Love at first sight is often fiction and romantic poetry. Yet it’s something many of us have either experienced or at least thought we have.

Many lovers will tell us how they were hit by Cupid’s arrow the moment they laid eyes on each other, there are just as many people who scoff at the idea.

A report by science correspondent James Randerson, in the British publication The Guardian, sheds some light on the perplexing matter with research in 2007 pouring cold water on the idea…love at first sight, say the researchers, “it’s all to do with sex and ego. “It would appear to be some sort of egotistical thing. People are drawn towards others who are attracted to them. It is really an absolute basic effect that we are all, at some degree at least, mindful of – which is that if you try smiling at someone and you sustain eye contact, it makes you more appealing to them”.

Ben Jones of the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen is quoted as saying in the article. “It’s really a very basic effect that we are all, at some level at least, aware of – which is that if you smile at people and you maintain eye contact, it makes you more attractive. “Social signals about how attracted someone else is to you actually seem to be quite important,” he added. “You are attracted to people who are attracted to you, and that shows attractiveness is not just about physical beauty.”

Jones and his team discovered that the most important cue that people are attracted to each other is the direct gaze. They discovered this by putting together sets of images of women and men. In some images, the men or women looked “disgusted”, in others, they were smiling and happy. The images were paired up and in each case they were identical – except for one crucial factor. In one image, the person was looking directly at the camera, in the other, away from the lens. Volunteers were then asked to rate the attractiveness level of the pair of almost identical images.

Says Jones: “What we found at the most basic level is that people like faces with direct gaze more than they like the same faces with averted gaze. In other words, people find it more attractive when they are being looked at.”

But for almost every scientific study in the field of romance, there’s another study to dispute it.

An article on usnews.com describes research on fruit flies – which, we’re assured,may have ramifacations for humans, scientists determined that females are biologically built to sense which men are more genetically matched with them, and to produce more eggs after pairing with good matches than they do with not as highly compatible matches. The determinations indicate that females can in some way judge a possible mate upon first encounter and biologically react to advance the chances of making successful offspring .”

It seems love at first sight, which many of us put down to gut instinct that the person is right for us, is related to human psychology as well as biology… It’s about the birds, the bees…and the fruit flies.

Shared interests will often cement a relationship, as do shared values and opinions. Some couples seem made for each other – but there’s an awful lot of couples that leave you wondering how they got together in the first place.

He votes Republican, she doesn’t vote at all. She loves cats, he’s allergic to them. He’s a party animal, shed rather stay at home with a good book. You know these couples – they’re everywhere. But what does the research say?

An article by David Partenheimer on the American Psychological Association’s website outlines a comprehensive couples study by the University of Iowa. Psychologist Eva C. Klohnen, along with graduate student Shanhong Luo, looked at 291 newlywed couples to study “assortative mating issues” – which is coupling “based on similar or opposite characteristics”.

The study revealed that the couples had “highly similar” values and attitudes but “they possessed little or no above-chance similarity on personality-associated areas such as attachment, extraversion, mindfulness and positive or negative emotions. There is no scientific proof that opposites do in fact attract. What is most fascinating is that when the investigators evaluated matrimonial quality and happiness, they determined that personality resemblance was associated with marital gratification, but attitude similarity wasn’t”.

Science tells us that we’re unconsciously attracted to people who have a different genetic pattern – a different immune system – to our own, and that this makes for the best chance of producing healthy offspring (science always reduces romantic love to mere biology!). But immune systems and life values are two very different things.

Another American study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003, came to similar conclusions as the Iowa research: “in Western civilization, humans do not use an “opposites-attract” or a “reproductive-potentials-attract” determination in their selection of long-term mates but rather a “likes-attract” pattern founded on a preference for partners who are alike to their own personalities across a number of characteristics”.

Dr Neil Clark Warren, author of the book Date Or Soul Mate? How To Know If Someone Is Worth Pursuing in Two Dates Or Less, believes that opposites often attract, but they can drive each other mad. Warren has counseled married couples for 30 years and one of the cornerstones of his philosophy is “finding someone similar to you”.

Romance, though, rarely plays by the scientific or psychological rules, so if you find yourself in a relationship with someone that you probably wouldn’t even be friends with, take stock of what common ground you do have – if there is any! – and learn to respect each other’s differences.

Also learn from other people’s relationships. Many of us have friends or family that are in relationships where personalities clash and don’t compliment one another. Allow your partner to be themselves, trying to change their behaviour will never work and will only add resentment to the relationship.

Avoid heated debates on, for example, politics. Agree to disagree and see what you can learn from each other. If things get heated, give your relationship the priority – your romance is more important than being right or having the last word.