Zero-Probability
The book's title carries an implicit question that leads to the natural expectation of an answer. The answer to the question of what the statistical probability of love, at first sight, becomes by definition is arrived at through a calculation involving the characters. While Hadley and Oliver are instantly smitten, there is little to suggest they are in love. The novels essentially cover the first twenty-four hours in which they know each other and a day should be more than enough time to stretch the definition of “at first sight.” Since this is the “first sight” romance put under the microscope for scrutiny in a book with a title implicitly asking what the statistical odds are and since that budding romance definitely seems in need of more time before love becomes seriously considered, the thematic calculation appears to be that there is zero probability of love at first sight, Or, at the very least, that the odds are fractional, at best. And, of course, there is also the state of Hadley’s parent’s marriage and the implication that they might very well have described their relationship as being a case of love at first sight.
Fate and Destiny
Less than two total pages into the book, the narrator informs the reader that Hadley does not put outstanding stock in concepts like fate and destiny. Ironically, this assertion literally comes after several paragraphs listing all the multiple things that could have gone differently as she ultimately made her way to the airport just four minutes too late to catch her scheduled flight. Fate intervenes in the form of the next available flight to alter the course of her destiny by having her meet a boy named Oliver who would have remained forever unknown to her had she managed to arrive five minutes earlier. This thematic exploration of the nature of fate and the possibility of destiny is also explored in the parallel backstory telling how her father took advantage of an opportunity to go to England to teach for a semester at Oxford University where he met a student named Charlotte with whom he initiated an affair which resulted in divorce from Hadley’s mother and a subsequent wedding which Hadley didn’t want to attend in the first place, but agreed to out of familial duty.
Emotional Claustrophobia
Hadley describes herself as claustrophobic. Claustrophobia is specifically an irrational fear of very tight, enclosed spaces and yet Hadley characterizes not the plane itself, but airports as a “torture chamber.” Her description of the crowded airport creating a dizzying sensation resulting from the cacophony of sound and motion aligns much closer symptomatically to anxiety provoked within crowded open spaces that characterizes agoraphobia or the generalized fear of being trapped in a place where escape is impossible that defines cleithrophobe. The decision to go with claustrophobia probably has a lot to do with the greater familiarity of people with that term, but claustrophobia is also thematically coherent. Hadley reveals herself to be in a near-constant state of apprehension and even dread due to feeling forced to attend her father’s marriage to a younger second wife in the wake of his divorce from Hadley’s mother. She is displaying symptoms of what might be termed emotional claustrophobia stemming from her discomfort at being metaphorically trapped in a highly pressurized situation that she seems a stifling her own feelings for the purpose of making things easier for her father’s new bride. She is symbolically trapped in a very tight place there seems to be no way out until Oliver enters the picture and his mysterious disappearance from the airport provides her with the perfect excuse and opportunity to escape from the dread of having to watch her father dance with another woman.
