The Lessons of First Love

From unconditional love to setting patterns for all future liaisons, author Ira Trivedi explores why your first relationship is special in many, many ways...

22 October, 2018
The Lessons of First Love

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Most of us remember the first time we fell in love. There is nothing that replaces that intensity, that fervour, that passion, that sorrow in all of the years and future relationships to come. First love also happens unexpectedly and without expectations. Usually relationships come with both. We often fall into relationships because they are convenient, because we are lonely, because we want physicality, or maybe because we want to get

married. In a first love, none of this figures—we just fall in love... It is as simple as that, and there’s usually no rational reason. So, is there any significance to this first profound and, often, irrational love? Or is it just puppy love? Something that we can attribute to raging hormones and pop culture? I would argue that first love has many learnings attached to it. That’s why I chose to write Nikhil And Riya from a teenage point of view. An adult Nikhil looks back at his school years, when he first fell in love with Riya, and the truly spiritual, transforming journey it was.

Here are some of the things that I have learnt about first love:
1) First love is often a very spiritual experience. It’s the first time that we feel so deeply for another person, in that very particular way. It’s a heady cocktail of emotions, and mental, physical, and spiritual attributes. I believe that first love is a spiritual awakening—the most common experience when our soul comes in contact with another soul, that we may have known from another life. It is the first time that we even recognise that we are part of something (and someone) else. It’s the first time that we are able to feel so deeply, because our soul has touched upon something that our brain may not be able to comprehend. My first love led to my first soul experience... and I’ll never forget that.

2) First love often sets the patterns for many relationships to come. If it must end, try to end it as amicably as possible. The person who incites those feelings of love will almost always have a special place in your life—past, present, and even future.


3) You will more likely than not, never end up with your first love. First loves are too passionate, too intense, too- everything to end up in marriage. Marriage is about a sustainable love, about finding someone who you can lead a balanced future with. Though a first love often drives you crazy, crazy is not what you want in the long term.

4) Cherish the experience. I know this is easier said than done. But be mindful of the beautiful, deep experiences that first love can bring.

Whether it’s making love for the first time, a traumatic fight, a deep sense of jealously or possessiveness. Even the negative experiences are experiences that you feel so much only because you love.

5) While first loves usually come about when you’re a teen, it may happen later in life as well. I recently met someone who fell in love for the first time at the age of 50. She had an arranged marriage when she was 18, and while she did love her husband, it wasn’t the way she loved the man she met much later in life. First love can happen at any age—it’s a beautiful, soulful, deepening experience. Make sure you recognise it when it comes to you, because when it does, it comes attached with beautiful learnings than can take you a little step further on understanding your self and your soul.

By Ira Trivedi

This article was published in February 2017 issue of Cosmopolitan India 

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