Do you remember the very first time you saw your best friend? Did you know straight away that they were going to be your number one?
The whole love at first sight phenomenon is a familiar trope. It happens in rom coms, it happens in novels, and every now and again you hear of a friend's parents who had a genuine meet-cute of their own, IRL. What's less talked about is friendship at first sight.
A recent article in the New York Magazineexplored a number of recent studies that prove it's a totally legit scientific thang. A quick survey of Debrief HQ confirmed this; we found that at least half the office have experienced it themselves - so we can tell you, now, officially, that it's real. Because we said so.
One of the studiesreferenced by the New York Magazine investigates love at first sight, and the general consensus is that if you believe it will happen, it will happen. The same seems to apply to friendship at first sight.
And while the feeling of meeting someone and knowing you're going to be, like, BFFs forever is absolutely magical, this is actually based on very real, evolutionary science.
We're all familiar with the concept of first impressions; million years of refinement have given us instincts that help us decide whether we like someone or not within literal milli-seconds of meeting them.
If you have particularly warm feelings towards someone from the get-go, that then encourages you to explore that further - so put simply, you make more of an effort with people if your gut tells you its a good idea.
And this also works the other way - if you don't like someone initially you're often then looking for reasons to validate that feeling. In other words, you build on that initial reaction and find more excuses not to like them.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.