I was riding my bike, on my way to buy cat food for one of my clients. The air was chill and clean. I passed by a young man, undoubtedly in his twenties, standing outside of a really nice apartment building in Emeryville talking on his phone. (It has this awesome sculpture outside.)
As I passed, he looked up, and our eyes met. And suddenly, instantly, I was totally, completely, utterly in love with him. Just for a little while. But it’s weird, I felt all the physical effects of being in love, the butterflies, certain other endocrine sensations which are very distinctive but indescribable (no, not even lust things. Something else.), and then the bittersweet pain that you only get with age and wisdom of knowing something is both delicious and impossible – and all of it in the space of a few seconds.
I have had a healthy amount of romantic experience of many kinds, but I don’t think it’s ever happened to me quite like that before. Must be the spring air. But what a rush!
This whole premise of falling in love upon meeting or before either of the people know anything about each other is utterly ridiculous. Imo, that changes the meaning of love from love to infatuation. Infatuation can be felt incredibly strongly but it is not love.
You’ve described how my husband and I felt when we met - and still feel, almost 30 years later. But that’s wasn’t love. Love takes time to develop, and a great understanding of the other person’s values and character. In our case, we each eventually lived up to the other’s initial infatuation, but it usually doesn’t turn out this way.
Of course, many times, but I very rarely have an opportunity to play it out to see where it goes.
Only once did I ever actually have a positive sense that it was pheremones at work. A Russian woman I met on a train in Transdniestria – I had a very intense feeling that I was supposed to be the father of her children. She was otherwise unremarkable. Never saw her again.
Rather. I definitely wouldn’t say it was love at first sight, but it was something. I was gardening in ratty clothes, and saw my (future) husband loping down the street with his (now-former) wife, on their way to the corner restaurant, and my heart literally skipped a beat and my mind said “ah naw, here comes trouble.” He had a similar reaction. We were together within a year, (unofficially within a few weeks) and that was a decade ago.
The closest I’ve come is to be completely enveloped by someone’s charisma. But that wasn’t instant, it took some small amount of time (in one whirlwind case only a few minutes, but usualy it’s over days of close contact). And even then I recognised it wasn’t a genuine feeling, just a weird visceral twinge.
I’m not comfortable calling it “love”. But I have met women, where upon meeting them evoked a visceral response. It wasn’t the kind that filled me with lust, but rather: “I know I don’t know you, but I really would like to cuddle with you on the couch while we watch TV.”
I wouldn’t call it love, but there are times I’ve been stunned by someone’s looks.
I can think of two specifically. The first instance was when I was going through a Taco Bell drive through in college. The girl who gave out the food was just stunningly beautiful.
The second time was when I was working at Target. I was refilling some food and heard a “excuse me I have a question,” and when I looked up the girl was, again, stunningly beautiful. It caught me off guard even.
I still regret not telling each of them just how pretty they were. Not in a creepy way, but just to say “You know, I just want to let you know you’re beautiful.”
Oh yes. That is what happened when I first met my future husband. I had dropped an armload of books and was scrambling about trying to collect them off the ground. He had stooped down to give me a hand. When our eyes met, something happened to us both, something deep and visceral. I somehow knew this was the man I was going to marry. He later told me he had experienced something similar, but without the marriage part. lol
You don’t know nothing about each other upon meeting. How talented people are at that varies a lot, but you can perceive a lot of the other’s nature after a very brief encounter. I know I do, I’m 52 and yet to be misled, in one direction or the other, by my first impression.
In any case, even though it never happened to me, I’ve saw too many people who experienced “love at first glance” to dismiss it. It clearly happens.
Yeah. Love is all well and good, but in the end kind of boring. Lust, otoh… if you haven’t experienced and consumated lust, you haven’t lived. It’s fleeting, but man there is just nothing like it!!
I met a wonderful woman in an online TV show discussion nine years ago. We corresponded for about a year and I fell in love with her brain and personality.
We finally met up in person and, bonus, not only was she exactly like her online presence, she was also gorgeous
We’ve been married seven years and are still deliriously happy. It was a gift to have that year of writing back and forth before meeting; even if she had turned out to be unattractive, I would still have been in love.
A few times. And the times it’s led to a relationship, I’ve been fortunate enough that my sense of whom to be infatuated with was mostly right. It may be selection bias, but I feel I’m pretty good with first impressions and knowing almost instantly whether I click with somebody or not.