A spark of magic
Love at first sight is a spark of sudden attraction, of great intensity, that launches, on a stratospheric journey, the imagination and fantasy of those who yearn for a loving relationship.
 |
| What is love at first sight? |
This event exerts great fascination, perhaps because the search for love is laborious and risky, with a high potential for frustration, rejection and uncertainty. If all this work could be done in a single instant, and as if by magic, we would save ourselves a great deal of upset and emotional stress.
Hollywood has been in charge of presenting love at first sight to us as something normal for “cool” people and surrounding it with glamor and romanticism.
Since ancient times it was thought that the god Cupid, son of Venus and Mars, was the cause of this phenomenon, with his arrows that caused “the wound” of love that occurred in an instant, sometimes with tones of happy romance and others times of ominous tragedies. The history of literature is full of crushes, sudden overwhelming illuminations of romantic love.
Difficult to study scientifically
Romantic love can be studied scientifically. But the few researchers who have dared to tackle the subject of love at first sight have identified an obstacle that makes their research work very difficult.
It is that we have the tendency to remember only the crushes that have borne fruit in a relationship. This selection of memories creates a memory bias that makes it very difficult to study this phenomenon in a scientific way. Apparently, we have those flashes many times, but we only remember them as love at first sight when they evolve into a stable and mutual relationship.
Tied to physical attractiveness and more common in the male sex
Another proven fact is that the experience we call “love at first sight” is closely linked to physical attractiveness. One study found that the chances of falling in love at first sight are multiplied by nine if the object of the crush is physically attractive.
Perhaps this is why men experience it more commonly than women, given the more visual nature of male sexuality.
We remember only the crushes that prosper
Despite what has been said, the experience of love at first sight is so common that around 60% of people remember having it.
The high frequency of this experience, combined with the selective way of remembering it, seems to hint that many people have had multiple experiences that feel like “love at first sight,” but have forgotten the ones that never progressed beyond the initial crush.
Mutual crush is less common
Another phenomenon identified by the researchers is that, in a high percentage, the experience of love at first sight is not mutual, but rather unilateral, experienced by a person who is not reciprocated.
The so-called “love at first sight” does not even complete the first stage of love, which we can call enchantment, and therefore we cannot say that it is truly love. It is just one event within a process that is headed towards the formation of a relationship or, conversely, disappearing into oblivion.
In we have explained the four stages of love . The experience called “love at first sight” occurs within that first stage of enchantment which, unless we are extraterrestrials, is perfectly familiar to us.
This initial stage is followed by formal bonding, parenthood, and finally mature love as the children reach the age of independence.
For a feeling to be called love, it must include, in addition to enchantment, deep emotional connection and commitment. Since the so-called love at first sight does not even reach the completion of the enchantment stage, we cannot properly call it love.
I hope I have not disappointed you, but “love at first sight”, as a sublime experience, is more a fiction of Hollywood and literature than a reality that we can wish for ourselves.