Do you believe in love at first sight?

I met my fiance on a bus and the first thing I was asked when I saw him was “What would you rate him” (my friend sitting next to me) after a great debate about my apprehension to rate a human being I finally gave in and said “9, 10 if he’d cut his hair.” That was mainly lust but I knew that I wanted to get to know him more, I couldn’t explain why, even now I can’t quite put it into words but I knew there was something intelligent about him and I was right.

I beleive in lust at first sight my ex I fell for her head over heels from the begining but as I got to know her I fell out of love and now I can say I never really loved her I just loved having sex with her

it’s lust at first sight, you have to know someone to really fall in love with them

amanda is right lust at first sight

I said it first but after seeing her photo I think I beleive in love at first sight now

Well, to be honest with you, it wasn’t lust for me. In freshman year of high school, I saw her sitting across the classroom. I looked at her face and told myself, “Hey, she’s pretty cute.” It wasn’t until after I got to know her did lust kick in. So, To answer your question, I believe in puppy love at first sight. Love is too strong a feeling for someone who you just took a gander at.

To me love is that awesome, powerful connection that makes you want be with and around a person all the time. I think love is to deep of a connection to be made the first time you meet someone. Plus love is easily mistaken. Just ask my sister who has been in love with every guy that asks her to make out! Hahaha.

If you don’t believe in it, you’ve never met me?

YES

Yes, I think that you can have that special spark with someone from the moment you meet them. That doesn’t mean that it’s love forever though. You may get to know the person and it just doesn’t work out.

No.

And this question seriously comes up about once a week.

srry about the repeat, I’ve been here for about a week and never saw it. its a question that can have many answers so i thought I’d ask.
great answers everyone.
<3

No. I believe in attraction at first sight, and then when it later develops into something serious, it seems like it was love at first sight.

Of course, if it never grows into something serious, it never seems like love at first sight.

I think it takes time for love to develop, so I would have to say no. How can you love someone you don’t know? You love a person, not their appearance. If there was love at first sight, ugly people wouldn’t stand a chance!

Beuty is in the eye of the be holder.

I know it’s possible because it happened to me.

I found the woman of my dreams and we have been married for ten years now

We should all know lust and attraction can happen at least for some people (notably, males) at first sight.

Love too can begin more or less at first sight, as I and some others (iSteve apparently, and some people I know) have been fortunate enough to have experienced. It’s rare though, and isn’t nearly as developed as the mature love between people that know each other for a long time, but it can be the start of it, and I think it’s the same basic thing. It might not go along with lust. It’s also not the same thing necessarily as being compatible in a love relationship with them. For me it was just the easy recognition and appreciation of who someone was being and feeling strong natural benevolent love for them for that.

@Zaku: I agree. I felt that way about a girl on the first day I met her, and she felt the same way too.

Isn’t that awesome, Sharl? (rhetorical question, of course) Ah… :-)

Rhetorical answer then: Awesome, unexpected, and life-changing in so many ways.

@zaku: I agree that you can have strong feelings for someone upon first seeing them, and in rare cases that strong feeling can turn to love. But, take into consideration what most people identify as the definition of love: an attraction to not only the persons outward appearance, but also the person inside.

With that definition that I have never heard anyone argue with, it is impossible to actually love at first site, merely a physical attraction that can, most certainly, turn into love once you actually get to know the person

@crackerjack: I agree with your definition, but I’ve experienced what you say is impossible. I’m not talking about physical attraction leading to love. My example wasn’t about physical attraction (which was calmly present but nearly nothing compared to the other experience). It was about who we were inside, the way we were each being, and the effortless, immediate, automatic recognition and non-verbal communication between us.

If you want a theory that could make some sense to analytical Western science, consider that brains are the most powerful computers and they’re linked to the body and evolved and trained to respond instantly and unconsciously to human expressions. Communication is: signal broadcast, reception, confirmation, reception of confirmation, etc. Signal rate on human eyes/face/body/voice is very very fast. Usually the percentage of confirmed signals is very low and produces an unclear model of how another person is experiencing life, but when something happens that we can really relate to (e.g. they stub their toe or laugh at the same joke) immediately we relate to them and their physical expression. Well, imagine you see someone and as you try to model who they might be, you get a steady stream of very high correlation to the model you are forming, and it’s a delightful model of someone who is very relaxed, friendly, smart, caring, sensitive, joyful, awake, alive, and they notice you watching them and feeling natural love for them, and they return the look with calm curious relaxed open friendliness, and this goes on and on minute after minute. It’s because you do recognize with an extremely rare degree of accuracy who they are being – your impression is accurate about who they are inside, not about everything, but about way more than it is for anyone. And by the way, it’s very much the kind of person you love in some ways. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

I think it is (or is closely related to) the basic animal ability to sense what other animals are like. Humans have stopped using it so much because we’re so stuck on this language stuff that’s so useful but that gets us so out of touch with some aspects of our humanity… and our animal abilities (for lack of knowing a more accurate term).

@zaku:
That was a very good description, VERY hard to argue with. My only question to that would be, did it not take at least a few moments to actually get to know if what you began to model was accurate? If the answer is yes, then you could not still say “at first sight”. You would have to say “at first conversation” or “at first interaction”.

@crackerjack: Thanks for the compliment on the description. Good job finding (I assume for the sake of further clarity) a way to argue with it. There are a few ways to look at it and define it. But the experience deserves an impressive label, so if you decide “love at first sight” is flawed and technically false, I hope you’ve got a better replacement. Seems to me saying it doesn’t exist on technical points of definition would be more misleading.

One might say that the existence of love, and the knowledge of love, are two different things. For me it took time to realize what had happened, because I hadn’t experienced that before. It was the most delicious unexpected thing but I didn’t know what it was and it was so calm and smooth and natural that I didn’t know I loved her. Clearly, my mind is still trying to figure it out. But love isn’t about figuring something out.

For a replacement, although I do not believe you can love at first sight, you can develop an extremely wonderful bond with that person, and maybe very soon, once you get to know them, may find that you do indeed love that person immensly.

Also, that is wonderful that you have found a person who makes you feel that way, I also found my perfect grl a little more than a yr ago and reciprocated love is truly the greatest feeling in the world

I’m very happy for you!

Your description is fine too. Reality is one thing, and there can be many valid and views of it which may seem not to be agree with each other.

When people ask questions like this (“Do you believe in love at first sight? i don’t, i think its all lustt.”), then I think they aren’t asking the same thing you (crackerjack) are asking, so that’s why I responded like I did to the original.

Also, I wouldn’t think any love has any less going for it because it didn’t start with an instant connection.

I completely agree that just because it doesn’t start off the bat means it is any less. My perfect girl and I were dating other people when we met and were just best friends untill we both realized what we wanted.

May I ask what is the difference in the question they were asking and the one I am? I guess I have always thought the same question when I see this type so I do not see what the other is, but am intrigued there may be a different interpretation of the actual question and wish to know what it is.

Well, I am trying to imagine the asker’s perspective by how they wrote the question, so I’m guessing, but I break it down like this:

2. “i think its all lustt” is a casual/lazy but unique form which seems to be saying that if people are getting worked up when first seeing someone, it would all be about lust rather than love. The language of it is very lazy so I don’t imagine this person is concerned about the definitions of the words in the expression – the detail seems to clarify that they’re asking about what is possible in the context.
1. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” on the other hand is in its typical form word for word. So I read it, like much modern American language, as one symbol which happens to be a sentence. I read it as a symbol for the supposed phenomenon of love occurring right away, the wording of which literally says one thing, but it refers to more than its literal words minimally describe.

I might elaborate my reading of the question: “Y’know that saying, “love at first sight?” Does anything like that ever happen? I could imagine lust between people who just met, but I don’t see how two people could love each other. If they think so, I imagine they’re confusing lust with love, but what do other people think?”

So lovelyy seems to me to be essentially asking if what happened to me is possible, and so I chime in that yep it did. Of course, with the lack of detail from the asker, I’m filling in with my own context. (People tend to really be unconsciously talking about themselves on some level, even when they think they’re talking about other people. Me included.)

By contrast, your details were about the definitions of terms and limiting the question in time and activity, which is very different in context.

Okay I understand what you mean now. I have never elaborated a persons question to that extent before, I guess because usually if I want to know something, I ask to the point that I actually want to know. I was a little short-sighted believing that’s the way most people do it. Thank you for you explanation, my mind is once again broadened by this site.

Now I have a question for you. while we have been contrasting each other back and forth, I can’t seem to tell if you agree with my answer to the definition I gave?

I cannot clearly tell because using what your definition is, then I agree with you, a connection can be made after first contact.

Well I’m a pretty unusual combination of hyper-analytical, sensitive, verbose, educated, and open to elaborate discussions. I think most people typically do just respond with whatever comes to mind. That’s the second time I’ve given you a literal/analytical breakdown of my experience of an automatic interaction between me and someone. I don’t usually go through that process analytically myself – I just try to relate to people from their perspective as best I can read it. I usually only hyper-analyze communications when there’s some unclear breakdown of understanding.

Back to your original definition and answer:
“love: an attraction to not only the persons outward appearance, but also the person inside.”
”... it is impossible to actually love at first site, merely a physical attraction that can, most certainly, turn into love once you actually get to know the person”

It’s a philosophical question with no real answer without over-defining things.
Personally my views don’t tend to agree with that statement because I can and do form impressions of who people are inside merely by watching them – the way people move and hold their bodies – the things they do and the way they move their bodies does project something from inside. I do admit my view is often inaccurate and always imperfect, but it is about who they are inside, even if I’m wrong about it. And I would say no one’s view of another is entirely true, so making absolute statements about the impossibility of loving based on limits of the means of information seems fairly meaningless.

If you define love as attraction for who they are, I think some form of it can be present between at least some few people at first sight (defined as first encounter, before speaking, giving some time to observe, not instantaneous), though it may be feelings of love for a mistaken imagination of who they are inside. It’s also possible to feel someone knows a person really well through years of sexual cohabitation, and then discover they can become or even were also ways you don’t love. People can and do hide, (self-)deceive and change and all views are imperfect and different from the truth.

Also, your definition of love is different from mine. I don’t think of love as attraction per se, but as appreciation and deep benevolence towards someone.

Haha wow I am a very similar type of person, except I have attention deficit disorder so I can sometimes be easily distracted.

and i like your definition of love at first encounter, I agree that you can begin to love the assumptions. If you have people around you who act how they truly are all the time, that is wonderful. In my experience with friends, they usually act a LOT different around a large group of people, and then if you got them alone are so different you would never believe they could be the same person or even like eachother.

And by your definition of love I would have to agree with you that it is possible

Thank you for this insightful discussion, hopefully we will continue this with either this topic and/or others.

Yes, this was an interesting exchange. And yep, people do act differently in different situations, and social contexts are a big one. It’s something few people have a good handle on.