Love
Navigating intimacy in a shifting world: decoding the complex chemistry and psychology of human connection. A comprehensive exploration of love in all its forms.
Everyday Love
When dating rewards indifference, nobody falls in love
Hookup culture told everyone to act unbothered. Bill-splitting became a political statement. Dating profiles turned into shopping lists. An Evie Magazine essay argues that modern romance lost its warmth because we traded vulnerability for performance, and both men and women came out emptier.
videoBeyond fairy-tale love: reclaiming realistic expectations in relationships
Why the end of the Disney glow can be the beginning of something deeper. The Myth we all inherited From…
videoLove your enemies: a buddhist guide to defeating anger, ego, and self-loathing
In their collaborative work Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier, Robert…
We create a false self in early life to meet external expectations and cope with childhood experiences – James Hollis
James Hollis explores the psychological and spiritual upheaval of midlife as a necessary and meaningful rite of passage. Drawing from…
Couples who never post about their love are happiest in UK survey
In a 2021 Shotkit survey of 2,000 UK adults, 73% of couples who never post about their relationship online rated it happy, against 32% of those posting three or more times a week. The poll was not peer reviewed.
Making It Last
videoUnderstanding the brain helps love last, says neurobiologist Lucy Vincent
Lucy Vincent is a neurobiologist with a rich, eclectic career in research, known for her popular science books on the…
The Peak-End Rule explains why we judge relationships by their most intense moments and how they end
The peak-end rule of love explains why we judge relationships by their most intense moments and how they end, ignoring the average of our daily life together.
The scarcity principle explains why we chase unavailable partners and how an abundance mindset builds real love
The scarcity principle traps us in chasing distant partners. Shift to an abundance mindset to stop settling and find secure, real love.
Invisible load in couples shows up as managing, remembering and emotional care
The invisible load is the managing, remembering and emotional care that keeps a household running. A 2024 study found mothers carry about 73% of it, with more stress and lower relationship satisfaction.
Pausing five seconds before reacting can prevent most relationship fights
Recent psychological research demonstrates that taking just a five-second pause during tense moments in a relationship can significantly reduce aggression…
Sustained romantic love rests on four relationship commitments
A peer-reviewed empirical paper in Marriage & Family Review compares people who report staying in love with people who say they have fallen out of love. This article summarizes the four relationship commitments highlighted in that work and in a Psychology Today explainer. It does not predict outcomes for any one couple.
Research Findings
Sarcasm sounds less polite than teasing, and men mind it less
In a 2024 video study of 288 US and UK adults, sarcastic replies were rated less polite than teasing, and men found sarcasm more polite than women did. The study judged strangers and did not measure couples.
videoHarmony is a lifelike robot designed to be a romantic companion
The launch of Harmony, the world’s first talking sex robot, brings a lifelike companion designed to simulate human-like interactions and companionship.
How relationship happiness changes from early love to old age
Relationship satisfaction tends to drop from age 20 to 40, hits its lowest point at 40, then goes up until about age 65. After that, it stays pretty stable.
Relationship satisfaction generally goes down in the early years of a relationship, especially in the first 10 years. Then it goes up until about 20 years, and then it might go down again.
The presence of children is associated with a lower mean level of relationship satisfaction.
Cheating risk often rises near year seven of marriage, then drops for women and can rise later for men
The popular idea of a 7 year itch has some support in research. Surveys suggest that both the wish to…
Nearly 1 in 4 young US women has tried an AI romantic partner
A 2025 national survey found that 23% of US women aged 18 to 30 and 10% of older women have chatted with an AI app built to act as a romantic partner, and that women users reported more depression and loneliness.
Writers in Britain, India and China praised only narrow waists
A 2007 study found that all 66 British descriptions of a woman's waist written from 1500 to 1799 praised a narrow one, as did ancient Indian and Chinese poems. It counted texts and did not test men's choices.