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

[Hoovermanoevre]

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?

Exactly, SerenDippity. That's what I meant earlier, but you said it much more eloquently!

The night me and Dh met neither of us were out looking to meet someone. I was out for my friends birthday and he ŵas meeting a friend who had been away to university.

After a week he told me he loved me, I laughed at him ! We got engaged after 6 months, and married after 2 years.

It wasn’t until years afterwards he told me that he actually fell in love with me the moment we met.

We’ve been together almost 20 years now.

@Kingkiller I think you make very important points. Certainly I agree that people do not want to be wrong about first impressions. We've all seen those news reports where the neighbours say " but he's just such a LOVELY bloke, real salt of the earth, he'd do anything for anyone" ... "Can't believe he murdered his Mrs...."

@SerenDippitty but what if it develops into absolutely nothing because you don't / can't let it.
But you have to live with knowing and it drives you mad that you're such a helpless chemical concoction, rather than the strong minded woman with everything in order , that you'd assumed yourself to be??

Meet someone, fancy the pants off them, have a strong feeling of lust and want to have a relationship with him.

a) You marry and have a long life with them, inducing confirmation bias that you loved them from the second you saw them.

b) You never see them again after the second date and very quickly forget your short term feelings.

You only confirm it was 'love at first sight' after it has has turned into a long term relationship. Confirmation Bias.

@Walkingdeadfangirl but what if you don't act on it? But you still know ever after

It absolutely happens.

It happened to me once. On August 23rd 1997. I can tell you everything about the moment down to the smallest detail.

It can absolutely happen.

@AgathaMystery
Do. I have time!

I had it for someone who I’m not in a relationship with.

I’ve never felt anything like it and doubt i will again

@JacquesHammer were you in another relationship at the time?

And @JacquesHammer did it make you question things afterwards?

I love this thread. I love being a woman . We're full of mystery

but what if you don't act on it? But you still know ever after
All you will ever know is that you fancied loved the idea of being with that person. How can you love someone if you dont know who they are and what they are like?

Me and DP compared it to a magnetic force, an electricity that just brought us together and I will sound ridiculous but other people would say they could feel it in the room.

I fell in love with his photo, a friend had posted it in group chat and I didn’t say anything assuming I was just lusting over a stranger.

We met by sheer coincidence very shortly after and made a conscious effort to try and ignore it, assuming it was lust, including seeing other people We hadn’t slept together or anything like that. Ended up in the same friend group (I think subconsciously to be near each other) and everyone just knew.

Years later here we are, and no matter what has happened (and plenty has!) that magnetic force pulls us back every time. Just this overwhelming need to be together forever since the very moment we met. I cannot bare the thought of a life without him in it and we definitely have our share of fallouts so it’s not all rosy and lovely

Just to add, we weren’t in a couple straight away and we definitely aren’t the “lovey dovey” type, nor were we inseparable. Just something was there that in the end we decided couldn’t be ignored even though we didn’t actually want to get together for practical reasons

I believe in love at first date! The first time I met DH was at a fundraising evening for a charity where I was receiving treatment. It was dark, so didn’t really see him properly but was immediately angered after he was incredibly rude after his (unknown to me) ex at the time introduced us after a friend of mine (who thought we would be great together tried to set us up) had already introduced us. My friend enquired the next day why we hadn’t chatted and I told her he has rude to me. She messaged him to have a go at him for being rude, he told her that he thought I was ‘with’ my Dad, despite accompanying my parents together, oh and being around five inches taller! Horrified, I messaged him and asked how he could ever think that I was Seeing my own Dad. He replied asking me out and offering to make it up to me.

The next day, we met for what was pretty much a blind date as neither of us could remember what the other looked at. I remember meeting his eyes across the bar when meeting, his eyes are gorgeous as is his smile and I just melted under his gaze lolThe date went amazing, I had never felt more at ease with anyone! We kept finishing each other’s sentences and what was meant to be meeting for one drink at lunch (not alcohol as I was on meds and dh was driving), turned to hours and hours of talking, then he took me for a gorgeous meal. He drove me home to my parents and came in to meet my parents and have a coffee. My Dad thought (and still does) that dh was wonderful! When dh kissed me goodnight (which was our first kiss), I swear that my knees went weak! My head was spinning and I couldn’t stop smiling and going over and over the long first date in my head! He texted me as soon as he got home, asking to see me the next day! When DH left, my DM took one look at me and said ‘you think Caledonian King is the one, don’t you?!’ Mum is weird that way, she knew the exact day I lost my virginity too!

We are definitely soulmates! We have been through hell and back again! I knew after one date that we were soulmates and I adore him and he I. Lov

Yes I was in another relationship. It didn’t make me question things as such. I believe you can love different people in different ways at the same time for example.

I absolutely would never have dreamed of acting on it.

I told DH I loved him after 8 days. Totally freaked him out but we've been together for 25 years so I wasn't wrong

You only confirm it was 'love at first sight' after it has turned into a long term relationship. Confirmation Bias.

Yes. But the funny/ irritating thing is, each time someone says something like this, someone else will say "I believe it, it happened to me!" In fairness, I think if you've constructed a narrative about your relationship which pins much of its success on "love at first sight, it was meant to be!" you're not going to want to hear someone say it was attraction followed by luck.

As for the "even other people felt it". Yes, they will. Rumours went round at work that I was in a relationship with someone well before we got it together and before I'd realised I fancied him. Our body language together was such that people could read the attraction.

I've recently met someone who I do feel is as close to a soulmate as I'm going to get. It feels like meeting my male equivalent and we were both single when we met. Except now he's very loved up with someone else so you know, ¯\(ツ)/¯

Aww @Gabilan that's a shame!

Oh I am . A hopeless romantic.
It really is dreadful. I was born in the wrong era. I should have been born as a struggling poet in bohemian Paris or something, back in the day, a tortured soul!

Confirmation bias surely depends on the data set, ie sample size, initial feelings, final result?

Definitely. DH and I fell in love at first sight!

Thanks hoovermanoevre but it's far from the first time I've met someone I'm very attracted to only for him to go out with someone else. Trouble is, you can get a bit pre-emptively defensive - you assume it's going to happen so you put up barriers against it. And they just detect the barriers and don't think about the reason why so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't important.