Who was your first love?

I’m talking “will you go with me?” love, not the unrequited or poster-on-the-wall kind …

It’s funny how little I remember about my first love. You’d think the details would be permanently etched in my mind. I was sixteen when we met, we dated for six years, we even moved in together. Shouldn’t more have stuck? It’s weird that you can spend more than 2000 days of your life with a person then pouf, they disappear.

He was the photographer in the relationship, so I don’t even have many pictures. I presume they’re all in dusty boxes at his place, if they still exist at all.

We were living in Sydney when it ended. He wanted to go back to Newcastle. I begged him to stay, but he packed his bags and left. Forever. And it was over, just like that. Maybe another girl was involved. Maybe he’d just fallen out of love. I’m not sure. It’s been blurred by all the vodka I drank to get over him while sobbing to Nothing Compares 2U (read Who we’re you when your heart first broke for the lowdown on that miserable little interlude).

I’m wondering if all that vodka is why I can’t remember getting together either. All that remains is a fuzzy mental snapshot of talking to him in “D” block at high school. He was fighting to save the Franklin River, wearing an army surplus bomber jacket with desert boots instead of the standard issue bottle-green jumper and Batas.

We had nothing in common – he liked bushwalking and outdoorsy stuff; I liked clothes and books – but I fell madly in love anyway. He was pretty and blonde and fancied me. That’s all someone with low self-esteem and limited experience with boys needed.

Much pashing ensued. Much other stuff too, which has no place in a blog my mother might read. I thought he was the one. But you rarely meet the one when you’re 16.

I was devastated when he dumped me, but eventually understood he’d done the decent thing by setting me free. I went on to meet my real “The One” and he went on to meet his. He’s had three kids and I hear occasional snippets about his life. I can’t quite reconcile them with the boy I once knew.

I find myself curious about this man I loved so much for so long. And I’ve reached out – via Facebook, of course – suggesting we meet.

I’ll have to promise not to blog about it, I expect, but I’m content with that. It’s something just for me. And him. Because maybe he’s curious too.

I wonder whether I’ll recognize the person sitting opposite me. Oh, he looks pretty much the same from his Facebook photos, but what about what’s inside? Will it feel like we still have some invisible connection?

Or will we simply be awkward strangers, eager for our meals to be over so we can make excuses and escape?

HAVE YOU MET WITH YOUR FIRST LOVE? HOW DID IT GO?