PW writes:
You've said before that you don't believe in love at first sight. Well, I just want to say that that was exactly what happened to my husband and I, and we've been extremely happily married 14 years now. I know at least three other couples who had exactly the same experience: they met, or saw each other across a crowded room, and they just knew. Instantly. Just because it doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean it doesn't happen, you know.
Look, I don't want to rain on your parade. I'm very happy for you that you've found love with someone who's right for you. Hooray for love! When it works it's the best thing in the world. It's what makes us get up in the morning, nurture our young, brush our hair, write great (and crap) poetry, and feel like there's a point.
But I also think "love at first sight" is a perceptual, not an experiential, phenomenon. Seriously, can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you never, ever, felt the same flash of "knowing" about anyone else, ever? Really, truly? Or are you just editing to shore up your belief systems? Love at first sight is roughly the same thing as all those lottery winners who say they "knew" or "dreamt" that they were going to win. Mmm. Would you buy a lottery ticket if you didn't think you were going to win?
Every time I check the lottery results page, I always have a rush of knowing - which quickly turns to "well, I knew I wouldn't win" when the numbers come up wrong again. It's exactly the same with psychosexual attraction: you have rushes of knowing constantly. I have them at least once a day. It's just that, generally, the ego being too frail to assimilate the constant bombardment of disappointment and still come up smiling, you immediately forget any just knowings that don't then turn out to be true. We all do it, all the time. It's no biggie.
That said, researchers at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health have come up with evidence that women do make their mating decisions at breakneck speed, and based entirely on facial features rather than that "great sense of humor" they're always going on about. Apparently, women view men with “masculine features,” including prominent brow ridges and large jaws, as good short-term partners (and suppliers of stronger DNA) and men with more “feminine features” such as rounder faces and fuller lips as better long-term partners (likely to nurture and stay with his offspring). So, who you just know about really depends on what you're after in terms of a relationship at that precise moment.
Then again, a rather fine piece of recent research by psychologist David Lewis measured women's responses - heart rate and pupil size - when shown photos of various likely-to-stimulate characters. And while 71 percent of women's heart rates increased and pupils dilated when they saw photos of their cat (their own cat, not some random cat), only 57 percent had the same response when they saw a shot of their man. Bless. When was the last time someone told you about the time they picked out Tiddles and it didn't include the phrase "he looked up at me and I just knew"?
Read Serena's latest advice here.
The Dating Doctor