Page Turner's Blog, page 74

The Interpersonal Hellscape of Sanctioned Gift-Giving

My household subscribes to the Dollar Shave Club. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with the service, but if you aren’t it’s a subscription box that comes every month with fresh razor blades.

It’s pretty great honestly. The price is really reasonable, and I always have sharp blades to shave with,  » Read more

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The Other Side of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

“God, stop trapping me!” he says. It’s very loud. He’s raising his voice.

I’m starting to feel very small. Very scared.

“Trapping you?” I say. “I just asked you a question.”

“A trick question,” he says.

I’m honestly confused, have no idea what he’s talking about.  » Read more

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An Effective Apology Can Be About Establishing a Shared Reality

I’ve been in a lot of relationships at this point. Some of them were marked by good conflict resolution and others… well, they really, really weren’t.

I’ve often said to friends that a good apology means the world to me. That for me it’s often less about there never being conflict in the first place and more about being with someone who apologizes well when things go off-track.  » Read more

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Maybe It’s Easier If You’ve Never Really Been Close to Other People

My first close friendships were blisteringly intense.

I had one childhood friend, Emma, whose parents were both zoologists. Emma’s family let me come along with them on their family vacations. I can remember vividly, even now, lying with Emma under the covers at night in an old farmhouse as the wind made noise in the rafters,  » Read more

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The Difference Between a Rough Spot & a Bad Fit Is Like the Difference Between a Cold Day & a Cold Season

I moved to Dallas about five months ago. Prior to that, I’d always lived in cold places. I spent my childhood and my early adulthood in Central Maine, where snow fell six months out of the year, and while it did warm up a bit during the summer months, it never really got hot-hot.

And it certainly didn’t last.  » Read more

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Research Finds No Evidence that Only Children Are More Narcissistic, Even Though People Are Likely to Think They Are

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say something like this after someone has behaved selfishly:

“Oh, I bet they’re an only child.”

It’s actually pretty wild, how pervasive the belief is that people who don’t have any siblings are destined to grow up to be more selfish and even more narcissistic than those who have brothers and sisters.  » Read more

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Our Idea of a “Fair Price” Is Heavily Biased By Whether We’re Buyer or Seller

Confession: I love yard sales. Always have, ever since I was a little kid. It was a great way to find things I needed when money was thin. Before the eBay or the Internet was a thing, you could get some real bargains and find interesting stuff.

And the prices were usually not only well below the price you’d find them in a shop now but also well below the price you’d find in a thrift store.  » Read more

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What’s It Like to Fall Out of Love Over a Bad Haircut?

There’s an easy way to know when it’s time for my partner to cut his hair.

I start telling him how nice it looks.

There’s a certain length it gets to where his hair starts looking unnaturally attractive to me. Where he begins to sprout subtle curls. Contours that remind me of certain anime characters.  » Read more

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I’m Your Favorite Person — But Only When I’m Not Acting Like Me

I look at my phone. Sigh involuntarily. Because it’s one of those series of texts.

I miss you, she says. Everyone else bores me.

She proceeds to insult or tear down every other person in her life, pointing out what she perceives to be their flaws.  » Read more

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Confessions of a Recovering People Pleaser: I Still Do More Than My Fair Share, Just on a Smaller Scale

I’ve been having a fun time writing these essays about being a recovering people pleaser. Here are the first two I wrote.

11/25/2019 – Discovering Places Between Pushover and Pusher

11/29/2019 – I Didn’t Want to Change 

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In these articles, I’ve been talking about odd quirks that come with my history of people pleasing.  » Read more

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