… or perhaps not “love”, per se. Here’s an example:
It’s a bland romantic comedy starring Matthew McConaughey, and oh, I don’t know… Jennifer Garner.
Matt walks down the street and stops dead in his tracks after witnessing a beaut shopping for flowers (of course). Being the suave gentleman he is, he strides up and asks Jenn out on a date, effective immediately, and they proceed through a generic montage with lots of laughter, fountains, piggy-back rides, and perfect lighting, leading to a very chivalrous good-night kiss at her doorstep.
Does this actually happen?!
Or if we switch it around, and Jenn finds Matt pumping iron on a street corner somewhere. Sparks fly, yadda yadda.
You can alter the details around if you so wish, since we don’t live in a perpetual romantic comedy, but I somehow am beginning to believe that I’ve been lied to all these years by Hollywood.
grumble
On the other hand, if you’re a living example of this, please share! It makes for a pleasant read
I am confused about your question. Musical montages don’t happen, if that’s what you’re asking. On the other hand, I do think that sometimes people fall in love fairly quickly and without a lot of drama, if that’s what you mean (though romantic comedies tend, IM limited E, to celebrate the drama, not the lack thereof). Or are you talking about meeting people without an intermediate friend to do the introducing? That does happen, and sometimes those are great relationships because you are freed from the expectations of the sort of person you are that any social circle puts on its members. When I met my husband, we had no mutual friends. However, it really helped that we both smoked–it gave us to a reason to be in the same spot at the same time 3 days a week until we decided we wanted to see each other more often.
I’m sure it probably happens sometimes. I think that it happens a lot less than the number of times you bump into someone and it doesn’t turn out that way.
On a related note, I think that “love at first sight” happens, but it’s only in hindsight that you will know if it was love at first sight. And there is probably a certain amount of self-editing of your memories, making things seem a little more inevitable.
The idea has been around for centuries, the Romans thought up “Cupid”, after all. I suppose whirlwind romances do happen and these couples either split up when sad disillusionment sets in, or go on to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversaries. You need two to tango, though, nothing sadder than love at first sight unrequited by the love object!..I’m bitter and disillusioned enough to believe romantic comedies/romance novels/(to some extent) women’s magazines exist to give hope to silly women that Magic is going to strike like a bolt from heaven. And extract money from them.
Indy car driver Sarah Fisher was on the Daily Show recently and said she met her husband after hitting him with her car at a track. That seems to be an actual case of “running into love”.
True story: Son of a friend is photocopying some stuff in a library. A woman walks by and accidentally knocks over some of his papers. They both scramble to pick them up. She stays to chat for a few minutes. A year later they are married and have been for, oh, at least five years.
It helped that this was in Toronto and they were both native French speakers.
I had a one night stand turn in to a spontanious trip to Padre’ Island for a week.
Seriously, I took this girl home one night that I had never met before. We woke up late the next morning. While still laying in bed, we were talking about how much we both loved the beach.
I half jokingly said “fuck it! let’s just call in to work and go to the beach!” (We live in Dallas BTW) My jaw practically droped to the floor when she said “Ok, fuck it! Let’s go for it!”
I so wanted to tell her that I was only kidding but I was young and when she responded with the “Let’s go for it” bit I felt like I had been Double Dog Dared; so I had to do it.
We had a great time together but nothin ever happened after the trip relationship wise we stayed in touch for a while but not too long.
We (and quite a few other guys) were having anonymous sex. We knew immediately that we had met someone quite unique, and separated from the group. We’ve been together (and monogamous) for 21 years now.
A male friend of mine, who is normally very level-headed in personal and relationship matters, met a girl in one of his classes and pretty much fell for her immediately. They were having sex within a few days, and entered into a full-fledged relationship within the week. It lasted about eight months, and he is still deeply in love with her and probably always will be.
So, yes, it can happen on rare occasions. What it may eventually lead to is another matter entirely.
I’ve had love at first sight three times. Guess I’m a romantic.
Guess I also can read interest on her part because each time I made a date on first meeting.
They didn’t all last a lifetime of course. Well one lasted a decade.
Yep, it’s happened to me twice. Once the relationship was full of sparks and drama and hurt feelings and melodramatic apologies, but the best ahem montages snicker you could wish for. Lasted 2 years, which, as young people in college, was pretty much forever.
Second time was right out of a Sinatra movie. I was literally descending a (small) staircase, and one spotlight caught me and another him, as he was on the dance floor below. All I saw was his smile, and all he remembers are my eyes. We hung out all night, went to IHOP after the club closed, and spent over 40 hours the next week on the phone together. We montaged the next weekend, married 7 months later, and have now been married 9 years. It’s not been all wine and roses, we can fight like gladiators, but he’s still my favorite guy.
Here’s something my therapist told me once - the crazy magic instant sparks kind of beginnings do happen, but they have no bearing on what happens months later once the couple gets to know each other better and reality sets in.
Giltathriel, I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
I once met a girl on a college semester abroad, was immediately attracted to her, and we hit it off in pretty short order (although she was and is rather shy). We had a long-distance romance for two of the next four years before moving in together and then got married. Our 19th wedding anniversary will be in August.
Pronouns can be confusing. I think he meant: Panache and several other guys were having anonymous sex with each other. Panache knew immediately that guy was unique. That guy knew Panache was unique. Panache and his special someone both decided to stop having anonymous group sex with all the other guys, and instead have exclusive sexytime, which has continued monogamously for the last 21 years.
Either that or Panache and a bunch of guys have been having monogamous anonymous group sex with each other for 21 years.
