It might not necessarily be the kind of love where you end up marrying that individual and having a lifelong commitment in that way to them, but I definitely believe in there being very deep and true connections very, very quickly and sometimes instantly. My observation is that there can be something about two souls meeting where you just meet at a certain point in your life that there is some particular aspect of each other that you already and instantly understand. Maybe because you have grown in particular ways before meeting them, similarly to picking up a piece of music at a particular time in your life and it just being a right fit from the get-go (when perhaps it wouldn't have been right years or even months before that, needing to have learned particular lessons prior to picking it up). It's like you just meet at exactly some point, almost as though it was meant to be. Not that you know everything about that person (and part of the fun is in getting to know them), but that you instantly glimpse something about that person which may even be hidden from many or most other people. I've had experiences like that and even after quite awhile of knowing them, there is something about the way I see them which is still traceable back to the very first time we met. A person may grow and develop (hopefully, anyway!), but there is something so beautiful inside of them that you saw from the very first, and you just grow to see them more and more clearly (or sometimes you just grow apart).
I see that you've ported something from another thread in order to create a new one.I think that there's a lot of sense in what you write here. I am also convinced that this is possible and can and indeed does occur, though how commonly it occurs and how well it is understood as a phenomenon by those who have not experienced it or have yet to experience it I cannot say with any certainty.Best,Alistair
I believe in love at first sight with banjos, but not girls.
That's right, I'm sure we're talking about the same thing.
Valentina LisitsaThat's all I can say...Just... Valentina Lisitsa
and it is one which you feel in your own guts and score,
yes, that!
I agree. It is perfectly healthy for you! I think she is great! I have not decided I am gay nor have I had any of such experiences. I am also not at all interested in these things. But it just does not and probably will not happen to me with anyone.
Yes, unfortunately I have only one thing on my mind. On the same note, I got in touch with my really really long time crush! He was very pleasant and I have had such a hard time getting him off my mind! He lives on the other side of town. I used to see him all the time but I moved away. It has been heartbreaking.
I don't believe in any human love, because we are all very limited, and it doesn't do good to anybody if we "expect" anything like "love" from them, in any way. We really shouldn't. Let alone "unconditional love" which is a hypothetical construct, made up by the human intellect.I believe in divine love though. Agape. Yes I do believe in this, because it's just much more real to me. Which might be called idealism.So yes, I do believe in love, divine love, Agape, as a force which has the potential to make the world go round.
I also believe in this kind of love, but it didn't happen in such a way in my life... Inspite of it I still remember the day and the feelings when I met my husband, though it was 10 years ago... And I didn't even like him at first... And what about first love, then it definitely was from the first sight, but things just didn't get serious and to cut a long story short just didn't work out for us two... Anyway it happens sometimes, so I say for sure that I believe in love from the first sight!
It might not necessarily be the kind of love where you end up marrying that individual and having a lifelong commitment in that way to them, but I definitely believe in there being very deep and true connections very, very quickly and sometimes instantly. My observation is that there can be something about two souls meeting where you just meet at a certain point in your life that there is some particular aspect of each other that you already and instantly understand. Maybe because you have grown in particular ways before meeting them, similarly to picking up a piece of music at a particular time in your life and it just being a right fit from the get-go (when perhaps it wouldn't have been right years or even months before that, needing to have learned particular lessons prior to picking it up). It's like you just meet at exactly some point, almost as though it was meant to be. Not that you know everything about that person (and part of the fun is in getting to know them), but that you instantly glimpse something about that person which may even be hidden from many or most other people. I've had experiences like that and even after quite awhile of knowing them, there is something about the way I see them which is still traceable back to the very first time we met. A person may grow and develop (hopefully, anyway!), but there is something so beautiful inside of them that you saw from the very first, and you just grow to see them more and more clearly.
It exists all right, nothing surer, and I consider its effects destructive, and far more likely to produce harm than good. I repeatedly fell prey to it from the age of about five through to thirty, at which time I made the conscious decision to get rid of it. We seem to be hard wired to do it to a certain extent, although the propensity varies with individuals. I didn't see the light until I read a wonderful book, "Lovestyles", by John Lee, about the various types of love. Once I found better ways of loving my health and happiness took off and remained stable. I even wrote a piano piece, "Farewell to Eros", to celebrate the occasion.
What's so surprising about the fact that some people are instantly attracted to each other? Sure, you can put it in poetic language or in mundane language but, either way, it's not exactly much of a shock. That's just how evolution works.
Not so much as you put it, of course. What is a shock is for it to alter your life and perception of it in a fundamental and lasting way. The first by its nature has no shock involved, the second is by its nature a shock to the entire system, and therefore a shock to the intellect (which placed the concept in a non-shocking box before).
True- but just because that sensation arises once, it doesn't mean that it won't happen readily again or even that it hasn't actually happened as strongly before. Who can really put themselves directly into the experience of a former emotional state? Is the childish "infatuation" of a kid necessarily any less real in the moment that it exists, than what would be considered mature love? You can't make proper comparisons in hindsight. It's like trying to make a list of your ten best orgasms. Sure, we all remember some good ones- but could you put them in a precise order? With time, memories get grossly distorted and there's no way to put yourself back in the moment. Tim Minchin's song makes the point well:
The trick is to date various women at the same time.
I am currently discovering new views of love, and right now this includes more facets than I've ever known it before. I appreciate these facets as expressed through many forms of life, through many people, and in many ways. And I believe there is much, much more.
And, you can't tell me who I am, what I feel, how I should or shouldn't think. Nor can I be somehow lolled into anything just because you typed the word orgasm.
I'm not telling you how to think. I'm just pointing out that the romanticised ideal of profound love is based on success having already occurred. After years of success, a person looks back and remembers how amazing it was from the start (likely in an overly romanticised way that has been coloured by countless events that took place in the intervening years). However, if it fails half-way down the line, they will view the sentiments of earlier on in a completely different light. Throw yourself into something too soon, and you only risk either having to look back years down the line and thinking "whoops", I got that all wrong or perhaps having even forgotten what had seemed so profound, altogether (assuming that you don't spend the rest of your life sobbing about the one that got away, rather then moving on). It's all very easy to imagine that we "knew" a person from the look in their eye, but it's far from unusual for people to think that one minute and then decide they misjudged a person the next.You're welcome to adopt whatever beliefs you wish- but I'm just saying that pragmatic consideration involves the realisation both that all success stories are being viewed in hindsight (or they wouldn't yet be success stories) and realisation that a wealth of failures didn't necessarily feel any different in the earliest stages, from those that succeeded. Nobody who rushes to a Las Vegas church to have Elvis wed them to someone they met less than a month ago is thinking- let's just see how it goes. How many of those last? Time is the only valid test- of what seems like profundity in the moment.
I do not expect from you, to understand something which cannot be measured, quantified, nor valued with regular measuring devices. But, I can appreciate where you're at, and value you, nonetheless .
And absolutely HAVE to be experienced to be understood at anything other than a very superficial level. (been there...)
In reality, the emotional state and belief at the start is not a remotely reliable indicator- until we have the opportunity to look back on it with hindsight.
What happens to love when it is just you, you are on your own and the other person doesn't care if you are dead or alive? How does love work?
Yeah, and just by glimpsing each other's souls,
Yeah, you mean...it is possible to like and get along with different people, not just the one? I am afraid I am changing the subject from love at first sight to...love only happens once.
Such an argument simply does not work, sorry- unless grounded in either blind optimism or the ability to look back upon success in hindsight. If the above argument stood up to even an iota of scrutiny, the rate of success in marriages between people who have decided that they are "in love" within mere weeks of meeting and jumped into a quick marriage (based on the belief that their relationship is "different" from prior ones) would be high. It is not high. It is very low.This illustrates the unquestionable fact that sentiments that exist in the short-term are hopelessly unreliable- no matter how intense or real they may seem in the moment. Human attraction is not based on what creates long term happiness or life-time relationships. It is based on what furthered evolution- which is why short-term sentiments are often inescapably powerful yet equally short lived. Pragmatically, we cannot even separate the first stages of what might potentially be viewed as love at first sight from the childish "infatuation" (that most adults will raise an eyebrow at the assumed superficiality of) between a teen and his first crush. There is nothing to objectively separate between the reality or validity of such feelings- INCLUDING how real they might seem to the person experiencing them at the time. Everyone thinks they "just know" something extra special in the short-term, regardless of how it later pans out. Only the ability to look back distinguishes something special from a silly crush.Sorry if that doesn't sound very romantic, but unless love has already succeeded, anyone who "just knows" does so out of either blind optimism, or the self-important belief that (unlike most humans) they have some kind of special right to an unusually profound love that is rarely to be witnessed and which few other humans get to have. Evolution has succeeded in its current form because attraction readily creates delusion. Until something has stood the test of time, the belief that you "just know" it's something special is of no credibility whatsoever. Once something is long failed, hindsight makes us think we knew something wasn't right from the start. If something has long been successul hindsight makes us think we knew it was right from the start. In reality, the emotional state and belief at the start is not a remotely reliable indicator- until we have the opportunity to look back on it with hindsight (and the according alterations that our brains distort memories with).
I knew that someone would come up with this counter argument to my remarks, and I'm not surprised at all -- nor dismayed. However, the variety of relationship of which I was speaking has nothing to do with marriage; nothing to do with dating -- and everything to do with a complete and absolutely inevitably momentary sharing and melding of souls. Philosophically, at least within the transcendental existentialist philosophical framework, it is a logical consequence. Practically, it is so rare as to be only just this side of finding a unicorn in your back yard. I had studied the concept, academically, as part of my philosophical and theological studies, and must admit I reacted in a sort an "oh that's a nice concept; never happen" way. Until it did.
Yeah, you mean...it is possible to like and get along with different people, not just the one?
I don't fully disagree with this, and there are parts that I fully agree with, but I do believe in a general way that we can expect man to be actually capable of expressing love, real love, in both an accepting as well as giving way. But, yes, I agree it is wise to consider one's own expectations in the smaller scale (and to consider where those might be coming from) - as we are always evolving and growing and changing. Sometimes it becomes apparent that two people have different goals in life and I believe it's important to acknowledge that for what it is and not try to rob that person of their own individuality, just because of these differences. At the same time, sometimes adjustments and sacrifices are made, and perhaps in long term interactions we experience love as a form of balancing between taking steps alone and then taking them together. I am currently discovering new views of love, and right now this includes more facets than I've ever known it before. I appreciate these facets as expressed through many forms of life, through many people, and in many ways. And I believe there is much, much more.
Topic: I believe in love at first sight 