Love at First Sight is a Myth

Love at first sight is a myth. It should be called “brain damage” for two reasons. First, you have to have brain damage to have love at first sight, and second, if you do think what you’re feeling is love, it will bring much damage to your brain as you move further along in the relationship. It is a twofold sickness. You need to be sick to get it, and when you get hit, it will make you sick.

This does not mean that there is not something at first sight. Nor does it mean that the something might not be very, very powerful. It can even have good elements to it. But, it is not love, so you should not treat it that way.

The first take-away value of this fact in dating is this: Do not let your fantasies fool you into thinking you have found something of value just because a person turns your head or makes your heart beat faster. A fast-beating heart has nothing to do with love or with anything that will last. The second take-away is this: Just because you do not fall in love at first sight does not mean that the person you meet does not have great value or even lasting potential.

Understand that these strong feelings are based on things inside of you, not some inherent value of the person you are smitten by. What smites you is totally subjective. The reasons you feel this way about someone could be coming from a lot of sources, and sometimes it its important to find out what those are.

Love is built through soul-to-soul connection, shared values, commitment, resolving conflicts and hurts, tenderness, sacrifice, forgiveness, giving, displays of character, spiritual comparability and sharing — things that all have something important in common: time. Love takes time. Anything short of that may be exciting, even intoxicating, but it isn’t love.

Enjoy your momentary rush, but realize that it has little to do with real love. Get over it and get on to the real stuff if you do continue to go out with that person. Better yet, understand this message: Real people are where the real things in life are. Go out with a lot of real people, not fantasies. Then you can get to know some of them and find some real treasures, not images of unreal things that disappear as soon as you grasp them.

Struggling in your dating life? Take my free course on Boundaries in Dating right here.