{"id":138775,"date":"2026-04-24T08:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/?p=138775"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:20:15","slug":"an-open-letter-to-the-first-girl-who-broke-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/an-open-letter-to-the-first-girl-who-broke-my-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter To The First Girl Who Broke My Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">Hey babe,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent: 36.0pt;cursor: text\"><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">I say &#8216;babe&#8217; because I know how much you used to hate pet names. That\u2019s a bit petty, isn\u2019t it? A little bit vindictive? It\u2019s also uncalled for, seeing as we haven\u2019t seen each other for years now. Somehow, despite the variety of emotions we would have once had for each other, that little bit of ill-wishing never seems to fade totally. Not that I do wish you ill particularly, but if there\u2019s any remnant emotion left other than placid apathy for the first person who broke my heart, I guess it\u2019s that.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Teenage heartbreak<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">Before we go on, there are two things I want to address. The first is that I want to provide some clarity over the phrase \u2018broke my heart\u2019. We hurt each other, there\u2019s no getting away from that, but we also hurt each other in a teenagers-playing-at-being-adults kind of way. What I mean is, saying you \u2018broke my heart\u2019 isn\u2019t really true. At the time, it definitely felt that way but, with a few extra years of experience, I can fairly confidently say that heartbreak is something else entirely. <\/span><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center\">\n<\/h6>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">It\u2019s unfair and false to put this much pressure on that former version of ourselves.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">\u00a0The other is that I just want to make sure there\u2019s no ambiguity about whether I take responsibility for all the horrible things I said and did to you. I do, wholeheartedly. The relationship I have to you now is quite a strange one because, in my head, you occupy a dual position of both the first person who broke my heart, but also the first person who\u2019s heart I broke. The latter of those is sort of a guess based on the things we said to each other after everything fell to pieces for the last time. That\u2019s purely my perception of things but, now that I think about it, I wonder if you do see me that way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Putting things right<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">I\u2019ve considered calling you or messaging you to tell you how sorry I am for those cold-hearted things I did to you in my adolescence, particularly the two-faced way I would speak about you to my friends. But of course, if I did do that, it would be a product of my ego\u2019s desire to hear you say you forgive me, and I imagine you don\u2019t even think about it at all any more. In fairness, nor do I normally, but it\u2019s that time of the year when we reflect and try to self-improve. Just know I am truly sorry and, for what it\u2019s worth, I\u2019ve used those experiences to try and be a better person. You were sort of like a first lesson in how to treat women; I\u2019m sorry you had to suffer for me to find out how to be an empathetic and kind person.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Forgiveness<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">Now that my apology is out of the way, I also want to say that I forgive you too. You may think you have nothing that needs forgiving and that would be totally fair, but experiencing heart-break for the first time was truly difficult. It wasn\u2019t like it is in films or TV shows; there was no defined period where I went from feeling down to being normal again. That low feeling hung around me for a whole month, a chain around my neck that wanted to pull me into the ground. Even the return to normal felt tainted by a new knowledge, a fresh fear of what it\u2019s like to have your ego crushed by someone else. With a bit of perspective this far down the line, I\u2019m grateful that I had those feelings \u2013 it was another character-building lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center\">\n<\/h6>\n<h2>Moving on<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">We were never meant to be together. We were inherently different. Maybe we\u2019re more similar these days. Who know? Not that any of this matters anymore; it was a long time ago and we\u2019ve both moved on. Or rather I have, and I hope you have too because, if not, that would be troubling. Genuinely, I hope you\u2019re happy now and that you learnt as much from our pre-adult forays in romance (and heartbreak) as I did.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Have you ever had the courage to talk to the person who broke your heart for the first time<span style=\"margin: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">? Who was the first person who&#8217;s heart you broke? Let us know in the comments below&#8230;<\/span><\/h3>\n<h6>Featured image:\u00a0https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/people-couple-heartbreak-rejection-3422435\/<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey babe, I say &#8216;babe&#8217; because I know how much you used to hate pet names. That\u2019s a bit petty, isn\u2019t it? A little bit vindictive? It\u2019s also uncalled for, seeing as we haven\u2019t seen each other for years now. Somehow, despite the variety of emotions we would have once had for each other, that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25043,"featured_media":138776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[1805],"tags":[16480,16481,8775,8399,16482],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-138775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-first-heartbreak","tag-heartbreak","tag-love","tag-relationships","tag-self-reflection"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An Open Letter To The First Girl Who Broke My Heart - 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