“It was love at first sight!” your best friend exclaimed as she told you the story of how she met her new beau. Oh yes, love at first sight. We’ve all heard of it before, but does it really exist?

Can we really fall into love with someone upon the very first glance of them? Some insist yes, love at first sight is real because they claim to have experienced it.

Others say no, it cannot be real because you do not know the person yet, and what you are actually feeling is just a strong physical attraction.

This question, however, has stumped people so much so that researchers have actually conducted studies to see if participants could fall in love at the first sight of an attractive person in a photo.

Even psychologists have attempted to break down the mental and physical components of what is actually happening to the brain when we are in love with someone, and attempt to see if that can happen upon first sight.

Scientifically speaking, researchers have for the most part concluded that no, you don’t truly fall in love with someone at first sight of them.

If anything, what is happening is an extreme physical attraction being mistaken for love. Take the study we just touched on a second ago.

Participants were asked to look at photos of attractive people from the opposite sex and say if they were feeling any feelings of love toward them.

Those who expressed they “feel they have found the one” from a single photo also expressed being highly attracted to the person’s looks.

Jordan White also agrees that love at first sight doesn’t really exist.

“I believe in attraction at first sight,” White said. “I believe in seeing someone and instantly feeling like you want to know them in a romantic way. You can’t be in love with someone based off looking at them, though. And if so, that just means you’re in love with their looks which is lust – a poor man’s love.”

But others would disagree.

“I do think love at first sight exists,” Amanda Shaw said.

“I will never forget the first time I met, who I still consider to this day, my soul mate. I remember when our eyes first locked in with each other’s, and what happened was more than lust. It was like we were both trying to puzzle together how we knew one another, which was impossible because we were from two different countries. But we both looked at each other like two souls were being brought back together.”

So, what do you think? Does love at first sight exist? Or do we mistaken love for lust?