relationships

It should raise a few questions that, if the comments on attachment theory Tik-Tok videos and Instagram hashtags are any guide, the majority of the theory’s aficionados are — it cries for acknowledgement — self-diagnosed anxiouses who found out about attachment theory in the first place because they were anxiety-googling why their crush isn’t texti... See more

If attachment theory were fake, how would we know? It’s not only the fact that most of attachment theory’s “knowledge community” are auto-didacts fervently reinforcing each others’ analyses that should trigger alarm bells. What are the odds that the vast majority of heterosexuals would sort so neatly into what look like gender-coded slots — the wom... See more

Sex is weird and disgusting and ridiculous and quite often abused and weaponized and traumatic. But I like it. I like what it can be and sometimes what it is. Sometimes I think it might hold the secrets to almost everything. ... Sometimes it’s just nice to hold someone while they cum, kissing their earlobe and whispering to them yes .

Since the ideal strategy for many singles is to date around enough to find someone worthy of marrying, the “game” is of a finite length. At some point, singles will necessarily have to double down on a date, i.e. , switch to exploitation. If you don’t date around (explore) at all, you may very well get stuck dating (or even marrying or having child... See more

The incentives of dating apps actively discourage building algorithms that show compatible matches, since finding a compatible match means you no longer need their product. You really are put in a room with total strangers, most likely the wrong kind, instead of those with similar interests and values. If you met the right stranger, you’d hit it of... See more

. . . the match [is] not always or primarily instrumental to getting a date but rather as producing a form of satisfaction in its own right. [. . .] A match feels like a confidence-boost; it is a sign that the Other sees you and likes you [. . . ]. Admittedly, it is ephemeral, but it is also replicable, so the sense of void that follows the fleetin... See more

The problem today’s daters face is that the mass adoption of online dating apps has not only eroded incentives to switch from explore to exploit mode, it has made exploration itself boring and dysfunctional.

Several studies have found that an individual’s attachment style with romantic partners is not congruent with their attachment style with their parents, a finding consistent with the many other studies that suggest people have different attachment styles in different relationships. The idea that all relationships can be explained through a set of e... See more

Literature allows us to name the world by giving us new phrases, new characters, new words. Poets like Chaucer and Shakespeare coined hundreds of new words. So many of their phrases are still used in common speech. They named all sorts of things for us. And by using those names, we expand what we can understand about the world.