Page Turner's Blog, page 117

Love Bombing & Supernormal Stimulus, Redux: Finding the Button Is Only Half of It

I wanted to write to you about your article “The Supernormal Stimulus.” In it, you talk about an approach to optimizing in relationships where you figure out what matters to your partner the most and then you do it. In it, you bring up ways that zoologists were able to trick birds: Geese who think humans are their mothers,  » Read more

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I’m Sorry, I Had You Mixed Up With Someone Else

Justin’s in the kitchen, sitting on the floor. Messing with our shoes. He looks like he’s organizing them on the rack next to the back door. He looks up at me. “Hi sweetie.”

“Hi,” I choke out, my greeting barely audible over the Electric Light Orchestra spilling out of the speaker. I dart back to the living room.  » Read more

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The Desire to Destroy and the Desire to Create Come From the Same Place

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.

-Sam Rayburn

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Each zoo is a little different, in that they all have a different mix of animals and exhibits. Depending on the climate, certain animals might be kept indoors for most of the year,  » Read more

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Misery Loves Company… In Real Life or Online

She’s holding her phone, scrolling through Facebook. She groans at something she sees. “Guess it’s time to snooze their posts for a while again.”

Snooze is a feature she uses a lot, allowing her not to see content from the person in question for 30 days. She’s found it extraordinarily useful ever since Facebook implemented it.  » Read more

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I Don’t Know What Kind of Fighter I Can Be, But I’m Here

I’ve always envied folks who have self-righteous confidence. An unwavering sense that they’re always the good guy in the story, an agent of justice. Who instinctively scream at perceived unfairness, rush head on into it, attacking it with little forethought and certainly no regret.

That’s never been my automatic response — to nearly anything,  » Read more

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Things Often Feel Broken on Their Way to Being Fixed

I’ve been on a cleaning frenzy lately. I recently implemented a new chore list which guides me through most of the motions. Makes keeping things up routine and automatic. Mostly anyway. Sometimes I have to be more intentional.

For example, going by the list, each Friday’s big chore is always miscellaneous.  » Read more

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If You’re Trying to Spot an Abuser, Look for Someone Who’s Emotionally Immature

In spite of the fact that we haven’t seen each other in years, I still think about my therapist Sue every now and then.

On the surface, we shouldn’t have worked well together therapeutically. Because we didn’t have much in common. She was a mild-mannered person with Biblical verse plaques sprinkled on the walls of her office.  » Read more

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When You Give People Who Don’t Deserve It Your All, What Do You Have Left?

A lot of people involuntarily cringe when you use the word “deserve,” regardless of context. Because the way most people talk about who’s deserving and who isn’t, there’s a deterministic bent to it, an underlying belief that some of us are born into this world entitled to happiness and prosperity. And others aren’t. Usually this is predicated on factors beyond our control: How rich our parents are,  » Read more

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Don’t Reward Behavior You Don’t Want to See Again

Joke: “How do you punish a masochist?”

My answer: “Ignore them.”

Attention Is a Powerful Motivator

It’s something that experts advise new parents: Punishment can backfire if done too much or done the wrong way. Scolding or hitting tends to be particularly ineffective. Even if addressing a child’s behavior directly these ways is intended as punishment,  » Read more

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We’re All a Bunch of Negative Nancies

“The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?”

-Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman

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“It’s kind of screwy,” she says. “I love compliments, but I get so little mileage out of them. Meanwhile, someone insults me, and I’m thinking about that for weeks.”  » Read more

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