Look for “Love Until Last Sight”

Love-at-first-sight is over-rated and only works in the movies

She walked into the door while he casually sat there having a coffee with his friends. Her hair blew across her face from the gust of wind that followed her through the open door. His eyes fell on that beautiful, innocent face.

She noticed he was looking, and their eyes briefly met, she smiled back at him and he knew he’d found the one.

Sounds perfect and dreamy, doesn’t it? But, hate to break it to you, that’s not usually how life works. Movies, sure! Life — not so much.

I’ve now known my wife for about a total of seven years, and we’ve been married for close to four of those. We have a one-and-a-half-year-old who we love to bits. We met at work, didn’t have the most ideal of starts in terms of first impressions, and yet here we are — blissfully married.

Here is why I think “love at first sight” or LAFS is somewhat fundamentally a bit of a shaky concept and love for a lifetime what I call “love until last sight” is what you should look for instead.

First sights are all about appearances

Most people that truly fall in love will tell you that love is a lot more about the personality and characteristics of a person than it is about looks.

Sure, looks matter — you need that basic physical attraction to spend a lifetime with someone or announce your love for someone. But, here’s the interesting thing about appearances — they grow on you.

I am sure all of us have that one or two people, who when we first saw, thought they looked a bit odd or not attractive. But we’ve since grown to know them better and be friends, or more, and now their faces or appearance look perfectly fine and even attractive.

Real love in fact often will make you realize that appearances hardly matter. If you’re married long enough, you’ll know that you get to see your partner in so many different highs and lows of their appearance, that they stop mattering anymore. It’s the person behind those looks that you’re in love with, and that real love won’t change on a bad hair day, or a bad skin day, or if your body and appearance change over time.

Love is a Habit and an Addiction

We may have our moments when we fight and argue, like all real couples do, but the one thing my wife is — she’s a habit or an addiction. It may not be all butterflies in your stomach forever, but when she’s not around, there is a massive feeling of something being incomplete.

This feeling and that level of connection only come over time. You can only get used to something so much once you’ve had it for a long time. You don’t get addicted to smoking with the first puff, or addicted to alcohol with your first drink! It’s the same with love — it takes time to explore the true depths of love and experience it fully.

So if you’re really looking for real love, it’s the best and only addiction I’ll ever recommend anyone to have.

Biased Memory — Science says LAFS is an Illusion

We’re all storytellers at heart or surely aspire to be. So when we’re asked about the history of our perfect love lives we sure want the story to be just as magical as the feeling.

And so what we end up doing is, we create a beautiful illusion around the first time we met our partners. It may have been the most ordinary meeting or even a disaster, but since it led us to the most perfect relationship of our lives, we want to associate with a perfect first memory. We project our current feelings onto the past.

A scientific study indicates that love at first sight basically is physical attraction, with a dash of passion. This redefines the conception of love at first sight and supports an illusory and adaptive conceptualization of it.

But in reality, the story can still be fun when it’s not LAFS.

My wife and I met at work, where she was 2 yrs junior to me. At the start, let us just say we had a bit of a misunderstanding.

I tried to be a helpful senior to her as an intern. She said something which she later told me was meant to be funny (I NOW know how sarcastic she can be), but I saw it as a bit of an attitude problem. After that initial not-so-elaborate exchange, we barely spoke during her 2-month internship. But a year later, when she joined back full-time, we hit it off really well as friends, ended up taking a Spanish class together, fell in love, and got married after dating for a couple of years!

I’ve now known her for about seven years and she’s the best thing that has happened to me!

Well begun is half done, but all is well that ends well

The start for anything is important but I’d argue in matters of love it is the happy ending that matters most.

I’ve seen relationships start with a huge spark, but fizzling out far too soon. In fact, a bond based largely on physical attraction has a higher chance of dying a slow death, than one based on a deeper connection. None of us is going to be young and attractive forever. Also, in a real relationship, you get a lot more than the decked-up-for-a-date look. You get to see your partner with a runny nose, an awful rash, sorrow and sickness, and a lot more of the real aspects of life and a relationship.

Getting through these less glamorous times, and still coming out strong is the key to long-lasting love. So to me, while a good start maybe the job half done, it’s that other half and the ending that really defines a relationship!

So if you haven’t found love yet and want to make a wish to that shooting star, hope for a love that lasts a lifetime, rather than butterflies and songs going off at that first one!