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Why Do People Ghost? New Research Says the Ghoster Hurts Too
Who feels worse when a conversation just stops: the person staring at an unanswered text, or the person who never sent the reply? A new…
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Why Love Is Blind Couples Fall Hard in the Pods and Freeze in Real Life
She is curled sideways on a velvet couch, talking to a glowing wall. On the other side, a man she has never seen is laughing…
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Why Good News Feels Threatening When You’re Anxiously Attached
The offer came through, or the person you like said the thing you'd been hoping they'd say, and instead of relief there's a tightening. You…
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Can You Fall in Love With a Chatbot Companion? What a New Study of Young Adults Found
In mid-September, two researchers posted a paper to arXiv with a title borrowed from a 1962 pop song: "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," a…
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Why You Keep Dating Someone’s Potential Instead of Who They Are
In one set of Stanford experiments, people pretending to run a basketball team offered an untested rookie about a million dollars more in salary than…
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Is It OK to Lie to Protect Your Partner’s Feelings? What Unhappy Couples Prefer
A white lie is usually defined from the liar's side: a small untruth told to spare someone else's feelings. The definition skips the person on…
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Is It Love or a Trauma Bond? How to Tell From the Inside
Content note: this post discusses emotionally abusive relationships. If you're unsafe right now, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is at 1-800-799-7233. About 27 percent. That's…
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My Boyfriend Won’t Go to Therapy, So Why Am I Doing His Emotional Work?
"Have you thought any more about finding someone to talk to?" "Why would I pay a stranger when I have you?" It reads like a…
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Should You Warn Your Ex’s New Partner? What Taylor Swift’s Patient Zero Gets Right About Patterns
Content note: this post talks about controlling and emotionally abusive relationships. If you're in danger right now, the National Domestic Violence Hotline answers at 1-800-799-7233,…
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Why You Go Quiet When You Finally Get What You Asked For
Getting what you asked for is supposed to be the end of the story. The text comes back fast. The person shows up, on time,…