I hate to use this cliché, but I never believed in it until it actually happened to me. My late fiancée was one of the best men I would ever know. That’s why I feel horrible saying this. About a year later, I was at a friends house when in walked this 6’7" gorgeous guy. All of a sudden this awesome feeling that I cannot describe came over me. I took one look at him and knew he would be my husband someday. I couldn’t believe it!!! I truly thought I would never ever love again. Anyway, we became very good friends before we actually got together. All I can say is he is perfect in every way. I DO believe in love at first sight. It hasn’t happened since or before I met the man of my dreams. Now everyday is great. We have our little fights, but that’s all they are is little. I will always love my late fiancée, always. Sometimes I even talk to him in the car as if he were still alive. But what I felt for my new guy was real. I cannot deny that. If it happened to someone like me, it can happen to you! We are all looking for that special someone whether we like to admit it or not. They are out there. They just come when you are not looking and in when you least expect it.
That’s sweet. Good for you.
Why is this site attracting so many relationship announcements or questions?
I admit, I don’t believe in love at first sight, at all. I’m glad it worked for you, but I know in my case it’s just straight up lust. Nothing wrong with that…but I know better than to try to make a long term relationship off that. Or jeopardize my current relationship with it.
DrFidelius I wondered that too. Are we listed somewhere as “great relationship advice”?
Like a white panel van. 
Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.
‘Falling in love’ means very different things to different people, and seems to work different ways for different people.
Even though ‘love at first sight’ has never happened to me, I’ve read a number of accounts of people who fell in love at their first meeting, and had long and happy marriages. So certainly I believe it happens. (All the time? Maybe. :))
Love is generally considered to involve a substantive connection and comprehension of the other person. “Falling in love”, while considerably more euphoric and therefore chemical (and delicious), still contains that element as well. (Without it, you’re just “falling in lust”).
So I suppose the question is “can essential qualities of a person be expressed in things that can be perceived in a glance?”
I suppose it’s possible. I have a partner who says she gets a better sense of who a person is going to be like by looking at his photo than from reading things he’s written. (So far she hasn’t fallen in love with anyone on that basis as far as I know).
I’m not wired that way at all. The closest I could come is “love at first date”, involving several hours of conversation and interaction. And more likely it would emerge and develop over the course of several such dates. The first date is more likley to yield “hey that was fun and she’s interesting and I really want to see her again”.
In fact, I think the chemical component of falling in love takes proximity and time. All those biochemicals take some of those factors to get rolling good.
IMHO, love at first sight, for a guy, is really lust at first sight. It’s often hard for a guy to recognize the difference.
I loved both of my children at first sight, but that’s obviously a different sort of love.
My wife says she fell in love with me at first sight. It took me a little longer, but it happened pretty quickly. I remember the first time we kissed, in the shadow of the 59th Street Bridge, she looked up at me like there was no one on earth she’d rather be with.
This is a curious proposition, and I think I might agree with it. My experience with Wife 2.0: we worked at the same place but I was still married (not happily) to Wife 1.4. So I’d seen her around the office, but only in the context of me hustling past to grab a document or discuss something with a boss–so not really thinking that way. She was just another body I had to get past on my way somewhere. Evidently, she was stricken first and started asking around, where she learned I was unhappily married but still unavailable.
I first really noticed her in a team meeting about a week after I filed for my divorce. She was just promoted & reassigned to my boss. When she rolled in a few minutes before the meeting started, yeah, LUST. But then within a half hour the meeting had started to turn sour (lots of disgruntled folks due to longstanding issues, morale was generally low and the negative vibe was starting to feed itself). She piped up with several observations and a suggestion, and within 30 seconds the entire mood of the room changed and things, as it turned out, really did start to get better within a few days. But the hook had already been set, the flirting commenced, and we were married 6 months later.
Now yes, there was certainly an exhausting element of lust and we were both very open about, “This is nothing but funtimes, right? Too many red flags for this to work.” But the happy just never faded like we expected it to. And 7 years later it still hasn’t. So, definitely lust first, but I was all over her brain within the same hour.
Fact. People who say otherwise are negative.
Because it’s an important topic…?
Could it be anybody?
Not in my definition of love, anyway. Lust at first sight? Yep. Connection? Yep. Love? Nope, love requires a much deeper understanding of someone than a first glance can possibly provide.
I will say that lust and/or connection at first sight can certainly lead to love. I felt a connection to my wife the first time I saw her. We dated 6 years and hav been married for 27. Works real good, apparently.
My case wasn’t first sight so much as first two hours. When I first met my wife it was at another person’s house and we were together (four of us) for about that length of time. We talked and joked as a group and something in her just struck me. Riding home I commented to my friend that “that’s the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with” and so far its been true; fall of 1976 basically to today.
When my partner and I met, the mutual attraction was very intense, and immediate. I had a hard time believing it, because he’s a perfect “10,” while I’m at best a “4.” Well, the lighting was low, so I’ll give myself a “5.” But the attraction was unmistakeable. It was a Friday night, and we spent the weekend together in my apartment . . . and have now been partnered for almost 28 years.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t “love” at that point. But it was something beyond mere lust, something that endured until actual love developed.
Well, yes, if you mean “negative to the idea of love at first sight!” All we’re saying is, maybe it happens to you (or other people), but we know what we feel at first sight is not love.
And maybe there’s more to it. I’ve fallen in love at first sight, or thought I had, twice. Both times the men were not good for me. They were not bad men, just not the right man for a long term partner for me. So it’s clear when I fall, it’s for superficial traits.
Besides, how could it be anything else? You fall for the superficial traits, and then, you get to know them and you like the deeper traits too, so you end up in a happy relationship and you proclaim “Love at first sight works”. Meanwhile I can show you just as many examples of people who fell in love at first sight and then the whole thing went up in flames.
I think it’s great if it happens and it works out. Do I think that first meeting is enough? Never-never-never.
Yeah, it’s kinda like throwing darts in the dark, I suppose: someone’s bound to get a bullseye from time to time but it probably is foolish to think it was anything apart from dumb luck. But still–dumb luck does happen, and it’s not a bad thing as long as you realize that’s what it was.
Yep. My definition of love requires knowledge.
Absoulutely - if the immediate attraction coincides with something deeper and workable afterwards - one more piece of anecdotal evidence for LAFS.