First Love

- Kate Pasola

“He was my first everything”

Elle Jackson-Cohen, 23, is an artist from Manchester

The first words Joe typed to me were, “What’s your favourite food?” It was early 2013, I was 17, and he’d messaged me on Facebook because we had mutual friends. I realised he was a bit of a weirdo, like me, and was immediately attracted to him. Looking through his pictures, there was something about his face that intrigued me. After that, we messaged often, but I was inexperienced and at boarding school, so made excuses whenever he asked to meet up. That summer, we were both in Mallorca at the same time, and I worked up the courage to meet him one evening. We sat on the beach, talking about the universe, looking out over the sea. He tried to kiss me and I said no. I couldn’t work him out straight away, and there was so much more I wanted to know about him. Eventually I did let him kiss me, and by Christmas, we’d become an item.