Love At First Sight/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Love At First Sight in Real Life include:

  • Mark Twain supposedly said that he saw a picture of his future wife, Olivia, and fell in love at first sight.
  • Thomas Hardy claimed to have, on seeing his future partner for the first time, realized instantly that he would marry her (not necessarily the same thing). Much like his novels, the two did not have a happily ever after.
    • The same is said of Carl Jung.
  • Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin and his widow, Terri, have both said that they fell in love at first sight. Steve was about to feed a crocodile at the time, and he was so spellbound by Terri that the crocodile nearly grabbed him. Ironically, Terri has also said that she had never believed in love at first sight until then - and that she knew three days after she met him that "destiny had taken hold."
  • Shown to have some basis in science—the first few minutes of a relationship have shown to be predictive of the relationship's future success, more so than what two people have in common or whether they like each other. DAMN.
    • Makes sense since it's human nature to always rely on first impressions even when they get contradicted later.
  • Joan "The Mad" of Castile and Aragon and Philip "The Handsome" of Burgundy turned out to be this, resulting in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage. It turned out badly.
  • John Barrowman of Doctor Who and Torchwood fame flat-out states in his memoir Anything Goes that he took one look at Scott Gill and knew he was the one. (Although he doesn't deny that at least some of the initial attraction was lust, he also calls what he felt a "prophetic jolt.")
  • Rachel Maddow, on meeting her partner Susan Mikula: "...she opened the door and it was, like, comets and shooting stars."
  • Sir Michael Caine saw Shakira Baksh in an advert for coffee, thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and, believing her to be in Brazil, expressed an intention to go there and find her. He was later put in touch with her by a friend; they married in 1973 and have been together ever since.
  • Second sight, technically — Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis met briefly, and then were reunited at a party several years later. The way he tells it, he saw her across the room in a beautiful backless dress and then she turned and came over to talk to him, and that was it. "I'm in trouble," as he put it. D'awwww.
  • Broadway legend Patti LuPone says of meeting future husband Matt Johnston that she took one look at him and "said no in my head and yes in my heart." She was playing Lady Bird Johnson, he was an assistant cameraman. They're still married, very much happily so.
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