An Insight Into Love At First Sight
The hall was pretty full, she was late and ran in front to find a seat. She found one at the first row, she saw a man beside her reading an interesting article and they started chatting. It was a pretty short talk. When the lecture was about to start the man got up and introduced himself as a guest lecturer. This guest was none other than Steve Jobs and the lady was Laurene Powell. After the lecture was over, Steve saw her leaving, he ran past everyone who was trying to grab him and asked her out for a dinner. That day Jobs cancelled all his meetings and chose to went out with Powell. (Ref: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson; with little editing from my imagination)
Steve and Powell were married and together since then, till the date he was alive! Now THIS has raised a series of questions in my mind.
What happened in that short talk that both of them must have remembered so well? (I mean how many of us always remember the short talks we have with strangers!). What exactly he must have felt seeing her leaving the hall, that he ran after her. (I have got that kind of rush only when I see my local train leaving the platform). What made him cancel all the meetings for the day, just to have a dinner with that lady (in other words to spend time with her)? (I would prefer Netflix and chill). Why all this was important at that moment itself? How this one intuition turned into lifetime of marriage and commitment? (he knew since the start that she is the one).
A research suggests that around 60% of the people have experienced this phenomenon (Link). Yes, I call it a phenomenon as it doesn’t have a strong insight, Love at first sight!
Yes, people say it exists in real world apart from the world of fairy tales and magic. Let’s find out if there is a science behind it.
Love at first sight is defined as a strong attraction or pull you experience towards someone (whom you barely know) and feel like you’re falling in love at that very moment. This basically opens up the possibilities of turning it into a real relationship. To understand this strange feeling let me take you all back to the top, meaning your brain. A chemical reaction takes place the moment you see the one! Dopamine and serotonin flush through your nerves and releases all the warm and happy feelings. You may feel really high on hormones (pun intended).
but along with hormones, there are other beliefs as well to explain the phenomenon.
1. Biased memory: Scientists believe that it can be a ‘positive illusion’. To simplify, if you end up with the same person, your relationship has grown stronger over the time. This makes you believe that you knew it all along.
2. Attractiveness: In order to fall in love with someone in just an instance it is obvious that physical attractiveness is a first catch.
3. It isn’t mutual: Some believe that usually not both of the partners feel the same at start, however one person’s intense feelings and passion helps to shape the partner’s memory of feeling similar with equal intensity.
So to conclude, there isn’t a strong science to explain love at first sight. I feel it basically is a strong attraction towards each other at first, leading to development of a relationship. If they end up in a successful relationship the couple believes that they knew it right from the start that “he/she is the one”
In short, Jobs must have felt he is on cloud 9 when he saw Powell (dopamine effect). The hormonal rush must have created a halo around him such that he could only see her and think about her at that moment (serotonin effect). Fear of not meeting her again would have led to the run behind her leaving everything aside (adrenaline rush). And apparently all worked out well and they ended up together (Ref from my imagination).
But coming to the real life, little part inside me still believes that there is something more than just a hormonal rush and chemical lochas happening inside us. There must be an explanation to sudden change in the background like winds blowing and violins playing (the bollywood style). There must be a truth in “time has stop” or “I don’t want this time to pass”. There is more than a science to it. Which is hard to explain, it can be just experienced because you know when it’s right, its right.
Have you experienced it? Share your story of Love at first sight it might help us know that no one has understood yet!
