I have been a hopeless romantic my whole life. I grew up watching romance films, reading romance books and listening to all the romantic stories I could get a hold of. All of this made me believe in “love at first sight” and of course my delusional ass kept believing it was real. Now that I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized, it’s all crap. “Love at first sight” does not exist… it simply makes no logical sense. The problem exists with the word “sight”. How can a connection be established based just on physical characteristics, which are merely superficial? In my own experience, observing someone up close doesn’t reveal much about the soul that dwells behind the surface. Is this person an unkind being? Erratic? Prone to escalating violence frequently? This is all unknown. Their outward look simply gives you a brief glimpse of who they really are; for a relationship to last, their identity must complement and work with yours.
Attraction alone is not enough to sustain a relationship. Their success elieson cooperation, communication, and, most importantly, mutual understanding. I never want someone to pass me on the street from 30 feet away and remark, “That’s it. That is the woman I desire and want to spend the rest of my life with. To know, I only need to see her.” I don’t know the individual 30 feet away at all. They are unaware of my peculiarities, values, strengths, or flaws. They don’t really want me at all, in a manner. They are just interested in the brief glimpse they got of me.
What exactly does it mean to be in love with someone or to adore them in a romantic sense? It may sound straightforward, but in my opinion, to truly love someone is to know them deeply. Yet when we use it so loosely, especially before getting to know someone, we ultimately lose sight of what it really means to embrace someone’s heart and to give them yours, entirely. We also create enormously irrational expectations for everyone looking for love, as I previously indicated, as if love must be something that is immediately felt.
Attraction is simply a predetermined bias. According to TIME’s The Science of Marriage, everyone you meet has an unconscious impact on you. This eventually enables you to tell whether someone is good or bad just by looking at them. Your brain assembles intricate patterns and signals to assist you so you can quickly decide who to stick with and who to run like hell from. All of this transpires in a few seconds without your conscious awareness. In light of this, it is obvious that “bias at first sight” is a better description of “love at first sight.” Testosterone and estrogen are also both great tricksters. When your brain perceives a potential mate, the hormones testosterone and estrogen are released, which can seriously impair your common sense. Although estrogen, especially, makes you ovulate,and testosterone urges you toward sexual activity. In other words, your drive suddenly becomes a mission to procreate.
So is it “love at first sight”? … Or simply just lust and infatuation? These moments that we feel with people are lovely because human connection, or meeting someone with whom you connect on a fundamental level, is lovely. Countless time in life I have experienced the feeling I would call “infatuation or intrigue at first sight” because I have connected with them and now see something in them that I like… but that’s not by any means “love at first sight.”The thing is it’s based on more than just sight. Yet this is not what comes to mind when we hear about a fairy-tale, romance preordained by the stars. It’s not love, this (at least not yet) is only a beginning.