Does Love at First Sight Last?

by Samantha De Bono


The Early Years:

From very early on in our lives we are building a mental image of who we want our partner to be.  This image is a bit like a scrap book that we add to over a period of time.  So when we fall in love at first sight, it’s not really our first sight of this person, if that makes sense, we’ve had a pretty good idea of who we want this person to be for a long time. So when that stranger walks in and your eyes meet, it triggers those unconscious images and we feel instantly attracted and at ease, like we already know them, or they are part of us already.

In no time at all, in fact, way to fast for you to be aware of, you have gathered loads of information about the person you’ve spotted across a crowded room, or been introduced to.  You’ve gathered age, appearance, attractiveness, physique, accent, way of speaking, mannerisms and all this has been instantly recognised as the person you have unknowingly kept in your unconscious mind as your ideal partner. They won’t necessarily be stereotypically good looking, but they will tick specific boxes for you and this is happening because your experiences of other people over the years, is now helping you to form the ideal fantasy of the stranger in front of you.

Your “Type”

So your ‘type’ has been built from aspects of various people who have entered and exited your life in the past; your parents, your friends, your first crush, famous people, people you’ve admired, even people you haven’t liked and even your own face is stored in your unconscious, so when this stranger enters your life and has the right combination of all of those images, it triggers a reaction in you instantly, leading you to believe this person is the one for you.  You aren’t, at that point, thinking of what you don’t know about this stranger, you’re just recognising everything you’ve got stored and allowing yourself to run with the fantasy.

The more you believe in love at first sight, the more likely you are to feel uninspired by anything slower paced.  Getting to know someone over time will probably be uninteresting and unlikely to happen, because it will seem boring compared to the huge highs  that “love at first sight” brings.

Fact or Fantasy

The difference between a person who believes in love at first sight and a person that does not, is their tendency to fantasise.  A person who does not believe in love at first sight, will meet someone and may feel attraction towards the stranger, but will only see what the stranger is presenting and nothing more.  They are realistic, they are looking at the facts in front of them and will need to get to know this person over time before they could say they were in love.  A person who believes in love at first sight believes they know enough about the stranger to fall in love there and then, and will invent anything they do not know about the stranger. In other words, they fill in the blanks with fantasy.

Does love a first sight Last?

Falling in love at first sight doesn’t mean it won’t last.  Whether it lasts or not, depends on whether you filled in those blanks correctly.  Also, how much the person continues to resemble that first fantasy you formed when you met and whether you have a tendency to fall in love at first sight with the right kind of person will determine the success of the relationship. No matter how wonderful it is in the beginning, that intense “in love” feeling wears off, so the success of the relationship will depend on whether the love at first sight develops into a different kind of love based on real knowledge of who your partner is as a person, rather than who you need your partner to be.

Relationship Patterns:

The main danger is believing that love is not valid unless it hits you like a thunderbolt, because it can cause you to keep repeating relationship patterns that cause you trauma and upheaval, and despite wanting to be in a lasting relationship, it can make ordinary worthwhile love relationships feel mundane and disappointing and by limiting your belief about what love should be, you are eliminating other avenues that could lead you to create a fulfilling strong relationship.

So if you're a person who has always believed in love at first sight being the only way to truly fall in love, ask yourself this. Are you still in that relationship? Have all your relationship gone this way? Has love at first sight worked for you so far or do they all turn out the same way?