On strangers, and love-of-the-first-sight

Love of the first sight exists because strangers thrill us with an air of mystery. By definition, we don't know anything about them, and this is exactly why we fall in love with them; they are a blank canvas for imagination, fantasy, and daydreams. They can be potentially anyone we can imagine; a new dear friend, a lover, or just some beautiful mind we'll share a conversation with. They are pure potential, regardless of who they really are. In love of the first sight, one does not fall in love with the other person, but with one's own fantasy.

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One may contrast this, with:

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Also related:

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❨❨ غُبَارُ العَمَلِ خَيرٌ مِنْ زَعفَرَان العُطلَة ❩❩ .

✱ زَهرُ الآدَاب - القيرواني 825:2 ✱

"زاد المسافر" في مثل هذه الليلة المباركة

"هو انت جبت سيرة بعث ونهضة واخفاقات"

The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops.
But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry has become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture.
We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

- Walden, by H. D. Thoreau