High, I Think I Love You
Two friends of mine are in "love at first sight" relationships. (One went from chills at seeing the guy to moving in with him weeks later.) Each has said to me, "When it's right, you just know." Well, as I get to know this new guy I'm seeing, I like him more and more. It's just not the instant love of the century like they have, and that makes me feel a little bad.
--Lacking Thunderbolts
Getting the chills the moment you set eyes on a person may be a sign that you have love at first sight -- or an incipient case of malaria. (In time, you'll find out whether you have lasting love or lasting liver damage, seizures, and death.)
Love at first sight is made out to be the rare, limited-edition Prada purse of relationships -- that extra-special luvvier kind of love that we romantic commoners don't get access to. However, what the "first-sighters" actually have is not the enduring love poets write about but the kind animal behaviorists do -- when the boy baboon spots the girl baboon's big red booty. People in this fleeting first phase of love are basically on a biochemical bender, high off their asses from raging hormones and neurotransmitters, and shouldn't be operating heavy machinery or making plans any heavier than where to show up for dinner on Tuesday.
Those who end up staying together will often sniff, "We just knew!" -- which sounds better than "We are idiots who got hitched 20 minutes after meeting and got lucky we turned out to be well-matched." Their initial belief that they're perfect for each other is probably driven by a cognitive bias -- an error in reasoning -- that psychologists call "the halo effect." Like the glow cast by a halo, the glow from "Wow, she's hot!" spills over, leading to an unsupportedly positive view of a person's as-yet-unseen qualities. But, early in a relationship, you can only guess how someone will behave -- say, at 3 a.m., when you're awakened by period cramps that feel as if some big Vegas boxing match accidentally got scheduled in your uterus. Will he mumble "feel better" and roll over or go to the drugstore and roll you home a barrel of hippo-strength Midol?
Maybe real romance is finding out all the ways somebody's disturbingly human and loving them anyway. This happens about a year in, after the party manners have fallen off and after you see -- for example -- whether your partner fights ugly or like someone who loves you but thinks you've temporarily fallen into the idiot bin. In other words, you're wise to get to know this guy instead of immediately drawing little sparkly hearts in your head about your magical future together. Keep unpacking who you both are and see whether you keep wanting more -- or whether one of you goes out for a smoke and, a month later, sends a postcard from the Netherlands.
Love at first sight? There is no such thing. You have to know someone in order to love them and you cannot get to know someone just by looking at them.
When two people meet and have an instant attraction and act on it, they call it "getting lucky." The love-at-first-sighters simply "got luckier." They hit it off with someone they actually turned out to be compatible with. But no, they could not and did not "fall in love at first sight." That is simply not possible.
A funny side note. A person I know insisted that there was such a thing as love at first sight. He knows because it happened to him...(not kidding) several times.
Patrick at November 24, 2015 6:53 PM
Sometimes that person w/the "I'm the ONE" sign is nothing more than a people zapper.
There's a reason adults w/wisdom/experience say "Fools rush in ...".
Bob in Texas at November 25, 2015 5:40 AM
Patrick,
After one date with my wife I was pretty sure I was going to marry her. But we didn't rush things. It took us about a year to get married. Though it wasn't the classic love at first sight thing. More like the feeling you get when playing hide and seek and you go 'I found you!'.
"... when the boy baboon spots the girl baboon's big red booty."
Everyone knows fat bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round.
Ben at November 25, 2015 6:45 AM
"...like they have, and that makes me feel a little bad."
Hopefully that's just a little simple jealousy sneaking through, cuz if someone else's good fortune makes her (assuming LW is female) feel bad about herself, LW will have a pretty depressing life. And prolly a dozen cats before long.
bkmale at November 25, 2015 6:55 AM
The important thing is to find someone you love, not how fast it happened.
I saw some study somewhere that said the relationships most likely to last were the ones where the people had been together 2 years, followed by shorter ones, with the longest ones having the worst odds.
If I'm feeling motivated later I'll try and google it. Or someone else can.
NicoleK at November 25, 2015 7:19 AM
Well, congratulations, Ben. I hope you're both still happy.
I still believe that "loving" someone requires getting to know them. And I wouldn't dismiss your experience -- I'm very happy for you -- but you simply made a good guess. During that entire year you spent before you got married, could you say, during that time, that you learned nothing new about her? That there were no new discoveries made about each other during that time and you already knew everything you needed to about her during that first date?
Patrick at November 25, 2015 8:11 AM
The LW: Well, as I get to know this new guy I'm seeing, I like him more and more. It's just not the instant love of the century like they have, and that makes me feel a little bad.
As Our Gracious Hostess suggest, it sounds like the LW is doing things the right way. And I'd also suggest that her friends are doing the same kind of thing, even if they insist they "just knew." The trouble is, by acting in such haste, the penalty for making the wrong decision is a lot higher.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at November 25, 2015 11:28 AM
We both learned quite a bit about each other and still are Patrick. Much good, but also much bad. What I was trying to say was love at first sight does happen. But love is not enough. You need more to build a stable relationship.
Also, things are not reciprocal. While I started planning for a wedding after that first date I think she mainly saw me as a meal ticket. I'm not calling her a gold digger by that (she certainly isn't one) but she was in a desperate financial situation. So I don't think she felt like she could afford love. It just wasn't on her radar.
Ben at November 25, 2015 2:41 PM
For every love at first site that became a long term relationship, there are a bunch that fizzled and burned
NicoleK at November 26, 2015 1:31 AM
True Nicole. But also true of other relationships. As I said, love isn't enough.
Ben at November 26, 2015 4:53 PM
My now husband and I moved in together after spending at most three days together. We'd been friends online for a while, had a chance to meet him (and his mother and his best friends) when I temporarily moved closer, and then we were in a long distance relationship for a few months before he moved to my town.
So we first met in person in July, moved in together in October, were engaged at Christmas, and married in April.
I know this isn't exactly the standard love at first sight situation in that we'd gotten to know each other quite well before we ever met face-to-face, but there were plenty of skeptics among both our friends and family, some spoken and I'm sure many more unspoken.
We are coming up in our 10th wedding anniversary, and we're still two peas in a pod.
And even given those facts, I simply don't subscribe to the idea of love at first sight, or that "When you meet the one, you just know."
I was engaged to my high school sweetheart at 20, and after we broke up I was with someone else for nine years. I "just knew" that each of those men was the one.
Beth Cartwright at November 27, 2015 12:52 PM
I think Beth's experience is more common than not.
A couple of 'mistakes' costing years and then a general sense of what's 'right'.
Basically my story in the long run and I can honestly say that finding the 'one' who is not really a nice person or at least not concerned about your emotional well-being is very dangerous.
Bob in Texas at November 28, 2015 6:13 AM
Many people fall in love with an imaginary person in their own head. They assign a real person's identity to that imaginary person and think that's who they are. If they live up to that image, you lucked out, love at first sight. If not, you breakup with at least one of you hating the other for not living up to expectations.
ken at November 28, 2015 7:34 PM
If "first-sighters" knew of Robert Heinlein's definition of love...
Maybe everybody should consider it: "Love is that condition where another's happiness is essential to your own."
We have that, and know of many who, sadly, do not.
Radwaste at November 29, 2015 8:46 AM
My father, when a freshman in college, saw my mom and said he was going to marry her. He did, just before shipping out--1943 was not one of your better years for graduating--and they stayed married until death did them part, approximately 66 years later.
Richard A Aubrey at November 29, 2015 5:08 PM
To compare is to despair, LW.
Rachel Flax at December 1, 2015 11:03 AM
ATTRACTION happens within five minutes (or seconds!); it can be mutual, but real love does take longer.
jefe at December 3, 2015 6:48 PM
You can never completely generalize, but I think "early ripe, early rotten" is probably 'on average' true for relationships. Nothing wrong with a slower approach, as long as it's not sort of 'psychological cover' for actually avoiding relationship-level intimacy ... if your boyfriend or husband feels more like a friend or roommate than a lover then I think that's likely to result in trouble down the line.
Lobster at December 16, 2015 7:30 AM
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