“I’m In Love With You”…Ten Years Later?

We’ve all heard romantic stories and tales about two people who meet at a wrong time and at a wrong age, then are separated due to circumstances, only to reunite once again—say ten years later—fall deeply in love, and live happily ever after.  But why or how does that happen?  What makes things so different ten years later?  They’re still the same people, right?  I for one truly believe that people don’t really change—sure they may loose or gain weight, dye or cut their hair…as a matter of fact, they may change their appearance entirely—but deep down inside they’re still the same people.  Ok…if these people dated ten years ago but were forced to break up and reunite later on in life, then it does somewhat make sense to me that they take a leap into the life of matrimony or at least into a long-term relationship.  But what about two people who were just friends?  And, according to live examples all around me, it’s not related to how much time these two spend together after the decade of knowing nothing about each other…it all lies in “the gaze,” that first look or glance that they cast upon each other when they meet again.  Picture a classic romantic film, where, in a moment of silence, a blink of an eye, you see only the eyes of the actors on the screen—and boom! It all takes off from there.  It is vital to acknowledge that “the gaze,” is a term that is widely used in postmodern philosophy and psychoanalysis, then again it appears in Sufi literature and teachings along with other religious traditions.  In a religious context, “the gaze” is seen as being a gift, or a blessing, from the Divine—His gaze illuminates us and helps us on our path of knowledge, virtue—and in short, spiritual enlightenment.  But for now I’m not concerned with the spiritual aspect of “the gaze,” in that sense—but think about it, why is it that one look can change everything and shock us to the core, flipping our world upside down?  I can’t help but ask myself, who is in charge of that change?  It doesn’t make sense to say that “the gaze” happens simultaneously between two people, one person must have inflicted it upon the other first.  What I’m suggesting is that a certain look from one of the two entraps the second and thus gives birth to this newfound love, even after a decade of absence.  Why it happens though I cannot really explain, or, to be honest with you, comprehend myself.  Maybe it’s laced with nostalgia—along with a new level of attraction…and maybe it was there all along—a hidden, secretive feeling—but was expressed at a specific moment in time—when the time was right.  But why is it so enchanting?  The person who released “the gaze” clearly feels stronger about the other—since he or she took that courageous step of allowing his or her look to touch the other person’s soul—but is “the gaze,” in and of itself truly magical, or does the entrapped allow him or herself to be embraced by it because of how he or she sees him or herself reflected in “the gaze” of the Other?