You are yourself. You are your age. You have your friends and your family. You live in your culture, in this age. Now imagine that you are at a party. Something happens. You feel a strange tingle in your spine. You look around you, wondering what is happening. Suddenly you see why. The eyes you accidentally stumble on lock onto yours. You have never seen them before, but you feel like you always have known them. You should be ashamed—or at least embarrassed—to be looking into a stranger's eyes like this. After what could have been a year-and-a-half but was more likely a second-and-a-half the eyes hurriedly dart away. You move yours too, frantic to find something else to look at.

Your sense of time and space is lost. Your concerns, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your sense of self—everything, is forgotten. The bodies of your friends and fellow party-goers seem to drift around you. You hear faint, disembodied voices and sounds. You say something to someone—you don't know what or to whom—as you effortlessly drift toward an angelic figure across the floor.

Suddenly the angel is in front of you. You have no idea what to say, but you say something anyway. He or she answers you, perfectly. The person says something halfway. You finish the thought. There is nothing else but the two of you. The figures, sounds, and images around you appear as wallpaper and white noise. Someone grabs your hand and whisks you away. It's time to leave.

Hours later, you are walking home in the darkness, thinking of those eyes. You hear something, and your head spins around. You recognize that voice. He or she breaks away from a group and comes to you.

"I love you," you say. "I can't stop thinking about you."

"I know," you hear. "Meet me tomorrow."

The next day you are married. You have changed, but the rest of the world is exactly the same. Think there are going to be some problems? What will your friends say? How about your family?

Of course they will think that you are an idiot. The question is, are they right? Is it fair or accurate to call this "love"? What kind of a mess might this situation make?