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Arguments on the subject of love at first sight really bothers me. I'm going to say here what I wanted to say then, just so it doesn't bounce around in my head the rest of the day.

Love at first sight, in my understanding of the term, means you see someone, spend maybe a few days with them and are professing your undying love for them immediately.

That is not what happened between myself and Eter, nor is it Dexie's situation (I don't think). Eter and I were friends for almost a year before romance was ever brought up. Once I realized I had feelings for him, I cut off other relationships to have a clearer head. It got truly serious in Florida, once we'd been in the same room and had a chance to figure out if our feelings were just online or if they extended to the real world. Yes, it was fast after that. Before we left, I'd told him that I was willing to marry him, even if he wasn't ready to look at that yet.

Is it love at first sight still if you've been friends for a while online, then get together, either online or off? I don't think so. Online relationships sometimes get forced through a tight space, cramming the emotions of a long series of dates over time into the span of a few days together. They're intense and sometimes that intensity is all it is... sometimes, it lasts after the few days are over. Sometimes the intensity can spread into a long distance marathon of a relationship, like marriage.

Once I knew I loved Eter, I couldn't stand to be away from him any more than he could stand to be away from me. We needed each other and the only way to be together was to move to be together, to change our lives and take things a different way. Either he had to come to me or I had to come to him. There was no way either of us could survive that kind of move without physically living together, the finances just didn't add up. Living together made the best logical sense, but the social aspect of living together outside of marriage was too much for us to stay in that position. After three months, we got married since that's how we were living anyway.

I don't think we were a "love at first sight" situation. Yes, we moved fast, but it wasn't instantaneous.