Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Friendship is something that is much underrated in our society. Friendship is actually a form of love (here I'm not talking about erotic love). It's not a lesser form of love than erotic love, only a different form of love. In fact, the ancient Greeks had a word, "phileos", more or less equating to fraternal/brotherly love (friendship). Without such a form of love as friendship our societies would be unbearably dull and alienated from one another. One can love their friends as well as their "significant other", just not in the same way. Friendships are not monogamous by necessity. Two people in a friendship don't need to exclude other people from their relationship. A friendship can best be thought of as two people side by side looking forward toward a common goal. It's an odd form of love in which people develop a relationship without relationship as a goal. Scientific achievements have come out of tight-knit friendships, as have works of liter...

In lay terms limerence is romantic love, crazy love, lovesick, mad love, amour fort. You see a theme in the words crazy, sick, and mad. In this condition, one's body drugs itself mightily with hormones that create a feeling of joy. The rapture is balanced with the panic and dread that it could end. And it will. Limerence has a shelf life. By most estimates, you're lucky to get 12 months.  Dorothy Tennov, PhD, author of the groundbreaking 1979 book Love and Limerence, is the woman who originated the term.  Popular culture has done us a great disservice in our understanding of romantic love. From a young age, we watch movies and read books that form the scripts of our adult relationships. But popular culture usually gets it wrong, often in the name of entertainment, and ends up confusing love with limerence, which is precisely what most of us do. Limerence has been described as "an involuntary interpersonal state that involves an acute longing for emotional reciprocation, ...

The best way to get over a failed relationship is to be completely honest with yourself.  The worst thing you can do is spend time imagining how things “could have been” or what “might have happened.”  The relationship failed, and that’s all there is to it. Maybe it failed because your partner wasn’t faithful, maybe your personalities just didn't "click", or maybe you both got bored with each other.  There are plenty of reasons why relationships fail. The first thing to do is give your old relationship the funeral it deserves.  This goes for a lot of things in life outside of relationships.  You have to move past the hurt feelings and the disappointment.  The better your relationship was, the worse this process may be. A lot of it also depends on how long the relationship lasted. The old adage of "well, we can just be friends"  is very difficult to make work; it's better to just make a clean break and forget everything - the sooner, the better...

When you're a divorced full-time programmer who has an autistic son living at home, you really don't have a lot of time for the dating scene. I never liked it anyway, so "no great loss", as far as I'm concerned.  In my case, I've been divorced more than 10 years and in the last year or so I've come to the realization that I'd really like to find love again and have a life - partner who wants to share the rest of her life with me. But what is left, if you are seriously "looking for love" again?  Well,there is social media (Facebook or Google+ - Twitter is out of the question) Of the two, I prefer Google+ because it gives you all the tools to meet someone in the virtual world, have private conversations, and even video hangouts. Facebook seems to have too many "fake profiles" and scams. The other alternative is dating sites such as OK Cupid or Plenty Of Fish (POF). I tried Match.com but it didn't seem to offer much more than the...

1) Observe their behavior. Look at the way they act. How do they treat others? Are they inconsiderate and/or rude? Are they quick to join in on gossip? Are they quick to judge people? Do they continuously concern themselves with what other people are doing? There's a difference between someone who wants to be helpful and someone who's just being nosy and wants something to gossip about. However, that alone is not enough to determine whether someone is trustworthy. Someone that seems to be involved in a lot of drama is someone that you need to be cautious of - there is a reason why they don't get along with so many people. 2) Listen to them, communication is important. When they talk to you, do they redirect their conversation towards other people - and if they do, are they saying negative things about them? If this person is telling you things about other people's private lives for the sake of having an "interesting conversation", you should take that into c...

Not all or even most friendships need to fit all of the boxes (personal, professional, emotional, intellectual). But the best friendships — the intimate ones — do, especially both the emotional and intellectual areas. What do I mean by "intimacy"? Intimacy is a concept that is not exclusive to romance. It's also a potential descriptor of high-wattage interactions, feelings, and trust between two platonic friends. In a romantic relationship intimacy can be conveyed via physical contact — just snuggle up with her/him. In a platonic friendship intimacy must be expressed mostly via words and body language. So it can be hard to pin down in a friendship. Here's one possible sign of intimacy: When you're interacting with this friend, does your best and most natural self come out? Does being the person you want to be become effortless?  Do you feel a sense of trust and being able to confide in this person? Intimacy in friendships is one of those things...