Love at first sight....

I slipped out of William’s bed before he woke up the next morning. Which was strange really. All those times I’d dreamt of waking up next to him in the morning, having breakfast together. Yet when the opportunity finally came along I couldn’t go through with it. In some ways I felt it would be worse than having sex with him. A bigger deceit. Sex you could blame on lust, primal forces beyond your control. Breakfasting in bed together, that was sheer selfish indulgence. There was no need for that.

I gathered my clothes from where they had fallen on the bedroom floor the night before and turned to look at William. He was lying with his arm draped over the hollow in the duvet where I had been until a few moments ago, his breathing deep and contended. Unaware I had left the warmth of his body. Had stepped out into the cold.

‘Good bye.’ I whispered as I pulled the bedroom door shut behind me. Exhaling as I did so. I wanted to shower, to wash away the evidence before I went home, but I was too scared of waking him. So I dressed quickly and let myself out of the unit.

A small, unshaven man with a west highland terrier emerged from the unit next door at the same time. He smiled at me, presumably thinking I lived there. Or maybe guessing that I didn’t and therefore realizing what I’d been up to. I hurried to the lift, the guilt snapping at my stomach.

Remembering what was all about the night before on my way home, I call my friend James, and told him the details what had just happened last night. He told me that it was love at first sight…!

“Really?” I question him, and wondering and keeps thinking what James’s just had said to me. Love at first sight? Then so many question come-out:

Can you catch someone's eye across a crowded room and know he is 'the one'?

So you believe in love at first sight?

Well forget it, says a psychiatrist and relationship expert who insists the myth of love at first sight is not only untrue but is to blame for many unhappy relationships and failed marriages.

Gordon Livingston says its "mindless" to think you've found "the one" after making eye contact with that random guy on the train, at the bar or the boy who made your coffee at starbuck.

"It's impossible to make those kind of judgments until you really know someone," Livingston said in his book.

"There's certainly such thing as attraction at first sight, and in retrospect you (may) have been right that this was the person, but often those initial chemical surges betray us."

He said society and advertising portray a certain look as being "beautiful", but this can mislead us and confuse our ability to make decisions about potential partners.

"We're automatically drawn to (those deemed beautiful) on an almost instinctual basis but they may not have those inner qualities that make for satisfying relationships," he said.

"This is why it's so important to know somebody."

In his new book, How to Love, Livingston explains the key to a long-lasting loving relationship is finding a person who possesses most of what he calls the 10 "essential virtues"

kindness,

optimism,

courage,

loyalty,

tolerance,

flexibility,

beauty,

humour,

honesty

and

intelligence.

He says a fulfilling relationship is achieved by picking the right partner in the first place, rather than learning to deal with differences.

That's where a lot of traditional relationships therapy gets it wrong, he says.

"There's a lot of talk about negotiating differences and all that sort of stuff that often I feel ... is missing the point," Livingston says.

"I think that it's sort of a ditch-digging school of marital therapy, that is, that it's hard, nobody's perfect, you have to work.

"It seems to me that we've been sold on that idea but maybe the problem is that we picked the wrong person in the first place.

"People are capable of change but our basic personalities remain relatively stable over time so that the people we are at 20 are very similar in some fundamental aspects to the people we are at 50.

"We tend to make our decisions, sometimes very hasty decisions, based on superficial characteristics that don't wear well.

"That causes us to make some pretty catastrophic errors early in life."

If teenagers were taught about love and finding the right partner in school, the road to romance wouldn't be as rocky, or end in divorce as often, Livingstone says.

This is because falling in love goes much deeper than falling in lust.

"(Falling in love) is more than a chemical reaction to another person which is the way a lot of people treat it, as if their minds and if their judgment didn't have anything to do with that selection.

"The purpose of the book is to point this out and to bring a little more rationality to the process."

And I keep reading it and at the same time I am learning from the book that was given for my birthday, and I love it!!!!

You should read the book too…

Till then, hope you won’t get too excited when the boy at the end of the bar staring and smiling at you all night…. It could be just sex that he want from you…

See you here soon