Once considered taboo due to the mere suggestion that a couple was having premarital sex, cohabitation before marriage is now the norm. “If nursery rhymes are clues to how couples live their lives, ‘first comes love, then comes marriage’ is sorely outdated,” Allie Volpe writes for Vox. Read more about this cultural trend and dive into the question of whether living together before marriage is good for the relationship. https://flip.it/o.Npuz #Culture#Love#Marriage#Relationships
The latest obsession for celebrity fans is the romance between actor Callum Turner and singer Dua Lipa. It's just the latest example of a so-called parasocial relationship, where fans feel like they genuinely know celebrities, leading to feelings of ownership, protectiveness, and sometimes disappointment if a romance ends or a star does or says something "wrong." Here's a story from Stylecaster examining the phenomenon. But we want to know, do you think this is really a fresh phenomenon, or is it just regular old fandom and celeb culture with a swanky new name.
In America, married people get more than 1,000 legal benefits that single people can't access. Vox's Sigal Samuel asks why people in a platonic partnership can't enjoy the same kind of benefits, and why society values friendships less than familial relationships and marriages. Do you have a "best friend?"
Aw, 50% of poll respondents say that their romantic partner is their best friend — with the rest of the respondents sharing the love for their one bestie, group of pals or family members. Will the U.S. (or other places) ever recognize friendship as a valid relationship worthy of legal status? Here's a story from Slate about Colorado's Designated Beneficiary Agreements, which recognize and protect relationships of all stripes, and which writer and law professor John Culhane says should be expanded and exported. "Great triumph though it was, marriage equality left too many people out of its embrace. It’s time to change that," he writes.
Many people dread small talk (not us, now tell us about your vacation plans). Human connectivity researcher Georgie Nightingall says it can be a way of building deeper connection, trust and curiosity. “You can actually realize that you do want to know more rather than having that sense of like, I’m just asking for the sake of asking,” she told Vox. Here are some tips on how to improve your small talk abilities. We want to know, how do you feel about the art of chitchat?
Simple Practices for Solving Conflicts, Building Connection, and Fostering Love
Relationships are usually the most important part of a person’s life. But they’re often stressful and frustrating, or simply awkward, distant, and lonely. We feel the weight of things unsaid, needs unmet, conflicts unresolved. It’s easy to feel stuck.
Ayo Edebiri isn't the only Irish person taking over the internet. Vox takes a look at why everyone loves Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Andrew Scott and Cillian Murphy right now. For Americans, "Irish actors arguably evoke a kind of safe 'exoticness,'" Mary M. Burke, a professor of English at the University of Connecticut, says. “Being native speakers of English with a purportedly cute accent, they are just ‘foreign’ enough for mainstream taste."
Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections by Emily Nagoski
In Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, PhD, revolutionized the way we think about women’s sexuality. Now, in Come Together, Nagoski takes on a fundamentally misunderstood subject: sex in long-term relationships.
Finding Your Self at the Heartbreak Hotel by Alice Huddon & Ruth Field
Alice Haddon, psychologist of over twenty-five years, and Ruth Field, bestselling self-help author, show us how we can dissect heartbreaks, mine them for strength and live our most empowered life. They also examine how society sets up women to fall into love traps and engage bad habits of self-sacrificing and enabling.
If your partner won’t peel an orange for you, you need to find someone else. That could be the takeaway of a popular and very unscientific test on TikTok. Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos talks to an expert about what this true love litmus test is really all about. Not so surprisingly, “An entire intimate relationship can’t be boiled down to what a partner does or doesn’t do with an orange,” says Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist and author who teaches at Northwestern University and specializes in relationships. https://flip.it/ytgay4 #Culture#TikTok#TrueLove#Relationships
“Honey, is everything OK? You smell a little upset.” Live Science explains how scents are not only important in our relationship to food and the natural world. They also play a role in how we communicate with people we know. https://flip.it/B.-44T #Science#Humans#Smell#Relationships
"'... this is just as large an existential threat as climate change.'
And if we can't find a way to curb the spread of the virus and halt the increase in cases of long COVID, [Putrino] says, those effects will bite sooner than we think."
Relationship Sanity: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Relationships
People in resilient relationships are co-owners, experience reciprocity, and are better prepared to meet challenges authentically and effectively. In this sequel to the best-selling Irrelationship, the authors use examples from their clinical practice to review the concept of irrelationship
May I be extremely arrogant for a thread? Mute if it’s annoying. I’m going to share a few of my favourite posts from this year - the ones that are personal to me, which I am quite proud of writing. As I say, arrogant. It is technically my job to do this, but doing it so blatantly with such introspective posts makes every atom of me cringe, even as those same atoms are thirsting for the validation of your boosts.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a desire for variety, if that’s what you want, but my cunt craves connection and I can’t get that with strangers.
Hi, #Autistic friends. I have a query for those of you who are in or have been in solid #Romantic partnerships.
I'm intrigued. For good (Muslim) reasons, I'm starting to think about opening the door on that locked room. But I'm 58, I've never been in love, and I've never been loved. Just short term bed partners and none of that was beneficial at all. So even if I found someone compatible, I have no real experience to rely on.
So I'm asking around...How do you express #Love to a romantic partner, and what do you recognize as love?
No therapy recommendations, please. Been there, done that many times, didn't help.
The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
A deeply reflective primer on creating meaningful connections, rebuilding abundant communities, and living in a way that engages our full humanity in an age of unprecedented anxiety and loneliness—from the author of The Tech-Wise Family.
Distance works in time as well as space. Frequency of contact indicates closeness, so contacting someone often can be a transgression. Rather than 'getting to know you better,' they can maintain the same distance as the circumstances when you first met. Thus, many foreigners say they can't make friends with Japanese.
Much use of silence. Large private self vs. small public self. The same act, such as posting one's photo & real name online, falls into the public #self of Westerners but the private self of Japanese.
Most Japanese are undemonstrative of emotions & affection. Standing close or touching them can easily be taken as a sexual or presumptuous invasion of their private realm.
Japanese feel personal space palpably. They make a cutting #gesture when passing someone closely.
Why is it that in #romantic and #romcom#dramas, when a woman cannot reach something, the guy would reach it for her from her back.
If it was me, I would hold her at her waist and lift her up. I think that's sweeter and more charming. And if you feel like going a mile, turn her and sat her on the table, and tease her with pecks.
If we're in the kitchen when that scenario happens, because she wants to cook food, then I'll tell her to just sit there and watch me cook instead; and while cooking, I will steal kisses on her cheeks, but no lips.
The taste of the food doesn't matter; nor the food itself (could be instant ramen/ramyeon/noodle). If I failed, we'll surely have laughter, and she can tease me back. If the food's good, it's a plus.
With Sprinkles on Top offers a positive and empowering resource for talking about and working through sexual differences. With empathy and understanding, Dr. Goerlich addresses hopes and fears on both sides of a desire divide and provides shame-free guidance for relationships of different shapes and orientations.