# Do you believe in love at first sight?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 9, 2007, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288 "2007-04-09T09:45:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GuyNblueJeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuyNblueJeans)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/1 "2007-04-09T09:45:02Z")
Would love to hear your thoughts, if ya don’t mind. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/2 "2007-04-09T09:48:11Z")
Welcome, **GuyNblueJeans**. So – does this mean you’ve found someone? Care to share?
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### Author:  [@GuyNblueJeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuyNblueJeans)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/3 "2007-04-09T10:03:46Z")
Thanks Ice Wolf for the welcome! (Cool handle you got there, too.)
Ah, no, I am still on the lookout.
There were, however, a couple of times that there was that flash of something special. But foolish me, I was too timid to act on either of them. My loss!
Basically it just seems like a good question to wet my feet with in this totally awesome and valuable website, before I go nuts by shooting off lots of fun questions around here.
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### Author:  [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/4 "2007-04-09T10:28:40Z")
I’m not so sure about love, but I definitely believe in lust at first sight!
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### Author:  [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/5 "2007-04-09T11:04:57Z")
[QUOTE=ScareyFaerie]
I’m not so sure about love, but I definitely believe in lust at first sight!
[/QUOTE]
Dammit, beaten to it. 😉
I think “love”, as elusive as it is to pin down, is something that develops over time. It’s a combination of (among other things) affection, trust, enjoying the company of the other person, \*and \*a distinct element of the purely physical. I think all except the last take time to develop, so no, I don’t believe in love at first sight. Lust - oh, most definitely.
I think I’ve used too many commas in this post, but I’m using being sleepy as an excuse.
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### Author:  [@Adoptamom\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adoptamom_II)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/6 "2007-04-09T11:28:06Z")
Mr. AdoptaMom believes in love at first sight. The night we met he told his cousin that he was going to marry me. I believe he’s telling the truth about that because on our second date he told me that he saw us rocking our grandchildren together on our front porch. Twenty years and three grandchildren later that’s exactly what we’re doing! (We both had children from our respective first marriages)
Me? It took me a little while longer. When I met him he was certainly someone I wanted to get to know a lot better, but love was a little slower coming (although not too much slower - we married six months after we met!).
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### Author:  [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/7 "2007-04-09T11:39:09Z")
If there were such a thing, Biff Tannen would have ended up marrying Lorraine Baines McFly.
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### Author:  [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/8 "2007-04-09T11:43:30Z")
No, **LOUNE** , you’re not thinking fourth dimensionally!
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### Author:  [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/9 "2007-04-09T11:44:20Z")
My favorite take on this was from (I think) Dan Savage. His theory is that there is no such thing as love at first sight – love takes time to mature and develop. What there is, however, is lust at first sight.
Sometimes, on rare occasions, lust at first sight develops into love, and everyone thinks of it as love at first sight, but it isn’t – instead it is a two step process, lust then love. More often, though, the lust at first sight fades and love quite gets there.
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### Author:  [@Blue\_Mood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Mood)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/10 "2007-04-09T11:53:21Z")
Yes. I was lucky enough to experience it and am now married to the man. It’s more than lust - there’s something that just clicks and feels so right.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/11 "2007-04-09T11:55:53Z")
Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.
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### Author:  [@GuyNblueJeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuyNblueJeans)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/12 "2007-04-09T12:04:23Z")
[QUOTE=ShibbOleth]
Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.
[/QUOTE]
CUTE! 🙂
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### Author:  [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/13 "2007-04-09T12:06:02Z")
Yes, I do. And he proposed on the third date, which was our third day together. And I accepted, provisionally…told him I felt the same way but to ask me again later. We were married for 16 years, together for almost 20, and if you can believe him at all these days, he’s still in love with me, ten years after the divorce. I. however, am no longer in love or lust with him.
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### Author:  [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/14 "2007-04-09T12:06:11Z")
No.
But I do believe people mistake lust for love.
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### Author:  [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/15 "2007-04-09T12:22:24Z")
I believe in it, and I also believe that there’s a difference between _lust_ at first sight and _love_ at first sight. There were plenty of women I lusted after upon first setting eyes on them, but when I saw this one in particular, there was nothing that I would consider lustful about my immediate and mind boggling attraction to her. It was more like I wanted to just envelop her in my arms and enjoy the almost hearbreaking feelings of _want_ and _need_ and _love_, forever. And she was then, and still to this day is, the only woman who ever made me feel that way. So I married her.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Il_Palazzo)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/16 "2007-04-09T13:46:48Z")
[QUOTE=ShibbOleth]
Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.
[/QUOTE]
Beaten to the punch.
Anyways. Yes, I do believe in it, although I have no first hand experience. I now a lot of people who have experienced love at first sight and used it as a base for a long and committed relationship.
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### Author:  [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/17 "2007-04-09T13:54:29Z")
No. Lust, most definitely.
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### Author:  [@Honeydew\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honeydew_1)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/18 "2007-04-09T13:59:25Z")
Yes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I believe you can love someone without having met them, ie someone you’ve met online. It happened to me and my husband, we met on here. We emailed for 2 days, he called me on the 3rd day and I asked him to marry me on the 4th day. We met in real life about a week later and married 15 months later. In May, we’ll have been together 5 years in total, married for 3 in August.
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### Author:  [@AHoosierMama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHoosierMama)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/19 "2007-04-09T14:49:26Z")
[QUOTE=Blue Mood]
Yes. I was lucky enough to experience it and am now married to the man. It’s more than lust - there’s something that just clicks and feels so right.
[/QUOTE]
Same for me. The night I met HoosierDaddy we both felt some kind of magic.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-love-at-first-sight/399288/20 "2007-04-09T16:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=Billdo]
My favorite take on this was from (I think) Dan Savage. His theory is that there is no such thing as love at first sight – love takes time to mature and develop. What there is, however, is lust at first sight.
Sometimes, on rare occasions, lust at first sight develops into love, and everyone thinks of it as love at first sight, but it isn’t – instead it is a two step process, lust then love. More often, though, the lust at first sight fades and love quite gets there.
[/QUOTE]
I kind of agree, except that I wouldn’t use the word “lust,” as that implies a purely sexual attraction. Wanting to get into someone’s pants is not the same thing as (and, in my experience, is far more common than) “falling in love” with someone, at first sight or otherwise.
I think what often happens is that you see someone and you project things onto them: you imagine what they’re like, and what they’d be like to sleep with, and to take long walks on the beach with, and to raise a family with, and to grow old together with… and you fall in love with what you imagine that person to be. And the person you imagine may turn out to be a whole lot like, or totally unlike, the way they are in reality.
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