How often have you fallen in love? Your answer may vary from never, to a million times, but we are talking about the kind of love that stays with you for life, the kind that you can’t forget. You may also be one of the lucky ones who found their soulmates in their first or even second attempts or you may still be looking, after three attempts, but for most of us love comes three times and it depends on us to make what we can of each relationship.
First Love: The One That Just Happens
We all remember our first love, don’t we? We remember the sweet memories of falling for this new sensation and giving in to the thought that this is the love that will remain forever. It could have happened as early as during our high school years or maybe later, but the fact remains that it brought to us the knowledge of love, what it feels like to love and be loved and what it takes to be one with another person.
We often mistake it as something which may remain with us but more often than not, we grow out of our first love as we mature and understand ourselves better. We also come to realize different priorities in our lives and slowly drift apart from the love we thought would never end. It is one of those things that you didn’t plan but happened and you just went with it. Later, you let it follow its course and die out as you move to different things in life. The first love, however, teaches us a lot about who we are and what we want from our partners in future.
Second Love: The One That Teaches
As we mature and are thrust into the hustle-bustle of our daily lives, we look for excitement and try exploring different opportunities as we go along. It is at this phase of our lives that we find someone special and fall in love. It seems almost new and quite unlike the first love because the situations have changed and so have our needs. We look for better compatibility and better connections with each other and we fall in love for entirely different reasons than our first love.
But, for most of us, this love, too, goes away. It happens because we remain still too young and unsure about our requirements. At this point, we are still exploring life and getting used to adulthood and the various expectations that arise out of them. We are still in the phase of figuring out our lives, our careers and also planning for the larger future, at the same time. Needless to say, the love disappears under the overwhelming demands of life which we are still in the phase of understanding. This love, however, teaches us more as we are better at understanding people.
This love teaches what it means to be in a relationship, the compromises that we need to make, the extent to which we are ready to go for those we love and what happens if such a love goes away. It teaches us crucial things about people and love and things we can expect and not expect from our partners. In reality, it teaches us what exactly we mean when we say «I am in love».
Third Love: The One That Stays
This is, for most of us, the final phase of love. The third time that we fall in love, we are usually ready for the relationship and the demands of the same. We are generally sorted in our professional lives and we more or less understand with clarity, what we seek from our partners. So, we are much clearer in looking for love and understand much better the kind of person we would be comfortable with.
Now, when we find love for the third time, we are already prepared. We are mature and know how to deal with different conditions. At this moment we also expect our partners to have grown as we did and things come together without being forced. It is this relationship that thrives as two people who understand themselves and each other come together to fall in love. It is this love that grows and as we grow older, it is this love that stays. Third time’s the charm, we suppose.
