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 The poll was not peer reviewed.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
Small inequalities in relationships may strengthen bonds, but large ones cause harm
How dating someone perceived as being “out of one’s league” can impact relationships. While minor disparities between partners, such as…
Massage and other touch ease pain, anxiety, and depression
A Nature Human Behaviour review of 137 controlled studies found that touch, mostly massage, eased pain, anxiety, and depression in adults and helped newborns gain weight, with medium-sized effects.
Your brain responds differently to love for a child, a partner, or a pet
A Finnish team used fMRI while 55 adults in relationships with children heard short stories about love toward a partner, a child, friends, strangers, pets, or nature, then held each feeling during a brief imagery period. Interpersonal love engaged social-cognition regions more than pet-only or nature love; during imagery, parental love showed striatum and thalamus activation not reported for the other love types; pet owners differed from non-owners on pet trials. Results reflect one cohort, culture, and task design.
Letting go of people who are not ready to love you protects your well being
This opinion piece argues that you should stop investing energy in one sided relationships and choose people who are ready…
Touch and close relationships soften the body’s stress response
A meta-analysis of 137 studies and 12,966 people found that touch eases pain, depression and anxiety in adults, and a hug before a stress test lowered cortisol afterwards. Warm relationships also track with calmer stress-related gene activity.
videoWhat a divorce lawyer who has seen thousands of breakups learned about love
The complexities of modern marriage, including unrealistic expectations, the strain of constant comparison through social media, and outdated societal norms,…
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.