It was there or it didn't exist

You didn't have to attract desire. Either it was in the woman who aroused it or it didn't exist. Either it was there at first glance or else it had never been. It was instant knowledge of sexual relationship or it was nothing. That too I knew before I experienced it.

Marguerite Duras, The Lover, p19

Reading The Lover, lovely feminine prose that I would never be able to write. Had to annotate this quote. For me, it leapt off right the page; I knew it was truth. Not just for Duras, but it was a personal truth. I always know from the first glance, and attraction is not something actively done. It's a meeting of polar energies of some kind.

I always remember the first glance.

I once asked my sister, how can you not know you like someone? She said quite simply, they start off as friends. But that is an impossiblity for me. Whether someone will be a friend or something other, is always determined, for me, at the first glance.