Love at First Sight, anyone?
We are closing in on Valentine’s Day, so this tends to bring out a lot of grandiose Hallmark gestures and romantic movies. A wildly popular theme is love at first sight, which is easy to depict in a movie….but can it happen in real life?
Instant infatuation happens (been there, done that!) I also know of couples who claimed to have realized they met “The One,” within a few hours of meeting. Some of those marriages are still going strong ten and twenty years down the road, but my hunch is they are the exception rather than the rule.
Fellow romance novelist Jody Hedlund recently wrote a great blog about the perils of believing in love at first sight. Her blog points to a handful of insightful problems stemming from believing in love at first sight. Here’s a summary:
- We don’t have time to test character
- We get caught up in the rush of feelings
- We neglect to build a solid foundation of friendship
- We indulge in a false sense of euphoria
Wow….what a downer for two romance novelist to give a hearty Thumbs-down on love at first sight so close to Valentine’s Day! I’m actually not averse for single people to indulge these feelings….but what’s the rush? Wait a year to go sign the paperwork that makes it legal.
My latest novel, Beyond All Dreams, features a hero who believes he has fallen in love at first sight with the heroine. The ever-practical Anna knows loves at first sight is riddled with problems, and fortunately does not allow herself to get swept up into the whirlwind. I had a ball writing about the exhilaration and the perils of falling in love at first sight…. fun to contemplate, dangerous to indulge!
Photo courtesy of Nathan Rupert