“No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved,”
- William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”
Messages about perfect, instant love are all around us. Everything from Edward and Bella’s relationship in the Twilight Saga to classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty contain the wonderfully romantic idea of love at first sight.
However, is love at first sight really real?
After examining a poll of the students in the school, the general consensus seems to be that deciding to spend your life with someone you have just met is a shallow idea. Love is something that must be built up over time. Experiencing love at first sight is basically the same as basing a relationship on looks alone which is superficial. Thus, it is impossible to fall in love at first sight as love is too complex of a feeling to be experienced in just a few moments.
A strong initial attraction between two people has the potential to later become a relationship. However, people have biased memories and essentially create the illusion of having fallen for each other instantly, hence labeling this interaction as “love at first sight”. Instant love can be a couple’s curated memory, a story used to bring more romance into the partnership, rather than an accurate account of events.
There is a good chance that some will tell you that they have personally experienced love at first sight, but professionals like to explain these emotions as just poor memory. Their theory is that once you have developed a relationship and fallen in love you tend to look back and place a favorable spin on the way that you remember the beginning.
A spark from physical attraction might be the way that many relationships begin, but it’s not the same as real love. From the information that scientists have found, looks matter when it comes to love at first sight. This is largely what the whole concept is based on because when you are just seeing a person for the first time, there is little else that you can make the decision off of or fall in love with. Essentially what you love is the looks of the other person, not necessarily the person themselves. A relationship can begin based on this and it might make you feel like you are in love, but real love requires a lot more than physical attraction. It is built only over time and needs trust, understanding, and commitment.
Thus although the idea of beginning a magical relationship and living happily ever after is tempting, it doesn’t always work out.
