The French have an absolutely marvellous word for love at first sight, calling it a “coup de foudre”, which translates out to being struck by a bolt of lightning!
To me that sorts of sums it up as the ultimate meaning. this mysterious love, at first sight, is really a feeling of being struck with instantaneous and abrupt awareness of the intensity of attraction for that other person in front of you.
It is said that it takes between 90 seconds to approximately 4 minutes for a human to develop this amazing feeling of love at first sight that only rarely strikes.
I am sure if I were to ask you right now to remember the very first time you laid eyes on someone who you felt was in the love at first sight category, you could probably describe that moment in much detail.
The reason you could do this, is because that moment is literally traced in your brain neurons, and can be easily recalled. That in itself is pretty amazing!
Even more mysterious is the phenomena of people having premonitions or dreams before encountering the beloved in person.
Letters also were able to have the power to transmit this electric charge long before one met. In our virtual age, the same phenomena can occur with emails.
True, it cannot be described as an attraction due to sight, but due to the first contact.
The science of love at first sight has offered up several explanations of what really goes on physiologically when we first meet our beloved.
There is a surge of adrenalin that shoots through us, giving rise to our blood pressure and we start to blush and even sweat. Our mouth becomes dry and we feel powerfully focused.
Our pupils dilate perhaps to better allow for gazing into each other eyes. This adrenalin rush makes us feel tingly all over and our insides quiver. Our hands may tremble.
Phenylalanine, an amino acid, and precursor to dopamine is released. It is associated with sexual excitement and is also found in chocolate.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that we call the “feel good” transmitter. It is also released in tremendous amounts when an addict uses cocaine, causing the intense sought after euphoria, which can easily reinforce addictive behaviour.
Even more mysterious is what causes one human being to have a strong and immediate sexual attraction in the first place.
Why do we feel so suddenly overwhelmed with feelings for someone we just met for the first time? It is as if we are pulled towards that person.
Just what is this love at first sight chemistry? Is it the smell? Is is the facial symmetry? Is it the body contours? Could it even be clothing?
I think it comes down to a very individual formula of what turns us on sexually, and to some extent, I feel we have a preconceived idea that we carry around in our brain.
On appearance, we are said to be more attracted to people with very symmetrical faces. In so far as smells we are noted to be influenced by pheromones in human sweat.
Women find fresh male sweat very attractive, but not sweat that has been oxidised or is “old”. Men in experiments have preferred sweat from women during ovulation.
We are also attracted to people who have a different immune system makeup from ourselves, which would promote increased survival of offspring.
Human leukocyte antigen or HLA influences our body smell and this constitutes the immune system complex that a potential mate might be attracted to.
I think all of us have some sort of archetypes in our unconsciousness that remains a blueprint of the type and physical nature of the people we are attracted too.
I often hear that someone is only attracted to redheads, or blonds, or tall muscular types, and the list goes on. Where that archetype comes from is mysterious.
Jung would say that these archetypes of male and female are from our collective unconscious and constitute an idealised mate for us. There is some who believe we are attracted to facial features that we saw in our parents as infants.
Besides the above, we often find ourselves being attracted to persons resembling a former lover and uncannily if they have the same name. I had a patient who was married twice to men who had the same name and her third love interest with the same name one became a long-term relationship.
There is a more esoteric theory, and in my own humble opinion, has much validity, especially for those of us who believe in the pre-existence of souls or reincarnation.
Many who adhere to this train of thought believe that love, at first sight, constitutes being drawn to the very souls that we have known and probably loved before in another lifetime.
If this is the case, than meeting a former beloved would be only a reunion in this life, and the strong attraction we feel would be the awareness or recognition of them and whatever loved we shared.
Since each one of us has an etheric body or energy field that surrounds us, I suspect our soul easily becomes aware of the familiarity of their field and we feel pulled to reconnect with them.
Gazing into the pupils is peering into the soul of the other person, which serves to validate that they are indeed our lost beloved.
If indeed there is the complex interchange of our unconscious, electric field and olfactory senses which filters instantaneously all the above-mentioned factors, then chemistry is really beyond our control.
We might choose to wear the most seductive clothing and scent our bodies with the most expensive perfumes/cologne, but in the end, it is rarely us or our conscious reason that prevails in the choosing.
We are all captives in the end of this mysterious conundrum of love at first sight. That being the case there is no such thing as rejection.
If we do not catch the eye of someone, then they never were in the scheme to be with us in the first place.