Instant Love

Instant Love: More Then Just a Date- Myth or Reality

From all reports, instant love is just one of those things that happens to a couple. Look across a crowded room and there is the person of your dreams. No if-ands-or-buts that is the person for you. Others, however, feel that the instant love found by others is purely infatuation. Never mind that 75 percent of all marriages formed from a perception of instant love in the United States are still solid (50 percent divorce rate for developed love.) How to decide if instant love is a viable theory is likely an impossibility but many are trying to pin it down. If you are looking, however, it may happen a lot quicker then you think.

Three, five or 10 second love

A collaborative college study in the United States has found that there is a quick choice being made by people regarding their future relationships. One might think that two people, meeting for the first time, need at least a few minutes to figure out if they have any future together, let alone instantly. But it appears this is not the case. In most of the 169 couples involved in this study a decision about what type of relationship they would have took only between 3-10 seconds (there was no difference in the results between 3 seconds and 10 seconds.)

Friend, foe or lover

Within this time period the couples quickly assessed what kind of relationship they might like to see develop with their opposite. Those that decided on a positive relationship, determined from a questionnaire, were more likely to sit closer to that person, communicate well and more often with that person and feel closer to that person after 9 weeks then those that felt less positive about their chosen person. What this means is open for speculation but it does appear to show that people are making snap decisions about people they are meeting for the first time.

It’s what’s inside counts

Developing love proponents indicate that love is about getting to know the other person over time. What is inside the person is what counts in a long term relationship and time is the only way to figure this out. A consideration that shows that physical appearance attraction and instant love fails is found in those marriages where appearance dictated the marriage. These marriages failed. Love needs to be developed not found instantly. People advocating instant love fall right into step in this case indicating that instant love is a love developed. It just means that the couples involved are starting a few steps further down the path.

It will take work

However one cares to look at the issue one thing is for sure. Developing a close relationship takes time and effort whether you believe in instant love or not. How much time and how much effort is simply a matter of how much the couple puts into the relationship. Whether the relationship is instant or developed isn’t really the point. The point is that a couple has found one another and is trying to have their perception of love fulfill their lives. Neither is an easy path but the same reward is trying to be found.