First sight: Is it love or lust?
Marshal M. Rosenthatl, Match

Poets swear by it. As teenagers, we pined about it. Even as adults, we lose sleep over it. It's love at first sight — that feeling that hits like a ton of bricks when that perfect someone comes into view. But is it for real?
Sure, we've all seen someone who made us gasp and made our bones tingle, but how can we tell if it was the real deal or just plain old lust? Can love really can take hold with one glance or is it fanstasy spun in romance novels?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself that might help provide the answer:

Curve of the lips or the curves below the hips?
The first thing that catches your eye doesn't really tell you a lot about the other person. But since what we see has a powerful effect on us, and the question is whether that first look ends there.

Lust has a narrow vision that stays in one spot; it isn't able to take in a wide-angled view or allow for that indefinable "something" that evolves from simple attraction. If you're fixated on eyes or hair or any other physical area alone, then all you're seeing is a fantasy you've created in your mind, which doesn't leave much possibility for any real interaction.

Eye candy or bitter sweet?
Have you started to notice wrinkles, blemishes or something that otherwise mars that "perfect" look you once saw in your object of desire? Are you now finding hunched shoulders or the occasional lip biting or eye twitch a turn off? If so, then your initial look was a blinded view. If the attraction is totally physical, then you're bound to discover little imperfections that will turn your head — the other way. That's because lust is unforgiving, expects perfection and doesn't tolerate the reality of a living, breathing person.

What do you do together?
When the two of you are together, do you listen, interact and spend time getting to know each other? Or does your quality time keep intimacy at a distance. Real intimacy comes as a result of letting your sweetheart's life enter yours. If everything between the two of you starts and stops with the physical, it's a safe bet that we're not talking love here.

Me or we?
Be honest: What do you want? Affection that grows with time or purely passion? Do you ever think about more mundane things that could affect the two of you — saving for retirement, buying a home or healthcare? If all your thoughts focus on the physical, well, that doesn't leave much room for anything else does it?


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