Love At First Sight, Cliché Or Credible

 

a 14 minute short film

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack , “Hello Mary Lou, Goodbye Heart” by Ricky Nelson, “Just One Look” by Doris Troy. “Serendipity”, “Les Miserables”, “Scott Pilgrim VS The World”, “Sleepless In Seattle”, even “The Godfather” and “Taxi Driver” have it. So many songs and books and films are either about it or include it as a major plot point. That electrical, elusive phenomenon known as “love at first sight".

Yeah right, but maybe...

My mom who was a hardcore realist and would have told you if asked that “love at first sight” was only for the very pretty or very delusional (probably both), loved musicals. A lot of them, I would say 99%, were romantic musicals. “The King and I” (1951), “West Side Story” (1961), “The Music Man” (1962”) “Hello Dolly” (1969).

One of her all-time favorites was “South Pacific” (1958). I’m not going to go into the plot because it’s strangely complicated for a 50’s musical and involves concepts of interracial marriage and the children of these couples’ finding acceptance in the culture of that time. Yeah, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrapped a romantic musical around that. Um, OK. And it was super popular. Color me wildly amazed.

Some enchanted--what now? 

So, I grew up hearing the soundtrack to that musical in our house. A lot. “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair”, “Happy Talk”, “Bali Ha’i”, “I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy”, and mom’s favorite that went on repeat, “Some Enchanted Evening”. It’s this sweeping ballad sung by Opera bass Giorgio Tozzi in the film (dubbing over the actor Rossano Brazzi, who I suppose couldn’t carry a tune) all about this guy who sees “a stranger across a crowded room” and falls instantly desperately in love with her. Which if you think about it too long starts to sound a little creepy.

I mean, this is what stalkers do, right? They pick out someone they don’t really know and then fixate on them obsessively from a distance until they can’t stand it anymore and then they pounce. Ew. This is the romanticized version of “love at first sight”? Um, OK. And you see it in a lot of other movies and books too. “Taxi Driver” anyone? I know that one wasn’t fair, below the belt.

So, let’s take Disney’s animated “The Little Mermaid” instead. What does Ariel really know about her true love, the guy she fell for the instant she saw him on board that ship playing with his dog, other than he likes that dog? She doesn’t even know whose dog it is. It could have belonged to the ship’s captain and Eric will later discover that he has a violent allergy to dogs. But she’s so swept away by this sudden intense emotion that she gives up everything. Her home, her voice (basically her identity) all to pursue this person she has seen once and never had a conversation with. The original fairy tail by Hans Christian Andersen was even worse, trust me.

 

Sense and sensibility...

Now, I admit I am looking at this in a dispassionate light. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that will say I’d feel differently if I’d ever experienced it myself. And maybe they’re right. Even my crushes developed slowly, over time spent learning who they were, what they believed in and how they thought about the world. Maybe that makes me an analytical Spock rather than a passionate Kirk to use a geeky Star Trek comparison.

 

But I’ve always wondered. Is it real? Can you actually fall in love with someone in a split second? Or is it complete bunk? Something made up by romance novelists and pretty people who find each other with the surety of spawning salmon. Is there any science exploring the mystery that so many people claim to have either experienced first hand or can provide 2nd or 3rd hand proof of? Lucky for me the answer is yes.

 

Fact behind the fairy tale?

And romantics everywhere will be delighted to hear that “love at first sight” is a real, quantifiable, scientifically testable thing. It’s just a little more complicated and a little less flowery than it’s cracked up to be. In 2017 Psychologists in the Netherlands found evidence to support the phenomenon and did a fair amount of documentation to back it up.

Apparently, people can immediately decide if they find someone attractive. I have to say I was a little on the “duh” side with this one. And statistically it happened more with beautiful people. Again “duh”. Interestingly it isn’t usually mutual—this is based on the actual research taken in the moment. The researchers’ suspicion was that one partner’s intense initial experience could help shape the other’s recollection molding it into a belief that they also experienced love at first sight. And the final “duh”: love at first sight isn’t really love. The qualities of love—intimacy, passion, commitment—were all missing from this jolt experience. Instead, it seems to be an intense magnetism that makes you particularly open to the possibility of a relationship.

Then again there’s an interview with a neuroscientist who boils it down to dopamine and the right pheromones. You find the person who sparks the right amount of happy brain chemicals and hits that sweet stinky spot for you and voila!

 

Well damn!  

Actually, that could explain something. I have no sense of smell. It’s congenital. I can still taste stuff, just can’t smell anything. Weird fun fact about me. So, love at first sight is real, I’m just completely freakishly immune. Well, shit, that’s depressing. Can’t smell cookies or love. I may have to cry about this later.

 

The romance factor of “love at first sight” cannot be diminished for most people no matter how much research is done or presented by people like myself. I do understand that. The magic is just too sweet to let go of even if it can be understood by science and biology. While I am intrigued to discover that it isn’t a complete fantasy, I can honestly say the research has left me a little melancholy.

Here’s to all the couples that have found each other either briefly or forever through “love at first sight” even if they were both blind and it was all smell and chit chat. Good God am I jealous.