Why is it difficult for us to forget our first love and what to do about it

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American psychologist Nancy Kalish for almost a quarter of a century collected information about people who, decades later, were reunited with their first love. And I came to the conclusion that if both people are free at the time of a new meeting, in 70% of cases they will get back together again, and their union will be quite happy.

These results seem to perfectly show how much the first crush affects us. Unfortunately, this is not always to our advantage. Not everyone succeeds, even if they really want to, to build a life with the very person whom they adored when they were 15. Or that relationship could turn out to be toxic and traumatic and at the same time remain forever in their memory. Psychologists give several reasons why this happens.

Why is it difficult for us to forget our first love?

Dopamine is to blame again

It seems that this “pleasure neurotransmitter” is responsible for literally every “bug” in our brain and psyche, for all our bad habits, stupidities and imperfections. And he also made his mark in the story of his first love.

The logic is something like this. We fall in love with a person, and a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters, including dopamine, is released into our blood. At the same time, we experience many complex and pleasant feelings, and we develop a connection: the object of our first love is joy, happiness, pleasure. Moreover, these experiences are as vivid as possible because they happened to us for the first time.

It turns out something like a conditioned reflex: we remember the person we fell in love with in the ninth grade and whom we kissed for the first time in our lives – we get a release of dopamine and a lot of pleasant emotions; If we want to get a dose of dopamine, we remember our first crush.

Excellent teenage memory plays a role

The peak of our cognitive abilities, as sad as it is to admit, have to for youth. Teenagers grasp new information faster, think better, and their memory is also better than those over 30 and even more so over 40.

Therefore, both the first love and the first relationship, which, as a rule, happen in adolescence, are simply remembered better than subsequent ones. Memory stores a lot of details, and therefore some little thing, like the song you danced to at prom, or the smell of lilacs under which you first held hands, can trigger a whole cascade of vivid memories and emotions.

The first relationship is the template for all subsequent ones

No matter how they turn out, we tend to constantly look back at them as some kind of example. And, of course, we compare all new relationships with them and look for something similar. In general, this happens with any memorable first experience.

We tend to idealize first love

Memories are a very subjective thing. We forget some facts, we distort others, we complete our own past depending on our mood and desires. This is especially true of childhood and adolescence – a period that many seem to be exceptionally bright, joyful, filled with pure sincere feelings, true friends, blue skies, tall trees and ice cream for ridiculous money.

So people also perceive their first love as the plot of a touching teenage melodrama, losing sight of the negative aspects.

What to do if memories prevent you from moving on

Sometimes we get so hung up on past relationships that it prevents us from building new ones and generally living a full life. But there are several ways to influence the situation.

1. Have a symbolic farewell

For example, write your last letter to your first love (of course, you don’t have to send it). Burn or throw away things that remind you of this person. Mentally tell him “goodbye.”

2. Don’t open the wound

Don’t go check her or his profiles on social networks, don’t look at photos together, don’t listen to “your” songs. At least for a while.

3. Communicate more

Loneliness creates excellent conditions for longing for past relationships and regrets that they ended.

If you have at least a couple of people around you who are interesting to spend time with, not necessarily in a romantic sense, you will not have as many reasons to delve into the past and feel sorry for yourself.