E56 First Love Never Dies

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[00:00:00.300] - Oliver (Host)

They say you never forget your first love. And maybe that's true. Not because it was the most important relationship of your life, not because it was the most perfect, but because it had a kind of intensity that later relationships rarely match. Even years afterwards, you might find yourself unexpectedly reminded of it. A name, a song, a face in a crowd that looks a little too familiar. And suddenly, you're transported back to that moment when everything felt new and a little overwhelming. First love often arrives suddenly before you're really ready, and that's why it stays with you. The intensity of it, the awkwardness, the uncertainty, all of that leaves a mark.

[00:00:43.280] - Oliver (Host)

Hello, and welcome back to English and Beyond, the Advanced English podcast, where we explore culture, ideas, and personal stories through natural conversation. I'm Oliver, an English, Spanish, and Latin teacher from the UK, and as always, you can find the free transcript of this episode plus vocabulary flashcards at morethanalanguage.com. So, returning to the topic, of course, first love doesn't always look the same. For some, it's a fleeting holiday romance that feels almost cinematic because it's so brief. For others, it's a nervous kiss at a school disco, more awkward than romantic, but unforgettable all the same. And for many, especially for those who didn't follow the usual teenage path, first love arrives later, delayed, but no less powerful.

[00:01:31.940] - Oliver (Host)

However it comes, it has a way of shaping us, of teaching us something about desire, about disappointment, and about ourselves. Sometimes, it's not even about the person at all, but about who we were at that moment. Insecure, almost certainly, maybe idealistic too, still figuring out what love might mean. What's striking is how these early experiences never quite leave us. Even if the relationship lasted only week, or even if it never really began, the memory remains vivid. Years later, you might bump into someone who reminds you of that first love, and your pulse still quickens, even though the feelings themselves have long gone. In a sense, first love belongs as much to the imagination as to reality. We remember it through a haze of exaggeration, nostalgia, and selective memory, but that doesn't make it feel any less true. In this episode, we're going to revisit some of those memories, the crushes that felt larger than life, the kisses that confirmed or confused everything, and the romances that burned brightly before reality caught up. They're funny, they're awkward, they're sometimes bitter sweet, but they all remind us why first love, whatever form it takes, is so hard to forget.

[00:02:49.800] - Oliver (Host)

And perhaps, more importantly, they remind us of who we were when it happened, the younger versions of ourselves. And that might be the real reason first love never leaves us. It's not only about the person we cared for, but about the version of ourselves that existed back then, younger, unguarded, perhaps naive, but open in a way we rarely are again. There's a sweetness to it, even when it ended in disappointment, because it was the first time we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable, to feel those butterflies. In fact, maybe it's the wrong phrase, we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. Often when we are young, we yearn for a first love. We search for it, for someone who will love us as much as we dream of loving them. Looking back, we can smile at how innocent it all was, but also at how, in that moment, it genuinely felt like the most important thing in the world.

[00:03:48.220] - Oliver (Host)

Well, César. Are you ready for our most personal album yet?

[00:03:54.640] - César (Guest)

Well, I'm not sure I can say much, to be honest, about this topic.

[00:04:00.700] - Oliver (Host)

The point is that virtually everyone has a memory, has a story, and I think everyone loves to hear the stories of other people's first loves. So who's going first?

[00:04:12.460] - César (Guest)

You go first.

[00:04:13.480] - Oliver (Host)

Okay, well, yeah. So, well, now I don't know what to say.

[00:04:18.910] - César (Guest)

Are you going to say names?

[00:04:20.100] - Oliver (Host)

No. Hannah. Actually, Hannah actually is the name of... Not my first. Well, it depends how far back we're going. I remember being on holiday in Turkey, I'm meeting on one of these like a Sunsail holiday, which is you go on holiday and you sail in the sun. I met a girl called Emily from Northern Ireland, and I was at absolutely in love with her.

[00:04:46.200] - César (Guest)

How old were you?

[00:04:47.500] - Oliver (Host)

Probably about 12 or 13. But I just thought she was incredible. She was my age, but the girls obviously are much bigger, right? She was way taller than me and she was very imposing, and I just thought she was amazing. I really loved Emily, I had a huge crush on her.

[00:05:01.540] - César (Guest)

In hindsight, you think you looked up to her?

[00:05:06.460] - Oliver (Host)

Is that a joke, like a pun, about literally looking up?

[00:05:09.120] - César (Guest)

No, well, both actually. It wasn't a pun. It wasn't intended. But what I mean is like, obviously, you're gay, right? Are you coming out as a bisexual man or something?

[00:05:21.200] - Oliver (Host)

No, I was going to say she was the last of my straight crushes because I think that when you're young...you do -

[00:05:30.000] - Oliver (Host)

It's like performative, no?

[00:05:30.650] - Oliver (Host)

It's not even performative. I think that you can really like someone as a person, you get that confused. I thought she was great because, for example, when I was a young teenager, I kissed a girl for the first time properly. And immediately afterwards, I was like, Well, that's not for me. I remember saying to the boys, it was at a school disco, and I remember... Everyone always was obsessed about kissing someone or pulling, and I kissed this girl. I think I've said before, actually, in the podcast, I can't remember, but I went to an all boys school. My sister went to an all girls school, and they combined the schools for discos. My sister is three years older than me, so all of the girls at the school disco knew who I was because of my big sister who's very loud, very pretty.

[00:06:17.540] - César (Guest)

And who looks just like you.

[00:06:19.280] - Oliver (Host)

Well, that's why I've just complimented myself now.

[00:06:22.460] - César (Guest)

You're very similar. She's like the female version of you or you are the male version of her.

[00:06:28.260] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know. But she was basically all of the girls at the girls' school either loved or were in fear of her. So they came up to me and were like, Are you her brother? I'm going to beep that out. I was her brother. So I had loads of dances and kissed one of these girls. And immediately, I was like, No, this is not right. I suppose I didn't really know exactly what wasn't right. I can't remember now. It was such a long time ago. I probably had an inkling, but I knew as soon as I kissed her that I was not interested.

[00:07:01.410] - César (Guest)

I didn't get what you said, inkling?

[00:07:02.940] - Oliver (Host)

Inkling.

[00:07:03.940] - César (Guest)

What is that?

[00:07:04.480] - Oliver (Host)

It's like to have an idea, a small idea. Okay. Yeah. I had an idea. I had the first kind of signs that I might be gay.

[00:07:13.300] - César (Guest)

Okay. Emily was your first crush, but who was your-?

[00:07:16.960] - Oliver (Host)

I think that Emily might have come after Hannah. I kissed Hannah, but then I never kissed Emily, but I was just obsessed with her. So she was my last crush.

[00:07:25.930] - César (Guest)

Who wa your real first love, where you felt this...butterflies in your stomach.

[00:07:33.760] - Oliver (Host)

Before we get onto that, maybe we should talk about your last female crush or your first love with a girl.

[00:07:43.720] - César (Guest)

I guess my long-term crush when I was a kid or a pre-teernage, can you say?

[00:07:52.560] - Oliver (Host)

Pre-teen.

[00:07:53.040] - César (Guest)

Pre-teen. Was Maria Luisa.

[00:07:55.340] - Oliver (Host)

Did you go to school with her? Because that's the difference. I always went to a boys' school.

[00:08:00.000] - César (Guest)

We kissed one. It was just like a peck. We were playing this game with a card where you have to...

[00:08:07.120] - Oliver (Host)

Oh, God. It's like blow and kiss or something like that. It's actually in Clueless. I don't know if you've seen Clueless, but they play it when they're 17. So it's a little bit more...risqué.

[00:08:14.700] - César (Guest)

We had a peck. I was very excited about that.

[00:08:21.040] - Oliver (Host)

How old were you when that happened, did you say? Pre-teen? 12, 13?

[00:08:23.170] - César (Guest)

12, 13, yeah.

[00:08:26.330] - Oliver (Host)

Okay. That was the last time you were interested in the girl?

[00:08:30.000] - César (Guest)

I guess so, yeah.

[00:08:30.710] - Oliver (Host)

But you didn't come out until way later, right?

[00:08:32.580] - César (Guest)

Yeah. Well, I came out when I had a boyfriend already.

[00:08:35.060] - Oliver (Host)

So like 25 or something like that?

[00:08:37.680] - César (Guest)

23.

[00:08:38.080] - Oliver (Host)

23? Yeah.

[00:08:39.160] - César (Guest)

Okay. Once my dad came to London to visit me, and I was living with my boyfriend at the time. And that week when my dad was visiting me, my boyfriend was on a business trip, so I didn't want him to pay for a hotel. So I told him, You can come home and we can sleep in my room. And I hid all the pictures with my boyfriend at the time and his clothes.

[00:09:02.790] - Oliver (Host)

Your roommate.

[00:09:02.790] - César (Guest)

My roommate.

[00:09:06.720] - Oliver (Host)

And he was like, Why do you and your roommate share a bed? London economy, expensive rent.

[00:09:13.460] - César (Guest)

Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:15.100] - Oliver (Host)

Fair enough.

[00:09:16.820] - César (Guest)

So who was your first real love?

[00:09:20.880] - Oliver (Host)

My first love. I think that for me, it was definitely actually a kind of first love because I used to get the bus to school. I used to get a coach. You'd go to the bus stop in the morning and you got picked up from there. I saw him on the first day that I started at my secondary school. Like I started at 13, and he was totally different from me. I was extremely skinny and geeky. I was such a geek. All I needed was the glasses. I had the wild hair. I had the incredibly skinny, geeky body with the very bad posture, which I still have sometimes. And so he was the complete opposite. He was like the rugby captain. He was really muscular, you know, at an age when no one else was muscular. He was blonde. He was just incredibly handsome. All of the mums used to say how handsome he was, and I was this little runt in comparison. And so I saw him every day on the bus and thought he was just the most beautiful person I'd ever seen, for like a year. Then I had a friend, one of my friends, one of my very geeky friends, was also, for some reason, friends with him because they'd gone to the same junior school. And so we all got on this bus together and It meant that we used to have sleepovers in this geeky group, and for some reason we invited him, and for some reason, that I don't understand, he came.

[00:10:56.630] - César (Guest)

You invited him?

[00:10:57.760] - Oliver (Host)

Well, I invited him. The first time he came to one of the sleepovers was at my house. And I invited him through my friend Chris, and so he came for that reason. Then as soon as we had the sleepovers, there was a very weird energy. Because outside of school, he just would keep touching me unnecessarily. There'd be an arm around the shoulders or a hand on the knee, just totally unnecessarily while we were playing video games. I was like, Oh, my God. Then over the course of these Sleepovers, we always ended up sleeping in a bed together and everyone else would sleep on the floor in sleeping bags. Eventually, in the middle of the night, at 5: 00 AM, we kissed. Then we ended up having this mini secretive relationship for three or four months. I went on holiday. I went on a school trip. When I was away, he found, he got a girlfriend. I came back from that school trip, found out that he'd got this girlfriend, and I was devastated, devastated by this. Like, it took me four years to get over. I was so upset because I was so geeky and not in the closet, but unable to tell anyone.

[00:12:08.020] - César (Guest)

Yeah, but you were in the closet, right?

[00:12:10.050] - Oliver (Host)

Well, I wasn't in the closet with myself, but I hadn't told anyone else.

[00:12:13.590] - César (Guest)

Yeah, so you couldn't share the fact that your boyfriend -

[00:12:20.280] - Oliver (Host)

- had dumped me.

[00:12:21.720] - César (Guest)

Had dumped you for a girl.

[00:12:24.090] - Oliver (Host)

I couldn't even tell my mum or my sister, who I would normally talk to about these things.

[00:12:28.200] - César (Guest)

Did people notice that you were off?

[00:12:30.700] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, because then we started being quite mean to each other at school. Obviously, he stopped coming to the sleepovers. Yeah. He would call me gay, and I would call him stupid, which is not very nice of me either. I feel bad about that. And he wasn't stupid. I was gay.

[00:12:55.480] - César (Guest)

Yeah.

[00:12:56.960] - Oliver (Host)

You know what can I say?

[00:12:58.540] - César (Guest)

That's right.

[00:13:00.000] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah.

[00:13:00.560] - César (Guest)

Okay. I mean, I obviously knew this story, what you just told me. It was very interesting, very nice.

[00:13:09.820] - Oliver (Host)

I thought you were going to cry because you...

[00:13:12.300] - César (Guest)

I thought you were going to get emotional. It's a very sweet story.

[00:13:17.020] - Oliver (Host)

But it's funny how I think as I talked about in the epilogue... sorry. As I talked about in the prologue, first loves, I think, never completely leave you. It was 10 years ago, so 10 years after this all happened. I was in my hometown, and I went to the train station to buy a ticket, and there was this guy standing already buying a ticket at the machine, and it looked so much like him. And it turned out not to be him, but my heart was racing. I was like, Oh, my God. Because I hadn't seen him since we left school. I felt so nervous. It was interesting that literally 10 years after this had happened, it was still making my heart pound. I was still so, not into him, but like it made me so nervous, the idea of seeing him. I hadn't seen, I haven't seen him in literally 18 years.

[00:14:15.580] - César (Guest)

Did you look up his profile on Facebook, Instagram?

[00:14:20.300] - Oliver (Host)

I've looked up his profile once on Instagram, but it's closed anyway. And you know he has a restraining order now, no...  No, I know nothing about him except that I know he lives in [bleep]. I know he lives in another country. And I think he's married to a woman.

[00:14:41.940] - César (Guest)

He might be watching this or listening to this. Right now.

[00:14:44.690] - Oliver (Host)

To improve his English. Because he was stupid. No, I don't think so. I hope not.

[00:14:53.540] - César (Guest)

Well, it might be quite funny if he's watching.

[00:14:56.570] - Oliver (Host)

I mean, he should be grateful because he asked me not to tell anyone, and I didn't tell anyone at school ever.

[00:15:00.660] - César (Guest)

You were very discreet.

[00:15:01.630] - Oliver (Host)

I was very discreet. Cool. It took a great deal of restraint when he was calling me gay, not to be like, Really?

[00:15:12.860] - César (Guest)

That's awful.

[00:15:16.920] - Oliver (Host)

Well, no, it's fine. It's character building.

[00:15:19.960] - César (Guest)

Well, no, it's bullying because they weren't calling you gay in a good way. By the way, I'm telling you now, you know you're going to lose some listeners from this episode.

[00:15:30.940] - Oliver (Host)

It's fine.

[00:15:31.700] - César (Guest)

It's a good filter because with this Spanish podcast, it happens as well.

[00:15:35.520] - Oliver (Host)

As soon as you mention anything about sexuality, then lots of people stop following you.

[00:15:41.940] - César (Guest)

Homosexuality?

[00:15:43.260] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah.

[00:15:45.800] - César (Guest)

You mentioned something. You said that you think first love doesn't really leave you ever. I don't really agree. I didn't like anyone. I felt physically attracted to many people, but I wasn't really into anyone until I was 21 or so.

[00:16:06.530] - Oliver (Host)

Well, then that was your first love. Yeah.

[00:16:09.500] - César (Guest)

But I've never felt like that teenage love that many people feel so intense(ly).

[00:16:15.780] - Oliver (Host)

They talk about sometimes LGBT people because they don't tend to have the teenage romances that straight people have, and therefore, they live a delayed adolescence in that respect. And so I think it's quite common I think my story is quite unusual to have something when I was a teenager.

[00:16:35.070] - César (Guest)

Absolutely.

[00:16:35.540] - Oliver (Host)

Whereas I think your story of being a bit older, I think it's actually more normal.

[00:16:39.480] - César (Guest)

It's more normal. I was actually doing an English course in Barcelona. I met someone, Jesús. His English is, was amazing, and it's even better now because he lives in the States. He's married to an American guy. I think it was my first crush ever. Very, very intense. And I remember we kissed, and it was super weird for me because I had never kissed someone with a beard. We were together for one week, and when I left Barcelona, and I was off to Valencia, and he was from Granada, we said goodbye at the train station in Barcelona. Yeah, I remember myself crying in the train on the way back.

[00:17:37.320] - Oliver (Host)

Well, holiday romances can be actually really moving and upsetting.

[00:17:43.580] - César (Guest)

I've got a really good memory of that week and the following weeks where I felt influctated. What is the verb?

[00:17:51.320] - Oliver (Host)

Infatuated.

[00:17:51.360] - César (Guest)

Inflatuated.

[00:17:51.410] - Oliver (Host)

Infatuated.

[00:17:51.450] - César (Guest)

Infatuated. You're not in love, but you feel like you like someone very much.

[00:17:58.420] - Oliver (Host)

There's a good word for this, actually, which is very uncommonly used even amongst native speakers, which is like... You know what lust means? It's like lust, but from an emotional perspective, it's called a limerence. It's a great word to use for this context, actually. That very strong feeling, which is not really love because you don't have the depth of feeling. You don't know that person very well. But I think sometimes actually holiday romances and brief liaisons, brief feelings like that, can actually feel sometimes more powerful because you don't have the reality. Reality doesn't set in quickly enough.

[00:18:36.920] - César (Guest)

You are in a different context as well. You're normally more relaxed.

[00:18:39.980] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, it feels cinematic.

[00:18:41.540] - César (Guest)

Well-rested.

[00:18:43.920] - Oliver (Host)

It doesn't have to end badly. Even when a relationship ends, even if it ends amicably, even if a relationship ends amicably, it ends. So you have that kind of like bitter sweetness, or you just have that bitterness. Whereas I think with holiday romances, it's inherently more bitter sweet. Okay, well, César. And listeners, if you have managed to make it to the end and haven't blocked and unfollowed and given me one star on whatever listening programme platform you use, then, yeah, thank you for listening. We'll see you next time for a much less personal episode. Thank you.

[00:19:23.800] - César (Guest)

Chao chao.

[00:19:25.280] - Oliver (Host)

Goodbye.