
That teenage love was just the first stage of romantic love which either changes over time or it fades away and dies. That love they had as teenage sweethearts is not the same as the love that develops through building a life together and working through the challenges that life tends to dish out. If people reconnect (and stay reconnected for many years), the relationship cannot sustain the excitement and specialness that is inherent when it is new and fresh. Much like the crazy fun times my buddies and I have when we get together each year. However, they don’t realize that it’s the timing and the situation that have recreated this new flush of love. In the “first love” affair, these people come back together later in life and they try to pick up where they left off in their feelings for each other. An affair with a first love…fantasy or reality? I know that this has nothing to do with affairs, but I think you get the idea of what I’m trying to say. We all have our own lives and I seriously doubt we would hang out much even if we all lived in the same city.

I love them like brothers, but I’m different now. That being said (and notwithstanding the excessive alcohol consumption and lack of sleep), one day together once a year is about all I can take of these guys. It’s a great relationship that I think is unique in many respects. We have a relationship where we can pretty much just pick things up where we left off as if we just saw each other yesterday. We were all best of friends in high school and used to hang out on a daily basis back in the day, but now we all live in different cities. To illustrate (sort of)…I graduated from high school in 1979 and about 3 years ago began an annual tradition where me and a bunch of buddies get together for a day of golf, a major league baseball game, and then we hit the bars for several hours until about 4 or 5 in the morning. We all change dramatically over time and in many respects we’re not the same people we were when we were in high school. Little do they realize that these feelings that result from this turning back of the clock are only associated to a memory of a person as they were 20 or 30 years ago – not as that person really is today.

Unfortunately, many people preserve a fantasy image of that special first love and elevate it to some magical place in their hearts and minds. It’s true that there’s a certain power to young love and especially one’s “first love,” that it makes a permanent impression on us – especially if it was a wonderful experience. It soon morphs into discussions about how unhappy they are in their marriages and in their current lives and that they both wish that they never would have broken up those many years ago.īefore you know it they are involved in either an emotional or physical affair. They reminisce about the past and the good times they had. It may start with a curious reaching out by one of the persons to touch base and “catch up” on things. I’m assuming that they reconnect most of the time through sites like Facebook or other similar community sites, but I suppose it can happen in other ways just as easily. One of the affair scenarios we see quite frequently is when a person has an affair with a “first love.” Typically, it’s their high school or college sweetheart from many years ago.
