Dr. Ruth Westheimer does. Remember her? The German sex psychologist who said the words “penis” and “vagina” all over the airways in the 80s? I dug up a column of hers from April 18, 1987 in the Chicago-Sun Times. She told a reader there is “absolutely such a thing as love at first sight” though what follows after may or may not be the makings of a lifelong relationship due to various incompatibilities.
A survey reported in the Rocky Mountain News (March 18, 2001) conducted by Neumann and Associates found that 64 percent of 1,500 random people surveyed believed in love at first sight, and 58 percent experienced it. Of those who experienced it, 55 percent got married, and 20 percent were in a long term relationship. Just 15 percent of those who got married got divorced. For 75 percent of the people they talked to, it was a one time experience.
Article after article I found in a research database I belong to confirms that yes, it does exist, people who haven’t experienced it are looking for it and more men than women believe in it. Which I supposed sums up the survey results in my circle of friends.
Guy friends are hoping for a “Dharma and Greg” (1997-2002) experience. You know the opening of that sitcom starring Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson? Where one or the other is getting off the subway and catches a glimpse of the other through the window? They meet, fall in love instantly, get married on their first date and get to know each other later. Though complete opposites, their differences complement each other perfectly.
My gal pals hope for that too, but believe in it less so, applying logic and requirements to the equation in hopes of meeting someone just right. Of course I have plenty of friends coupled off with guys who don’t measure up to their requirements, but when asked “why bother then?” the only answer is “love.”
Love, whether falling in or into just doesn’t seem to have any logical explanation at all. It just is. Like god or faith or any sense of spirituality, it’s felt, it’s experienced. It’s something you just know to be true. It’s as real as rain, but without any scientific explanation that can be Googled.
So who believes in love at first sight? Who’s experienced it? What do OSers think or know to be true?
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It has to exist!
But yes, I, too, have fallen in love at first sight over and over again since I was a youngster. In many cases I fell out again. In other cases, I never did, and were I to catch sight of the men in question again today, I can guarantee my heart would go "pitter-pat" just the same way it did the first time.
That was 30 years ago, junior year of high school. We've married and split up twice since then... but we always gravitate back toward each other. This is our third time around... our last time around... and I love her more today than ever. I wouldn't change a thing.
If that's not love at first sight, I don't know what is.
BTW, I am working a on post that that touches on the subject.
And No! It is not another FAIL2FOOS, seriously.
i absolutely believe in love at first sight-- I experienced it and it was not 'infatuation' or lust at first sight, either. he walked into my office for an interview (of all things) and I stood up to greet him and it hit us both like a bolt of lightening. one year later we were engaged and living together. it didn't work out in the end but we parted as friends and still love each other deeply.
I've been infatuated on sight many times, but love...erm...nope.
I knew the moment I looked in my husband's eyes he was my one true love. We had lunch that afternoon. Our first real "date" was two weeks later, two weeks after that he proposed, we married two months and day to the day we met. It was a majical day.
This July we'll be married 13 years.
We need one another surely as we need oxygen. I can't imagine my life without him...I don't want to.
Love at first sight I do believe it does exist.Will I ever find it? Who knows but one can only hope so.
We both knew within a month or two that this was it for sure. We were engaged just months after that, and married not long after that. Ten years later, the spark is still there just as strong, and I still get that same fluttery "it's YOU!" feeling when I see him coming up the walk.
*Sigh*. It's lovely. Bliss!
a mystery to me...
I truly believe these visceral reactions are our body's way of telling us just who is meant to share our lives.
Unfortunately, many many things are mistaken for love at first sight. That's where Kleenex and Milky Way bars come in.
I've never really considered that before...so I withdraw my earlier remarks until I think it over.
As I posted on here some time ago. My love and I met on the internet. On a writing site.
She bought a ticket to Madison and told me if I was there we'd see how it went. I knew the second she scurried around the corner dragging a suitcase I loved her.
Granted we knew each other from writing and talking. But this was the first site of each other.
Anyway, we cheated, I guess, but still...
High school sweetheart. Green plaid skirt, tight green top and clogs, coming out of the chapel basement doorway.
Wife. Standing behnd a barrel back chair at a college party in drab green pants, black wool vest, white shirt, man's hat with a flower in it. Took our kids back to that very house during a college reunion, knocked on the door, and had her stand in the exact same spot to show the kids where she was when I first laid eyes on her.
Daughter: Naked, purple, with a cord wrapped around her neck crawling out of my wife's vagina.
Ryan: "Love at first sight? Not so sure. Very strong attractions are easy enough, but I've always felt as though love is a gradual thing. A process less than an occurrence. Rather like fermentation."
Diane: "totally agree with ryan...there's always going to be that ever popular "lust at first sight"...but to have that wow feeling of I'm so in love with a person, that takes more than a fleeting moment."
Jacqui: "I have heard of people who say they saw that person and new that was the one for them and fell in love that instant, and have been married for many years. (are they happy?) I think that love is something that really takes time. You cant truly say your in love with a person unless you get to know who they are inside. Thats where i believe love comes from, I agree with Diane, and think there is always Lust at first sight. Sometimes people confuse it."
Cooki: "not sure what it was, but when I finally met Sam in person, by heart skiped a beat and I just could't stop looking at him. I though, OMG I really connect with him and I had the need to get to know him better. I can still remember every detail of that night, and I have a bad memory!
Not sure of that's love at first sight, but it felt amazing!"
"I definitely believe in love at first sight. Call me a romantic."
Francy I married and we had a marriage that lasted 5 years and a heart-bound connection until she died in 1988. Sonia and I love each other unlike any couple I've ever known. We could never be married because we'd kill each other. But we see each other now and again (Doing our best to show restraint and refrain from bodily harm.), and we both understand that "thing" we have -- like the Mafia -- we'll take to our graves.
The last time I experienced love at first sight I was on the French Quarter when I saw a woman (I think she was a woman) who was so striking and imposing that I was compelled to go up to her and tell her "I don't care if you're male or female. But you the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." She liked my compliment but we went our separate ways and never saw each other again.
Of course, earlier in the evening, I'd dropped acid, chewed a handful of psilocybian mushrooms and slugged back a half a bottle of Patron.
I ended up in a strip club on Bourbon Street enjoying a huge snake work the pole.
my husband followed me around for over a year before we started dating. and to think, i thought we were just friends. i applaud his persistence!!
Does it mean quickly retreating to the nearest alleyway /phone booth/bathroom stall , (artistically back-it like an Adrien Lynne movie), for some heated deep-kissing and fevered humping? Or does it translate immediately to bad poetry lavishly scrawled on cocktail napkins and/or perfumed stationary and crammed into their mail cubicle at work or under their dorm room door or perhaps delivered by some friend of a friend of a friend who totally "digs" the fact that you have some new infatuation? So many questions.
I guess I'd have to say...yes.
then there are cartouche, irritated mother, verbal remedy, stella, scupper, dharmer, duaneart, dcvdickens, wordart, lisa, kathryn, fireeyes, newsie, freakytroll and seattle who all believe in it or experienced it, but didn't end up with their first sight loves.
Then there are Brian and Frank who are undecided. And everyone else who say lust at first sight, but not love ...
A bit more yeas than nays so far ...
Oh, another facebook comment. Donna: "Love and trust are earned."
Great post Cindy!
But seeing my baby after I had just given birth to him was a thunderbolt, the most visceral, instinctual “love at first sight” ever. It was then that I realized what I was capable of doing if anyone dared threaten my child.
It IS fun when it happens, though...quite a rush.
Hippy Mike
But I also think it's a tough question. It should be easy to separate love at first sight from lust or desire, but how can one test the fact that it was love if one didn't actually get involved with that other person? So what I try to do is remember my first sight of the women I did actually, for a fact, fall in love with and try to love, and I can say this: I remember that first sight, and I remember that 'something' seemed to mark it, but that in none of those cases would I have said I was 'in love' after that first glimpse, whereas there are numerous brief sightings, glimpses, glances across space that seem to promise so much, but which I let go by. A few of those nag me to this day.
I guess I want to believe in a world where one of those glimpses I didn't follow would have led to 'the love of my life.'
Love at first sight? Yup.
I'll take her image to my grave, for I don't know or can't comprehend; why she would leave me to walk this earthae alone.
I've yet to shake her hand or hear her musical hello. Just touch Her angelic goodbye and still sleep alone.
peece.
dj