Review of Related Literature

NO MATTER WHAT IT MAY FEEL LIKE, YOUR FIRST LOVE IS NEVER YOUR
TRUE LOVE

Living a life entirely void of love is a worse kind of fate than even death itself. People don’t so
much choose to love; they choose not to love. Again, this has more to do with the person in
question rather than ourselves. If people don't have qualities we believe are lovable, then we
won’t love them. At the same time, however, since everything is a matter of perspective, it all
comes back to us deciding that someone isn’t worthy of our love.

Your perspective, your reality, your thoughts, dreams, beliefs outline what characteristics and
actions are deserving of love. It may not feel like you are actively deciding because your
perspective is primarily the result of past experiences that have become go-to markers in your
psyche, but the fact is that you – the person you are as a whole – decide how accepting you are of
love and whom you will be capable of loving

.This is the only way to explain how it's possible for individuals to fall in love over and over
again. Once you fall in love, the only thing you want is to continue being in love. We get so
incredibly high off being in love that, without it, life feels bland, lifeless. Pointless even. We get
high that first time and do whatever we can to hold on to that feeling of pure bliss that feeling of
ecstasy. Unfortunately, that feeling is doomed to fade.

That initial feeling of falling in love has a short lifespan. Not because it’s impossible to truly love
someone for the rest of your life, but because those feelings you’re experiencing aren’t really
love. They are the result of the colossal changes in your life and your perspective that resulted
from falling in love.

Falling in love changes the way you see the world. It changes the things you deem important and
changes your visions of your future all because you found a person you believe worthy of
dedicating your life to. You feel the way you feel when you fall in love because you believe
yourself to have unlocked a truth you previously weren’t privy to an epiphany of sorts that
changes your life forever.

So when that initial feeling of bliss fades, which it will, you’re likely to worry that the love is
fading but it’s not. It’s settling into a resting state. This often scares the life out of us. We go
from being high up in the clouds to crashing back down to earth, back down to reality.
This is why most relationships fail: Those in the relationship have a difficult time surviving in
that calm, resting state. They have a difficult time enjoying the peace and tranquility love allows
for. Instead, they search for that next fix, that next high, that next emotional rush. So
relationships end. Love is forgotten. And we move on with our lives, taking all the things
experienced, mistakes made and lessons learned to our next relationship. We call this "baggage."
(Paul Hudson, October 2,2014)
 FIRST LOVE, LOST LOVE: IS IT IMPRINTING?

My research focuses on the shared environments and the identity formation of youth. Successful
reunions most often occur when a couple grew up in the same way: they dated for 1 or more
years, in the same town, went to school together, knew each other's families, perhaps shared
religious experiences. Together they formed their identities during these formative years, and
defined together what love meant to them. The most common reasons these couples separated
years ago were: too young, moved away, or their parents disapproved.

The importance of shared upbringing during youth is what makes old friends from grade school
and high school so special. This has nothing to do with hormones. And some of my participants
chose "reunions" with old friends, not former sweethearts, and the reunions were successful.
Beyond looking at people who tried lost love reunions, I had a control group: 1600 participants
who agreed to fill out surveys and were assigned, by SurveyResponse.com, to mine. They had
never tried to reunite with a lost love. I asked them about their first love experiences, using the
same questions I gave to the rekindlers. The results indicated that most of these people did not
have a lost love bond, even though they had ex-boyfriends or girlfriends from high school and
experienced raging teen hormones. Their first love romances were often troubled (unlike the
rekindlers' positive love experiences); but they reported that their first loves were memorable,
nonetheless -- as models for the kind of person they never wanted to date again. No imprinting
whatsoever: they were done with their first loves and could not understand, they wrote, why
anyone would want to reunite. Rekindlers were people who wondered what might have been, if
the situations that ended their romances had not interrupted their love. The non rekindlers had no
such unresolved feelings. Both groups had the same hormonal experiences. It wasn't the biology
that distinguished them. Adolescence is a period of many kinds of intense emotions. All these
memories can be encoded in the sensory areas of the brain; when an old friend, ex-sweetheart, or
lost love shows up again in our lives, these memories are aroused with the sight or voice of that
person (and sometimes by smell or touch).
But strong emotional memories are not imprints. They do not prevent later bonds from occurring
that are just as strong or stronger. They do not determine our behavior. The choice is ours, as
humans, to follow the found person or to let him or her go. (Nancy Kalish, Ph.D.,2010)
 WHY CAN’T I FORGET MY FIRST LOVE?

Why is it so hard to forget your first love? Your first love is special because it is the most
innocent and pure form of love. No matter how hard you try, you will never stop missing your
first love.

Boyfriends and girlfriends in a loving relationship for the first time will forever remember the
hugs, cuddles, sweet whispers, long drives, late night conversations, and romantic strolls they
had together. Find out why the beautiful memories of this once-in-a-lifetime experience will
linger in your heart and mind for the rest of your life. (Princesswithapen,2018)