The Romance and Perils of Finding Old Sweethearts Online

During an idle moment last year while sitting in front of her computer, Beth Stokes decided to find out happened to her first love, a 13-year-old boy she had not seen in decades.

She easily and quickly found Andy through social networking site Classmates.com. After e-mail exchanges, the two spoke by phone -- and Stokes, 46, felt the intervening years melt away. For her, the Internet had become an emotional time machine.

"As soon as I heard his voice, it was like I was transported back in time," she said. "It was strange and it was very scary. I was, 'Holy cow, I think I'm falling in love with him again.'"

Not long ago, such re-kindlings were largely relegated to once-a-decade school reunions, those awkward gatherings that tend to be more about sizing up past rivals than reconnecting with former sweethearts. But the Internet is now profoundly altering some people's links to the past and sometimes upending their lives in unexpected ways. For some, the outcome is a blissful re-coupling; for others, the reignited embers burn down the house.

The Web's ability to deliver instant information compounds a phenomenon psychologist Nancy Kalish struck upon during research in the early 1990s -- that for a significant number of people, first love, even decades later, remains as fresh as yesterday. In random survey of 1,300 people several years ago, Kalish found that 25 percent said they would reunite with their lost love if they could.

A survey of Classmates.com.'s 38 million members a few years ago revealed that 39 percent -- or 14.7 million people -- said they had used the networking site to look up an old love. Kalish also found that those who reunite years after breaking up have marriages less vulnerable to divorce than the national average.

But for those already married, reconnecting with the First One can cause havoc and pain.

In February, Ann, a 38-year-old East Coast artist, was "friended" by Bob, her teenage love, on Facebook. "It was incredible," she said. "I had looked for him. He found me." Both, though, are married with children. "It's very overwhelming for both of us," said Ann, who did not want to be identified.

Those not inclined to romantic nostalgia often report negative experiences with teen relationships, such as abuse or personality clashes, said Kalish, a professor of psychology at California State University, Sacramento. Those susceptible to pulls from the past had positive romantic relations in their youth that ended because of immaturity, opposition from parents or one moving away, she said.

"These memories make an emotional dent," Kalish explained. "They become a part of you. You are defining yourself in relationship with that person. You are defining what love is with that person."

Kalish, whose Web site is at www.lostlovers.com, insists that the enduring attachment to early romances is more than a wistful mis-remembering. "Not one person has ever written to me and said they were deceived by memories," she said. "Not one."