The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smith

In the end, it’s not the changes that will break your heart; it’s that tug of familiarity.

It was his fault, all of it, and yet her hatred for him was the worst kind of love, a tortured longing, a misguided wish that made her heart hammer in her chest. She couldn’t ignore the disjointed sensation that they were now two different pieces of two different puzzles, and nothing in the world could make them fit together again.

“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”

“Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.”

“No one is useless in this world,” it reads, “who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”

“Love isn’t supposed to make sense. It’s completely illogical.”

“What are you really studying?” He leans back to look at her. “The statistical probability of love at first sight.”

“People who meet in airports are seventy-two percent more likely to fall for each other than people who meet anywhere else.”

“Did you know that people who meet at least three different times within a twenty-four hour period are ninety-eight percent more likely to meet again?”