Holding out for love at first sight is ambitious when you're young and a sign of arrested development when you're middle aged


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nightling is offline nightling Post #21  November 1,2009, 3:39pm
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all I'll leave are smoke rings in the dark.

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I usually know within a meeting or two if there is any chemistry there. The "lust" at first sight thing.

I have found that people get more or less attractive to me as I get to know them better, based on their personality. That attraction seems to be seperate from "chemistry."

At least for me.
 
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trixie1868 is offline trixie1868 Post #22  November 2,2009, 5:11am

what the bejeezus is going on round here?!

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I agree with Lizzie, Melman and Nightling.

If I try to use eH in a way that most closely corresponds with meeting people in real life it's going to be better for me. So we meet, we decide if there's any connection in our personalitites, we ponder a little while to consider whether getting naked is something we'd want to do. If it is we proceed. If it isn't we shake hands and move on nicely.

I believe that Lust (or love but since eH is a relationship site you can shoot me for my aspirations ) at first sight is pretty rare.

The odds on meeting someone that you immediately want to ravish and find that you also like them a lot as a person too (which bundled up is love) are not good.

I'd be prepared to meet a few times to see if it takes. Is all.
 
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j0hn8andy is offline j0hn8andy Post #23  November 2,2009, 5:41am
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.....yes, she.....Sweeps past softly, without a sigh.....

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I had Love at First Sight once in my life, with my second husband whom I met when I was 42. I just knew we were destined to be together.

I know people don't believe in it, if it hasn't happened for them. I think of it like Faith. You either believe or you don't. Doesn't make it any less real.....

I wouldn't hold out for Love at First Sight. I would hold out for Being in Love.

For me, Loving is not enough. I need to Be in Love.

j8a
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #24  November 2,2009, 5:52am
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I'm crippled by the fear That I've fallen too far to love

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Words from a noted marriage and relationship (psychologist) therapist on "love at first sight": "BULLCRUMBLE!"
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #25  November 2,2009, 5:55am
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I'm crippled by the fear That I've fallen too far to love

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littlebluemonkeymind wrote :
I think there's no such thing as love at first sight. There's lust at first sight. There's attraction at first sight. There's chemistry at first sight.

Love, for me at least, involves knowledge and you cannot know someone instantaneously. It involves respect and you cannot know that someone is worthy of respect or willing/able to respect you at first sight. It involves responsibility, which is an attribute that can only be ascertained over time.

Anyone who's middle-aged and holding out for love at first sight is not only suffering from arrested development, they are clearly demonstrating beliefs and values so different from mine that I suspect it would make us instantly incompatible.
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j0hn8andy is offline j0hn8andy Post #26  November 2,2009, 8:48am
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Gr8Guyn2008 wrote :
Words from a noted marriage and relationship (psychologist) therapist on "love at first sight": "BULLCRUMBLE!"
I confess I haven't read the number of books about Love and Relationships that some people place so much stock in. In fact, I haven't read any!

I'm even forced to confess to knowing what little I do know about Love from experiencing it first hand, up close and personal.

I will say, and I'm sure there are many that will agree, books or not.....There's nothing that feels better in this world, than when you're Walking on Air, with your Head in the Clouds, and your Heart is Singing.

j8a
Last edited by j0hn8andy; November 2,2009 at 9:03am.
 
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Bijou13 is offline Bijou13 Post #27  December 5,2010, 9:38am
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As one post stated, love at first does not exist, while lust at first definitely does. There is a big distinction in finding someone attractive and being attracted, whether its physically or personality.

I find many different men attractive physically, there are very few that I am actually attracted to. Once the initial mutual attraction is met and as I get to know him better, I figure out rather quickly if I'm attracted to the whole package: physical, intellect, personality, etc.

Sometimes, people get lucky and that person across the room that caught their eye could be the ideal perfect partner. But those stories are few and far between.
 
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Cape_Codder is offline Cape_Codder Post #28  December 5,2010, 11:25am

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LizziePooh wrote :
I get tired of this...I see it a lot on the boards...

I know it takes me time to feel attracted to a guy...I also know it takes a few seconds for a man to be attracted to me (it remains to be seen if the attraction withstands the getting to know you part).

What gets me about this place - women call men shallow because they don't give them a chance and men really do believe that women feel attraction the same way they do.

(And I am sure it irritates people to no end that I generalize about this - but heck. it is right so just accept it and move on!)
We can debate the multitude of qualities and characteristics that are essential to developing a long term relationship. In short, men and women are hard wired differently.

Men are subject to lust at first sight while women fall into a distorted infatuation of what they want to perceive in terms of qualities.

In the end, one the lust and infatuation subside we can only hope enough commonalities and conviction to succeed exist between the two.

In short, hope that you can tolerate the other person's habits and shortcomings and still have enough in common to actually enjoy one another.
 
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FaintestInkling is offline FaintestInkling Post #29  December 5,2010, 11:52am
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LizziePooh wrote :
I get tired of this...I see it a lot on the boards...

I know it takes me time to feel attracted to a guy...I also know it takes a few seconds for a man to be attracted to me (it remains to be seen if the attraction withstands the getting to know you part).

What gets me about this place - women call men shallow because they don't give them a chance and men really do believe that women feel attraction the same way they do.

(And I am sure it irritates people to no end that I generalize about this - but heck. it is right so just accept it and move on!)
Although a generalization, this seems to be true---as a generalization.

And arguably one of the biggest gender differences in dating ....

As a man, I try to accept it, but still find it frustrating and perplexing. Both with women I have dated and with women I am friends with, who talk about guys they have dated and/or are dating, I just want to grab them by the shoulders sometimes and shout, "How can you not tell whether you're attracted to a guy or not!?!" Haha.

It is really tough for guys to understand this (I think) mostly female phenomenon of: "I think he is really attractive, but I'm not attracted to him" or "I don't find him attractive, but maybe I will."

For me, at least, if I think a woman is attractive, then I'm attracted to her. If I say that she's not attractive, then by that I mean that I'm not attracted to her.

I don't want to be in a relationship with every woman I find attractive, because I have the sense to know if our personalities don't mesh well enough, the net negative (having to deal with a person I don't like to be around) would outweight the net positive (potentially getting to have sex with someone very attractive).

To further complicate this whole matter, there are a number of women on the boards who say: "I can tell within the first 1 to 3 dates whether I will ever want to have sex with a man or not."

As with a few other topics on the boards, I am sure that the women who are saying this are telling the truth, but they don't seem to be representative of the women I know IRL. Most women I know IRL say "attraction only develops over time for them" or, in some cases, "men they are attracted to right away were generally bad for them and the spark faded fast."

There was another thread recently about chemistry, in which a number of posters (I think all women) summarized chemistry as:

no chemistry = could never imagine having sex with him
chemistry = would love to have sex with him

As straighforward as this is, I still find this confusing, too, because it's such a sharp dichotomy.

I think most men have a lot of gray area between "would absolutely love the idea of sex with a particular woman" and "would never imagine having sex with a particular woman if she was the last woman on earth."

Very perplexing.

For those who say that chemistry develops over time---what exactly happens?

Do you just get to know a guy, and then "bam!" one day it strikes you---like, "I just realized, he's really attractive after all, and I'd like to have sex with him"?

Or is it like, "I don't want to touch him" then one day, "I'd like to hold hands with him," then one day, "I'd like to kiss," then one day, "I'd like to make-out," then one day, "I'd like to have sex?"

???

(Sorry if this diverges from the "love at first" sight topic. FWIW, I find expecting love at first sight to be absurd at any age.)
Last edited by FaintestInkling; December 5,2010 at 12:11pm.
 
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lacedwithhope is offline lacedwithhope Post #30  December 5,2010, 1:32pm
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FaintestInkling wrote :
For those who say that chemistry develops over time---what exactly happens?

Do you just get to know a guy, and then "bam!" one day it strikes you---like, "I just realized, he's really attractive after all, and I'd like to have sex with him"?

Or is it like, "I don't want to touch him" then one day, "I'd like to hold hands with him," then one day, "I'd like to kiss," then one day, "I'd like to make-out," then one day, "I'd like to have sex?"

???
No, at least for me a delayed attraction/chemistry can occur when you start to become more comfortable around one other and you realize perhaps, "wow, he has this wicked sense of humor that he holds back until he knows someone," or maybe, "man, he has this really gentle side to him that I never realized." I find qualities like that very sexy. I've even thought, he's "okay-looking but when he opened up about his past and I hugged him, one thing led to another, and now we're smitten!"

All of these things are possibilities over time, as they've happened to me, anyway. I think that problem lies in how many "dates" to go on before you decide that a delayed chemistry thing is unlikely. Hope that helps.
 
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