San Jose (California): During an idle moment last year while sitting in front of her computer, Beth Stokes decided to find out what happened to her first love, Andy, who was just 13 years old when they last talked decades ago.
She easily and quickly found him through social networking site Classmates.com. After e-mail exchanges, the two spoke by phone; and Stokes, 46, felt the intervening years melt away. For her, the Internet had become an emotional time machine.
"As soon as I heard his voice, it was like I was transported back in time," she said. "It was strange and it was very scary. I was, 'Holy cow, I think I'm falling in love with him again.'"
Not long ago, such rekindlings were largely relegated to once-a-decade school reunions, those awkward gatherings that tend to be more about sizing up past rivals than reconnecting with former sweethearts. But the Internet is now profoundly altering some people's links to the past and sometimes upending their lives in unexpected ways. For some, the outcome is a blissful recoupling; for others, the reignited embers burn down the house.
The Web's ability to deliver instant information compounds a phenomenon psychologist Nancy Kalish struck upon during research in the early 1990s: that for a significant number of people, first love, even decades later, remains as fresh as yesterday. In a random survey of 1,300 people several years ago, Kalish found that 25 per cent said they would reunite with their lost love if they could.
A survey of Classmates.com's 38 million members a few years ago revealed that 39 per cent (or 14.7 million people) said they had used the networking site to look up an old love. Kalish also found that those who reunite years after breaking up have marriages less vulnerable to divorce than the national average.
But for those already married, reconnecting with the first one can cause havoc and pain.
In February, Ann, a 38-year-old East Coast artist, was "friended" by Bob, her teenage love, on Facebook. "It was incredible," she said. "I had looked for him. He found me." Both, though, are married with children. "It's very overwhelming for both of us," said Ann, who did not want to be identified.
Those not inclined to romantic nostalgia often report negative experiences with teen relationships, such as abuse or personality clashes, said Kalish, a professor of psychology at California State University-Sacramento. Those susceptible to pulls from the past had positive romantic relations in their youth that ended because of immaturity, opposition from parents or one moving away, she said.
"These memories make an emotional dent," Kalish explained. "They become a part of you. You are defining yourself in relationship with that person. You are defining what love is with that person."
Kalish, whose Web site is at www.lostlovers.com, insists that the enduring attachment to early romances is more than a wistful misremembering. "Not one person has ever written to me and said they were deceived by memories," she said. "Not one."
The experience of reconnecting with an early sweetheart is likened to an emotional sucker punch that can throw lives off balance as deeply embedded memories surface. When a 78-year-old (or a 28-year-old) encounters the romantic past, it can seem as if whole decades have been erased. Suddenly, he is driving in Dad's Oldsmobile holding hands with his Sweet Sixteen. She, meanwhile, sees the same look of love in his eyes she saw when he whisked her to the prom.
"They make an imprint on your mind that never goes away," Mountain View, Calif., psychologist Linda Waud, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on the topic, said of early romances. Waud, 68, reconnected with her high school and college sweetheart the old-fashioned way — at a class reunion.
"I walked over to him and said, 'Hi.' And he said, 'I think it's time for us to talk.' And this is 35 years after we broke up." The two have now been married for 15 years.
She and Kalish say the Internet, and now social-networking sites such as MyLife.com. and Facebook, make relinking easier and more common. And people are doing it at a much younger age (instead of an uncomfortable phone call to her parents), all he has to do is do a Google search for her name.
Twenty-three years after he last spoke with his teen love, Brentwood, Calif., resident Al Durazo in May sent a "friend" request to Stacey Lynn Burt on Facebook. The following month Burt, who is divorced and lives in Port Angeles, Washington, flew to the Bay Area. She ran and flung herself into his arms at Oakland International Airport and the two started kissing.
"It felt like we were back in our youth again," said Durazo, a high school physical education teacher who never married. The couple, both 39, plan to live together next year.
These reunions don't always have fairy-tale endings, though. Kalish has seen marriages torn apart when a spouse reconnects and has an affair with a lost love. A reconnection can wreck multiple relationships: current marriages as well as the fondly remembered romance.
Stokes, a Florida resident who got a divorce after reuniting with Andy, plans to move across the country to be with him. Andy, who did not want his name or home state identified, ended a relationship after Stokes came back into his life. Both said their relationships had been rocky before they reconnected. Still, Stokes said, "It's dangerous, heavy stuff. If you send that e-mail, you are opening a door. "
Ann, the East Coast artist, is hopeful she and her first love will one day be together. "Your parents say, 'You'll get over it.' But there is that one person who you probably never will get over."
Comments
0 comment