Tonye Nria-Dappa (August 1, 2022)

When people think about having a romantic relationship, they want to have the movie type of romance; boy sets his eye on a girl for the first time, they fall in love immediately and live happily ever after. Truly this movie-type romance is magical and a lot of people actually do believe it and tries to fashion every of their relationship in that manner. In the movies you see the couple coming through for each other in everything. Its truly beautiful to behold. But such people forget one thing, that that was only somebody’s creation or better still that was how romance was actually created to be.

Oftentimes, young persons have their heads in the clouds believing they were in love and that their partner was also in love with them, but too easily change their thoughts when faced with a little challenge.

I have heard people say, “it is better for a woman to be with a man who loves her more than she loves him”.

A school of thought disagrees with that noting saying that love is an experience a person feels for another person. It does not say that the man must love more for the relationship to work out.

Love goes deeper than face value and what they think of each other. It is what they are feeling that really do matter, because looks can change just by changing the angle of vision, but feelings do not easily go away especially when the heart is involved.

Love is a condition of “absolute value”, according to Bertrand Russell, not an “in” out” thing. So we ask, is love at first sight possible or real?

A lot of people do not feel comfortable with the phrase “Love at first sight”, because for you to fall in love with someone you have to know them and care for them.

While some do not believe in “love at first sight” they say it is possible, though, it might come true for everyone, there are lucky ones whom it works for.

We took an excerpt of what a cross section of Port Harcourt residents say about “love at first sight”.

“Love at first sight”, I don’t think so”, says Jenny, an undergraduate. She argues that you cannot love someone you do not know, whom you do not know his temperament and disposition to people around him.

“I am a romantic, I love watching romantic movies but I never fantasize about movie-type love responds Boma Okiya, also an undergraduate.

Another respondent, Blessing Bassey, says love at first sight is possible, but only after you have taken a fourth look to save yourself heartaches and bad dates. “I should say, its more like lust at first sight”, she adds

“The couple who got divorced yesterday after only three years of marriage could swear they fell in love at first sight. They say ‘love Conyners all’, if this were true and they feel in love at first sight, whey then the divorce?” Alero Aigbe demanded, adding that at 35% of marriages in Nigeria end in divorce or separation, while 85%, are just enduring their marriages.

Heaving a sigh, Peletiri John, says he does not know if its true that he has heard about many times and it never happened to him. He changes his mind and says categorically, “there is nothing like “love at first sight”, rather it is, “attraction at first sight. He reasoned that after looking at the person a second time that is really looking, you would discover that everything “you felt the first has disappeared”.

He added that love in any relationship, whether romantic, familial, platonic or religion, is built, its not something that happens the very first time.

Furthermore, he said, “Love is everything, it is of God and it cannot change”, and explained that as long as circumstances can change that first feeling, it is no more love.

Mrs Data simply says “it is foolishness, there is nothing like “love at first sight”. She stated that you have whom you are getting involved with before you can begin to develop love for the person. She warned that many “wolves come in sheep’s clothing’, so one has to be careful” “I tell my daughter to always look before she leaps”, she stressed.

The issue of love needs to handled carefully especially “love at first sight”, Femi Johnson advises.

He observed that there is only a ??? line between love and infatuation, saying, “there is infatuation and there is true love and both of them come at the same time”.

For Mrs Tamuno Tami, it is very real and possible “I fell in love with my husband the first time I saw him and we’ve been married for 12 years”. She said all that is required for you to stay in love is focus on the good and live with the not so good. Besides, she adds, “love is not something you tune on or off”, explaining that those who fall out after falling in, fall for all the wrong reasons in the first place.

Esther Jacob also believes in ‘love at first sight’. She said never believed in it until she took shelter from down pour under a guys umbrella.

“The way he shielded me and allowed himself to get soaked made me know he had potential for great love”. That was four years ago and they have three children now as husband and wife.

Love is a someworth strange and complex experience, the question whether it can be felt at first sight, can only be answered that those who experience it and depending on what you believe.

Remember, belief is a very powerful tool that is needed when dealing with love. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”, Romans 5:5 (WKJV). That it has not or did not happen to you does not mean it can never happen.

The word love is one of the most misused words we have. A lot of people claim to be in love when in actual fact they are only infatuated or lustful towards that person.