Greeted with a smile, a certain look or even with a smell, it happens to you without you even expecting it, it turns your life upside down and it grabs you right there. Ah yes! This is love at first sight!
Love takes a hold of you and gives you shivers. Fairy tales and romantic comedies have made love at first sight an idyllic phenomenon, one where true love happens at first sight. But is this really the case? How is it recognizable? How long does love at first sight last? Between hunches, predictions and scientific explanations, here is what happens when you experience love at first sight.
Love at first sight: a cocktail of happy molecules!
Love at first sight is easy to understand: it's when two people have looked at each other all their lives that it's a miracle. Sam Levenson.
Love at first sight, could it be comparable to a miracle? It must be said that it takes us so off guard, it doesn't always strike us in the same place and it can happen to anyone at any age. In an elevator, at the corner café, in the garage, at a party or in the street. A smile, getting a certain look, your heart rate quickens, your body temperature rises to a crescendo and you sweat excessively. Suddenly you are overcome with euphoria and an inordinate state of bliss encompasses your mind. Finally, you almost enter a state of trance. Your body reacts and at this moment releases a cocktail of molecules: oxytocin, dopamine and endorphin, also called "the love hormones".
The 4 symptoms of love at first sight
It is not always easy to distinguish love at first sight from physical attraction, to find out the difference, here is a simple list of the 4 signs to recognize real love at first sight:
Physiological signs
From the first moment of your meeting, you have butterflies in your stomach, heart palpitations, hot flashes. Looking at yourself in the mirror, your eyes sparkle and your cheeks are red. You feel dizzy as soon as you are in a state of physical attraction. You are a bit like the wolf in the Tex Avery cartoons. During your first kiss, you feel an electric shock.
You’re swimming in happiness
You have a strange feeling that you have never known before. There is an intense connection between you. In the office you are often in a haze of daydreaming. That big smile that never leaves you. You are so happy that you want time to freeze when you are with your loved one, because your love is taking off at full speed, unlike your old love story!
It turns to obsession
You sigh when you recall the memory of your first meeting or when you are separated from him or her, just like in the movies. Twenty-four hours a day, all your thoughts are focused on him/her. You think about her/ him all the time, you even count the minutes until your next meeting.
A feeling of déjà vu
This person that you don't know well, suddenly seems familiar to you. As in the film Les Misérables with Amanda Seyfried in the role of Cosette who meets Eddie Redmayne in Marius. Everything is going at full speed, a bond is quickly created between you two. As if your story had already been written in advance.
Love at first sight does not last very long for a couple. The strong effects of love at first sight, which usually lasts 18 months, usually disappear althogether after 4 years. Desire fades and boredom sets in. Fortunately, it is possible to revive your love if you feel like you may be losing it, simply by changing your routine. And for those of you who have never experienced love at first sight, well, you never know what will happen tomorrow!
