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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that love at first sight is a real thing?

233 replies

Hoovermanoevre · 22/07/2018 22:34

I totally believe in it. Not lust at first sight, but total "soul mates in a previous life" type feelings. But AIBU?
Watching a movie earlier with a friend who reckons LAFS is just a big load of bollocks. What do we think?

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Tiredspice2 · 24/07/2018 20:58

It’s all hormones, making you think it’s love at first sight.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 21:07

But @Tiredspice2 I mean when you're not looking for it, when it's totally out of the blue, and you get this electrifying sensation that pins you to the spot... But you didn't even want it to happen. Hormones?
I'm not convinced?

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QueenofmyPrinces · 24/07/2018 21:27

There are two men from my past where it felt like from the second I laid eyes on them it was inevitable we’d be together. Even now, years and years later I can remember the intensity of the way I felt about them without even having talked to them.

It wasn’t lust, it was more than that, something deeper. When I think back to how I felt when I first saw them I have absolutely no recollection of whether I had feelings of fancying them or not, the possible lust or attraction wasn’t a feature at all, I don’t even know if it was there, but there was just something, some kind of connection where I just knew they were going to have a huge impact on my life and that we were going to come together to form something special.

Do I believe I loved them at first sight? Maybe. Maybe those intense and immediate feelings I experienced when I first saw them were love, maybe they weren’t, but I do believe you can meet someone and immediately know that something magical is going to happen and that it was always destined to happen.

However, they are both now Ex-boyfriends.

I’m married now to a man who I didn’t have intense feelings about when I met him and I definitely didn’t fancy him. Meeting him was nothing like the two experiences I’ve written about above, it all seemed quite boring really, but we ended up married, we have two children, he’s an absolutely wonderful man, he makes me so happy and I am so unbelievably lucky to have met him.

So even if love at first sight do exist that doesn’t mean it’s right.

And just because love at first sight doesn’t happen, it doesn’t mean that the relationship still can’t turn out to be amazing.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 21:30

@QueenofmyPrinces that's a really balanced way of looking at it , and a really reassuring post

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Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 21:37

@WizardOfToss I hope something really good is waiting for you just around the corner Smile

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WizardOfToss · 24/07/2018 21:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 21:48

@WizardOfToss I can relate to that, so I wish something special for you all the more. A double measure Flowers

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Walkingdeadfangirl · 24/07/2018 21:51

Simple confirmation bias.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:00

But would confirmation bias apply if you hadn't acted on it at all.
What if this feeling had just totally disrupted your self. And you'd undo it if you could?

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WonderTweek · 24/07/2018 22:06

This totally happened to me. Wasn’t looking for love (in fact I was outside my uni halls having a fag at 6am) but when this guy walked past and our eyes met, that was it for us. I can’t really say much without sounding ridiculously corny, but we’ve always felt like we knew each other in our “previous lives” and that we are soulmates and we belong together. Us getting together was very intense (moved in together two weeks after we first met Grin) and it still surprises me how we feel things the same way and just have a deep connection. We’ve been together for ten years now and I still feel like he truly is my other half. I feel incredibly lucky to have found him.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:06

@Superbirdtrooperbird what a treasure of a story to pass through the family. That is the kind of inheritance you're absolutely blessed to have. Precious.

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bobdylannumber1 · 24/07/2018 22:08

Yes I believe happened to me with dh 19 years ago we were both working catering at a wedding ( not my normal field of work but I was moving into a new house and needed the extra cash our paths never would have crossedI looked into his eyes and that was it for both of us it was a chance meeting, we've had our ups and downs but we still feel the same so I defo believe

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:09

@WonderTweek what happened? Did you ask for a light? Fall into each other's arms?!! How did it come to be?

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Chuggachuggatoottoot · 24/07/2018 22:12

I didn't used to think so but I my now husband went missing on our first date after I'd been a bit flirty with another guy and I instantly had an urgency that I had to find him.

Kingkiller · 24/07/2018 22:15

No I think it's nonsense. And I think people probably edit the circumstances mentally afterwards. If you feel a bit of a lightning bolt and then it turns out he's not 'the one', you probably forget or deny the lightning bolt feeling afterwards. Whereas you probably big-up the lightning bolt feeling you had about your dh because it turned out well. Nobody can love somebody without actually knowing what they are like! How could you possibly?! Besides, thinking you can know someone from a glance is pretty prejudiced really. If you can't (and shouldn't) judge someone negatively at a glance, why would you be able to judge someone positively at a glance?

Tisfortired · 24/07/2018 22:15

It happened to me.

The first time I saw DP I just knew straight away he was special, and there was something about him that was right for me. He wasn't my usual type appearance wise (in fact the opposite of my usual type!) but I just knew he was the one for me.

That sounds so ridiculous I know but I can't explain it. I just knew.

RoadToRivendell · 24/07/2018 22:17

My husband and I met at a wedding (in the elevator!) and we had sex something like 6 hours later - we've been married nearly 20 years.

But, you might say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Who knows.

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:18

@Kingkiller I'm ashamed to say I judge people negatively at first glance quite often. Sometimes someone will give me the cold chills, my hairs will stand on end. I often think this is because I've travelled a lot on my own and I'm hypersensitive to body language signals that suggest imminent danger? But I definitely do judge .

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Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:20

... And I have to say I've been proven right a few times in that respect.

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RoadToRivendell · 24/07/2018 22:20

Nobody can love somebody without actually knowing what they are like! How could you possibly

One of the things that I love most about my husband is that he is magnificently intelligent, and he wears it so modestly. I knew this within an hour of meeting him, and it continues to dazzle me to this day (20 years later).

He also drinks too much, and was extravagantly lazy in his early 30s. This nearly killed me. It took me some time to work this out.

Kingkiller · 24/07/2018 22:22

Within an hour of meeting him, fair enough. At first glance, nope!

Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:23

Grin certainly we cling to the good points first

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Hoovermanoevre · 24/07/2018 22:26

Fair enough Kingkiller Perhaps I should work on not dismissing people at first glance !

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Kingkiller · 24/07/2018 22:32

I think the trouble is that sometimes we are so keen to believe we are good at judging people on first appearances that we cling to our first impression (whether good or bad) and continue to create a narrative about the person which fits with that first impression, rather than being open-minded and giving them the benefit of the doubt (not saying I never do this, but I'm trying not to!). I sometimes wonder if that's occasionally what makes people stay too long with unkind or abusive partners - they are so determined not to have been wrong about them.

SerenDippitty · 24/07/2018 22:36

I think if you meet someone and it develops into a long term relationship there is a tendency in hindsight to imbue the first meeting with more significance than it actually had.