Love at First Sight

A recent study reports that women are less likely to experience "love at first sight" in comparison to men.

Researchers hypothesized that men are more likely to fall in love in the early stages of a relationship, in part to signal commitment to a female partner. 

Women likely to fall in love at first sight were those with high sex drives and/or those who were highly attracted to partners. Overall, both men and women who placed great value on attractiveness and sex were more likely to experience love at first sight. 

The results of this study demonstrate that the idea of “love at first sight” may actually be “lust at first sight.”

Toxic Friendships

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2009), friendships are intimate relationships with a mutual concern for the welfare and wellbeing of the other. Some things that friends may do for each other: spend time, perform duties, give advice, etc. Most importantly, friends genuinely want the best for each other.

Friendships that lose this most important relationship feature may become toxic. Toxic friendships lack sincerity, compassion, concern, and support. They do us more harm than good. Toxic friends are overly critical (of themselves and others), perpetually negative, very competitive, jealous and spiteful, self-involved, abusive, and often unapologetic.

Signs of a toxic friendship:
      Are emotionally drained after contact with your friend?
      Is your friend consistently negative in their interactions with you?
      Do you make bad decisions when with them? Or by their influence?
      Are your friends and family opposed to spending time with this person?
      Do you feel that you give more than you get in this relationship?
      Are your needs often unmet in the friendship with this person?

If you can answer yes to 2 or more of these questions, it may be time to clean up some hazardous material!