Will Baum, LCSW

PsyBlog scans the research and comes up with 10 Psychological Insights About Online Dating. Number one:

Internet daters are not losers: Contrary to the stereotype, there’s little evidence that internet dating is the last resort of social misfits or weirdos. In fact, quite the reverse. Internet daters are more likely to be sociable, have high self-esteem and be low in dating anxiety (Kim et al., 2009; Valkenburg, 2007). These studies found no evidence that people use online dating because they can’t hack it face-to-face. It’s just one more way to meet new people.

From Wired:  Alcohol can increase longevity…but why?

In recent years, sociologists and epidemiologists have begun studying the long-term effects of loneliness. It turns out to be really dangerous. We are social primates, and when we’re cut off from the social network, we are more likely to die from just about everything (but especially heart disease). At this point, the link between abstinence and social isolation is merely hypothetical. But given the extensive history of group drinking – it’s what we do when we come together – it seems likely that drinking in moderation makes it easier for us develop and nurture relationships. And it these relationships that help keep us alive.

NYT:  How Debt Can Destroy a Budding Relationship.

Nobody likes unpleasant surprises, but when Allison Brooke Eastman’s fiancé found out four months ago just how high her student loan debt was, he had a particularly strong reaction: he broke off the engagement within three days…

A pair of studies from Science Daily:

Walking boosts brain connectivity, function

Two heads are better than one — with the right partner

An essay from the Wilson Quarterly (via aldaily.com):

[W]e live now in a climate in which friends appear dispensable. While most of us wouldn’t last long outside the intricate web of interdependence that supplies all our physical needs—imagine no electricity, money, or sewers—we’ve come to demand of ourselves truly radical levels of emotional self-sufficiency…

Diane Johnson looks dating and marriage in a NYRB review.

It used to be that on a date, the boy would pay for a Pepsi and the movie; that was it. Lori Gottlieb, in Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, estimates the cost to today’s woman of four months of dating, counting therapy afterward when it doesn’t work out, to be $3,600: online dating service, clothes, including expensive underwear, haircut, hair color, cosmetics, bikini wax, entertaining him, and gifts. Things have changed.

From WebMD:  Is Your Marriage Toxic?

Give it time. Don’t expect the walls of resentment to come down right away. Rivkin suggests allowing at least three months to see if working with a therapist or using the advice from a relationship book is helping your marriage.  Change may come slowly. But don’t be afraid of taking baby steps. “One little change can be huge to begin to change a pattern.”

The NYT identifies a trend:  Permanently separated, but not divorced.

Technically, the two are married. They file joint tax returns; she’s covered by his insurance. But they see each other just several times a year. “Since separating we get along better than we ever have,” he said. “It’s kind of nice.”

PsyBlog posts the latest on how to win friends and influence people.

The art and science of persuasion is often discussed as though changing people’s minds is about using the right arguments, the right tone of voice or the right negotiation tactic. But effective influence and persuasion isn’t just about patter, body language or other techniques, it’s also about understanding people’s motivations…

NYT: A New Risk Factor: Your Social Life

Social relationships are just as important to health as other common risk factors like smoking, lack of exercise or obesity, new research shows…The researchers concluded that having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day. Weak social ties are more harmful than not exercising and twice as risky as being obese, the researchers found.