How do I cope with losing my first love of 3 years?

//I want to move on//
I'll keep that as the focus of my reply, i hope thats an appopriate interpretation of your over-all request. .

Firstly, understand that there is no 'single-line' solution or 'magical-pill' to solving your 'situation', so don't expect that from me or anybody else. And when i'm helping someone i like to work on a 'fundamental level' of the person's character so I apologize if I end up asking a lot of questions. .

//I want to move on, find someone who loves me for me //
Your intention in all of this plays an extremely important role in your situation, so do you want someone to just temporarily please you and fill the void in your heart, or would you like to directly focus on having someone that you can spend your whole life with? .

According to america's statistics(in my knowledge), an average man in the US has atleast 8 girl friends before they marry. and thats just the average, some have 20+ before the marry. (What my focus would be that you directly jump to the end in which you have a life partner, and so that you don't go through a cycle of meaningless hurt like many do) .

So are you planning to find a 'life partner' or are you planning to just get involved in a 'relationship' and move on from your previous one? and if you want a life partner, are you in a state to marry that person? because i have talked to a lot of people of the age of 14-16 who are in a relationship and simply asked them a question, "if you were to date someone at your age, what are the chances of them breaking up with you till you reach an age of marriage? will you be able to marry them or would things end up in a break up?"
.
Mostly all of them always say that their relationship will end up in a break up because they would like to marry in their mid twenties and keeping a relationship going for soo many years without any commitment is extremely hard. .

I ask them this question because, if they aren't searching for someone 'to marry' or someone 'to spend their whole life with' , whatever they are searching for will be 'temporary' and will end up in a break up. so its pointless. This is why your intention has to be cleared about what you want. .

and when thats cleared, on the basis of that i'll present you a way, using which you can dissociate your feelings from your friend easily and be able to move on.
.(I hope all of this makes sense XD )
For now, thank you for reading ^_^ , i'll await your reply.

You aren't going to forget him over night. You have memories of you guys together, that's why stuff like this is always quite hard to deal with. My best advice? Focous in yourself. Buy your favourite meal and dessert, do a marathon of your favourite movies or tv shows, hang out alot with friends, try to be happy for you. He will go on with his life just like you will with yours. In the future you'll back and say "I'm so much better now without him". I hope I could help you :) And if you ever need someone to talk to or cheer you up, feel free to PM me. Good luck btw!