I’m Not Tired of Love at First Sight

A common thing book bloggers like to talk about are tropes. Tropes we like, tropes we don’t like, tropes that only work sometimes, whatever. There are a couple we can all agree on (everyone is tired of love triangles), a lot we can’t, and a few that are just always fun to talk about.

One of the tropes that most people seem to agree on is that they are tired of “insta-love”.

The first time I read somebody say that, I was like, “YEAH! That’s not real!” But then I kept seeing it. Over, and over, and over, and over again. And each time I saw that complaint I thought about it a little harder. And the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure what they were so tired of. What books are they reading where people just look at each other and are immediately in love? Romeo and Juliet? Sure. But what else?

So I diligently checked my goodreads. Guys, out of all of the books I have ever read in my entire life, I found THREE. A Discovery of Witches, Divergent, and City of Bones. 

THREE! Hardly enough to warrant getting tired of. In all of the other books the character was either: a) already in love/in a relationship/crushing b) hate-then-love trope or c) not ever in a relationship at all.

To be fair, I have read plenty of books where there was attraction at first sight, that through the course of the book grew in to love. My Lady Jane would be a perfect example of that, or The Fault in Our Stars. I can see how some people might over simplify this to insta-love, but really that’s not fair. Most relationships begin because people are attracted to each other, NOT because they hate each other. And as much fun as the hate-first-then-love thing is, it’s not as realistic as people being mutually attracted and deciding to see where it goes.

Also to be fair, I don’t read a lot of Young Adult books, or contemporary, or romance, or the genres I would generally expect to see this trope in. So I could just be missing all of the obnoxiousness.

And I can completely understand why this would bug someone. Millennials don’t believe in love at first sight. We just don’t. (But we still love Disney movies, hmmmm…)

But here’s the thing.

My husband and I are together because of so-called “insta-love”. He was walking around the music building at our university one day during lunch, thinking about how lonely he was and how much he wanted a girlfriend, and how she should love to read but also love Jesus, and basically dreaming up his dream girl. Then he turned around the corner, saw me sitting there reading a book, decided that I fit enough of his criteria to be attractive, and in an uncharacteristic fit of outgoingness decided to talk to me. Within an hour he decided he liked me and wanted to be my boyfriend and actively started pursuing me.

Was it love at first sight? No. But it’s this kind of thing that I read people criticizing, and it kind of hurts my feelings. It wasn’t instant love, but it was instant “I want to get to know her better”, which in the long run led to love.

And I bet if you asked around, a lot of people you know in long-term relationships would have a similar story.

So bring on the love at first sight! I would rather read some good old fashioned head-over-heals in love than the tired hate-to-love trope any day. And I’m going to continue to swoon every time I watch Romeo and Juliet, thank you very much.

***Edit: Okay, it’s four books. I forgot about Twilight. That’s stupid insta-love if I ever saw it.***