First Posted: 1/4/2015

I was lying around one less-than-eventful afternoon, binge watching “90 Day Fiancé.” I have always been a cheerleader for the fairy tale when it comes to matters of love, so I was intrigued by a show that seemed to rush the process along. Sometimes, depending on the bond you share with that person, you fall very hard, very fast and then the world around you judges you for falling in love with someone that you don’t “really know”. It got me thinking about the concept of time in relation to love. How can it be love? How is it that we can live in a world that teaches us our whole childhood to believe in love at first sight and the fairy tale but shames someone for falling in love by society’s measure of “too fast?”

Sometimes when you meet someone, you just know; or so I have been told (and I believe whole heartily). The man I am in love with, I fell deeply for the very first time he and I kissed. I tried keeping my feelings in check, but the more time we spent together, he said he felt the same thing. When our friends saw how fast we had connected and fell for each other, they cautioned us to put on the brakes and not to confuse love and lust. I couldn’t help myself. I fell in love. It was hard, fast and glorious. I have never known a feeling in my life to be more sincere and honest and pure for another person (excluding my child of course).

I am going to quote the 1980s for a moment and reference the Culture Club. In their song “Time” the lyrics read “time makes lovers feel like they’ve got something real” and I find this to be a societal reflection on relationships. Does it make your love more sincere if you have been together 7 years instead of 7 weeks? Is time a valid justification for feelings as well as a strong argument for the invalidity of them?

When I told a friend how fast I fell in love with my boyfriend, instead of being happy for me, she merely stated “you don’t really love him, you just think you do” this puzzled me as to how someone who I felt knew me so well, could just rain on my parade and completely disregard my feelings. She wrote them off as if I was a school girl having my first crush on Justin Timberlake instead of a 30-year-old woman who has been around the block a time or two when it came to relationships.

Is it not OK to believe in the fairy tale? Is love at first sight just another thing told to us during our childhood that we should file away with Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy? I don’t believe so. Time is not an accurate measure of depth of emotion. I know people who have found their soul mate and knew it in an instant. I also know people who have been in relationships for 10 years who couldn’t be farther from happy. So the next time you see a story about someone running off to marry someone they just met, don’t judge them for jumping in too quick. Sometimes when it comes to matters of the heart, you just know.