First Love Stories

Photography by: America Salazar

First Love Stories (Nina’s Version) (From The Interviews)

Love is a tricky thing. In all my years of being alive, I am now at an age that feels like I am both young and old. However, I am still not as wise as I wish I could be. I am still naive at heart. When it comes to love, I do not act my age. I act like a teenager who is experiencing everything for the first time. I make my mistakes and I try to live with them. Although I had the benefit of obscuring myself from answering the tricky questions, I asked 10 UTRGV students of all ages, majors and classifications this week. I learned more about love and first loves than I could know from simply passing by a person as I go about my day and never knowing the intricate stories they hold close to their heart. All 10 Vaqueros probably do not like Taylor Swift as much as I do. They probably do not have the last six tracks of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on repeat all week imagining fake scenarios in their head. I do think, however, that we have all experienced a first love. Whether this first love might have been a romantic or platonic one, or even love for a pet or something as surprising as love for their first car. It is love because as I said before, love is a tricky thing. We all feel love differently. Hopefully, these 10 testimonials will reveal this. After reading what students in our community have to say, I hope these students’ words are able to move you in a way that only first love can make us feel sometimes; excited, nervous and full of butterflies in our stomachs. For some of us, that first love is a memory of us playing the bumper cars, awaiting that first kiss that would change the course of our life forever. Or it is something as complex as sitting for the first time in a fast, red car, stepping the foot on the gas, heading down a road we have only ever dreamed of.

Leonela Casanova:

Leonela is 24 years old. She is a junior at UTRGV. She is majoring in Spanish.

“The story of my first love. I met him back in middle school. He was dating one of my friends. Well, not my friend. She was an acquaintance. He was part of my same group of friends. They broke up and him and I started talking. We became really close friends. Then during the summer, he asked me to be his girlfriend. We went to…the mall used to have an arcade back then. We were playing the cars. I had never kissed anyone yet before him. So, he got close to me and I really didn’t know what to do. We were 14 at the time. He kissed me. After that we dated for about four years. I honestly thought I was going to marry this guy because we dated for so long. It didn’t work out. Things happened along the way. We got to highschool. He took a path. I took a different path. He was my first love. His name is Ruben. I met him when I was 13 but we started dating when I was 14.”

Erick Lopez:

Erick is a freshman at UTRGV. He is majoring in Criminal Justice.

“My first love story. I don’t think I’ve ever really had one. Maybe I did once but she kind of left me for another guy. It’s kind of awkward to say. It’s kind of sad for me. That’s the only story that I would possibly have. Basically, she just said she lost feelings one day and then later I found out she got pregnant by another guy. She said, “I kind of lost feelings for you.” It sucks but [this was] two years ago. I’m happy that I wasn’t the father…I dodged a bullet.”

Hazel Hernandez:

Hazel is 17 years old. She is a TSC Dual-Enrollment student.

“My first love was one of my friends. I talked to her a lot while I was in middle school. I didn’t really notice her at first, but it was just, I got attached to her. I went only for her. Only for her. But then she got a boyfriend. [I] was lost forever. It was weird. I was 13 years old. She’s my friend. I got over it. It wasn’t that serious. Her name is Devlyn.”

Angelica Jaramillo:

Angelica is 15 years old. She is a TSC Dual-Enrollment student.

“[It] was eighth grade, still in middle school. It just happened really fast, and we were together for nine months. But then, it was bad at the end. I still consider them my friend. I still consider them my first love. I was 13. I made bad decisions.”

Gema Jimenez: 

Gema is 18 years old. She is a freshman at UTRGV. She is majoring in Marketing.

“His name is Min Yoongi. I love him so much cause he’s really inspiring. What he has gone through since he started and everything. How he always stayed humble, that is something that always inspired me. Especially because he kind of reminds me of my dad in a way. My dad used to come from the very bottom and…so kind of a similar situation happened. I love anyone that talks about his story. Like how he had to deal with his mom with her surgery and at the same time have a career. I like how he motivates others. When I learned more about him, I was about 17 or 16.”

Ana Casillas: 

Ana is 25 years old. She is a senior at UTRGV. She is majoring in Multidisciplinary Studies.

“I think it was really nice at first and I felt it was kind of [a] cupid moment for me. I was very much in love, but then he broke my heart. It’s okay. I learned a lot of things. It also teaches you what true love means. So that helped me out with my next relationship. I suffered a lot but at the same time I think that once you’re mature enough, you can understand. I think it’s really true when people say time heals everything and you really need to wait for time to kind of just happen. I was 17. I basically only had two boyfriends and so, the first one was my first love, I guess. Another thing that you don’t realize when you’re young is that falling in love is very different than truly loving someone. Overall, I had a great experience apart from the end.”

Damian Castillo:

Damian is 18 years old. He is a freshman at UTRGV. He is majoring in Criminal Justice.

“I would say we met during my senior year. We were friends, we started out as friends. We got really close cause she, I guess she was talking to someone. They had broke up and everything. I don’t know what they were, but they were [something]. Then, she started talking to me, and I also had a girlfriend, too. So, I have my girlfriend, right. But she eventually broke up with me because she went with her ex. I was like, “Damn.” I was like, “Oh, well, what can I do about it?” Me and her just started talking. We got really close. I guess from there it took us talking for like a couple months. Then, I finally got over my ex and everything. So, I might as well ask her out cause I liked her a lot. We would go out to places sometimes, like just Walmart or wherever. There’s not that much [to do]. We just went out and everything. I think the first time I took her out to the park, we got food. We were just in the car chilling, and I asked her out to be my girlfriend. I started to know that she liked me so might as well ask. Nothing hurts. Ever since then, we’ve been close together and I really like her. We’re still together. It was a really good experience because I had a bad experience with the other girl, and, well, this one is really different. She motivates me. She’s like, “We can do anything if you put your heart to it.” I’m always there for her too. We’re best friends, and we’re still together. We fell in love.”

Michael Treviño:

Michael is 35 years old. He is a freshman at UTRGV. He is majoring in Cyber Security.

“My first love. For the school…I could talk about the school. I think it’s a good school, the professors are really great. I had the opportunity to go to MIT but I chose to go here. I like the environment. It’s pretty nice. I’ve made a couple of friends already. I built a website for the school. It has artificial intelligence built in. I designed it and built it myself. It’s already on the Google Play Store.”

Taylor Berry:

Taylor is 25 years old. He is a sophomore at UTRGV. He is majoring in Cyber Security.

“I was with this girl that I met kinda through my work. We just went out to the club one time, and she kinda came onto me. I started dating her for like a few months, but it was like a short-term relationship. I was 19. I am not in contact with them anymore. Sometimes I think about them.”

Nicholas A. Chaimang:

Nicholas is 23 years old. He is a sophomore at UTRGV. He is majoring in Criminal Justice.

“I fell in love with my car. I got my car when I was 16 and like every other teenager I didn’t have the best at home life. So, the second I had my car I felt a sense of freedom because at a moment’s notice, I could throw five bucks in a tank and I can go just about anywhere I wanted to. Just have freedom and the ability to get up and leave at any moment was a lot to handle for being 16 years old. It definitely set me on a path that helped me become the person I am today. Have a sense of freedom and kind of make choices that will allow me to have the mobility that I need in order to sustain my lifestyle. Staying where I want to be, not where I have to be. A lot of people have told me that I need to come up with a name [for my car]. I don’t have a name for it. I drive a 3000 GT VR-4. It’s red. It’s a Mitsubishi. I don’t have a name for my car and I don’t intend on it. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that I don’t think it’s my cup of tea. I’ll sweet talk my car sometimes when it’s breaking down. Sometimes I say, “Oh, you got it, buddy.” or “Keep on pushing.” I might have other choice words for my car. I’m very far from what you call a mechanic. I did two years of auto classes in high school. I know the very basics on how to take care of a car and fix it. When my car does break down, I have to Youtube how to fix it. It usually winds up in me doing more damage than better. I had the base model when I was 16 and then I joined the army. When I was 18 I got rid of my old car and I upgraded to the VR-4 version. They’re practically the same thing. The first car was front-wheel drive. This one’s all-wheel drive. It’s about 72 horsepower faster and I think it weighs a tad more. It’s a standard. My dad taught me how to drive standard when I was 16…it kind of stuck with me. It’s one of those things where if you don’t know how to do it, it can be kind of frustrating learning it, but it’s frustrating learning just about anything. I’ve already sunk about 10Gs in repairs in the past two years. This car is very much a part of my life cause I don’t have a whole lot of attachments, but I’m attached to my car in a weird way. It’s a piece of shit but it’s my piece of shit. I keep sinking money into it. At some point, I might get an SUV or something. One of those dad cars. It has the utility of a minivan but it makes me feel a little bit more manly, if there’s such a thing. I’ve done a lot of first things. I’ve done a lot of things in my car. I’ve had romance in my car. I can’t say I’ve crashed my car but I’ve gotten pulled over plenty of times in my car. It’s taken me to and from work. I just learned to feel the road and it took me where I got here today. Took me all the way from New York to Kansas, back to New York back to Kansas. Then, eventually, to the Valley where it is now my home. My car is here.”