She said something to the effect that she has a type, and she was at a party and sees this good looking guy across the room, in profile, and thinks, “oh my, who is that?” When he turns around and she sees it’s Ashton she says to herself, “uh oh, I’m in trouble.”
Sounds like that may be closer to the situation here than the more cliched love at first sight.
The problem is, what I'm thinking of with myself is something that I was not consciously aware of at the time, but that definitely occurred. So I can't relate to the idea of "I will probably fall in love with this person." Rather, it's there's this reaction I have, that's probably some initial attraction, or picking up on subtle cues of their attraction, or mutual attraction, that I'm not aware of at the time.
Generally speaking, I feel like I want to impress this person a lot, and feel kind of inferior or insufficient or something, like I want them to like me. It's not a manipulative feeling, like I want to manipulate them, but rather a genuine feeling of wanting to be a better person, or more attractive, in response to them. It's almost as if my brain is trying to be sexually and romantically attractive to a person I don't even know I'm attracted to.
However, in these situations, I would never really think anything about being attracted to them. If someone brought it up with me, I might even think it's absurd, and not even in a defensive way, but just in the sense that it never ever occurred to me to be in a relationship with them. I don't think to myself "oh that person is really attractive," or "they're the sort of person I'd like to be with." It's something I'm really unaware of, sometimes even for months of knowing the person. It's a very visceral, primal kind of thing.
This article seems to be describing a very similar idea, but at a later stage, where I might be becoming aware of feelings but am not entirely sure of the consequences of it or something.
It certainly wasn't fate for any of them, as I didn't date a single one, and I'm quite happy with the woman that I did marry.
It can take a sentence, a paragraph or an essay.
What the term usually means is: it is not translatable as a single word. And in this case, it isn't.
Sounds like limerence. Which is a sort of made up word, but a useful one.
It's not untranslatable. It's just not a popular culture thing anywhere except Japan.
Sure, it's different from "love at first sight" because you feel you will love them, not that you already do.
Personally, sounds a lot like "lust" or just "interest" to me.