Love at first sight is a myth – but instant lust is a reality

LOVE at first sight is a myth.

So say scientists who have researched the phenomenon and have proven the rom-com trope is not real.

Prince Harry has admitted that he fell in love with his fiancée Meghan Markle “the very first time” they met.

But scientists from the University of Groningen have concluded that what we often think is love at first sight is in fact more likely strong physical attraction.

The new study, published in the journal ‘Personal Relationships’, is one of the first papers to investigate scientifically if people can be smitten from the very first moment they see each other.

The researchers studied 396 Dutch and German students, asking them to fill out a questionnaire about their current romantic relationship status. They were then shown pictures of various strangers and asked to rate their attraction to them, noting any feelings of love, including intimacy, passion, commitment and “eros”, which is measured by statements such as: “I feel that the person and I were meant for each other”.

They were also asked whether they felt that they were “experiencing love at first sight”.

Two further studies were conducted which involved speed dating, where participants either spent 90 or 20 minutes getting to know each other. Again, they were asked their feelings for their potential partners.

Taking the results of all the tests into consideration, 32 participants (most of whom were men) described 49 experiences of love at first sight. However, this was strongly linked to finding the other person incredibly physically attractive – with every point increase on the five-point attraction scale, a participant was nine times more likely to report love at first sight. But at the speed dating events, none of the instances of reported love at first sight was mutual.

“To conclude, our findings suggest that love at first sight reported at actual first sight resembles neither passionate love nor love more generally,” the researchers said.

The research summarises that there appears to be no such phenomenon as instant true love, but a “lust at first sight”.