Is it really possible to live someone you've never actually met and Love at first sight...

[lottieandmia]

It seems to me that this isn't actually possible. But I've heard of people saying they knew they loved someone before they met.

The love at first sight thing is a bit more complicated - I feel as though I did experience that myself but I would suggest it was infatuation.

The internet one is of particular interest/concern.

One relative very happily married to someone he met online. Of course he couldn't know for sure that she would be the same when they actually met up. But then you don't know that about somebody you've met at a party either.

QuiltedAloeVera puts it rather well: "Love at first sight is a label retrospectively applied when people do go on to properly fall in love with someone they were strongly attracted to at first. If it doesn't work out it was "just a crush". But the processes going on inside people's heads are the same in both instances in the beginning."

Surely the trick is to make sure you can walk away if things are not what you expected?

I know people think it's rare for people that meet online to end up in a long and happy relationship but 2 of my DH's friends met on the same site as us.
It was actually them that told my DH to go on there.

They both ended up marrying the women that they met on there and over 10 years later they're still together and very happy as well.

A friend of mine met her DH on a dating site as well,they've gone onto have a DC and have been married for over 8 years now,so online dating can work.

I think you just need to be aware and be honest with yourself and with your profile.

DH and I met when I was neither sober nor single. I have no recollection of this meeting but I know it's likely.

Around nine months later, when I was single, we were set up by mutual friends online. We spoke online and on the phone for a few weeks and when we actually finally met it was as though we had known each other forever.

I would definitely say I loved him before I met him - but I certainly didn't love him like I love him now. Using the same word for young lust-love as for established marriage -love isn't very helpful.

I think it's far more common, and far more healthy, to fall in love with someone slowly, over weeks or months or years, perhaps not in a relationship for much of that time. Solid foundations of mutual interests and common opinions/politics/religious inclination do support long relationships better than physical attraction which is very fragile indeed.

Meeting through mutual friends in a common interest forum kind of gave us a leg up - they knew we'd be suited and we already had a major hobby in common to talk about and take part in together.

Either way, we were a solid item within minutes of our first proper meeting, and formally engaged by maybe our fourth or fifth date. Nearly fifteen years and three DC later we must be doing something right.