Love at first sight; real or a myth?

Hello everyone, how are you all doing today? Today is the end of November, who else is excited for December? I know it's already December in the Philippines and some other countries, but it's still November over here and we will join you guys very soon 😉

This month ended well with a little barbecue party that was organized by some of my classmates in school. There were barbecued catfish, fried plantains, and drinks to go round.

But I wouldn't want to dwell on that, let's move straight to the topic. I know everyone must have heard about love at first sight; where two people meet for the first time and instantly fall in love (usually one of them is the one falling 😆), do you believe such things exist? Well, I don't.

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I was replying to @Cogamedia article yesterday and I said I didn't believe in love at first sight, then princessbusayo said: "you can actually fall in love once and both of you are doing fine". Is she right? Kind of 😉

The reason why I said I don't believe in love at first sight is that what happens most of the time at first sight and which many people mistakes for love is actually attraction, so attraction at first sight?

Love goes way deeper than just beauty and body curves and I believe for two people to truly be in love, they have to really know each other well. I mean, what happens after you claim to fall in love at first sight and then you discovered later on that the person has a very nasty attitude, will the love fizzle out?

And also, there are things you can't do for someone you're just meeting for the first time. I will like to say that what I mean by love at first sight is that you just saw the person for the very first time from across the road or classroom or club or church (just anywhere) and before you even say a single word to the person, you already love him/her?

And then just before you decide to walk up to the person, a life and death situation suddenly happens that presents you with an option of saving the person's life with a possibility of you losing yours, will you do it? Well, food for thought

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But wait, I said what happens most of the time at first sight, does that mean there are times when love at first sight really happens? Maybe. Let me talk about the science behind love.

When you meet a person and you start getting that warm fuzzy feeling, that's actually your brain releasing a chemical known as dopamine. It's the same chemical that people get after taking a hard drug like cocaine, it's also the chemical that gets released during an orgasm, it comes out when you think of anything you enjoy and it goes high when you do those things; it's the culprit that makes us addicted to something.

So when that chemical gets released when you see that special someone for the first time, it instantly creates an attachment to that person and gives an idea of being in love, it's something similar to how addiction operates 😉

So yeah, it's all in your head and it's just your body's response to that dopamine that has been released, so in the long run, it leads to feelings of love. But back to what princessbusayo said, can these feelings lead to a relationship that stands the test of time? Absolutely!

In fact, a study has been carried out and it's discovered that most people that said they fell in love at first sight ended up in a long-term relationship. This revelation led the researchers to believe that love at first sight is a memory bias and not its own unique type of love, as many people might think (you can read more about it here).

So yeah, it's quite possible that two people can be instantly attracted to each other at first sight or "fall in love" and still end up in a very strong relationship but that doesn't mean the relationship was built on that first attraction, the love was built up as they spent more time with each other.

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What makes a bond between two people last requires a much deeper connection - Dr. Salida Afridi, Clinical psychologist

So what do you think about love at first sight, are you a fan of it or do you not also believe in it?

Thanks for reading 💖💖💖

Tuesday November 30th, 2021