I have loved one person in my life, but I have said it to two. The first time I thought I meant it, but I was young and I moved on so quickly after the breakup that I knew love couldn’t have been that easy to forget. The second time, I knew it. Over a year into the relationship, I found my ex sleeping, cuddled between a giant stuffed animal giraffe and a pink body pillow, and I suddenly realized it.
Syracuse University released a new study at the end of October that suggests it takes about a fifth of a second to fall in love. Stephanie Ortigue, the main author of the study, said the brain is mainly responsible for the feeling people get when they fall in love and 12 areas of the brain team up to release euphoric feelings. The problem, however, is discerning between love and lust.
I’ve never immediately known I was in love after five minutes of meeting someone, let alone a fifth of a second, but there are so many people who believe in love at first sight. According to Psychologytoday.com, 60 percent of Americans believe in first love, and 50 percent say they experienced it. How many times do you think these people have fallen in love at first sight before they found their spouse? Probably a lot.
I’ve always believed in “Lust at first sight.” There is no way you can look at someone and automatically know. What if you have opposite moral values? An EzineArticle.com post about lust at first sight says that lust and sexual attraction take over all common sense. I once heard that lust and love have the same effects — so how do people know the difference between them?
If I thought I was in love every time I met a cute guy then, yeah, eventually I will love one of them, but it’s not realistic to believe that you can feel that way after a fifth of a second. A lot of work goes into a healthy, long-term relationship.
I was always told that “love” is a word that should wait to be said until I really meant it. Now that I’m older, I hear the word multiple times a day. Whether it’s between couples, or overdramatizing how much you like something, the word is thrown around and doesn’t seem to carry as much meaning as I always thought it did. With TV shows and movies where couples say, “I love you” the day they meet, the real meaning of the word seems lost.
There is no exact definition of love, but it’s more fun to wait and say it when you really feel it. Say it when you know the good and the bad things about the person you are with and you still feel it. It takes a while, but waiting feels better than rushing into it.
Contact Lindsey at lindsey.kupfer@asu.edu
