That rush of emotions and feels you get when you fall in love is pretty incredible huh? Especially the first time around. I remember my first time well.  The clammy hands, heart palpitations and that flushed hot and bothered feeling…then the stress of wondering if those feelings were reciprocated…then the crushing pain in the pit of my stomach when I realised with some degree of certainty that the feeling would of course not be reciprocated because I’d fallen head over heels in love with a manmade object and as far as I knew they couldn’t have emotions like love (could they? Cos that could potentially solve a lot of my problems. Just saying…I’m not weird).  Yes, the thing I had fallen in love with was a Casio CTK-450 electronic keyboard (really not weird I swear) and we had many a phenomenal year together making beautiful music – until a…misunderstanding involving a friends Yamaha (which later moved in with me. The Casio responded by throwing an almighty strop and quit working a week later. I keep telling myself it was just a coincidence. But I still can’t look at anything Yamaha without feeling ever so slightly guilty…). It was a fantastic period filled with unconditional love and obsession, and I miss those simpler days. First loves teach you a lot (yes, even first loves with non-humans. I swear I’m not……ok…my family is only a little bit worried).

For example, I learned:

The first can set the tone for the rest of them. Which is fantastic if you’re one of those lucky people who falls in love once and somehow manages to make it work forever. But not so great if you fell for a douche. Or a thing (although very few people manage to mess up relationships with inanimate objects. That takes a special type person/skill).

It’s definitely not like in the movies (but I sort of wish it were). There won’t be that moment when you catch sight of each other across the park…and you slow-run towards one another arms outstretched meeting in a loving embrace before your partner lifts you up and spins you around as the epic orchestral crescendo reaches its climax (although to perfectly candid…my first love could definitely have managed a pretty sweet sweeping piano solo so nyah). It’s not like in the movies and I think that’s fantastic. I imagine it would just be exhausting if you had to operate at that level of perfection and intensity 24/7. Although grossing people out with overly exaggerated PDA’s could be fun, and a movie-worthy breakup looks kinda fun.

It’s confusing and tiring (especially that first time). Simultaneously feeling massive amounts of love and hate, and that conflicted feeling you get when they’ve irritated the hell out of you and you want to pull them in for a hug while punching them in the face can cause an unprecedented amount of stress. Especially if it’s the very first time you’ve started having these feelings. And then you start wondering if your feelings are normal…and if you’re normal and that’s a dangerous game to play with yourself.

It hurts like crazy when it ends suddenly. So, then you have that conversation out of the blue, and you realise you’d fallen for a heartless douche who has ripped your heart out of your chest and for some bizarre reason it’s illegal to slay them even though it’d make you feel better and really you’d be doing the world a favour…but the aftermath of a first love lost really does make you stronger (and hopefully you learn not to repeat your mistakes but…sometimes we do the same thing over and over again and hope for a different result. The definition of insanity. And isn’t that really what love is? Think about it).

It’s addictive (omg). Cos in the aftermath when you swear to yourself that you won’t ever do anything so pedestrian as falling in love again (who really needs love anyway?), you realise you miss it in a weird way. So, you go out of your way to try it again, and secretly hate on people who are safely loved up because one of them isn’t you. Or you say things like ‘I’m just finding myself right now’, and ‘I’m really into my career right now’, and ‘Valentine’s day? Pshaw to that it’s soooo commercial’, then you buy a whole few boxes of chocolates and cry-eat all of them on the sofa while bitterly lamenting your singleness and making those who find out about your sad secret life slightly uncomfortable…anyway.

So, there you go. And even though it’s a little bit early…Happy Early Valentine’s Day! And if you’re single (or you know, whatever) Thursday is Singles Awareness Day. So take the time to treat yourself to…whatever makes you happy 🙂