![]() For starters, your prefrontal cortex is a region of your brain that’s responsible for executive functions like problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making. “When you personally experience the intensity of these emotions, it forever gives you a deeper appreciation for passion and connection.” What causes love at first sight?Ĭontrary to fairy tales, love has very little to do with your heart and everything to do with your brain and its various processes. Falling in love at first sight at least once can be life-changing,” says Dr. “If you experience love at first sight, it’s OK to enjoy it. “They’re rewriting the story to fit that description or that self-fulfilling prophecy of believing that’s how you fall in love.”Īnd like with any self-fulfilling prophecy, if you believe that’s how you’re supposed to fall in love and you take actions to validate that belief, in hindsight, it becomes a perpetual cycle that indeed fits that theatrical romantic narrative you’ve been longing for. “When people tell the story of how they met and say it was love at first sight, sometimes, they have selective memory bias,” notes Dr. Another reason may be because of selective memory bias and a couple’s innate desire to enhance the memory of their relationship. So, why do we so often hear successful couples say it was love at first sight when they first met and chalk the rest up to history? Well, for starters, it may be because of a psychological behavior called the halo effect, where we tend to attribute more positive characteristics to people we think are attractive. At the heart of it, love may not be the right term, but it is infatuation.” “Distinguishing love at first sight from actual love takes some reflection and time to think and piece apart if it’s going to be a lasting relationship or a fleeting attraction. “Love at first sight is the passion part of that triangle, but to have real, romantic love, you need to have all three of those components,” explains Dr. Sternberg’s theory proposes all relationships are fundamentally based on varying amounts of three key components: intimacy, passion and commitment. Albers points to Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love as a good method to measure the type of love you’re experiencing. Albers says that while love at first sight is a real phenomenon, it may not actually be what we know as love in the long term.ĭr. Love can come at you fast, but is love at first sight really a sign that someone may be the soulmate you’ve been looking for? Dr. “It’s very easy to get caught up in the intensity of that experience,” says Dr. Many times, people refer to love at first sight as if it were like fireworks or sparks flying. And if you engage that person in conversation, your sense of attraction to them tends to increase exponentially. When you experience love at first sight, it happens within seconds, often unexpectedly, at just the mere glimpse of the person you’re attracted to. The subject of many songs, TV shows, movies and popular literature, love at first sight is a moment characterized by intense longing and extreme attraction to another person with little to no reasoning behind it. Love at first sight describes the moment in which you feel an instant connection with someone. Psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD, explains exactly what’s happening with your body when you experience love at first sight and some of the ways those first, fleeting moments can blossom into something real given the right amount of care. In some cases, it can be an exciting fresh start to a new romantic endeavor, but when it doesn’t work out the way we’d hoped, it can leave us feeling a bit lost. Whether you strike up a conversation with this person or you pass by each other like two long lost ships in the night, moments like this call back to that time-honored tradition of love at first sight that you see in movies and read about in fairy tales.īut unlike those multimedia moments that get our hearts percolating, love at first sight doesn’t always lead to a real, long-lasting relationship. ![]() We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center.
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