Sublime

Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale,

Of the many emerging descriptions of our social brain, for me the simplest and most elegant is the highly regarded Social Baseline Theory of Lane Beckes and James A. Coan, two researchers at the University of Virginia.

Your habitual ways of interacting with the important people in your life tell us a great deal about the defense mechanisms you typically use.

Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. The emphasis on differentiation that is held by most of today’s popular psychology approaches

permanent relationship based on this symbiotic dynamic seems the ideal solution to many detached persons. Neither partner wants to get too close, so neither partner ever feels challenged or worried about their own secrets being exposed.

Our partners aren’t uniquely damaged. We just know them a lot better than the exciting stranger. Our partner suffers from the disadvantages of incumbency: of having been in our lives for so long that we have had the opportunity to be patiently introduced to the full range of their inadequacies. Our certainty that we might be happier with another pe