Love at first sight is a phenomenon often coined on overly-dramatic romantics in love with the idea of love (@FriarLawrence @Nurse), while more realists drop the idea with mere claims of sexual attraction and illegitimacy. After all, how could we possibly fall deeply in love after a quick glimpse? How could that small glance leave us dreaming of spending the rest of our lives in the arms of a stranger? You couldn’t possibly be in love with this person – or could you? Scientists say that we are genetically wired for the possibility of love at first sight. Others disagree. There arguments include that the person supposedly falling in love doesn’t have the necessary knowledge about the recipient in order to feel this emotion, and also doesn’t have time to exercise the activities typical of romantic love. The first argument implies that love does not consist merely of sexual desire but instead of character traits that one wouldn’t be able to see upon first glance and the latter says that love is not just feelings, and instead the activities that underlies it. Both oppositions show fundamental mistakes in their claims. Firstly, being the stereotypical beings we are, we often spontaneously pair attractiveness with benevolence, where beauty is evaluated as good. So, while love at first sight can often mislead the lover since it is, in fact, based on imagination, it can still be very intense love because of our misinterpretations. The fact that this love is based on unreliable information doesn’t necessary mean it wasn’t love. Research has shown that the romantic love we see is often based on rose-colored illusions and idealizations. Love is an emotion just like any other: jealousy, anger, happiness, and can be manipulated. For example, jealousy is often constructed from misbeliefs about a companion’s activities or feelings. Even though the information was incorrect, the jealousy was still real. Additionally, the truth that this love may die over time still does not take away from the fact that there was love. Time is not an accurate measurement of love. Contrarily, the intensity of any romantic behavior is likely to lessen over time. Therefore, seeing that love at first sight involves the same beliefs and readiness of a more traditional falling-in-love, it can be a real instance of love.
To illustrate, in the renown tragedy of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare offers an exaggerated means based around the idea of young love at first sight. Ironically, this exchange started at a party for the possible betrothal of Juliet to Paris, and poor Romeo sighing over his glimpse at Rosaline. However, these significant others were soon forgotten when Romeo and Juliet laid their eyes onto each other, with Romeo’s exclamation of “For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” (1.5.52-53) Juliet goes on despite the obvious obstacles, knowing her “…only love sprung from [her] only hate!”(1.5.38) While their actions were hasty (and ultimately lethal) in the way of young lovers, there’s no room to say that love did not dwell in them. The shortness of time combined with the extremity of the matter makes a logistics head spin, however, again, obviously they felt an emotion strong enough to take their very lives at the idea of losing each other. To conclude, we should heed to Christopher Marlowe’s idea that “What we behold is censured from our eyes./Where both deliberate, the love is slight:/Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?”