The colloquial translation from the Italian is Love At First Sight but I think it's actually a lightning bolt of lust, and then if you end up spending the next 5-50 years together you see it, looking back, as Love. But the only way to tell the difference for sure is in retrospect. Lust obliterates everything else for awhile, and it's very tough to tell what else may be going on while it's happening. 

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone sees a gorgeous young Italian girl out for a walk one day, a virgin named Appolonia, while he's hiding out from the opposing mob in Sicily, and is struck. Staring and following her around like a robot, he attracts the attention of an old woman in black from a nearby village who says to her old-lady friend, “The thunderbolt!” The second old lady nods sagely. Michael courts the girl, wins her father's permission, and marries her as fast as he can. There is no long or even short pause for reflection on his part as to whether or not this is love, as his desire for her is so intense it makes anything but penetration ASAP seem completely beside the point. 

The “pal” factor is invariably absent from the most intense love stories, and they frequently involve even two seemingly mismatched people whose desire for each other overwhelms all reason, from Romeo and Juliet, to Lady Chatterly and her outdoorsy roughneck, to Loretta and her fiancé’s brother in Moonstruck.  

The Italians think of The Thunderbolt as something that strikes men, but I’m sure there are plenty of women who have felt its power. The big lie is that women want sex less than men do. I don’t believe that they want it less. I do know many more women than men though, who pretend to themselves that it’s not a priority, and they pay an awful price for the pretense. There are few things in this world sadder and more self-deluded than The Un-fucked Wife who has talked herself into a life of “companionship” with no passion. (The Un-fucked Husband has a tendency to stay un-fucked for much shorter periods of time, or, if he is faithful to his pledge of monogamy, to rapidly become a near-zombie.) 

Another huge lie is that men are less willing to commit to relationships than women are. Their publicity on this is wildly exaggerated. The truth is that they are very willing to commit, just not as quickly. Given the unlikelihood that the first few candidates who show an interest and fit the laundry list of requirements for a partner that both sexes tend to carry around in their over-analytical heads will be “the one”, men are much more apt to remain aware of their range of options as regards future prospects. Women, like some over-eager little-league batters, get up to the plate and swing at every pitch, and so, then, logically, whether or not they hit the ball is often, sadly, more dependent on the quality of the pitch than on the quality of the swing. 

And by that I don’t mean that women aren’t picky. They are. But as soon as they find a guy who looks good on paper, (that’s what I’m calling a pitch) they often focus only on him, at least until he fucks things up. Men, on the other hand, are likelier to think, Hey, she looks great on paper, this is a genuine candidate, that’s good, but who else is still out there? Is that an unwillingness to commit? Or just a smart shopper? 

I met a beautiful young man in a bathhouse in Amsterdam once, in my late 30s, who was about ten years younger than I and about 10 times prettier. He had a standard-issue white towel tied around his tight, willowy stomach, and I couldn’t breathe. The Thunderbolt. I was tripping on space cake from a local hashish shop and I remember, with luminous clarity, later, kissing his neck, shoulders, and chest for what seemed, in my heightened state, like hours. He was visiting from Germany, spoke very little English, and stopped me at one point, taking my face in his hands, staring as deeply as he could into my pupils, (which were probably fucking huge), to say in his thick accent: “Vik-tor… zis iz not sax… zis… iz… luff-making.”  I remember looking back, deep into his eyes, knowing we would not see each other again, as I brushed my lips and cheeks against his trembling stomach: “Yes. It is. Yes.” 

We spent the afternoon in each other’s ecstatic embrace, which for me was layered with passion, loss, and relief. My partner of 5 years at that point, Scott, was asleep in our hotel room, exhausted from his ongoing war with AIDS, after a long, wonderful morning walk exploring the city, and after having urged me to get high, to find a man to my liking, to enjoy some sex, and to be back by 6 for dinner. “Go. You deserve it. I love you. I need a nap. Go fall in love for the afternoon.” 

Wouter (that was the name of the German boy… Walter without the L) and I were entwined in grateful repose after the fireworks, and I told him about Scott when he inquired about the flashes of sadness he had observed in me, while he hugged me tightly and kissed my eyes, cheeks, neck and mouth. It felt strange and easy to hold this stranger in my arms after making love. He was young and strong. Scott would be dead in just a bit more than a year, his powerful body had become a little bag of bones. We had several more forays into passion in that year of his life that remained, whenever his body unexpectedly surged with sexual need and prowess, but that day in Amsterdam, he was exhausted and happy and even eager for me to find a surrogate to whom I could transfer the overwhelming feelings of desire he simply hadn’t the energy to reciprocate, and which he understood, as a man, and an unconditionally loving one, that begged to be expressed. 

Did I fall in love with Wouter? Yes, at least for 4 hours. Does that sound flippant? I sure don’t mean it to. Our connection had been profound. Did I fall “out of love” with Scott for those 4 hours? Definitely not. Was Scott in my head and my heart and my balls for those 4 hours? For some of it, yes. But not for all of it.  

What was the difference between the thunderbolt that hit me when I met Wouter, and the thunderbolt that hit me when I first saw Scott, riding his bicycle on the lakefront in Chicago, wearing an ugly black helmet that could make no secret of his beautiful face and the chestnut hair spilling out around the edges in sweaty curls, and with whom I spent 6 too-short years? None at all. Except in retrospect.