On Our Problematic Obsession with First-Love Stories

We first entered one another’s orbit when I was ten years old, at a sleepover organized by the local youth group. Over the next few years, I would see him sometimes, in amongst a pack of tracksuited lads riding their bikes through the small Yorkshire town where we both lived. Occasionally he would wave, nod, and I would carry the gesture with me as though it were loaded with meaning.

When we were fourteen or so we started spending our Friday and Saturday nights at the field near the old railway lines; the town’s unofficial gathering spot for local teenagers, passed down like a rite of passage from one generation to the next. It was then that things started. There that we first kissed.

Throughout our adolescence we were drawn to one another intermittently, but I was never quite as besotted as that first year. Every song lyric felt like it was about him. The back of my homework planner was dense with his initials, scrawled in biro and intertwined with mine. It was an innocent, carefree notion of love, untainted by the complexities and challenges that would become more apparent with every subsequent relationship.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always been a sucker for first-love narratives; a portal back to a to a time that felt like the start of something, when life—real, thrilling, actual life—was just about to begin.

Culturally, first love is embedded in every form of media we consume. Films, songs, social media. Certainly books. I was still a child when I read Michelle Magorian’s coming-of-age novel, A Little Love Song, and though much of it went over my head, the way Magorian wrote about first love captivated me.

Since then, I’ve found myself magnetized to stories that explore the theme—books like Sweet Sorrow, Young Mungo, and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in particular, is a novel I return to time and again—not just for its portrayal of romantic first love, but also for the way it delves into the love we have for our country, our culture, our sense of belonging.

More recently, Lauren John Joseph’s At Certain Points We Touch devastated me in the very best of ways. Though its portrayal of first love differed from my own experience, the emotions—the turmoil, the confusion, the obsession—resonated on a level that felt deeply personal.

Vastly different in many respects, those books all share one common thread: the universality of feeling that comes with falling in love for the first time.

“From the perspective of a narrative arc, there is something innately satisfying about a prevailing first love,” says Australian writer Sarah Sasson, whose coming-of-age novel Tidelines was published in 2024. “Often, it’s a story where the couple drift apart, developing and maturing along the way only to find themselves reunited by the story’s end. That’s quite a rewarding journey to read, a bit like the hero’s journey.”

For author Mac Crane, the interest stems more from a desire to explore their own experiences.

In [my novel] A Sharp Endless Need, [writing about first love] was very intentional. The book is actually about two first loves: basketball and a teammate…my first real love was my basketball teammate—how could I ever separate the two? How could anything ever compare to playing the sport I love with someone I love? The intensity and passion were unparalleled. I simply needed to write about that time in my life.

While my own first love wasn’t the deepest or longest lasting, it was one of the most impactful, tied up as it was in the chaos of transitioning from child to adult. It wasn’t just about romance; it was about growing up, figuring things out, and understanding how those years shape us. As a writer, I’m endlessly fascinated by what makes us who we are.

“First love stories are often nested within the Bildungsroman, or ‘coming-of-age novel,’ because these types of stories are usually set during a specific time in the character’s lives,” says Sasson. “Many readers would have their own experiences of first lust and love, and so the associated thrills, experiences, confusion, endurance or heartbreak can overlay with the fictionalized story to create resonance.”

This shared cultural mythology seems to tap into a collective sense of longing for an era when everything felt simpler, idealizing a time and feeling that, in reality, is far more complicated. The further I delve into our fascination with first love, the more apparent it becomes that nostalgia is inextricably woven into our perception of it.

“I really think that first loves rewire our brains, which are very much still developing during adolescence. There’s something to the lasting effect they have on us,” says Crane.

That said, I do believe our society idealizes first loves, probably because of how romantic it is to fall in love for the very first time. Distance and years can of course color everything differently. Nostalgia is powerful, and it definitely plays a huge role in how we romanticize those first relationships, even if they were toxic or harmful.

This tendency towards nostalgia is alluring, but, as Crane points out, it runs the risk of augmenting our memories through a rose-tinted filter. Dig deep enough, and most of us would probably find that our first relationship wasn’t as hearts-and-flowers as we like to think.

For those who haven’t experienced a typical “first-love story,” there’s the added challenge of grappling with unrealistic expectations set by fairytale-like portrayals. Could these idealized first-love narratives actually have a negative impact on our mental health and wellbeing?

“I think what may underlie this is our obsession with ‘destiny beliefs,'” says Dr. Mariko Visserman, Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology, University of Sussex whose area of social psychology focuses on romantic relationships. “Believing that we’re destined to be with someone, and that when issues or challenges arise, this is an indicator that the relationship is just not meant to be.”

Romantic relationships are often portrayed with this kind of fragility in books and films, but that’s not necessarily helpful. Every relationship takes work, yet in those early experiences, we often lack that understanding. Perhaps that’s why many first loves don’t last, although they inevitably shape who we become. Our identities and backgrounds also play a crucial role in how these connections unfold.

“When I was growing up, I never encountered queer first love narratives,” says Crane, whose debut novel I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Speculative Fiction. “I was obsessed with Boy Meets World, and the Cory/Topanga and Shawn/Angela storylines were very formative for me. I was always queering hetero first love narratives, imagining that Shawn was a lesbian or that I could be Shawn, loving Angela.”

These days, having to twist a narrative just to see yourself within it isn’t enough. My own debut novel, Wild Ground, follows characters Neef and Danny as they forge a bond that offers refuge from a world shaped by poverty, substance abuse, and racism.

Turning this into a perfect or idealized first love story would have done a disservice to the people, places, and era it portrays. I felt a responsibility to honor the reality my characters lived in—a reality shared by many.

Luckily, the movement toward broader representation in literature is showing no sign of slowing down. Readers are increasingly seeking stories that go beyond the narrow portrayals of first love, many of which have traditionally been heteronormative, white, and middle-class.

The shift is about more than just representation; it’s about redefining love itself. Amplifying diverse voices gives us the opportunity to move beyond an idealized notion of love and embrace its fluid, ever-changing nature.

And while we all love a first love narrative, embracing a broader perspective on what that means might just open us up to a richer, more complex understanding of love. One that reflects its challenges, its transformations, and its endless potential.

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Wild Ground by Emily Usher is available via Random House.