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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not believe in 'Love at first sight'?

12 replies

LordOfTheFlies87 · 05/02/2013 01:45

I saw a thread recently about someone who was worried that their sibling was moving too fast in a relationship and she was worried about the heartbreak it might cause.

Cue lots of posters saying smug comments (without even reading the problems the OP said) like - "We fell in love after a week. Move in after 2. We just knew."

You cannot know someone, like truly know them after one week or even one month.

I do not believe in love at first sight - I believe in lust at first sight. AIBU?

OP posts:
NickNacks · 05/02/2013 01:48

Yabu how can you possible know what other people feel?

WMDinthekitchen · 05/02/2013 01:50

There's a line somewhere (possibly in a James Bond novel) about the finest, purest love being lust. I would tend to agree. The pursuit of love is the most over-rated passtime there is!

Original poster
LordOfTheFlies87 · 05/02/2013 01:50

Saying I love you after knowing someone days is insincere.

OP posts:
Jojobump1986 · 05/02/2013 01:54

YANBU. For me, a relationship is more about finding someone with similar goals & dreams for the future & sticking together through the hard times. You don't get that after a week! DH & I were only together for 8 months before we got engaged & were engaged for just over a year but it was anything but 'at first sight'! We got on well together & have been muddling along happily in our marriage for nearly 6 years now. It's no epic Disney fairy tale but it works for us!

Having said that, my grandfather was engaged to another woman & split up with her, proposed to my grandmother & married her 6 weeks later! They had known each other for years before that though.

Original poster
LordOfTheFlies87 · 05/02/2013 01:59

Yabu how can you possible know what other people feel?

I'm not saying I know what people are feeling. I'm sure that they think they are in love but in reality of course they're not.

You can have butterflies and infatuation - but love?

I think if you're one of those couples that - move in, get engaged, or pregnant in the first month and are still together years later - then the relationship developed into love, but it didn't start off with love. If that makes sense?

OP posts:
CheerfulYank · 05/02/2013 02:38

I don't know...on one hand I don't think it's possible, but on the other I'm pretty woo and believe in at least the possibility of almost everything. :)

Morloth · 05/02/2013 03:11

Define 'love'.

Living · 05/02/2013 05:44

Actually I completely disagree - you can be 'in love' after a very short time (I certainly was with DH). That by no means means that you have a relationship that will last the long game. Being 'in love' doesn't mean 'being in a sustainable long term relationship will will make it through all the hurdles'. I don't think you can know whether you're really in one of those until you meet one of the big bumps that life chucks in our path.

I knew within two weeks that DH and I shared the same life view and goals and way of thinking and that I was 'in love' with him. It certainly wasn't just 'lust' (we weren't in the same country so there was little lusting to be done). I didn't know whether our relationship would be strong enough to make it through some serious mental health issues and I don't see how we would ever have known that before we got there!

I agree with mortloth - define love.

ChestyLeRoux · 05/02/2013 07:31

We definitely were in love after a couple of weeks.Dh gave up everything for me after a month.We just knew we would always be together.You just dont know as youve never experienced it.

ChestyLeRoux · 05/02/2013 07:36

Also you would think we were bonkers we were engaged and even ended up getting matching name tattoos very very early on.We used to write each other love letters every day and got engaged on the beach.Then we ran off and eloped.Still feel the same way, and everyday it gets stronger.

DH gave up everything and moved to be with me everyone said theres plenty more girls out there and he said not like this one and moved 400 miles away.You cant know until youve experienced it.I wouldnt of either.

ARightOldPickle · 05/02/2013 07:41

Just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't happen to others! We knew from the first date that we would be together, and he proposed after 5 weeks - with many disapproving comments about being too young, too soon.

We celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary this year and are still 'in love'.

cory · 05/02/2013 08:59

YABU

Obviously, you won't know everything about another person after a week. But then you won't know everything about another person after a year either. And considering that people grow and change over time, if you marry somebody after a courtship of 10 years, you still won't know everything about that person as they will be in 20 years time.

When I fell in love with dh he was a boy- an enthusiastic and perhaps slightly naive 23yo who had very little real experience of life. Now he is a middle aged man who has been tried and tested by all sorts of things we could never even have imagined. Of course I didn't see that all ready laid out in him when we first met. What I did see and fall in love with was potential. And I wasn't far out Wink

If you define Love as "knowing everything there will ever be to know about a person" then I hardly think that is achievable at all.

But if you have a slightly less ambitious take on love, then I think it is perfectly possible to know after a very short time that you want to stay and grow together with another person.

For me, it wasn't just lust: it was as much about being attracted and somehow moved by a personality; things he said that rang just right; a sweetness about him which I can still see after 30 years.

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