In 2006, Princeton researchers found that subjects judged attractiveness within a tenth of a second. That’s not the same as being in love, but it’s a vital initial spark. A 2010 review of fMRI studies found that the exact cerebral networks associated with “passionate love” can activate within one-fifth of a second of people meeting. But that hasn’t stopped scientists and psychologists from trying to determine the average time it takes for people to fall in love. Love is, after all, hard to measure and track-it’s somewhere between a chemical process, a social construct, and some unknowable sacred thing, like a piece of God or like a poem. Case closed! But how long does it take to fall in love for regular people, people for whom love is not like a fairytale but a Trader Joe’s line-interminable nothingness, and then all of a sudden you’re at the chocolate bars and ginger chews, and life is happening? How long does love take, when it begins not with fireworks but with friendship, or with a smattering of awkward dates, or with sex where no one orgasms? How long does love take when it’s just two people meeting up on occasion to touch and talk and see if something grows? The first sparkĮmpirical evidence isn’t conclusive. Love at first sight, if you believe in it, takes a millisecond. Forget, for a moment, love at first sight.
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