For Want of a Better Phrase

As I sit wearing my bright red T-shirt (chosen especially to mark the day, so what if it’s standard Marathon issue, which incidentally I didn’t even run that time), I think, what better day to debate the existence of Love at first sight, then on the designated day of Love itself.

First off, I have absolutely nothing against Valentine’s Day. I don’t get why so many people go about on an Anti-Valentine’s Day crusade. The way I see it, it’s all about practicing live and let live. If you don’t want to be at the giving or receiving end of any expression of affection, don’t. But you have no right interfering with those that want to.
Sure, many argue, what’s the point of reserving one day to display your Love for someone, you should be doing it the year round. I ask: what’s the point of celebrating a birth-day in that case, you do live all year.
The objective is purely ceremonial, a tradition, a way to celebrate your Love for another. Absolutely, you should be at it majority of the 365 days; but this one day, you go that extra step and make it a wee bit more apparent. A tad glamorous too if you may.

Now that that’s cleared up, moving on to the mysterious phenomenon of falling head over heels at first glimpse. To attempt to clinically examine that, I think it would best to start with what exactly Love is.
(Please note, in the course of this post any reference to Love is to the interpersonal, romantic variety. Not the universal flavor, nor the impersonal kind. Especially since I can very well understand and relate to instant Love felt towards inanimate objects (think, the numerous times that superb pair of shoes, that exquisite watch, that gorgeous gadget, stole your heart).)

For me (since I believe the definition varies tremendously from individual to individual and I far from fully comprehend it myself), Love for a person is a combination of a multitude of emotions: Respect, Admiration, Need, Want, Concern, Affection and of course a certain amount of Physical Attraction. Along with a little something that I can’t define, which I think you just feel.(If you’re rolling your eyes and going “Oh boy, this sure is objective”, I should warn you, you might want to skip the rest!)
So while I do believe in that certain magical something, I still can’t quite fathom how you can know you Love somebody the first time you see them. I do mean first here. Not when you’ve already heard about them and then you see them. I mean when you have no idea who they are, what they’re like, what they do, where they’re from. The very first time you laid eyes on them. That’s when I’m talking about.
How can that very first glimpse tell you that you respect, admire, need, want them? You don’t know them yet. And that’s where I get stumped when people talk about falling in Love at first look. Infatuation, I can understand, and I wonder if that’s what is mistaken as Love.

Here’s how I think it plays out (the assumption being Guy/Girl refers to same physical being throughout the 10 step process):
1. Guy/girl sees guy/girl
2. Is physically attracted
3. Works up nerve to talk to object of fancy aka guy/girl that caught eye
4. Learns more about guy/girl
5. Finds guy/girl has something in common, or interesting to talk to/be with
6. Continues getting to know guy/girl, along the way participating in combined activities of choice
7. Enjoys spending time and doing things with guy/girl with no motive other than to do so
8. Finds feeling, mentioned in above step, reciprocated in almost full due
9. Claims it was Love at first look
10. The End (added just to make it an even number)

Now here’s my contention. What if at any point following step 4, things don’t work out as smoothly as hypothesized by above 10 step method? You wouldn’t call it Love at first sight then right?
But technically, at first sight means that step 1 should have been all it took. But that can’t really be because you don’t know the person well enough (heck you don’t know them at all) to Love them. At least not in the sense of all the feelings Love encompasses.
Either it should be called "Infatuation at First Sight" (which is sort of redundant anyway) or "Love, the start of which was triggered at First Sight" (extremely cumbersome and not in the least whimsical I agree).
So I think I’ve just uncovered the mystery I sought out to solve, it’s called Love at First Sight, because nothing else sounds as romantic, not to mention is as easy on the tongue!

PS
There’re hoards of (clichéd and otherwise) definitions for Love out there, one of my favourites is by a kid, aged 7:
“When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you're scared they won't Love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still Love you, they Love you even more.”

Disclaimer
These views are as of the time of this writing. I reserve the right to change them per circumstance. Seeing (quite literally in this case)/feeling is after all reason to believe! (Please no comments on the physics of how this is an illusion!) Though rest assured, I shall attempt a thorough justification should the need arise.