Myths about love 1/5 - The truth behind love at first sight with real stories & the science underneath
Love at first sight is not a love that is blind
Table of contents
The Question: What is the experience of people who experienced love at first sight ?
Daily scene:
— On the surface: The story's of Alex love at first sight
— Beneath the surface: The story's of Luisa's response
The Why:
— Our logic: Love at first sight is a bug in our system
— Another logic: Love at first sight is a system of recognition
The Tool: Be open to the experience
The Question
There is no subject that interests human beings more than love, especially intimate love.
Throughout human history, it has been a central theme in all forms of art: paintings, sculptures, poems, books, songs, and movies. Everything has been said about it, so much so that all we seem to have at our disposal are one thing and its opposite.
Nowadays, a vast majority of us wish we could live a lasting, passionate love story, but many of us have given up on the idea, believing it does not exist. How did we come up with this belief and all the other famous beliefs we hold about love? And which of these beliefs seem to be true, and which seem to be purely mythical and better off abandoned? This is what we are going to discuss this month by following the course of a typical relationship, from the meet-up to the break-up.
We are going to begin this discussion with a topic that is rarely addressed, as if it were taboo: love at first sight. When we mention it, people often offer quick, rigid responses such as, "Either it's BS, or it's real." Some even argue that it is a modern invention, a romanticization of the "romantic meet-up," when individuals were given the option to choose their partners—something that had not been the case for most of human history. Authors like Shakespeare, with his play Romeo and Juliet, and Molière, with The Misanthrope, are sometimes said to have popularized this concept. On the other hand, in the last century, it has often been treated with irony and skepticism. Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby and Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway frequently depict love at first sight as an illusion, a fleeting emotion. Rather than theorizing about the subject, what if we asked those who have experienced it? What did they feel? What did they do with this "love," and where are they now?
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The Daily scene
On the surface