Love at First Sight: Can you have your cake and eat it too?

What do we, as human beings, do when something enraptures us? An obsession

with a new television drama can leave us unaware of the hours wasting away as we sit
in front of a technological box; an addiction to alcohol can leave us as morphed
monsters unaware of the consequences of our actions; an attraction to a person can
leave us distant from reality and delusional with emotions. The common thread among
these three examples rests in the fact that some external entity has captured our
attention, manipulated our desires, and altered our perceptions of life as we have known
it. People crave escape, so they find media entertainment a suitable option; people
crave immediate relief, so they use substances to feel better. More importantly, people
crave companionship, physical intimacy, and the sensations that accompany all kinds of
romance. Thus, because we crave, we are dependent, and because we are
subsequently enraptured, we are consequently vulnerable. In essence, we lose sense
of the reality around us because of the potent sensations we experience, specifically
when in a romantic situation, and as a result misinterpret our emotions and perceptions.
Commonly, human desire, especially of the romantic kind, is potent,
instantaneous, striking, and necessarya dangerous trifecta. The heady nature of
human attractions enrapturing tendency accompanies our biological, sexual
functionality:
Humans and other mammals have evolved three primary emotion systems for
mating, reproduction, and parenting: the sex drive, or lust, characterized by the
craving for sexual gratification; attraction, characterized by increased energy and
focus attention on one or more potential mates, accompanied in humans by
exhilaration, intrusive thinking, and craving for emotion union; and attachment,
characterized by close social contact with a discrete constellation of brain
circuits, and each evolved to direct a specific aspect of mating and reproduction.
The psychophysiological properties of romantic attraction suggest that this
emotion system is associated with increased levels of dopamine and
norepinephrine and decreased levels of serotonin in the brain; a study using
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is in progress to investigate the
neural architecture of this primary emotion system. During the course of hominid
evolution these three emotion systems became increasingly independent of one
another, contributing to modern patterns of marriage, adultery, and divorce as
well as to the worldwide incidence of stalking, homicide, suicide, and clinical
depression associated with rejection of love.
Thus, the abstractness of love has become a topic of controversy and importance
because of its prominence in individual lives as an major societal object of desire.
(Dissertation) In Jankowiak and Fischers (1998) meta-analysis of world-wide
anthropological studies which included mentions of romantic love, they found at
least one incident of passionate love was documented in 147 out of 166 cultures
or more than 88.5%.
This prevalence translates into the entertainment industrys global discussion, analysis,
and interpretation of the nature of lamour, amorethe ever enticing notion of love
through books, news, and film media. In Westernized societies, the most significant
non-familial influence [regarding love] comes from the entertainment (dissertation). By
association, we as people and humans act as a playground where the industry can
determine the circumstances of love and, more especially, to uncover the truth behind
the notorious idealized versions of love and specifically idea of love at first sight:
Throughout our lives, images of love surround us in the media. Songs, movies,
and television all show us how to find a love, how to keep a love, how to get over
a lost love, or how to get a new love. These images are included in childrens
cartoons...and are embedded in commercials. (Dissertation)
Commercials are meant to advertize a purchasable product; the media in our capitalist
nation wants us to buy their version of love. Therefore, in actuality, love requires an
extended amount of time to develop, is commonly confused with lust, and is also
conceptually exploited by capitalistic media industries in order to make a monetary
profit; thus, love at first typically does not exist because love is not superficial.
Firstly, love is an emotion and commitment that takes time to develop and
therefore can be neither instantaneous nor shallow:
Modern romantic love returns to Aristotles version of the special love two people
find in each others virtuesone soul and two bodies, as he poetically puts it. It is
deemed to be of a higher status, ethically, aesthetically, and even metaphysically
than the love that behaviorists or physicalists describe. (IEP, Nature of Love,
para. 2)
Love has a deeper and more psychologically complex nature than basic human
attraction. Yes, biologically, sexual attraction is complex due to the intricacy of the
human body and its chemistry, but the emotion of love in our modern world has less
defined boundaries since it is abstract rather than concrete:
The sex drive, otherwise known as lust, the libido, or the urge for sexual
consummation, is a multidimensional phenomenon that is triggered by myriad
ecological, social, psychological, and physiological stimuli. But scientists have
long regarded the sex drive as a distinct emotion system that is innate, common
to all birds and mammals, and associated with specific hormones and primary
neural structures in the avian and mammalian brain (Beach, 1976; see
Komisaruk, Siegel, Cheng & Feder, 1986). Moreover, they agree that the sex
drive is predominantly associated with the androgens in both men and women
(Sherwin, 1994).
Because a person cannot physically wear or visually represent his or her psyche and
personality, ones perception of anothers identity demands time and multiple
interactions in order to develop. Romantic love doesn't have any facial expression,
it's very difficult to control and it's one of the most powerful neural systems that has
evolved (What exactly is love? para. 3). It is a complex, which by definition means
located far inside something, having parts that connect or go together in complicated
ways, multifaceted emotion comprised of three major factors: lust, romance, and
attachment (Merriam Webster; What exactly is love? para. 1). The instantaneous
component of love is lust, the sexual attraction to another human being:
A host of different ecological, cultural, and psychological stimuli trigger the sex
drive. But regardless of how this feeling is triggered, to whom it is directed, or
how it is expressed, the libido is associated with a specific constellation of
correlates in the brainan emotion circuit that evolved to initiate the mating
process. Attraction, I propose, is a different emotion system designed for a
different but related function.
However, love cannot exist without the existence of all its factors. Romance and
attachment, the other two emotional facets of love, are not dictated by the systematic
catalysts of biology and human physiologythey need time. Thus, the sensation one
encounters at first sight is a part of loves potentiality, but is not the sole deciding aspect
of its aggregate existence.
Lust is confused with love because love is comprised of lust. When two people
meet and chemistry is felt between them, feelings of both lust and inner longing for
companionship materializesexual attraction as well as emotional magnetism (Stewart,
para. 4). Although both sensations frame loves identity and definition, their differences
are typically indistinguishable for there is no possible means of writing a formula to
define loves boundaries and requirements. Romantic situations then become confusing
because their accompanying emotions are neither tangible nor visible and are therefore
difficult to label and understand. Is it a persons appearance that makes you want to be
around them all the time or is it their personality? Is it both? Time is needed to process
these thoughts and a persons reactions because love arrives when each partners level
of care and dedication is unconditional. Platos Symposiumprovides us with an
enormously influential and attractive notion that love is characterized by a series of
elevations, in which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual
conception of love (Philosophy of Love, para. 2). In essence, we fall in love with the
idea of love and with the desirable sensations produced by our hormones.
Even more enticing is the idealized version of love that surrounds us today.
When in love or loving someone else we are vulnerable because an attachment has
been made to something that is essentially out of our control, an external party. The
media industry, driven by capitalist motives, has exploited this personal yearning for
companionship through its creation of unrealistic, perfectionistic, and idealistic forms of
artmovies, books, even Tumblr. The ideas of happily ever after that are planted into
our heads by these movies are completely false -- however, they come across as
believable because we want to believe that they are real (Love At First Sight, para. 3).
Due to loves complex nature and conceptual fogginess, one typically would revel in a
simpler way of finding it; thus, we believe in the acting on the movie screen and the
romantic plot of a novel that took an author multiple drafts and much advice to create.
The National Communication Association analyzed the romantic themes featured in
over 50 of the highest-grossing romantic comedies from the past ten years and
addressed the four parts of the romantic ideal: love conquers all, idealization of your
partner, soul mates, and love at first sight (Its Not What, para. 2). It was found that
nearly all (98%) of the movies contained at least one romantic ideal expression. On
average there were roughly 7 idealistic expressions per film - or 1 ideal every 14
minutes exposing viewers to a steady dose of these ideals in a single film (Its Not
What, para. 3). Entertaining impressionable audiences typically leads to false
perceptions of reality. Ultimately, love at first sight is an idealized and magical concept
whose malleability has led to the erroneous belief in its existence.
Although it has an immediate physical effect, love is not an instantaneous
experience or emotion. We do feel excitement and lust when we meet or see someone
attractive, but at first sight all those sensations are just simply hormones and infatuation.
There is potential for love because someone may meet a person who has his or her
ideal character traits and with whom they think they would fit, but that initial appeal to
someones appearance and physicality can only start the knee-weakening process of
romance, not carry it out. From a purely technical standpoint, if one falls in love with
another person only at first sight, there can be nothing more than superficiality driving
that love. One cannot glean anothers true character or personality from just a glance
(Love At First Sight, para. 3). The essence of love comes from accepting that person in
entirety and committing to being a part of his or her life. Yes, love exists, but love at first
sightimmediate lovedoes not.
Essentially, because love and lust are so appealing and make us feel good and
tingly, to say the least, we easily confuse attraction with an emotion that demands time
to test the relationships strength through daily tribulations of life. Since lovelust,
romance, attachmentbecomes a need to a certain extent, we as living breathing
beings become vulnerable. The media has capitalized on this weakness, and has
consequently manipulated our emotions and perceptions of love. In order to change the
unrealistic notion that love at first sight exists, we need to be aware. Emotional
awareness and understanding as well as belief in the notion that perfection does not
exist will dramatically revise this erroneous concept of instantaneous love. Facing the
truth that love at first sight is not real but that love is clears up the pain many people feel
when pursuing something they will never find. Relinquishing the superficiality of love at
first sight opens up room to embrace opportunity for actual love.