Love at Third Sight

1/10/2012 The Charmer 7 Comments

Ah, love at first sight. What person hasn't wished at least once in their life that they could experience it?

I have to confess that today I'm basically going to be stealing this post from something Mr. Director wrote. I know, I know, I shameless. But the truth is I've been so flustered trying to get my schedule to work that I have very limited brain capacity left for creative endeavors, such as blogging.
(Oh, and if anyone plays flute in University Orchestra and would like to drop the class, that action would be greatly appreciated by myself so that I can get out of here in April instead of June. I am one performance credit short for my minor. One.)

Anyway, back to love at first sight.

I, for one, don't think it exists.

Once upon a time I was a terribly romantic girl who had never been in love nor even held a boy's hand and I believed the things I read in Sarah Dessen books and saw in early 21st-century chick flicks. That must be how it works, I thought. One day, I'd see a boy with chocolate-brown eyes and tousled cinnamon-brown hair and I would just know. Because the fact that the hair was "gently tousled" would give it away. Obviously.

It also didn't help that I was raised on Saturday's Warrior. There was a time in my life when I'm pretty sure I honestly believed that I had a soul mate and that I would be walking across a crowded sidewalk at BYU one day, we would make eye contact, and we would just know. Life would slow down as strains of music, audible to only the two of us, would start playing from who-knows-where and we would both break into a slow ballade and choreographed dance.

Now, if this phenomenon were to occur, it would definitely be at BYU. But I've come to the grand realization that life doesn't work that way. And love at first sight--I really don't think it exists.

Sure, I believe in attraction at first sight and I'd-like-to-get-to-know-you-better at first sight. Or even the I-feel-like-something-could-happen-with-you at first sight. But love? Nah.

However, I might believe in love at third sight.

In October of 2010, I was invited to attend a dinner for one of the grad programs on campus. They invited people with the top GPAs in their colleges and I'd say there were 40-50 people who ended up attending. I sat down at a table and started talking to the people there, only to notice a couple minutes later that one of my friends was sitting at a table just across the room (it was actually Cute James, if any of you remember him) . Recognizing that it would be rude to leave the people I was currently sitting with, I stayed put. The dinner ended up being kind of disappointing, as the people at my table were boring and the food wasn't even that great. Anyways, the important thing is that after the dinner I walked across campus with Cute James. There was also some other guy with Cute James, and I don't remember much about him except that we chatted about Young Ambassadors and a mutual friend Cat.

And that was that, right? I actually completely forgot about it until just recently when I found out that Mr. Director attended the same dinner. And that he sat at the table with Cute James. And that he walked with Cute James across campus afterwards. And that he remembered there was a girl walking with him and James. And that HE REMEMBERED TALKING TO THE GIRL ABOUT YOUNG AMBASSADORS AND HIS FRIEND CAT.

We TALKED! A year before Mr. Director and I started dating, we met each other and even had a conversation... and then promptly forgot about each other. There was no spark, no chemistry.
And then when we met again for the second time, I definitely thought he was cute...but I still wasn't interested.
It wasn't love at first sight. In fact, it wasn't even love at second sight. It wasn't until his third time running into me that he knew he was interested. (And I have to confess it took a couple more times to win me over. Haha.)

The morals of my little tale are as follows:

1. You never know who you're running into. It goes back to the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing. You can't know after meeting someone once how they might change your life.

2. Our lives really are guided. Mr. Dir and I started dating really quickly because it felt right. I don't think I would have been ready to date him a year ago--I was in a very volatile on/off relationship with The Ex and Mr. Dir was about to start the longest relationship of his life. Those experiences shaped both of us, especially in regards to what we expect from relationships. What if we'd experienced that magical "love at first sight" moment? Maybe it would have worked out. But maybe we weren’t supposed to date yet because God knew we both still had a lot of growing to do before we met each other. After all, God does know what he's doing. If we trust His timing, things will work out.

3. Love at first sight? Pshaw. Save it for the movies.

Kisses,
The Charmer

PS- If any of you actually do have some real-life "first sight" tales, please share them!
PPS- I think Mr. Director is rather attractive.