Love at First Sight - A True Story in Intermediate English

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[00:00:02.080] - Oliver (Host)

This is a love story. Or is it? It's certainly something very personal to me. Almost 10 years ago, I matched with someone on the dating app, Tinder. I was on the first day of a five-week trip around Spain. I had landed in Valencia, but instead of being happy and excited to begin my holiday, truth be told, to be honest, I was totally miserable. I will tell you why later on in this episode. But the important bit is, I was lonely, I was depressed, and perhaps least importantly, I was bored. So I arranged an online date. I thought, worst case scenario, I could meet a local, practise my Spanish, and maybe even have a walk around the city together. So early that afternoon, I waited outside the bar that my date had suggested, leaning up against a wall, still feeling pretty fed up, that is, in quite a bad mood. I looked up and my eyes locked with those of my future partner, of the person I would, in fact, go on to marry. Being totally honest with you, listener, I was transfixed by those eyes. The most beautiful, kindest, warmest brown eyes that I had ever seen in my life.

[00:01:33.440] - Oliver (Host)

Stumbling over my opening words, I was left borderline speechless, struck dumb, we can say in English. But it wasn't just the first impression. The date went from good to better and better to best. In fact, it was so good that we arranged another date for later that same day, and then the following Monday, two days later. It was actually so great, the date, that acting completely out of character, I did something I would never normally do. I cancelled all my travel plans and stayed in Valencia for the full five weeks. Why would I do that? Was it fate? Was it destiny? Some people might say I had gone crazy. Others might say it was because I had fallen in love. And it's an interesting proposition, an interesting idea. If a relationship feels right from the first moment, and it does turn out to be exactly what you'd hoped for when you met this person, that is, it wasn't too good to be true, does that mean it was love at first sight? And if we don't believe in love at first sight, what's the truth? Well, I'll tell you whether I think my experience was true love at first sight at the end of the episode. But first, what does that phrase even mean?

[00:03:07.780] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome to English and Beyond, the intermediate-level English learning podcast with unusual topics. Or ordinary topics with an unusual perspective. I'm Oliver, and today we're talking about Love at First Sight, what it really means, why we're so attracted to the idea, and whether it even exists. We have, as always, the transcript and flashcards available online at morethanalanguage.com. Those are totally free. And to help you take the next step in your English learning, I've also added new for 2026 vocab games to help you, student, consolidate your new words and phrases from this episode. And lastly, I received this week an email request from a listener that I also publish a vocab list, so that will be available as well. And all of that is free on the website. And speaking of the people listening and learning with me, I wanted to thank Dominika for her comment on one of the episodes from last year. She wrote, You're doing a great job. You share valuable things. It's simply good. And I hope that good comes back to you. Thank you very much, Dominika. I really appreciate you writing to me. Listener, if you want to practise your English, send me a comment or an email. I'd love to read it out to thank you personally.

[00:04:34.740] - Oliver (Host)

But for now, let's get back to love. I had two important long-term relationships in the past before my current one, before my marriage. And in both of them, the beginning was pretty slow. I wasn't especially interested the first time we met, to be honest, but things developed over time. But with my partner now, the feeling was almost immediate, which is why I want to look closely at this idea of love at first sight. So what actually is it? Is it real love? Is it chemistry? Is it projection, aversion, an idea of the person we meet that we just invent out of almost nothing? Is love at first sight just our brains trying to make a quick decision in a confusing world? When you meet someone for the first time, your brain works incredibly fast. In just a few seconds, it decides whether this person feels safe or dangerous, interesting or boring, attractive, plain, strangely familiar, or simply irrelevant. Scientists sometimes call this thin slicing, making very quick judgments based on very little information. And of course, biology does play a part. Your body releases chemicals like dopamine when you feel attracted to someone.

[00:05:58.260] - Oliver (Host)

You notice their face, their voice, their smile, the way they move. You pick up on tiny details you don't even realise you're noticing. But the important question is this, is that love or is it simply attraction? A fast exciting signal that tells you, Pay attention to this person. You find him or her physically attractive. Because attraction is often immediate, but relationships are obviously not. Attraction works in seconds. Real love, I would say, takes time, decisions, conversations, disappointments, apologies, and about a thousand small moments that have nothing to do with the immediate effect of biology. So even if you feel something strong the first time you meet someone, I don't think that feeling alone explains the whole story. It's not just something natural and biological within you. Something else is shaping the experience. Something I think our culture is driving you to look for love very early on. So why are we so fascinated by the idea of love at first sight? Part of the answer, I think, comes from the films and stories we grow up with. In cinema, everything happens so fast. Two characters can meet, exchange one intense look, and suddenly, they're soulmates.

[00:07:26.760] - Oliver (Host)

Disney loves this. Romantic comedies from the '90s, love this. Christmas films repeat this same message: when it's real, you will know immediately. This creates a problem. We can start to expect love in real life to feel the same. Instant, obvious, effortless. Like a perfect scene with perfect lighting and a perfect soundtrack. And of course, real relationships don't work like that. Films collapse time. They compress time. They take a relationship that would normally take months or years to develop, and they squash it down into a single moment, a single scene, or a single dramatic kiss in the rain. But in real life, relationships slowly expand over time. They develop gradually. They survive, or not, misunderstandings, awkward moments, and long and boring conversations about who forgot to buy the toothpaste. And even though we know films exaggerate everything, these images still influence us. We may know it's ridiculous rationally, logically, but I think it still subconsciously influences our view on what love is supposed to look like: fast, dramatic, and most importantly, certain. But the next question for me then is, why do we want the idea to be true? Why do we, in real life, move towards the idea of love at first sight, this fantasy from the movies.

[00:09:07.200] - Oliver (Host)

In many cases, it's because in reality, we do feel something in the beginning, but what we feel isn't really love. It could be better described as a story, a narrative, a story we create very quickly, often without even realising it. When you meet someone you like, your brain starts filling in the many blanks, the many gaps in information that we have about them. They say one interesting thing, so you imagine they're intelligent. They laugh at your joke, so you imagine you have chemistry and they have a good sense of humour. They seem confident, so you imagine emotional stability, a good job, and a solid family life in the future. You're not falling in love with this person. You're falling in love with your idea of this person. This doesn't mean you're foolish. It's completely normal. Our minds make love at first sight appealing, and it makes us feel safe and quickly. As I said before, our brains like shortcuts. They want quick answers, especially when we're confused or lonely. So we build a version of someone in our minds, a version that might be partially true or completely invented. I think our brain is creating romantic hope to keep us going.

[00:10:27.240] - Oliver (Host)

So that initial spark that people talk about when you meet someone and you feel there's chemistry, sometimes is real connection. But often, it's just this projection, just your imagination doing enthusiastic, maybe slightly irresponsible work. But this projection isn't always a bad thing. Not every projection turns out to be completely wrong. Many long-term relationships begin with a story like this, they begin with a narrative and then slowly replace the fiction of first impressions with something more honest and arguably more interesting. And this leads to something important when we examine whether love at first sight can turn into real love, the role of timing. People are much more likely to believe that they're experiencing love at first sight when they're lonely, burnt out, insecure, or in some kind of personal transition. It's not necessarily about the person they meet. It's about the moment in their life when it happens. And in my case, that was exactly the situation. When I arrived in Valencia 10 years ago, I was exhausted. I was depressed. I was coming out of a very difficult period living and working in Milan, Italy, with almost no social life, a job I hated, and a lifestyle that wasn't exactly healthy.

[00:11:52.700] - Oliver (Host)

I wasn't in a stable emotional place. So yes, when I met someone kind, interesting, and funny, I reacted quite strongly. I felt something immediate. But to be honest, that initial strong reaction was probably connected to my emotional state as much as to the person standing in front of me. And I'm not naive about that. If I hadn't been feeling so lonely, maybe I wouldn't have been so open to changing my life so completely on a whim, on a first impression, on the basis of love at first sight. And the next idea, the next logical step, is an uncomfortable one for many people. What if I had met someone else that week, someone completely different? Would I have felt a similar excitement simply because I was desperate for connection? Would I, in fact, be married to someone else now just because I was so ready to find someone that week? That's not something most people would probably want to contemplate, want to think about. They want to believe that love stories like mine are destiny, that my partner is my one and only soulmate. But I do think that it's true. Loneliness can make you more open, more hopeful, and more easily impressed.

[00:13:15.000] - Oliver (Host)

And maybe that was the case for me, or at least it contributed. But that idea isn't as bad as it sounds. And here's why, here's my key point: the timing, the loneliness that I felt can explain the intensity of the feeling, but it doesn't explain the long-term success of this relationship. You can be in the perfect emotional moment and still meet the wrong person. In fact, that happens all the time, as almost everyone knows. If I had met the wrong person when I was feeling so low, I probably would have jumped at the opportunity, but it wouldn't have worked out. I would have ended up even more miserable, even more depressed, which brings me to my final point: how to make sense of all this without completely destroying the concept of romance. After thinking about the biology, the films, the history, the projection, and the timing, what do I actually think happened on that first day in Valencia?

[00:14:18.580] - Oliver (Host)

I was very lucky. I met the right person, and I met that person at the perfect moment. That combination is what made everything work. Not destiny, not fate, and not a magical instant connection that successfully predicted a long and happy future together.

[00:14:37.260] - Oliver (Host)

So no, I don't think it was love at first sight, not in the magical, destiny-driven Hollywood sense, at least. But I do think something important happened, something real, even if it wasn't love that first day. I think I met someone who felt immediately familiar, someone easy to talk to right away, someone who made me feel calmer than I had felt in months, if not years. And that first impression created a space where something stronger and much more real could grow. That beginning wasn't the whole story. It was just a very short first chapter - a good chapter, an amazing chapter, yes, but not the explanation for everything that came later. Those first few dates pale into insignificance, they lose importance when I compare them to the lovely relationship that came later, the decade of experiences together. And that's the part we often forget when we hope for love at first sight. Love at first sight might not be love. Of course, it's not love, in my opinion, at least. But that doesn't make the first moments of a relationship meaningless. But in the end, the important thing isn't whether you felt something strong and instantaneous, it's whether the relationship becomes something real over time.

[00:15:56.980] - Oliver (Host)

Because instant feelings can happen with many people, if we're honest. But real, stable, happy relationships don't happen with just anyone. So if you've experienced something like this, a strong moment at the beginning, we don't have to call it love at first sight. We can just call it what it was: the right moment, the right person, and a very, very lucky coincidence.