“Is it true you never forget your first love? If so, how can you be sure of your partner’s feelings… especially if you’re not his/her first love, wondering if they are making comparisons?”

First love… how do you define first love? Does puppy love count? 🙂

I had my first crush when I was in kindergarten! I can still remember I was approximately 5 or 6, so was he. And during playtime, we will play-pretend. And he was He-Man, and I was She-Ra. Haha… yes, don’t ask. I think we must look really cute together, as even our teachers tease us. Haha, two toddlers, I guess that’s really what we are then? When it was time to move on to primary school, we promised to keep in touch… but as all puppy love stories go, we lost contact.

If that does not count, then what about my “boyfriend” at primary school? We wrote endless letters to each other, even though we see each other like everyday! And there’s even an unique way that we fold the letters! Haha! And then it was time to go to secondary school, and we promised to keep in touch too, but as we went to different schools, that fizzled out to.

I think I was probably among the last of my girlfriends to get a “real boyfriend” at secondary school. Many of my girlfriends starting date in Form 2 or Form 3. And I was getting really worried actually. What’s wrong with me?

Like most girls in school, I have numerous crushes. Some of them do not even know of my existence. Haha! And some of them become my best friends. And some… the worst types… the ‘what-ifs’. I really hate those!

So anyway, I started my so called first grown up relationship when I was in Form 4. I guess technically, you can call that my first love? We went out for 2 years plus. And in those times, 2 years plus seem like the longest time. Imagine 2 years plus over 19 years… seem like eternity doesn’t it?

Coming now to the question… is it true you never forget your first love? I can still remember my He-Man’s face. Yeah – amazing isn’t it? Haha… considering I was merely 5 or 6 then? And I can still remember vividly folding those letters in that special way. And I remember my first real relationship… the heartaches of having your heart broken for the first time.

The funniest thing I think is… when you get out of one relationship, especially your first real relationship; you think that it is the end of the world. You think that you can never move on. You think that you will never be able to give your heart to someone else again.

But, the truth is… you can.

Even though I cringe at some of my older memories… thinking “Oh my gosh! I did that?”, or when I am out with old friends, and we talk about the old times… some of the memories seem so surreal… yet, I believe all these experiences make me who I am.

And without all my crushes, my infatuations, my ex(s)… I might not be who I am today.

Often, I think we worry we are being compared because of our own insecurities. 🙂 And there’s no easy way out of it as there is no easy test to find out.

We just have to trust. If we are going to be totally paranoid, and start nit-picking each and every thing our partner says or does, wondering if he/she is comparing us to their ex/first love, then we are indirectly sabotaging our own relationship. Because even if our partner is really not doing any comparison, we will eventually believe that he/she is simply due to the fact that we keep reinforcing that in our mind.

Hence, coming back to the question, if you ask me… I think we just have to accept our partner with his or her past relationships and past histories. We just have to respect that there are parts of his/her life that we might never be able to share, or parts of his/her life that he/she shared with someone else.

We have to realize that those experiences and memories are part of which he or she is – the very person we fall in love with.

Share your experiences. Is it true that one never forgets one’s first love? Do you compare your current partner with your first love? Have you been in a situation where your partner constantly openly compares you to his/her ex? Tell us! 🙂