First Love

Behold four little white doves
Perched on a rosemary bush
They were saying to each other,
"There's no love like the first love".

— Josefina Learns a Lesson

Ah… first love. The love that is remembered the most fondly by the participant, as this is commonly what people experience when they first have a first crush, but it is also the love before the Second Love, if that should ever happen, and for a guy, he usually holds her memory very close to him if he is a widower whereas for young girls, the memory of the First Love they ever had is a special memory to them, especially if he later becomes the boyfriend they've longed for.

On the other side, if the relationship with the First Love doesn't turn out the way they hoped, the girl or boy might end up having a revelation that the Second Love is in fact better for them even though memories of the First Love linger.

There is also the story arc that comes along with the First Love when it turns out well for both involved—that "special, sweet, innocent first love" that often plays a major part in Coming-of-Age Stories like Bridge to Terabithia, for instance.

The phrase is somewhat common in Romantic Comedies, where the heroine is likely to say with a sigh, "Oh, he was my First Love!" or something along those lines. In action films, the concept of the First Love tends to pop up as The Lost Lenore for any action hero, male or female.

Compare The First Cut Is the Deepest, where the first love is hard to get over and Second Love, where the lover who has been in mourning for his First Love finds love again with his Second Love. Also compare Wrong Guy First, where the First Love turns out to be wrong for the lover, and First Girl Wins, where the girl the boy first meets in the story ends up becoming his first and forever love, although sometimes this is turned on its head and she is actually his Second Love, since this trope is mainly about how a boy meets a girl (or vice versa) within their series, but meeting someone first doesn't necessarily determine true love, if they truly remain faithful to their first love then that is Single-Target Sexuality.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Candy♡Candy, the protagonist Candy's first love is Anthony Brown, a Princely Young Man who treats her well and kindly despite their social differences. They even get to share a Dance of Romance! But that ends badly, when Anthony dies in a riding accident in front of Candy.
• Inuyasha's first love was Kikyou, and he was hers. Unfortunately, their plans to be together were ruined by Naraku, who turned them against each other, leading to Kikyou's death and Inuyasha being sealed away by her. Eventually, she is sort-of-revived from the dead, enabling them to resolve their issues before she eventually dies for real, and Inuyasha ends up with his Second Love Kagome.
• Naruto:
  • Sasuke is this for Sakura. As it goes, Sasuke is the only man Sakura ever loves. They become an Official Couple in the end.
  • Hinata is this for Naruto. The Tagline for the Canon movie The Last outright confirms this, as it states "The last story is the first love." As it goes, Hinata is also his One True Love, and the one he gets Happily Married to in the end.
• Due to time travel shenanigans, Touta from UQ Holder! was his adoptive mother's first love. She has long since moved onto his grandfather by the present day.
• Shirogane and Kaguya from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War are both stated to be each others' first loves. ^note Word of God says that back in elementary school Shirogane had a Precocious Crush on Fujiwara's older sister Toyomi while she was tutoring him, but it was never serious enough to truly qualify.

Asian Animation

• Banzi's Secret Diary: Episode 18 reveals that Banzi's first crush wasn't on her current boyfriend Hoyong, but on another boy named Jooni. She eventually gave up on him after falling in love with Hoyong, but then she and her friends find a note that indicates Jooni may have feelings for her, saying a picture he had taken was for Banzi but his original girlfriend, Dolly, jumped into the picture without him noticing.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, before she married Wolffy, Wolnie had a crush on White Wolf. In fact, she still fantasizes about him occasionally.

Comic Books

• Paul Patton Jr.'s First Love was one Linda Peggy... who just so happens to have grown up to be the villainess Dream Demon.
• Spider-Man: Gwen Stacy was this for Peter Parker. While he dated other women before her, Gwen was the first woman Peter had truly loved. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.
• Scott Pilgrim: It's implied Scott was this to Knives, explaining why she had such strong feelings for him even after they were no longer an item and why she still holds him such high regard when she has moved on. Of course, it didn't turn out so well due to Scott's choices (though it is implied that the relationship might've still been doomed even without Ramona since Scott was still emotionally recovering from the fallout with Envy and that Knives probably still would've become a lot more forward.)
• In Sunny Rolls the Dice Deb, Sunny's Childhood Friend and Regina both think Sunny's lab partner in biology, Tony, is "groovy" and she's lucky to have him as a lab partner. Sunny doesn't see what they see in him and has no feelings for him. She also is annoyed when a boy bumps into her all night at the roller rink and Deb and Regina say it's because he likes her. Sunny later gets her own first crush in Sunny Makes a Splash, but it's on her own schedule.

Fan Works

• Smurfette was Hero's first love in Hero: The Guardian Smurf. Then his Opposite-Sex Clone Wonder appears and she becomes Hero's Second Love and the first of the two Smurfettes he marries in the series. Smurfette, seeing that there is nobody among her fellow male Smurfs that is appropriate for her besides Hero, waits until Wonder dies before she ties the knot with Hero.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Germany did not remember he was Holy Rome until just before the beginning of the story. Since Germany is Holy Rome, Germany and Italy had met long before the World Wars. This also makes Germany Italy's first love. Japan was not pleased upon learning this.
• Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: Molly Weasley immediately notices Ginny's crush on Harry, and doesn't expect it to go anywhere, but considers that to be "an essential part of becoming a woman", so she doesn't try to interfere.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom Western Animation, TV Series, and Comic Books.): As far as blind dates, Kim Possible was not only Danny's first date, but also the first girl he liked out of the month's worth and he still thought fondly of her afterwards.
• the superhero game:
  • Jason Todd's first love was Artemis of Bana-Mighdall. Unlike most examples, their relationship didn't end tragically — they simply drifted apart and accepted the fact that they were Better as Friends. They even had a daughter together, named Penelope.
  • Donna Troy's first love was Roy Harper. While Donna dated other men before him, and even got married to another man and had a kid with him, Roy was the first man she truly loved. Their relationship was on-and-off for years, but they were finally beginning to get serious when Roy died. His death hit her hard, and it took her two decades to find love again — with Roy's best friend, the above Jason Todd, who ultimately proved to be her One True Love.
• In the Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfic Walking in Circles, before falling in love with Solas, Evelyn was involved with a young mage named Anselm. He was taken to the Kirkwall Circle when his mentor was revealed to be a blood mage. When Evelyn goes there with Monette, she discovers that Anselm had been made Tranquil for a few years and was killed during the Circle Annulment. His fate is one of the first steps for Evelyn to grow her hatred for the Circles and Templars, which eventually pushes her to side with her Second Love Solas once she becomes the Inquisitor.

Films — Animation

• Ice Age: Before he actually fell in love with Ellie, Manfred the mammoth is actually revealed to have had a first wife and child in a flashback sequence who unfortunately end up being stabbed to death by humans. This explains why Manfred not only hates humans, but also started to think that he is the last mammoth on Earth.

Films — Live Action

• In the film (500) Days of Summer this leans heavily on the positive end of the Second Love idea, where boy finds girl. Boy falls head over heels for girl. Girl breaks up with boy. Boy is heartbroken because he has failed to win his First Love, but he recovers once he realises that the Second Love is not only better but that fate had had a hand in getting them together, and they live happily ever after.
• First Love (1970) centers on a 16-year-old boy whose family rents a cottage in the Russian countryside for summer vacation. He falls in first love with the ravishing young woman whose family has rented the neighboring cottage. Events take a turn when the boy finds out that the young woman is having an affair with his father.
• I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Jack Spade's mother Belle was once in love with John Slade and almost married him. They broke up because he spent so much time fighting crime, and she married the man who became Jack's father. Near the end of the movie she falls in love with John Slade again.
• The Man in the Moon is about Dani, a young tomboy who falls for her new neighbor Court in 1950s rural Louisiana. After becoming close, Court agrees to be Dani's first kiss. She later confesses she's in love with him, though it's not requited. He then dies in a horrific tractor accident, rendering the romantic drama moot.
• Miao Miao has this for the main characters, as explained by Miao Miao's monologue near the end of the movie.
• The Imitation Game: Christopher is the first boy the teenaged Alan Turing develops romantic feelings for.
• In Solo, Qi'ra, Han Solo's childhood friend, serves as the first girl Han is romantically attached to. It's pretty likely that her abandoning him in favor of becoming the new leader of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate at the end of the movie is likely what contributes to his cynical attitude in A New Hope, at least until his romance with Leia begins.
• Yes or No: Pie and Kim both tell each other they've never been in love before. The two fall for each other during the first film.
• In Young Lady Chatterley II, Robert was Cynthia's first love (and first lover). She is overjoyed when she learns he is coming to visit her estate in England. She is shocked to discover that he has joined the priesthood in their years apart.

Literature

• Given the quote above, this trope is referenced in one of the American Girls Collection of stories, this one being Josefina's, whose mother has died before the series began, and it turns out the poem was a favorite of hers, even though she could not read, although the reader is allowed to infer that Josefina's papa read it to her mother, and their relationship was very close, as it takes Josefina's father some time to grow to love her aunt, Tia' Dolores.
• In Anne of Green Gables, Anne Shirley was always Gilbert Blythe's First Love since that moment she cracked a slate over his head, and he faithfully waited for years for her, hoping she would realise his love.
• An important element in the novels of Jane Austen, who uses the First Love trope often under the role of Wrong Guy First, and her examples are as follows:
  • In Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie is infatuated with Wickham before she eventually realising that he is not a decent person and that Darcy, a man she scorned, is a true gentleman. The concept of the first love is also humorously undermined when Mr. Collins rapidly transfers his affections from Jane to Lizzie to Charlotte Lucas.
  • In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne has to move past Willoughby before appreciating the worth of Colonel Brandon. Prior to the story beginning, Edward Ferrars has imprudently gotten engaged to Lucy Steele, which prevents him from courting Elinor. As far as we know, however, Edward is Elinor's first love.
  • These are all examples of First Loves going wrong, but Austen also has a few examples among her repertoire of First Love turning out right:
    • In Persuasion, Anne's early romance with Captain Wentworth had been scuttled by her family, but she never forgot him. Their paths cross again years later and she has to watch him court others before eventually winning him back.
    • In Emma, Emma thinks she's in love with Frank Churchill, but when she discovers her true feelings for another she realises she never really loved Frank. Meanwhile, she persuades Harriet that her first love wasn't good enough for her, so Harriet sets her sights on various unobtainable men before gratefully accepting her first love's proposal again.
    • In Mansfield Park, Edmund has to be burned by Mary Crawford before he recognises Fanny's worth, and Fanny is almost tempted away from Edmund, her first love, by Mary's brother Henry.
• In Barber Black Sheep, Oliver and Kittie serve as this for one another. Oliver has never been in a relationship before, while Kittie's former relationships never went anywhere.
• Bridge to Terabithia: in this Tear Jerker of a novel, this trope is subtly implied with the friendship between Jess and his friend Leslie, a girl who introduces him to the titular Terabithia, and this variety of the "special, sweet, innocent" type of first love, on both Jess and Leslie's parts, as Jess realises it was not his teacher with whom he's really in love, but Leslie. Thus her death hits him hard.
• In the Casson Family Series, Rose Casson's First Love has always been American boy Tom Levin, and fans are waiting eagerly to see the long-anticipated resolution to their relationship.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Tamlin to Feyre. She had been with Isaac prior to meeting Tamlin, but their relationship was purely about sex rather than love and Tamlin is the first man she fell in love with. Unfortunately, it doesn't last.
• In Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield, this is an important element, used both ways, since David marries his first love, Dora, only to realise that they are not well-suited. He loves her but she can't be a partner to him. Upon her death, he marries Agnes, who considered him to be her first love, and who had loved him the whole time. A rare case of both the unhappy First Love type and the triumphant First Love type, for Agnes, who ultimately ends up marrying David - in one story.
• In Death and The Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters, 14-year-old Dominic Felse falls hard for Kitty Norris; they don't end up together, but they part amicably having both gained from their interactions.
• In The Dresden Files, Harry's First Love was Elaine Lillian Mallory, a fellow apprentice of a wizard he learned dark magic from. Given Harry's luck with women, or lack thereof, it ended somewhat badly, and when she reappears in a later novel, Harry is feels pangs when he sees her again.
• Earth's Children:
  • Zolena was Jondalar's first love and the first woman he ever slept with when he was around twelve or thirteen. Unfortunately, their romance ended badly, which partly led to Jondalar having relationship issues later in life.
  • Jondalar is Ayla's first experience with romantic love and her true love, to boot. She falls for him so hard that she's certain he's the one she wants to spend her life with; even when she's engaged to another man she realises it's Jondalar she truly wants.
• Deuce and Penny in Edenborn. Despite the fact that both of them are completely wrapped up in the experience of First Love, they're disastrously wrong for each other.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry's was Cho Chang. Although it was not so much love as a crush that got really complicated, not helped by the fact this relationship started while Cho was mourning the death of her first love, Cedric Diggory (who Harry saw die in front of him and feels some guilt over it due to the circumstances.)
  • On the flip side, Harry was Ginny's First Love, and he even ends up with her when the series concludes in a triumphant case of First Girl Wins. While Ginny dated other people before Harry, she fully admits that she never quite got over her crush on him.
  • Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are one of another's firsts, but because they were both very insecure, neither could spit out their feelings and tended to show them through possessive feelings and dating others for jealousy, best seen in the sixth book.
  • Albus Dumbledore's first love (who was also his Closet Key) was Gellert Grindelwald, the previous Dark Lord before Voldemort. Grindelwald was also his only love, mainly because he was such a Manipulative Bastard that he used Dumbledore's attraction to him in hopes of keeping his one intellectual and magical equal chained by his side. Dumbledore swore off falling in love ever again for fear of losing his moral compass like he had during the brief time spent together in their youth.
• Georgette Heyer uses this trope several times in her novels. One notable example is Bath Tangle in which one main character has to recognise the shallowness of her attachment to her First Love before accepting a match with an antagonistic friend. The issue of First Love versus Second Love is even more seriously in A Civil Contract, in which the main character is unable to marry his First Love, but ultimately develops a deeper (if less passionate) emotional bond with the wife he married for her fortune.
• Captain Paul Tankersley for Honor Harrington. He was the executive officer to her biggest enemy in the first book, On Basilisk Station; they met again in The Short Victorious War when he oversaw repairs to her battlecruiser HMS Nike, and became sparring partners and subsequently lovers. His death and her grief in Field of Dishonor drive her character arc for the next several books, and it takes her years to fall in love again. Though she ultimately ends up Happily Married to her Second Love Hamish Alexander, Earl White Haven (and by extension his wife Emily as well), she keeps Paul's memory in her heart all her life, naming her private yacht after him.
• I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: In a segment only found in the novel, the protagonist relates to Sakura a story about his first love, a girl with a habit of referring to inanimate objects as "-san". The epilogue reveals Haruki made this story up and didn't have the heart to correct Sakura afterwards, with the phrasing he uses afterwards implying that Sakura was his real First Love.
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club: Kath is this for Lily who has never dated or felt this way for anyone before.
• Early in The Metamorphoses is the story of Apollo and his first love, Daphne.
• Saving Charlie is about Hiro's time-traveling shenanigans in order to win and save Charlie, the first girl who has ever even so much as given him the time of day. They've both had crushes on other people, and Charlie has a jealous ex, but neither has felt anything quite like this relationship.
• In Seeds by M. M. Kin Persephone is Hades' first and only love. He was Friends with Benefits with Leuce and Minthe before, but Persephone is the first woman he loves for real. Unfortunately this means he often acts like a lovesick teenager and do stupid thing in order to keep her by his side.
• In That Irresistible Poison by Alessandra Hazard, Seyn and Ksar, who are the princes from the Third Grand Clan and Second Grand Clan respectively, are each other's first love.
• Warrior Cats:
  • In the very first book, Firepaw developed a crush on Spottedleaf, and she felt the same for him, but they never got to speak of their feelings before she died. She proceeded to visit him in dreams, and eventually he fell in love with Sandstorm and had to reconcile the fact that he loved her while still missing Spottedleaf.
  • Graystripe's first love was the RiverClan cat Silverstream. She died giving birth to their kits. Much later, he found love again when he met Millie.
  • Crowfeather first fell in love with Feathertail, but she died on their journey. He chose his own warrior name in her honor. Later he fell in love with Leafpool, and Feathertail's spirit gave Leafpool her blessing.
  • Clear Sky's first mate as a young cat was Bright Stream, but she died on their journey while pregnant with his kits. Her death changed him and made him obsessively afraid of losing anyone else. He later became mates with Storm, who also died, and then Star Flower.
  • After having a couple crushes that never went anywhere, Gray Wing eventually realized his feelings for Turtle Tail and they became mates, with him being an adopted father to her kits from the day they were born. After her death, he fell in love with Slate. Gray Wing was also Turtle Tail's first love; she always loved him, but temporarily left the group when it didn't look like he reciprocated, and had kits with another tom. She never got over her feelings for Gray Wing though, and the two of them ended up together upon her return.
• In Where Are the Children?, Nancy admits that until she met her second husband Ray Eldredge, she'd never truly fallen in love. She'd dated a bit in college and married Carl Harmon when she was just 18, but she later realised she wasn't truly in love with Carl or even that attracted to him, merely tolerating him because he was "good to her" after her parents died; she later came to realise he'd been taking advantage of her and stripping her of her independence. In contrast, Nancy genuinely enjoys Ray's company, feels relaxed in his presence and finds that it's easy to be attracted to him. Ray's affection for Nancy and desire to support her is sincere and unselfish, unlike Carl, who had only sinister intentions.

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse
  • Arrow:
    • Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance. Even though they never really get back together, it's fairly obvious that they still love each other. When Laurel died, it drove Oliver closer to a breakdown than ever before. His complicated feelings for Black Siren, Laurel's Earth-2 counterpart, specifically his desire to redeem her, is partially motivated out of the love he still has for his Laurel.
    • Nyssa al Ghul's first love was Sara Lance, and her actress outright states that Sara was the love of her life. It gets deconstructed during Nyssa's first appearance: because Sara was the first person she ever loved in such a fashion, Nyssa was determined to make Sara come back to the League of Assassins by any means necessary, including poisoning Sara's sister Laurel and kidnapping and threatening to kill Sara's mother. It was only after Sara nearly committed suicide to ensure she'd never have to go back that Nyssa finally relented and released her from her vows.
  • The Flash (2014): Barry Allen's is Iris West. He's loved her all his life, before he even knew what love was, and while he's tried to move on from her (with Linda Park, and later Patty Spivot), it always comes back to her in the end. With Iris, it's a little more complicated — while she started a relationship with Eddie Thawne first, and did love him, it's confirmed in "Cause and Effect" that she loved Barry long before she had even met Eddie, and that she just hadn't realized it yet.
  • Supergirl (2015): While she did have a crush on James Olsen first, Kara Danvers/Zor-El's first true love was Prince Mon-El of Daxam. It goes both ways — before he met Kara, Mon-El was The Casanova. Unfortunately, they're also Star-Crossed Lovers. After Queen Rhea refuses to stop the Daxamite Invasion of Earth even after being personally defeated in Trial by Combat by Supergirl, Kara has no choice but to infuse the Earth's atmosphere with lead, making it poisonous to Daxamites and forcing Mon-El off-planet.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and Angel: Angel never really loved anyone before, being a drunken wastrel when he was alive and demon after his death. Buffy never loved anyone before, as she was sixteen when they met (and fifteen when he first saw her).
• El corazón nunca se equivoca: Ari and Temo are each other's first love and they're also the show's Official Couple.
• Fellow Travelers:
  • The late Kenneth Willard was Hawkins Fuller's 11th grade classmate and tennis partner, and he was the first person Hawk had developed romantic feelings for. Hawk keeps a Tragic Keepsake of his beloved in the form of a paperweight that Kenny gave to him while they were on their senior trip. When Hawk stops by his family's home, he goes to his old bedroom to take out a tennis trophy that he and Kenny had won, and he reminisces about their time together.
  • Hawk is Timothy Laughlin's first and only love.
    Tim: I have loved you my whole life. I've never loved anyone but you. You were my great, consuming love.
• In Glee, Finn is Rachel's First Love, while Quinn is Finn's First Love. Cheating, breakups, hypocrisy, and Dating Do-Si-Do ensue... Hand Waved with the phrase "You can forgive your First Love anything".
  • Kurt and Blaine are each other's first loves. They even call each other that while they are breaking up. They get back together, of course.
  • Brittany is Santana's First Love as well as her Closet Key.
• In iCarly, Freddie Benson's first crush and his first love will always be Carly Shay, and he is so sincere in this that he has told her that he will be her second husband if necessary, implying that he will always stay true to his First Love.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • While not explicitly stated, it's very likely that Louis de Pointe du Lac and Jonah Macon, Childhood Friends who developed a Childhood Friend Romance during their late adolescence, are each other's first love, especially when one factors in the racism and the homophobia of the late 19th century. Although their paths diverged for many years, their feelings for each other are still apparent when they meet again in 1917 when Louis is nearly middle-aged, which demonstrates how intense their emotional attachment was during their youth because they're both still carrying a torch at least two decades later.
  • Charlie is Claudia's first boyfriend and the first guy she has fallen in love with.
  • Claudia refers to Nicki (a diminutive for Nicolas) as Lestat de Lioncourt's first love.
• Lucifer (2016):
  • Eve, the First Woman, was Lucifer's first love. All the stuff in the Bible about the apple was a metaphor for him seducing her. Except, not really. While Lucifer did feel something for Eve, his first love has always been Chloe Decker, which he admits in the Season Four finale.
  • One of the reasons Lucifer was able to seduce Eve was because she always felt inferior to Lilith, Adam's first love. He apparently spent much of his time extolling her virtues and telling stories about her incredible deeds.
    Eve: [mockingly] "Oh, Lilith tamed the beasts of the night!" Stupid... perfect... Lilith.
    Maze: She wasn't perfect.
    Eve: I'm so sorry... I completely forgot that she was your mother.
    Maze: Yep. [takes a drink] So did she.
• Lancelot was Guinevere's first love, and is explicitly identified as such on Merlin.
• Nathan and Haley were each others first love in One Tree Hill. So much so that they get married at sixteen and remain together for the entire nine season run.
• Poldark:
  • As in the book series, Ross Poldark went off to war, leaving his First Love Elizabeth, and returned to find she was marrying his cousin Francis. His struggle to move on from her, and his inability to forget her completely and focus on his Second Love, his wife Delmeza (whose own First Love is Ross) is one of the main conflicts of the show.
• Stranger Things: Between Mike and Eleven, who are around twelve and obviously experiencing attraction to each other for the first time. It's almost a foregone conclusion. Later, Lucas and Max in Season 2. Also Dustin's girlfriend in Season 3, Steve for Nancy in Season 1 (and it's implied that although Steve has had many girlfriends, his feelings for Nancy were much stronger, since he's still hung up on her in Season 3.).
• Matt for Elena on The Vampire Diaries. They were childhood friends who began a romance during their high school years.
• In Wild Palms, Paige Katz is Harry's first love from college. His wife, Gracie, is of course suspicious when Paige and Harry become close again after years apart.
• Will was Ingrid's first love on Young Dracula, he's also pretty much the first person to get to know her properly Ingrid even has fond memories of him four years after his death She even refers to him as the closest thing she could get to a soulmate.

Music

• Justin Bieber's "Baby" is about heartbreak after a first love. Ludacris features and raps about his own first love at 13.
• "The First Cut Is the Deepest" by Cat Stevens and later Sheryl Crow is all about this trope.
• The Walker Brothers said it best: First Love Never Dies
• The Japanese version of the song "Time To Love" sung by K-Pop group T-Ara has a line in the chorus that specifically mentions this: "[...] Kienai, hatsukoi." ("You won't disappear, my first love")

Mythology & Religion

• Classical Mythology: Most versions of Hades and the nymph Leuke's relationship portray them this way, at least from Hades' side. He fell in love with her and brought her down to the Underworld, where they were together until Leuke died for unspecified reasons. He later took the Cocytus naiad Minthe as a lover, but the two apparently parted ways some time before he met and fell in love with Persephone, who became his wife and true love.^note At some point Minthe tried to seduce Hades away from Persephone, however the later turned her into a mint plant and crushed her under her heels for the attempted homewrecking.

Video Games

• In Double Homework, the protagonist and Rachel are arguably this for each other. They are definitely attached to each other, and they haven’t fully gotten over their breakup by the start of summer school.
• Final Fantasy VII:
  • Aerith and Zack. After Zack's death, Aerith initially felt attracted to Cloud because he reminded her of Zack, with good reason, though she eventually comes to realize that the two men are indeed very different in terms of personality and comes to appreciate and love Cloud as his own. In Advent Children, she and Zack are reunited via Together in Death.
• In Fire Emblem: Awakening, if Frederick and Lissa get together, she specifically points out that Frederick was her childhood crush.
  • If Lissa's son Owain gets together with Cynthia, he will tell her that she was his first love. Same goes to Cynthia, if she hooks up with Inigo. Both cases double as Childhood Friend Romance. (It's also implied that Cynthia may have been Gerome's first love, but it's not clear.)
  • Played for Drama in the backstories of Lon'qu and Cordelia, though both of them can get better.
  • According to Chrom and Female Avatar's S-Support, he and the Female Avatar fell in love with one another at first sight.
• In The Last of Us, the Left Behind DLC is the story of Ellie's short lived and tragic first love with her best friend Riley, and how it has affected her outlook in the present day.
• The Warden can be this for Alistair or Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins (Zevran and Leliana, the other two love interests, are a case of Second Love), and it can turn out well or... badly.
  • Notably, a Trevelyan or Lavellan romancing Cullen in Dragon Age: Inquisition is likely his First Love, given his background with the Templars; but, depending on the backstory, she can also be the Second Love due to Cullen's crush on an Amell or Surana Warden.^note If the imported world state does not have a female mage as the Hero of Ferelden, Cullen's youthful infatuation is never mentioned.
• In Mass Effect, the player can be Liara's first love if they choose to romance her.
• Melody:
  • The protagonist and Isabella are this for each other.
  • Becca had one of these that colors her perceptions of both relationships and friendships.
• In Sunrider, Ava Crescentia was Kayto Shields's childhood friend and first love, although he'd dated other girls before her. Unfortunately their relationship didn't pan out, as she left for the military right after graduating from high school and they wouldn’t see each other again for twelve years. By the time they meet again, they’ve become officers aboard a military starship and Ava won’t renew their past relationship because it would make them Inappropriately Close Comrades.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Yang is confirmed by Word of God to have never been in love before. So, the person she does fall for ends up being her first love. This is confirmed by the writers after she and Blake get together in Volume 9; until she fell for Blake, she didn't even know she was attracted to women.

Webcomics

• Check, Please! has a situation that is heartwarming to some and heartbreaking to others. While the Official Couple Bitty and Jack are heavily implied in year 3 to be this to each other, the same comic that implies this also implies that Jack was this to Kent, who is still hung up on him, while Jack believes that their relationship was doomed to fail and never much more than physical, something he intended to end for the sake of his career, while he is more than happy to make some sacrifices in his career now that he is with Bitty.
• Always Raining Here has David as this to Adrian, before he finally moved on to Carter.

Web Original

• A Loaf Story, an entry from The Wanderer's Library, chronicles this for two young loaves of bread.

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom: Protagonist Danny Fenton aka Danny Phantom had a massive crush on Paulina, but wised up after becoming more aware of her unpleasant personality. And eventually he starts a romance with Sam.
• The Owl House: Dana Terrace confirmed in a Reddit AMA that the reason Amity Blight acts so flustered around Luz Noceda late in season one is because Luz was Amity's first big crush.
• Regular Show: Margaret was this to Mordecai, before he moved on to C.J. and later on his unnamed bat wife.
• Samurai Jack: Jack is a Celibate Hero for the first four seasons. After helping Ashi reform, she became the first woman with whom he falls in love. Their romance ends in tragedy, since she's Aku's daughter and destroying her father in the past means preventing her birth. The last scene in the series, where Jack finds a ladybug (due to the legend of ladybugs and love), suggests he might one day find love again.
• In The Simpsons, Bart Simpson's is teenaged neighbor Laura Powers from the episode "New Kid on the Block," who he calls "the only girl I ever loved" in "Another Simpsons Clip Show," before we see him interact with other love interests.

Real Life

• Middle school and high school crushes are very common occurrences of first love in real life.
• Also, in some rare cases, the Puppy Love can cause this between one or both of the participants in the relationship, although it's usually a case of the First Love turning out wrong for both participants.

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