Love. Most of us know what it feels like. Or at least we think we know what it feels like.
This Friday, a movie called "Flipped" is hitting local theaters, and it's about love. Specifically, that special kind of love we know as "first love."
And in honor of what is guaranteed to be a sickeningly cute and heart-warming fictional tale of first love in the ‘50s, we got the true, heart-breaking stories of three first loves from people walking our own streets.
Enjoy.
Amber Keen, 23
"You may think when you're 16 you're in love. But then you get out of the relationship, and you realize you were just crazy and wanted a boyfriend."
Keen said she'd had relationships before but didn't really fall in love until she met Colin when she was 21.
"I'd never felt how I felt about him then," she said. "I couldn't eat. I wasn't even hungry because my stomach was in knots."
They met in 2008 at the Gators football game against the University of South Carolina. He was in her seat, but when she asked him to leave, he wouldn't. He'd rather squish himself between the screaming fans and talk to her about Nickelodeon shows and other "dorky stuff."
But it was great, and they got together, and Keen had never been happier.
When he graduated a few months later, he stayed in town to be with her. And when he moved to Birmingham, Ala., to study dentistry, they decided to make it work even though Keen never had thought long-distance relationships were a good idea before.
"But we had a plan," she said. "I was graduating soon, and the plan was I'd move up and be with him."
Things were so serious between the two that they went looking at rings together. But they never bought one. And that was probably for the best because after a while, things started to change. He became critical of Keen's lifestyle and didn't approve of her partying.
"Distance pulls people apart. And for us, we just kind of grew apart," she said. "We were changing as people. People change, but we didn't change together."
It's been about a month since Keen and Colin separated, and she said she's no longer looking for something serious.
"I have my whole life to be married to someone," she said. "It's important to give yourself that time."
Since the breakup, Colin has e-mailed her saying he's sorry for everything he said to hurt her. But she hasn't responded yet. She's too busy feeling "liberated."
Still, she's quick to say her relationship with Colin was the best she's ever had.
"I told him if we're meant to be, we'll be together down the line," she said. "At the moment, I feel like I did the right thing."
Lea Cline, 32
Cline was 23 and going to graduate school in Austin, Texas, when she met Dylan through a fledgling dating site created for students - something that wasn't so normal 10 years ago.
"Back then it was really edgy," she said. "It was kind of the hip thing to do."
She and Dylan hit it off like magic, "the result of being at the right place at the right time." He was cool and sure of himself, knew who he was and what he wanted, and she was attracted to that.
They were together for three years. They, too, went ring shopping and actually bought one. They were going to get engaged.
And that's when they fell out of love.
"We had become this unit," she said. "We were going and grew into this relationship that wasn't fun anymore. It was like a job. You make these sacrifices because that's what you do."
Cline said they kept making adjustments to their personalities, trying to make themselves fit into what the other had pictured in their minds until one day Dylan couldn't take it anymore.
"He realized, ‘I can't be who you want me to be forever,' and I realized the stakes were too high," she said.
But in the end, Cline knows it was the right decision. Dylan got married, and she got a Ph.D.
"You get your confirmation later on," she said. "It was formative to know that I could love someone that much, but I also had to love myself."
Lester Smilowitz, 62
When Smilowitz met his first real love - the love that changed his life - he'd already been married for four years.
And this "real love" wasn't anyone like his wife. His name was Jeffrey.
"It was like, what you were supposed to do?" he said. "I wasn't out of the closet. I was a homophobe. And when I met my wife, we just clicked. I was confused."
His wife got the idea that she wanted to see a friend perform in a local drag show. He went along, and when she kept going back, so did he.
It was harmless fun. A few trips later, a man asked him to dance, and that wasn't so bad.
Then he met Jeffrey. The first time he saw him was at Lake Wauburg.
"He was wearing pigtails with leather straps and cut-off shorts," he said. "I thought he was pathetically thin."
But later, when Smilowitz was at a friends house, Jeffrey was there, and he just leaned over and kissed him, and that was it.
"He kissed me, and I woke up," he said. "I was kind of like Snow White."
Smilowitz and Jeffrey started hanging out more until Smilowtiz started staying the night. Things with his wife were going south. She was becoming involved in a cult-like church, and he was, well, sleeping with a man.
Smilowtiz and his wife split up. He moved out of his house and in with Jeffrey, which "turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened in my life."
"He was a player, and he played me," he said. "He expected this love to be like the one he had with his wife, but it wasn't.
"It was a roller coaster ride down," he said. "To this day, I can't think about him without cringing."
But without Jeffrey, who knows how long it would have taken Smilowtiz to become comfortable with himself - to show the world who he really was inside. And in the end, he's not bitter.
"What I've learned about love is that it has nothing to do with the other person," he said. "It's an emotion we're capable of ... we're not a victim of it ... I don't believe that."
Since then, Smilowtiz has had real, meaningful relationships with men who loved him back, for better or worse.
"It's probably the greatest gift to be loved and give love," he said. "Life is always better when you're in love."
