I don't think it has to be a long time to be intense and real.

There was a woman, a young woman that I knew I was going to be madly in love with after our first date. I was right, absolutely right.

But I was headed for Vietnam and I can not explain how incredibly fucked up I was between the age of 18 and 22. Her brother had just come back and we spent several hours and a significant quantity of beer talking about it and I finally asked him if he thought I should pursue his sister. The answer was what I expected. I walked away and never went back.

But every once in a while I think how things might have been different. Who knows? Certainly not me.