They see each other from across the room and all of a sudden, it is as if an unbendable force has been inserted between them. They cannot be separated. They are in love and it only took about one millisecond to happen! We see this happen in many different novels and plays including Romeo and Juliet, Chaereas and Callirhoe, and An Ethiopian Story, as well as in all modern romance novels, television, movies, and in every day life. We all seem to have friends that fall in love with every man or woman that they see as soon as they see them. What is this strange phenomenon and what causes it? This is love at first sight, or better yet not love but simply lust or extreme physical attraction. The cause, many believe is somehow related to pheromones.
             When the romance novel genre got started in Ancient Greece, it contained exactly the same elements as novels do now, the elements that we wish were actually contained in our love lives. These elements include love and adventure, a young, wellborn, handsome, couple, travel, separation, misfortunes, virginity and chastity, fidelity, and a happy ending (Reardon, 1989.) This is what we want to occur in our own love lives, but we do not know how to make that happen so we satisfy the wants and desires of our beating hearts by reading, watching, and observing others around us and in fictional stories achieving what we so desperately want. We also try using artificial methods, such as make-up, cosmetic surgery, and perfume, of making ourselves more beautiful in hopes of attracting the object of our desire.
             When we read about, see, or know of people that do fall in love at first site and are inseparable we say that they are just reacting to physical beauty and cannot possibly really be in love. No matter what anyone does they will not stop loving the object of their desire. The best example of this kind of lustful love at first sight is in Romeo and Juliet when two young teenagers s...