Loveday.

Long-lasting chemistry

The emotions associated with first love can be incredibly intense.

Loveday claims that, especially in puberty, these deep feelings are driven by a chemical cocktail that acts on our bodies and brains.

Firstly, sudden increases in the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone drive attraction.

Then, after the beginning of the relationship, hormones such as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin are released, linked to feelings of reward, warmth, happiness and connection.

“These different chemicals are part of this experience of falling in love and being in love, and it’s all very powerful: a chemical soup,” explains Loveday.

The decisions we make and the people we attract, as well as the memories we create, set a kind of benchmark for years to come.

Our first loves remain engraved in our memory. We are neurologically programmed to remember them.

But sometimes remembering may not be enough.

If you’ve ever searched for your first love’s name on social media, hoping for some kind of reconnection, you’re certainly not alone.

Nancy Kalish, developmental psychologist and professor emeritus at California State University (United States), has been studying the topic for 15 years.

She conducted two surveys of nearly 3,000 people from around the world who had reconnected with their long-lost loves.

In the first survey, carried out in 1993, Kalish discovered that getting back together with a lost lover had a high success rate.

Their study showed that most people who reconnected were single or widowed. In a matter of weeks, they were together. Seven out of ten participants got married.

Years later, in 2004, Kalish decided to redo his research due to the advent of an important technology: the internet.

She found that 62% of respondents ended up having an affair with their former romantic partner. However, only 5% got married.

His conclusion was that, although the internet had made it easier for ex-spouses to reunite, they felt less committed to the relationship.

Romantic nostalgia

As we have seen, our first love tends to remain in our memory for the rest of our lives.

Some of us take the risk of trying to revive it, while others don’t even consider the idea.

However, that doesn’t mean the past isn’t worth remembering, even when it comes to your current partner.

“Romantic nostalgia is a longing and affection for the past in relation to your current romantic partner,” explains Adam Fetterman, a professor at the University of Houston, Texas (United States), who began studying nostalgia in the context of romantic relationships after being challenged by one of his graduate students.

Fetterman’s research indicates that we can harness the way our brains work to benefit our current relationships.

“The easiest way to feel it (nostalgia) is to think about your first date. If you went to the movies, maybe the simple act of watching that movie again will give you that romantic nostalgia,” says Fetterman.

“Romantic nostalgia can make us relive those ethereal feelings we’ve had over time with a romantic partner, even if we can’t articulate them.”

“The conclusion from my studies was that people involved in romantic nostalgia feel more committed to their relationships and even experience more love.”

So reflecting on the first day you met your spouse is a wonderful way to celebrate the years of a long-term relationship and remember the reasons you are together.

Eternal memories

Three decades after they lost contact, Kate found Günther’s letters by chance in a closet, and was immersed in memories.

“I couldn’t stop crying,” he remembers.

“I just thought about that wonderful man whose heart I broke.”

Kate searched for Günther online and wrote to his company address, without expecting to receive a response.

“On November 22, at exactly 12:36 p.m., the phone rang. I saw it was a call from Germany, and my heart skipped a beat,” Kate recalls.

The two spoke for hours, and a few weeks later, Günther flew to Manchester, in northern England, to meet Kate.

“When I saw her again, it was as if we had never been apart.”

Now, Kate and Günther are married, after he proposed to her on the top of a mountain the couple had first climbed together 30 years earlier.

“It’s not common to get a second chance. I look at it every day and I don’t regret a thing,” says Kate.

Günther agrees: “I’ll never let her get away from me again.”

Our first loves are a kind of time machine.

They trigger memories, and with them we reconnect with a more innocent and vulnerable version of ourselves.

And that is a treasure that we carry within us.

*This report is based on the episode “First Loves” from the BBC series “Sideways”

This text was originally published here.