How it began

Love at first sight:

      I'd always imagined the very human  concept of 'Love, at first sight', to be  a rather   daunting sensibility.As though  regardless of our best interests or wishes, we   really possess little control over our  emotional selves at all.      
'Love at first sight', where on Earth do we get such notions?  When the sexual genders are so incredibly different.

  
    To best illustrate this undeniable difference, we'd have to  journey back to our   childhood  innocence, when children would daydream about such  things as 'Love'.

The Genders - Girls?

    Girls would imagine handsome and gallant knights astride brave  steeds, doing   battle and slaying  imaginary beasts, whose physical size was  always commensurate   to their  wicked intent.   Evil vanquished, the fair lady's heart is not yet 'conquered'.  Until, the inevitable   'wake up kiss', and it had to be the 'kiss of kisses', from the  'handsomest of princes,'    in order for them to live happily ever after. Or to ride off  together into the setting   sun notwithstanding.      

   Most girls don't daydream about being locked away in a dirty  old 'tower,' eeeuuuww!   Pleading for rescue.  The evil tower isn't really that much of  a challenge for the average   testosterone-driven and enterprising male. However, girls always  expect more.   They require 'proof', of love everlasting. They don't want the old Victoriana; 'requiem-   sounding- "How do I love thee, let me count the ways."  They  much prefer;   'show me.' Just ask them. They'd like you to ask. Men who'll jump  through 'hoops'   in order to win their fair hearts doesn't do it for them either.  Women know what's up.

The Genders - Boys?

           Boy's on the other hand are far less pragmatic. and for that reason  vulnerable.   A fair maiden in need of rescue is just an invitation to a brawl,  and not as an   opportunity to develop a few inter-personal relationship skills  with the opposite   gender. Boy's will  engage wholeheartedly in pitched-battle  against a saloon   full of cutthroats and gunslingers, then single-handedly dispatch a  battalion of   enemy troops, check to see if the girl is alright, push her out of  danger and jump   right back  into the foray. Never giving her a second thought.  When it comes to   most 'love-issues', men are born clueless, and have been losing  ground ever since.   This was also the environment I, like so many other boy's were  raised in.           I'm not one given to putting much stock in pre-cognitive, or  pre-ordained anything. Destiny,   Fate, and the myriad of  other descriptive characterizations  of that ilk. Call it what you like,   the concept of 'Love at first sight', belongs in this group. At  least so I thought.

Ah - Men?

     
    I happen to believe we are fundamentally nothing more that an accidental and random   pattern of sub-atomic particles and quarks, careening purposelessly  about the universe   in ignorant bliss. Until such time when our sub-atomic particles  collide head-on with   someone else's sub-atomic particles. The resulting chain reaction  puts us squarely on   the path to the true purpose of the rest of our lives. Or it  destroys us. That's life.           Some believe this is the very essence of what we refer to as  'chemistry,' between   human beings. You believe whatever you like.  Things such as,  comfort, nostalgia,   sentimentality, kindness, mixed with a liberal amount of alcohol  and a heavy dose of   pheromones, all add to the list of ingredients which set the stage  for falling in love   with someone. According to most men.          

   Most women believe in "Love, at first sight'. Most men do not.  Don't bother trying   to figure it out, you'll just get a headache. It's an instinctive  thing with women,   they were born with it.

--  --  --

Valerie

         I'm six foot one and a half inches tall, with long legs that zip  along at a pretty   good clip when I'm in a hurry to be somewhere. I was nearing the  corner of   Karangahape Road and Upper Queen Street, in Auckland. It was  a Friday   evening and 'late shopping night' on 'K'- Road, and as usual, it  was also wall-to-wall people.

   
    That's when I saw her for the very first time. I think  she was with her sister,   or perhaps a girlfriend, in the streaming shopper-throng passing  by.   It was just a flashing glimpse across the eyes, a fleeting eye-lock  contact   lasting less than two-tenths of a second.          

What got me were...

    Those eyes are what got me. I stopped and turned around to see  after her but she was already lost to me in the crowd. I was slightly  disappointed I   didn't get the chance to see her twice but continued on my way, occasionally   glancing back over my shoulder just in case she appeared once  again.          
I'd always been fascinated by actress Audrey Hepburn's  incredibly beautiful   eyes, and I just saw them on Karangahape Road,  in Auckland,  New Zealand. Of all the places on this planet I could have been in space and  time, for less   than two-tenths  of a second out of my life.           The impact of those two-tenths of a second was odd in a way, the realization   that I'd even thought it 'odd' both surprised and disturbed me  slightly. I mentally   filed it under 'gravity-storm', which is what I do when something  defies a rational   and immediate explanation or conclusion, and thought no more of  it.   'Gravity-storms' happen.          

Later...

    It's two weeks later now, and I'm doing laundry at my digs on  City Road near   the Grafton Bridge. She's suddenly there. Those very same eyes once  again,   belonging to that very same beautiful girl, there in the noisy and  steamy   laundry room.  She's visiting Jean-Guy and Judy, my friends  from upstairs.   I'd like to describe where we all lived at that time, but it really  defies description.    It wasn't apartments, and it wasn't a hotel/motel, probably  something in between.    The owner / landlord / builder, was a very personable  London-Cockney, a real   'Eastender' named Jim. When everyone paid their rent on time,  another part of   the perpetually unfinished building inched toward completion. Judy  and Jean-Guy   had one of the nicer end-units. Lots of glass and daylight, and a  tiny bit of a   view of the Auckland skyline. Judy is a student nurse, and so is  her friend;   the one I cannot for the life of me take my eyes off.          

    Her name is Valerie. She's a little bit shy around me and I  find that terribly sexy.   Very appealing. Her eyes are a gloriously lustrous hazel, and  filled with such   wonderful light. Huge windows I get hopelessly lost in immediately.  Her hair is   long, a soft chestnut brown with many little flashing coppery  highlights, when   tossed in sunlight.           This is very different. I don't know how yet. But this is  definitely very, very, different.           After what just may have been a dress rehearsal or perhaps a  false-start on   Karangahape Road two weeks earlier, in a near sub-atomic particle collision.  

I believe this incredibly beautiful and intelligent creature has  now entered my life.      

    I also believe that whatever happens from this day forward, I  can never be the   same person again.      

Paul Jardine.