LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

EPISODE #001

Please note: Forever, Babe is produced to be heard, so if you are able, please listen to the audio to get the full emotional effect and to pull accurate quotes that were not generated by speech recognition software. Thank you!

MOLLY: Hey everybody!
MEG: Hello!
MOLLY: Here we go! Welcome to episode one of Forever, Babe the podcast about love and commitment culture. I;, Molly Kiernan.
MEG: And I’m Meg Joh and I'm so excited!
MOLLY: We're so excited thank you for being here with us we are two comedians who are in love with love.
MEG: Yeah, and each other. We're best friends and this seems like a good time to say part of the reason I wanted to start this podcast with you is I was inspired by a conversation we had early on in our friendship where we committed to each other long-term
MOLLY: In friendship.
MEG: Verbally to put effort into our friendship as we would a romantic relationship which is very special and cool.
MOLLY: Yes and another reason I wanted to start this podcast with you is because Meg is the reason why i am obsessed with certain elements of love. Namely, reality dating shows. She introduced me to Love Island UK a while ago…
MEG: There’s nothing better.
MOLLY: And I have fallen off a cliff and into the abyss and all i do is watch reality dating TV now.
MEG: Yeah I gave you the uh, the starter drug,
MOLLY: The gateway drug, yeah.
MEG: And you have surpassed me in your addiction.
MOLLY: Yeah, but we obviously also both talk about our experiences with relationships in love all the time and we decided to turn that into a podcast because we wanted to know more and we figure some of you might too so we're doing the research.
MEG: Yeah, here we are. I learned a lot on this episode.
MOLLY: Oh my gosh It was overwhelming the amount of information we learned.
MEG: True, so yeah, it's our first episode, but is there any housekeeping?
MOLLY: Well why don't you tell everyone meg, what this week's love Friday cause is and what love Friday is.
MEG: Oh yeah okay. Because we're going to be talking about love so much we figured we should put our money, and our time, and our efforts where our mouths are and every Friday on our social handles we're just going to suggest a way to spread love. Something each week, it'll be something that we care about and are participating in some way with ourselves.
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: So this week on Friday we posted that you can donate or sign petitions at… uhm…
MOLLY: Oh my goodness, Meg.
MEG: I wanted to call it love LA right then.
MOLLY: Oh because of love Friday?
MEG: yeah. Water Drop Los Angeles.
MOLLY: Yes. Water drop LA is the cause. It is so hot right now. They are providing water to our unhoused neighbors who are not getting the adequate supplies and treatment from our local government that they should be, so this organization has stepped in. their venmo is waterdrop–LA. so, it's super easy to just shoot them money that way if you can’t be giving out water yourself.
MEG: Yeah and if you don't have a dime to spare right now because I know a lot of us do not during this time, they have two petitions on their website that you can sign to help instigate long-term change so that there are more water fountains in LA for unhoused people and some other great things.
MOLLY: Yeah baby.
MEG: Because they’re doing the work and they’re amazing.
MOLLY: Yeah so go help them out for us please! So the podcast is kind of going to work in this way: we're going to do this kind of housekeeping stuff up top, and also every episode we're going to tell you what's going on in the news when it comes to love and then we're going to get into our topic.
MEG: Yeah, so this week on the news, do you want to start Molly?
MOLLY: Yes, okay so love in the news, I'm so excited about this first story that I found it's it's about a couple that met in church. Gary Mooney who is 82 and Carmela Patterson Mooney who said 79. They had both lost their previous spouses and they met in church. He spotted her during the lent services at st. Pius the 10th Church in Broomhall Pennsylvania, by the way this is from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, by Kelly Patrick Gates. So, he's sittin’ in services during lent… it's time for the sign of peace and she turns around —yeah it's when you say a piece of each other— she turns around and she mouths “peace be with you” to him. and this happens every Sunday during Lent, but he's instantly smitten at that first “peace be with you".” I love his story cuz I grew up Catholic church and during the sign of peace, that was a moment where maybe I’d turn around and shake the hand of a cute boy in the pew behind me as a kid so, you know, I would have loved for a love story to develop like this.Didn’t for me, but it did for them. He waited all of lent to day something until his daughter encourage him and then he asked her out to lunch. second date their first kiss was on top of a ferris wheel. Are you kiddin’? He asked her to marry him in a doctor's waiting room, one of the nurses said they were cute, asked how long they've been married, they laughed and then he was like “let’s really do it.” I love it. They got married in February of this year and now they're quarantined together, spending time sipping coffee on their back porch. can you think of a better love story, folks?
MEG: OKAY. I love that this was something that you found in the news.
MOLLY: Yeah I found this in the news, I don't know what's wrong about that.
MEG: Uh, it included that they sip coffee on their back porch.
MOLLY: Yeah, I swear that the article did include that, I didn’t make that up.
MEG: I will say that I have been to church quite a bit in my life not Catholic Church, like you, Catholic Church?
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: Mass, but I've never met somebody at church, certainly.
MOLLY: Yeah, but I feel like that happens a lot.
MEG: Yeah I guess I dated someone from church camp
MOLLY: Okay, that counts. We love that.
MEG: That's a very cute story.
MOLLY: Yes and now for a not so cute story. Because we have to balance it out, make you happy, then sad. This is from an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch by Robert Patrick. Three people in St Louis were arrested for scamming older women out of over $500,000 as they pretended to be military men looking for love. it's so pathetic. One 70-year-old woman sent $15,000 to two different PO boxes in St Louis because she thought she was helping a General fly home from Syria and a bomb-proof plane.
MEG: Wait… ?
MOLLY: I think that, I means…
MEG: what is a bomb proof plane??
MOLLY: A plane that can’t get hit by bombs.
MEG: Okay so… it can’t get hit by them?
MOLLY: I don’t know, it just said “bomb-proof plane.”
MEG: If a bomb goes off inside of a bomb proof plane what happens?
MOLLY: Nothing.
MEG: I don’t mean to make fun of this, it’s really bad, but also NO.
MOLLY: Listen, this poor woman, like me, doesn't necessarily know that a bomb proof plane is a red flag. These online scams are also called— I found this on in an official warning from the FBI— confidence fraud. it's because the scammers gain the confidence of these, you know, vulnerable people. Come on, it's pathetic and disgusting.
MEG: Don’t use love to get money from people.
MOLLY: yeah this happened to someone I know, an older woman got scammed.
MEG: not this one?
MOLLY: No, not this particular scam, but she was on online dating sites and someone convinced her to send him money and it was so sad and it’s just preying on people looking for love. Of course they’re vulnerable. You're vulnerable when you're looking for love. Don't take advantage of that, you assholes.
MEG: Yeah fuck that. No room for that.
MOLLY: Alright, so meg, let’s get into your love in the news.
MEG: Okay. I have two stories as well. The first one is good-sad. It’s both. So, it's about a Love Caravan that happened on Sunday. A big caravan of people drove together from Emanuel AME Church in Charleston South Carolina, that's the church where nine Black worshippers were gunned down in June 2015 during Bible study. And they went from there and headed to Orangeburg, where three civil rights protesters were shot to death in 1968 during the Orangeburg Massacre. And then they drove to the state house in Columbia. I looked it up, the whole drive takes about two hours. And obviously all of those details are very sad, but the reason that they did it was to call attention to the fact that South Carolina is one of three states still that does not have hate crime law. Arkansas and Wyoming also don’t. And states that don’t have these laws aren’t able to contribute to the statistics for how frequently they're committed because the law doesn’t exist, so there is no data there. But also hate crime law can hopefully be a deterrent for a racist, homophobic, religion-related crime that might occur, you know?
MOLLY: Yeah feels like something we want.
MEG: Right. And if hate crime happens and it’s deemed a hate crime, then the punishment is bigger because when you commit a hate crime you aren’t just committing a crime against one person, it's a whole group of people. It’s a threat. So, that was a really beautiful thing that I saw on the news. It was called a love Caravan and, you know what? Amazing. Good for them. It said that a bunch of them drove their fancy cars in it and I’m like… Yes! Flex while making good things happen. A little crazier thing is… a little wild piece of Love news. There's a cult you may have heard of called Love Has Won. Have you heard of this?
MOLLY: No I have not.
MEG: It's a weird name considering people… not a fan of this cult. They're located in Colorado, but they just moved to a location on Kauai this week.
MOLLY: Oh during Covid, we love that.
MEG: Yes we love a relocation fo a bunch of people during Covid. This cult is living in a rented luxury estate resort. And a lot of people on the island of Kauai have been protesting by burning bon fires on the beach in front of the estate and other things. I’ve heard that maybe they vandalized the building, but I looked up this cult because I hadn’t heard of it either, and a I know a lot of people are mad at them.
MOLLY: As they should be it’s a cult.
MEG: But, I wanted to know what the cult was of course. So it’s a cult led by a woman who refers to herself and has other people refer to her as Mother God.
MOLLY: Okay get me out of here.
MEG: And Mom, Mom and Mother God. So if you go to their website and you look up information about Mom I just want to ready you what it says.
MOLLY: Okay so is this written by her?
MEG: I assume. Or somebody that knows her. Okay.
MOLLY: Yeah let’s do a dramatic reading.
MEG: “Hello loves. I am mother GOD. For quite some time you've been praying”—Oh no wait, is this woman gonna come and get me? Oh no, okay— “ For quite some time you had been praying that I come back to help you, because of that, I decided I had enough of the dark Forces kidnapping my planet and my children so here I am in the flesh! I was born on November 30th, 1975 in Kansas, USA. This is my 534th incarnation in my quest to recover my beloved planet, the center of the universe, and the first planet I created. They tried to assassinate me 589 times this lifetime, but love has won!” — Do you think that every time someone tries to assassinate her, she goes on her website and updates that number?
MOLLY: Yeah absolutely and do you think someones tried to assassinate her 589 times?
MEG: Uh, that's a lot. Okay when was she born? 75? I mean that's so many times a year.
MOLLY: Yeah so okay so she's crazy, but keep going cuz you sound kind of sexy.
MEG: Ooh okay! I am mother God!!! I am sexy! That is probably a part of the appeal. I’m gonna skip a little… okay so she closes with “You are either with me or against me. The experiment of Free Will has been declared a failure” — oh my God, I've already read this and it's still shocking me — “It is VOID. everything exists under Divine will once more.” — this is my favorite part, she signs it all caps “THANK GOD LOL”
MOLLY: And she says LOL you're not adding LOL?
MEG: She say’s LOL, I would never add LOL!
MOLLY: You know I have to tell you, Meg, that you were reading this and the whole time I was like “this person's crazy,” but then when she said “LOL” at the end I was kind of like, maybe I get her.
MEG: Okay I will go out on a limb and say that you are a lowercase lol girl, though and this is a full on upper case LOL.
MOLLY: Okay thank you for making that distinction.
MEG: And remember that she said “thank God: and she meant herself.
MOLLY: Yeah okay so…
MEG: A little different.
MOLLY: Yeah, but I’m leaning a little bit.
MEG: Sure, sure, sure…
MOLLY: Guys, that’s our Love in the News. We hope you enjoyed, but now it’s time to get into the topic of today’s podcast, which is, say it with me, Meg…
MOLLY AND MEG: Love at first sight!
MOLLY: Yes!
MEG: Talking at the same time, what everybody loves on a podcast.
MOLLY: Everybody loves that. Love at first sight. Tell me, you, know, what do you think about it? First thing that comes to mind when you think about love at first sight and yourself, Meg?
MEG: Okay sure, I feel like we’ve talked about this a lot. What comes to mind is stage crushes.
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: Molly and I are both performers— oh yeah, we didn’t really give ourselves a good introduction at the top.
MOLLY: Well, now you’ll get it. We’re both comedians.
MEG: It’s gonna come out, yeah. We are comedians based in LA, we both perform a lot of improv and something that happens, I’ll just speak for the whole improv community right now—
MOLLY: Yes, please do!
MEG: And say that something that happens is when you see somebody perform on stage and they are killing it, it’s so easy to have an immediate crush on that person without knowing them.
MOLLY: Absolutely.
MEG: So I would say I think of that first. Uh, I dated someone— okay, I will also speak for the whole community and say that using the term stage crush often means: really good performer… piece of shit.
MOLLY: Really terrible person, absolutely, 100 percent on board with that.
MEG: Cuz it’s only a stage crush at a certain point and that’s why you’re referring to it that way, because you are blinded by their talent and so you engage and then later, probably, maybe like five months later, if maybe you’ve dated someone like this…
MOLLY: Yeah maybe Megs speaking from personal experience?
MEG: Uhhhhhh… you find out that they are the worst,
MOLLY: Yes absolutely. That totally exists.
MEG: Yes, I also think of my high school boyfriend school boyfriend, probably because that was my first love. We dated for like between three and four years.
MOLLY: okay and if you feel like it was love at first sight?
MEG: You know, I will not lie and say I remember the first moment we met, but he was very attractive, very artsy, which I was, I wore muumuus and had really long hair in high school and wore like ripped jeans and band shirts.
MOLLY: With the muumuus all together?
MEG: No, no, not together
MOLLY: Oh sorry.
MEG: Probably, though. And he was one of those boys in high school that looks like a man.
MOLLY: Sure. Yeah yeah.
MEG: And so I imagine…
MOLLY: You’re like, “he’s an adult.”
MEG: It didn’t take long for me to be all about it.
MOLLY: yeah okay, alright.
MEG: I will say, my current relationship, I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost three years. It was not love at first sight. I was in another relationship when we first met.
MOLLY: And when you first met did you feel a spark or no?
MEG: No I didn't.
MOLLY: okay .
MEG: I just I mean I wasn't looking for one, so...
MOLLY: Okay yeah.
MEG: I think that’s what comes to mind. What about you?
MOLLY: For me, I definitely think vibes at first sight is what I prefer to say right now. I don’t think I’ve experienced love at first sight, but I've never dated someone seriously and not at least had like immediate Vibes with them, not at least immediately, kind of felt a spark or like I dug them a little bit. I also am a weirdo and I sometimes do believe in fate in the universe putting things into our lives and I do have these weird crush— I do have like a few weird unrequited crushes on people that I don't really know. But, and it's probably because I don't really know them that I'm still in love with them.
MEG: YES, it makes it easier!
MOLLY: I love that.
MEG: They don't disqualify themselves.
MOLLY: I actually never want to become close to these people, but one thing I do think of a lot is, this is so silly but, when I was in high school I worked at this summer camp. And I was like had a huge crush on this other guy that worked there that worked to the gym Department or whatever. You know he was a coach or whatever, and I never talk to him cuz I was really shy, but I think I friended him on Facebook or something and that was my way of being like “I'm in love with you”— it didn't work. But he was someone that popped into my brain at random times for random reasons, I don't know why, for the next year or so, and I would check in on him on Facebook. And then, that was like ten years ago, and then a few years ago I was living in New York and I was getting on a train in Queens and I was sitting on a train and this guy comes on the Subway and he's a carrying all this hockey stuff and the first thing I thought of was that guy from camp, because he was like, his big thing with hockey. And that's the one thing I knew about him cuz I didn't know him and then I looked at the guy's face and it was absolutely him. 100% him. And I was like “the universe did this because we're in love it's meant to be” and then I never… I didn't say anything to him because I was too scared.
MEG: MOLLY!
MOLLY: I know! And then I just, I got off the train and was like “well, blew it!”
MEG: Nooooo!
MOLLY: Yeah, so! If he’s out there…
Meg: If you’re gonna believe in the universe, listen to the universe!
MOLLY: I know, that’s the thing. I think I believe in the universe until the universe comes to me and then I'm like “No no no never mind.”
MEG: I get that, I get that. You don’t know, he could be in a relationship or something anyway.
MOLLY: Yeah exactly, well I think he’s engaged. I think I checked on Facebook.
MEG: Okay you did then, okay great. Uhh alright, so…yeah. Those are out impressions of it, our experiences.
MOLLY: Yeah, I’m kind of like, I don’t know. Before I did all of this research, I was like, I don't know if I believe in it. It seems pretty crazy. But here we go, let’s tell you what we found.
MEG: Love at First Sight, babe! Alright familiar, we're all familiar with the term, it's in the media.It’s in movies, I mean the list goes on forever: 500 Days Summer, The Notebook, Titanic (the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that moment in Big Fish when time stops and he moves the popcorn that’s in midair, Westside Story, uh, Wedding Crashers. Basically just a lot of people seeing Rachel McAdams and Kate Winslet and falling in love instantly.
MOLLY: Yeah.
MEG: On TV when Michael meets Holly on The Office,
MOLLY: Perfect.
MEG: Definitely love at first sight. A perfect TV scene. Uh, Marissa and Ryan on The OC. Charlotte and Trey in Sex and the City: Love at First doesn’t have to last.
MOLLY: No, babe.
MEG: Kurt and Blaine on Glee, Niles and Daphne. Classic: Ted and Robin on How I Met Your Mother. Those last two… pretty creepy.
MOLLY: Yeah, examples of men being super creepy until the women are finally like “fine.” Is that love at first sight? I hope not.
MEG: I think for the man, well those men, it was supposed to seem like it.
MOLLY: Yeah and there are many celebrities, Meg, that claim that it was love at first in their relationships. So I'm going to talk about some of my favorites. Kelly Ripa, love her, said —
MEG: I did not know this about you.
MOLLY: I LOOOVE Kelly Ripa! She said she knew it was love at first sight with her husband, Mark Consuelos, after seeing a photograph of him,—
MEG: No.
MOLLY: Like saw her entire future with him flash before her eyes.
MEG: I wonder, I wanna know what photo of him it was.
MOLLY: Yeah, Kelly send us that photo! Meghan Trainor, the singer, and Daryl Sabara, from Spy Kids, they are recently married.
MEG: They look a lot alike if I remember correctly.
MOLLY: They do, yes yeah yeah, they do which is a whole other thing will probably get into in another episode. Here’s what Daryl said about Meghan: it all happened, it was love at first sight for me and I'll happen when you first walked in the room on that double date, and it was the ease just came over me like there she is! He also said I never knew that I would get married and then when I saw you it just flashed before my eyes. Again, marriage flashing before his eyes.
MEG: Aww.
MOLLY: And it’s kind of interesting for him to be like “I never thought I'd be married” and then I saw you and I was like “I want to get married".” That’s wild to me.
MEG: Okay that is wild, but and, I just thought of this: if I was single and saw a beautiful, famous, rich talented woman walk into the room
MOLLY: Yeah you’d be like “I wanna marry her.”
MEG: “I’d wanna marry her.”
MOLLY: Yeah, but he has probably come across famous people. I think they were set up by Chloe Grace Moretz who's like really famous
MEG: Aww that’s nice.
MOLLY: Yeah, so, it feels like it's not the first time he's seen a beautiful famous woman. But let me get into this next one. Taraji P Henson and her fiance Kelvin Hayden. She knew he was the one for her when she met him. She still made him, like beg, which I love, for like 4 months.
MEG: Great.
MOLLY: Like, he had to fight for her. But, she met him because her makeup artist set up a party just with the intention of Taraji meeting guys, bachelors.
MEG: [gasp] What a pal!
MOLLY: I know, I love that. And when she saw his picture beforehand, again with the picture, it was the eyes that did it for her and she always said she heard angels when they shake hands to the party.
MEG: Whaaa…
MOLLY: And here's maybe my favorite one: when Michael Douglas met Catherine Zeta-Jones, he said “I'm going to be the father of your children.”
MEG: NO WALK AWAY.
MOLLY: Kill me! Yeah I would walk right away. They’re happily married, but like—
MEG: That is so creepy.
MOLLY: Maybe we're just shutting ourselves off to opportunities with these creepy men.
MEG: No no no, not a good pickup line: “I want to impregnate you.”
MOLLY: But it worked. So, you know, what can you say?
MEG: Again, a rich man I, guess. I don’t know.
MOLLY: Yeah. Okay so, I want to get into the numbers when it comes to love at first sight with you. Because I was under the assumption that most people were cynical about love at first sight, but a 2012 poll by 60 minutes and Vanity Fair showed that 56% of people in the United States do believe in love at first sight, which is a lot. Another study I read reported that in Western countries every third person has said they've experienced love at first sight. That’s a lot! That’s just one more podcast host.
MEG: Yeah we just need another person—
MOLLY: In the room, yeah. Okay so, but those numbers kind of do you decrease with age, so a Gallup poll found that people over 50 or less likely to believe in love at first sight than people younger 50.
MEG: Oh so they’re jaded.
MOLLY: Yeah.
MEG: Even if they are madly in love still it’s less romantic now, it’s practical.
MOLLY. Yeah, yeah.And then another interesting element for this, for me, is men vs. women. So, I think that because of Rom-Coms and just you know, blah blah Society generally, I would have assumed that women are more likely to like fall in love at first sight just because of the narrative that women are constantly stumbling into love.
MEG: Sure.
MOLLY: Or you know, falling in front of a taxi cab.
MEG: Like on Sex and the City!
MOLLY: Yeah! But, actually it's men that are more likely to fall in love at first sight and that's probably because men respond to physical cues more than women do. Which also does make sense.
MEG: Oh yeah all that testosterone clouding up their minds.
MOLLY: Right, boobs and stuff.
MEG: Hearing angels.
MOLLY: Right. boobs and stuff.
MEG: Yeah everyone loves boobs. Well— [laughing]
MOLLY: Anyways…
MEG: Okay okay after that astute boob comment, I am going to get into the science of love.
MOLLY: Yeah so Meg has proven herself as the person who should be talking about the science.
MEG: Yes, mmhmm. Uh, okay. So right, we visually associate love with the heart, right? Velentine’s Day, everything like that. But, we all know that what is actually working behnid the scenes is the brain at this point.
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: And I will say, there is so much we don’t know about the brain still and by we I mean people that are smarter than me that are doctors.
MOLLY: Yeah I mean there is a million things that I don’t know about the brain.
MEG: Right. But, also, a million things doctors don’t know about brains, and scientists.
MOLLY: Yeah that makes me feel better.
MEG: Yeah, okay—
MOLLY: Actually it doesn’t. They should know everything.
MEG: We’re perfect geniuses that and that’s why this podcast is ours.
MOLLY: Thank youuuu…
MEG: Okay, uh, I am sure we will do an episode in the future that goes really in-depth on on the science of love, but I think in order to prove or disprove love at first sight can happen, we should probably know more about what's happening when you're in love right.
MOLLY: Right.
MEG: So, I'll start off by saying that I learned that when certain parts of your brain are at work they're getting more oxygen to them than parts of your brain that you don't need as much in that moment. Which makes sense, right? That's just how functioning is a human works.
MOLLY: Yeah.
MEG: You need oxygen oxygen to do what you need to do.
MOLLY: Right, absolutely.
MEG: Okay so studies found that when you look at a person that you're in love with, there are parts of your brain that light up, or get more oxygen, and parts that deactivate and get less oxygen. The parts that light up when looking at your loved one are the ones that play a role in your emotions, your body’s stability, you decision-making, impulse control, motivation, and reward anticipation.
MOLLY: So basically why we fall apart when we’re in love?
MEG: Yeah. Like you’re a clumsy idiot who thinks they are about to have sex.
MOLLY: Okay, okay.
MEG: And when those parts light up, those are also the parts that spew happy emotions, err um, happy hormones all over your brain, like dopamine and oxytocin, which, it makes sense that when we talk about opioids they sound like those things, because—
MOLLY: The names of them?
MEG: Yeah. Things that make you feel good, right?
MOLLY: Yeah, love is an addiction.
MEG: Yes, it is. Alright, so the parts of the brain that don't light up when you look at a loved one are the ones that help you hold focus ,interpret speech, and listen to the rest of your body.
MOLLY: So again, why we fall apart when we're in love.
MEG: Yes.
MOLLY: Cus we cannot function.
MEG: Right. And I want to take a really quick tangent real quick if you’ll let me, Molly.
MOLLY: Allowed…
MEG: Okay, the term “your brain lights up” was really bugging me. When I was doing this research.
MOLLY: Sure.
MEG: Like, what does that even mean? It sounds like something a second grader would say. “My brain is lighting up!” So, basically, just want to let you know, it comes from the way we use fMRI machines. Fmri means functional magnetic resonance imaging. People just usually call it an MRI I’ve gotten one after a concussion or a broken nose. But basically it uses magnetic waves to create an image of your brain and the magnetic waves that it sends out can detect the amount of oxygen being used in various areas and that area shows up in a color coded way on a screen for the researchers and doctors. So basically that color showing up is why we say it lights up. It’s pretty simple, but it’s a thing that I’m like, everyone is just throwing this term around, but what does it mean?
MOLLY: Yeah what the heck.
MEG: And thats what it means! So, okay that's what love is for your brain.
MOLLY: You’re lightin’ up all over the place when you're in love.
MEG: Yeah when you’re looking at your loved one.
MOLLY: Great.
MEG: So the next question we have to ask is can that happen in a matter of seconds just looking at a stranger?
MOLLY: Can it? What’d you fiiiind?!
MEG: Uhm, so O am just going to tell you the answer right now…
MOLLY: YES!
MEG: Uh, yes.
MOLLY: YEAH!!!!!
MEG: [laughs] Uh it can. And how do we know that? More brain studies.
MOLLY: More brain studies, babe!
MEG: But, before I give you a brief overview of how those work, I'll say… it helped me understand these studies to hear an explanation of love at first sight from Helen Fisher.
MOLLY: We love Helen Fisher, guys. Look her upppp.
MEG: We fo love Helen Fisher. I feel like she's going to be our mom that we talked about on this podcast that we've never met and hopefully it's proud of us.
MOLLY: Yeah yeah she's she's the best.
MEG: Yeah, she’s and anthropologist, she’s a love genius, she has a bunch of books… she’s great! I found her via a podcast called on being with Krista Tippett, it’s a great podcast, during my divorce and her episodes were really helpful for me.
MOLLY: And I found her via Meg!
MEG: Cuz I'm a good friend. Okay Helen says romantic love is a primitive and basic pathway through the brain It’s located next to thirst and hunger and those keep you alive. And love keeps you alive long term, like reproducing right?
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: …romantic love can be triggered instantly.
MOLLY: AHHHH! There you gooo!
MEG: There you go. As you grow up, you build an unconscious love map or list and then when the timing is right, you you see someone across the room, right? You see someone across the bar—
MOLLY: bing-bang-boom!
MEG: After a show, you’re wearing your flannel shirt and holding your beer and you look… and they fit within your love map: GE, size, background, all that stuff. It can trigger your brain circuitry, the lighting up, and you can fall in love immediately.
MOLLY: Yes.
MEG: And this makes sense to me because— that your brain is triggered to react the way it does to love because you looked across the bar at someone that fits into the image of what you've been pining for already and decided that you loved before you even knew they existed and could fit into that puzzle piece…
MOLLY: Yeah…
MEG: Makes love at First Sight make more sense to me.
MOLLY: Yeah so it’s like “cool, you're checking off all of these boxes that I've been subconsciously developing for myself since I was a kid.”
MEG: Exactly. Yeah.
MOLLY: Okay that makes sense.
MEG: And then, just because I’ve been a little vague, I just want to give you a very brief explanation of some of the ways that researchers have figured out what our brains do when they're in love and how they know our brains can do the same thing in a matter of moments of seeing someone for the very first time.
MOLLY: Okay.
MEG: so one study had a bunch of people look at photos of the person they already were already wildly in love with while being monitored by that fmri machine and saw with the brain did. which is really funny to me cuz I'm just picturing one guy being like “yeah I’m wildly in love with her” and then they all get in the fmri machine and they’re like “Is it broken?”
MOLLY: “It’s dark in here.”
[Both laughing.]
MEG: In his brain.
MOLLY: Yeah it’s dark in here in his brain that’s what the doctor is saying.
MEG: Yeah, that sounds like the technical term that the second grader would say. Uh, another study was on first impressions and they had one group of people look at photos of strangers and rate them on things like—they used like ten different things, like trustworthiness, but one was attraction. And these groups of people are split up and some of them only got one tenth of a second to see the image of the stranger.
MOLLY: Wow.
MEG: Yeah. Some of them got half a second, and some got a full second and then they had a whole other group do the exact same thing with the same photos and they got… as much time as I needed.
MOLLY: Okay.
MEG: And the results for both groups were the same.
MOLLY: Oh so it doesn't matter how much time you have.
MEG: Yeah doesn’t matter if you have a while or a tenth of a second, you’re basically getting the same results.
MOLLY: Yeah okay.
MEG: Which, to me when I think about it, is like… well what does that mean? If you take trustworthiness for example—
MOLLY: Yeah.
MEG: Instead of attractiveness, the people could say the same things, but then we don't know if that person they looked at is actually trustworthy or not.
MOLLY: Right, yeah yeah yeah.
MEG: So…
MOLLY: You have to make a split decision.
MEG: And I guess that’s a matter of like, when it comes to attractiveness… what makes us attracted to people, which we can get into in another episode, but—
MOLLY: Hint: sometimes it’s people that look like you.
MEG: [laughs] It of course is! Okay and then one more study was, and this one is talked about a lot, back in 2010, Stephanie Ortigue and a bunch of other researchers, they compiled a ton of research from other studies and then combined it with their own study where they discovered that people have the same brain “light ups” and spewing of hormones happen within .2 seconds of visual contact with a like a new person
MOLLY: Okay so it can happen really quickly is what you're saying?
MEG: Yeah.
MOLLY: And this also brings me to some research I was doing, read more Helen Fisher material: shout out to our girl! Uh, when meeting someone, people apparently decide within 3 minutes if that person is a potential mate for them, but that can be broken down. So like, it is within seconds that you're at a bar and you decide if the person you're talking to is attractive or not, physically attractive or not. And then the next thing we look out when sizing up a potential mate is voice and words. So, for instance, women tend to see men with deep voices as more physically attractive than they actually are.
MEG: Okay.
MOLLY: Interesting.
MEG: yeah, uh, I… okay.
MOLLY: Does that make sense to you? Based on your past?
MEG: [Laughs] I mean, it’s happened before…
MOLLY: Yeah. Definitely. Uh, and then we also look for mates who tend to use the same vocabulary we do because it suggest the same level of education… that kind of stuff. And it's still all of this is within seconds. the 3 minutes is getting into the big stuff, which apparently you can do within 3 minutes. Politics—
MEG: Yeah you can find out if they love Trump in three minutes.
MOLLY: Exactly. You’re gonna find that out pretty quick and at first that all seemed crazy to me, I was like that's not enough time, but again as I said before, I've never seriously dated anyone that I didn't feel a spark with like kind of off the bat and I at least had a little sizing up of them right away. So…
MEG: Makes sense.
MOLLY: Maybe you’re right Helen.
MEG: Always.
MOLLY: So, so what we’ve kind of been saying so far is that, yes, love at first sight can happen, which I love. I think that’s very cool, but we are kind of basing it off of, you know, this one concept of what love is so we do have to kind of go into that more, I think. So according to Helen: shout out to our girl.
MEG: Shout out every time, please.
MOLLY: The overall concept of Love consists of three things: lust, which is like sex drive, romantic love, which is what we've been talking about with your brain lining up which is like a traction, infatuation… everything about them is special. And then the third element is attachment. Which is more companionship like sticking with the person to at least raise one child into infancy is the scientific way to think about it.
MEG: Sure.
MOLLY: So, it is romantic love, that attraction that can happen at first sight, but attachment, your brain— lust romantic love, and attachment, are all different brand systems and so attachment can't happen at First Sight. Which makes sense. You can't know that at first sight.
MEG: Yeah.
MOLLY: You can guess.
MEG: Yeah you can assume that that person will raise a child with you but not know for sure.
MOLLY: Yes, but what a lot of people talk about when they— when cynics are like “love at first sight isn't real” it that it's only lust at first sight.
MEG: Okay.
MOLLY: But that's not actually true, because lust is a different brain system.
MEG: WOAH!!!
MOLLY: So Helen knows what she's talking about when she says romantic love is what's lighting up, but there's still a lot of cynics and that’s still for good reason, Meg.
MEG: Well yeah I feel like it’s gotta be— they are related, you can’t deny that.
MOLLY: Exactly and you have to get into how you define love yourself so first I want to talk about this concept of modified or construed memory which basically says that people gauge actions based on outcome. So if you have a great relationship it's easier for you to look back and be like “yeah it was love at first sight because that's the person I'm now happy with” you know? But maybe it was just lust right? Because presumably not everyone is hooked up to an MRI machine when they're meeting their partner— I wish it’d be freaking cool.
MEG: Just laying in them at a bar…
MOLLY: Exactly, I mean hey it's a new world, you never know. We don’t know what bars are going to be like after Covid, but that leads a lot of people— it's it's like hindsight bias, a lot of people just say “Yes, I've had love at first sight with my now partner who I’m married to and I love—
MEG: Because it worked out—
MOLLY: Yes, exactly.
MEG: And that’s nice.
MOLLY: And then, I also want to talk about something called the Halo effect: This is when one trait about a person defines their whole impression fo them. so, in this case maybe you find someone physically attractive and that makes you more likely to believe they are a great person in other ways.
MEG: Oooh! or they perform! That is basically another name for a stage crush!
MOLLY: Exactly! Full circle, yes! Stage crush. Halo effect, stage crush, same thing. That’s canon. [laughs] So, you know, you can fall in love with someone right away, like your brain is going nuts, everything is lightin’ up, but you may, you know, put on a pedestal. You ignore the fact that they’re a serial killer. That's an extreme example , but you know what I mean?
MEG: I mean it’s happened.
MOLLY: Yeah exactly so love at first sight is not always going to have good results so it kind of for me depends on like how you define love. Like yes, I’m experiencing romantic love, but when I look back on it, I’m never gonna actually call that love because that person was a serial killer. Right? And that's my own definition and I'm entitled to that.
MEG: Oh sure, so it can go either way, like you can look back and be like “yes of course this was romantic and perfect, we lasted!” Or you can save face and be like “no that was less because… they murdered people.”
MOLLY": Yeah exactly [laughs] And if, you know, if you define love based on this concept of attachment, which Helen— shout out!— talks about—
MEG: Oh no.
MOLLY: …if you define it based on attachment then you can’t have love at first sight because you don’t know if you’re gonna be able to raise a kid with this person, as I said before. So it really like does depend on how you define love, but I do like how Helen defines romantic love because all the other things can grow from that. You know what I mean? So if you look at it that way then yeah love at first sight is real. I do want to kind of read a quote from a woman Niloo Dardashti she's a psychologist and a relationship expert. In Cosmopolitan she said this—
MEG: Shout out.
MOLLY: Shout out. Yeah everyone gets a shout out. She said this because she was kind of speaking like: love at first sight is not realize is what she was saying. She said with love we’re talking about things like intimacy, tolerating somebody's flaws, seeing them as a whole person and still liking them and so on… that's a lot of stuff that generally doesn't happen in the first moment you look at someone. So again, it's kind of how you define it but there is science behind. So she is defining love as… it’s past this brain stuff right?
MEG: Yeah.
MOLLY: So, I totally get that, but I love that there is some science behind love at first sight being real.
MEG: Yeah absolutely!
MOLLY: So what do you think? Okayafter hearing this? what do you think, is love at first sight real?
MEG: Uhm… You know, this is my opinion: I think love it 3 minutes is real.
MOLLY: Okay yeah.
MEG: The thing that you said about how it can take 3 minutes to, you know maybe there is lust at First Sight kind of thing if we’re gonna be the the cynics, but then I do think a lot can be learned from those three minutes and if you checked off the boxes then that is the beginning of a relationship,
MOLLY: Yeah. Yeah exactly so if you were to say like fall in love with someone in 3 minutes and then it didn't work out, would you still call that love at first sight? Or love at first three minutes, whatever you want to say?
MEG: Uhm, I mean yeah, I guess it depends on how long it took to fail which is leaning into the modified memory.
MOLLY: Yeah yeah, if you have terrible memories of it it’s gonna be hard for you to— but I don’t know, you’re an honest person Meg, I think you would still say at first sight how you really felt with that person.
MEG: Yeah I would say I as probably obsessed with them.
MOLLY: Right. Just like me with the summer camp guy. [laughing] Maybe that was love. Shout out!!
MEG: It was very quiet love!
MOLLY: I hope he never listens to this.
MEG: I mean… I hope he does. Uhm, do you? where are you at with it?
MOLLY: I think I am much more hopeful than I was going into this. Cuz I think going into this I was like “no way.” But, now I'm like, oh there is science behind this idea that it’s more than just wanting to have sex with someone at first glance, like you can have more than that and I I like that a lot.
MEG: Yeah so you do.
MOLLY: Yeah I guess I believe in it to a certain extent. Kind of what you were saying. But I'm like, oh it could happen You know? Someone could meet someone at a bar and it really could be like when your friend texts you after meeting someone— you hear stories about how like someone meets someone and like texts their friends news: this is going to be my husband!
MEG: Yeah.
MOLLY: That’s never happened to me with any of my friend, but it happens and I’m like—
MEG: Well no, because that’s embarrassing.
MOLLY: Yeah. It is embarrassing we don’t do that.
MEG: Cus you could be wrong the next day. But I do believe that it happens, whether your friend texts you ro not, I guess that is my answer to the question. I am a strong believer that you can fall in love at any time and I remind my friends of that when they're feeling really down about— when they are people that desire to be in a relationship and are ready for one… it could happen at any point.
MOLLY: Yeah.
MEG: You feel like you're so far from it, but the beautiful thing behind love at first sight that I do buy into is, and have seen happen, is that person can step into your life unexpectedly at any point. Tomorroe.
MOLLY: Yeah. which you’ve experienced, I would say.
MEG: Yeah a few times.
MOLLY: Yeah yeah. I will say though, that if you're single and you're really desperate for love, that’s like the last thing you want to hear is “it could happen whenever!” [both laughing]
MEG: OKAY. So I'm maybe not a good friend.
MOLLY: No you’re the best friend.
MEG: But I am right, so—
MOLLY: No, I know you absolutely are, but it’s like shut up Meg okay cool we get it.
MEG: “Prove it.”
MOLLY: Yeah find me that, put me in an MRI machine, you know?
MEG: There is something that being in a relationship really takes the weight out fo your words when you’re trying to comfort a friend who wants to be in one.
MOLLY: Yeah it’s like “fuck you.” Cool you’re happy.
MEG: Yeah I do try to be really aware of that.
MOLLY: Yeah and you are good at that. Uhm so, we kind of buy into love at first sight at least a little bit now, but I have to tell you there are some people that don’t and that brings me to a letter from one of our listeners!
MEG: Oh yes! Okay good!
MOLLY: So something that we want to do here on the podcast is read your real life stories about love and commitment, and we encourage you to send them to us at any time, they can be about dating love relationships
MEG: Heartbreak
MOLLY: Heartbreak, they do not have to have a happy ending, but we want you to send them to us at ForeverBabePodcast@gmail.com.
MEG: Or you can go to our website ForeverBabePodcast.com and submit through there.
MOLLY: Exactly, yes. But for this episode since it's our first. We asked one of our lovely friends Cara to send us one of her favorite stories and she very kindly did and it's a great story. Meg has not heard it I have not heard it.
MEG: I have not heard it and I'm very excited. Our friend Cara Meyers—
MOLLY: Shout out!!!
MEG: You can find her through her name on social media, because she is another comedian in LA and she's perfect and wonderful and she sent us this story because she is our friend who has the most dating stories.
MOLLY: She is the best!
MEG: I’ve never met anyone like her. But I haven’t heard this so I’m excited.
MOLLY: Okay here we go:

I have a story about love at first sight and how I now think it is complete bullshit.

MEG: [gasp!] Oh it’s about the topic!?
MOLLY: Yeah so she didn’t even know our topic and she sent us a loe at first sight story that’s real we’re not lying to make you like us…
MEG: But please do.
MOLLY: So, here we go this is form Cara:

I was taking an improv class in 2014 at The Groundlings when I met him—

MOLLY: So for those of you that don't know the inner workings of a improv, it doesn't matter, you don't need to and you should be glad you dont’t.

So, when I met him, Gary, Names have been changed to keep it anonymous, but I call him Gary because he looks like Gary Sinise in Forrest Gump. And he looked at me like no one has ever looked at me before. I was convinced that this man was it, my purse, and I finally met him. We instantly clicked and we began what I thought was going to be a happy healthy life-long relationship I even called my best friend and told her to get ready because of this bitch found the love of her life.

MEG: [gasp] That’s what we were talking about!
MOLLY: Yes.

Two months of making eyes in class, sleepovers, no sex is had at these sleepovers because I was trying to be classy at the time.

MEG: Wait. I’m sorry keep going…

…and meeting my friends. I was ready to take it to the next level. So of course I find out he has a very serious girlfriend. How did I find out? I creeped on his Instagram and found her in all his tagged photos. I'm not proud of the person I became the next few months, but I was convinced he was only with her because he was too afraid to be with me. He would text me when he was with her and say you would rather be with me. Eventually we ended up sleeping together and what do you think happened next? He moved in with his girlfriend and told me we were never more than just friends. I was heartbroken. So heartbroken, I blacked out at a club in Venice, called him and left a voicemail saying I hated him, and then threw my phone in the toilet. That's the last time I ever spoke to Gary. But let’s fast forward to Spring 2019. I’m with a friend at the Vista going to see Jordan peele's Us when I turn around and who do I see? Gary. Gary is at the movie. I screamed.

MEG: I bet she did.
MOLLY: Yeah.

To make matters worse, Gary was with the girl he was dating when we slept together, but now they are married. And she were a vacation beach hat into a midnight movie.

MEG: NO.

That's not important, but also who wears a vacation hat to a movie when you're not on vacation?

MEG: That is important.

…and then keeps that hat on during the entire movie. At the end of the movie Gary and I made eye contact and he ran away from me and like a little bitch. That is how the story ends. What I thought was love at first sight was just a sociopath trying to f*** a hot 25 year old with big boobs before he married his girlfriend. Love at first sight isn’t real.

MOLLY: That’s how she concludes it.
MEG: Oh my God I love it. I mean that sucks. And I love the boob callback.
MOLLY: Yeah you love a boob callback.
MEG: Oh Cara! That’s a good story.
MOLLY: Yeah it’s sad but I totally get it that would make you so cynical about love and love at first sight.
MEG: Here's the thing. I mean it happened for Cara, that's my take.
MOLLY: Yeah you think it was love at first sight. Her brain was firing.
MEG: Yeah and also probably for him. When you know to be ashamed of something, like he ran away like, as
Cara would have said [impersonating] “like a little bitch!” Then he knows he has something to be ashamed of and those are the things he did and the emotions he felt. Right?
MOLLY: Yeah. Both their brains were firing.
MEG: Yeah. They were both in love in a way and he should not have been—
MOLLY: In the way that Helen—shout out— describes it.
MEG: [laughing] Oh no.
MOLLY: Sorry.
MEG: We’re gonna meet her one day we must.
MOLLY: We must have her on the pod.
MEG: Uh, that’s a great story and…
MOLLY: We wanna hear more guys so send them to us.
MEG: Yeah I appreciate Cara’s ability to open up and be vulnerable in that story—
MOLLY: Yes thank you Cara.
MEG: And, you know if you submit, you can be anonymous and we just want to hear it. You don’t have to be, but you can so that we get the real love stories that you guys have or the stories of heartbreak or whatever it is, maybe your grandparents are the cutest couple in the world.
MOLLY: Oh my gosh yes, I love old people stories.
MEG: A little old people meet cute like we started with.
MOLLY: Yeah!
MEG: In the news. Uh, I mean that’s how we close it out.
MOLLY: Guys thank you so much for listening and we’re so excited to talk about love again next week.
MEG: I am truly very very excited about this podcast and really just grateful for everyone that is listening.
MOLLY: Yes me too. Don’t forget to donate to WaterDrop LA.
MEG: Yeah of Love Drop, whatever that is. And be sure to follow us everywhere [music entering] and subscribe, we really appreciate it.
MOLLY: Thanks baaabe.—[music cuts]
MEG: Oh no no no no no. Love you forever…
MOLLY AND MEG: Babe!!! [music returns and plays out…]

SOURCES:
Youtube video - The Science Behind Love At First Sight from Seeker
What does love do to our brains? - On medicalnewstoday.com - by Maria Cohut, Ph.D. 
Why Is Oxytocin Known as the ‘Love Hormone’? And 11 Other FAQs - on healthline.com - by  Adrienne Santos-Longhurst
The Science of Love and Attachment - PsychologyToday.com - by Melanie Greenberg Ph.D
Love in 0.2 Seconds - on nature.com - by Naseem S.
2-Minute Neuroscience: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)- from Neuroscientifically Challenged 
How Many Seconds to a First Impression? - on psychologicalscience.org - by Eric Wargo
People. com
Reuters. com
Washington Post: Love at First Sight May Have a Biological Basis by Laura Schwecherl
Scientists explain love at first sight by Teodora Zavera on Big Think. com
“Over Half of Americans Believe in love at first sight” by Darren Carlson on Gallup. com
Love at First Sight - an interview with Helen Fisher found on AprendemosJuntos youtube page 
Is Love At First Sight Even Real?  Experts Say Probably Not - By Candice Jalili for Cosmopolitan
What kind of love is love at first sight?  An empirical study by - FLORIAN ZSOK  MATTHIAS HAUCKE  CORNELIA Y. DE WIT  DICK P. H. BARELDS
The Realities of Love at First Sight - By Helen Fisher in Oprah Magazine