speaking of “there are at least 3…”, why didnt you include option ©: pine for her the rest of your life, but not get involved with her or her family for fear of being an intruder or stalker? That is certainly what I would probably do: after all, many people are quite happy with someone who is not the “one”, I should be able to keep her in my mind forever yet still get on with my life.
Oh, I’m sure one could come up with lots alternative scenarios, but it goes directly to the question of semantics. You can’t talk about “love at first sight” existing until you define what you mean by “love”. If love is feeling only, an “affection”, then you might make a case for “love at first sight”.
But I don’t buy that. In the context of the mentioned example, pining away the rest of one’s life for a person you saw once is more like a form of obsessive insanity than love by my conception of it. There are such things as infatuation, biological response, and wish fulfillment, and they tend to explain the anecdotal evidence better than some fantasical mystery in my estimation. Moreover, there are actions so associated with love that they are in my mind inextricable from it. There was a time when I might have derived a lifetime of care from a single glance, but keener thought leads me elsewhere. I might wish love to exist in that glance, but that doesn’t make it so. It would be like declaring a fertilized human ova to be a human being–you can do so, and it might make sense you, but it doesn’t to me.
Or I’ll put it this way… I think calling an affection at first sight “love” is like calling a box of pudding mix “pudding”. The potential for pudding is obviously there. You may, in fact, be absolutely certain you’ll somehow get pudding out of it, even when you’ve not seen inside the box–and you’ll probably be proven correct.
But in my book, the little packet of powder in the box is still not really pudding. 
YDMV. (Your Definitions May Vary.)
I swear, it’s like trying to explain what the color blue tastes like…
To Maureen and Phlosphr:
Imagine you each see the object of your affection for the first time. You fall in “love”. You have yet to say a word to them - at this point, you’re still looking at him/her thinking “Damn, (s)he’s hot!” Before a word can be exchanged, the other person drops dead of a heart attack. How do you react? Do you honestly believe that it would’ve taken you weeks, or months to get over it, and that you would still, to this day, feel pain at the loss of this “loved one”? Remember, be honest - you don’t know thing one about this person, other than that you “love” them, for some inexplicable reason. For all you know, they could be a gay mysoginist serial killer. And now, they’re gone. Discuss.
Jeff
Well, for starters, I don’t give up that easy, Jeff.
I AM a nurse, after all. He’s not dying on me now that I just found him. CPR works best within the first 5 minutes of loss of life signs.
However; should I do my best, and still lose this person…hmmm.
I’m not sure I would be in the beat-my-chest-and-howl, greive-forever state, but I think I would probably feel loss at some level. Likely more than I feel when I lose a patient, because this is now a “never will have been” situation. You sound like the kind of person who says you can’t miss what you never had. Also not true, but a different thread. Nor does it disprove love at first sight, as you are asking me to speak to something that hasn’t happened to me personally, unlike love at first sight, WHICH HAS!! We could spend days debating it. And I still maintain: if it hasn’t happened to you, how can you know for sure?
A follow up: when my husband saw me, I was NOT at my best. No makeup, wearing sweats, and sitting down behind a table. Y’all need to get over the “damn, s/he’s hot” thing. I told you. Lust was a secondary emotion.
Maureen:
Feeling loss is one thing. I would feel loss if one of my coworkers died. Of course, that is not to say that I love them; I don’t. As to the relevence of my not believing in LAFS just because it hasn’t happened to me, I don’t buy that as a credible argument. I maintain that it’s perfectly plausible to believe in something based on a misconception of what your experiences are. You can believe in Wonko, God of Llamas, based on some bizarre accident involving you, a llama, and some potent drugs. Just because someone has some powerful feelings doesn’t make it so.
Now the difference here, of course, is that love is an emotion, and is thus very personal. However, that too can be mistaken. Every 13 year old on his or her first crush believes he or she is in love. Every 13 year old is wrong - they just get the feelings all mixed up, and don’t know how to interpret them. My contention is that it is entirely possible that you could’ve had these LAFS feelings, then 10 minutes later realized that the object of your love was a tool, and never wanted to see them again. Would that still have been love? By your reasoning, it was. By mine, it wasn’t.
The only way to resolve this problem, IMO, is by relying on some higher power - God set you up, you had some psychic feeling, or whatnot. And I don’t buy those explanations, either.
Of course, this argument is pretty academic. You feel you were in love, and I’m in a poor position to argue, since I’m not you. I can only argue from the position of mine, and others’ experiences. And based on those experiences, I think people who believe in LAFS are mistaken. I could always be wrong, though - honestly, I think it would be cool if I was.
And lastly, the “Damn, she’s hot” bit was a direct reference to what Phlosphr said, not in reference to you, specifically.
Jeff
Well, thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that you are still at least semi-open to the possibilites. Which is all anyone can really hope for, of course.
Cool analogy about the llama thing btw. …where on earth did you come up with that???
Heh, thanks. I pulled that directly out of my bum, at random. I dunno, llamas are cool. The word even sounds cool.
Llama llama llama llamallamallamallama…
Ahem.
Jeff
okay, if we’re gonna go there, better start a cult film thread…
I am -not- the god of llamas!