I mean, my sister suggested that, with my hopeless old-fashioned romantic buy-in to this kind of narrative, I might be somewhat unrealistic about relationships, that she thinks it's def. better to start out as just friends, then told me -with her partner like right there- she'd totally be perfectly happy single. So on balance, I'm sticking with the opera.

But, seriously, though, I do think people can absolutely know very quickly, indeed instantly, if they like each other: it depends partly on the individuals in question. Composers' lives can sometimes demonstrate they themselves, as maybe you'd expect from artsy types, were fairly all-or-nothing people, who could be quite intense like that (or, Ok, feel free to just call Janacek 'obsessive'). I always think it's unfair when people who don't experience things like that -and, neurodiversity is part of this- claim it's unrealistic simply because they themselves don't.