You know what it is, right? Deriving pleasure from others' misfortunes. Everyone has it on occasion. So I did a little experiment. Earlier I wrote a post about the biggest break-up days of the year--supposedly December 3rd-6th--ring a bell? I have been thinking recently that my readership has been suffering--yeah, who the hell wants to read about a woman in a happy relationship? Y'all want the not so nice stuff--the ugly, seamy underbelly of online dating. My hypothesis was that if I used a very provocative title, all of my supposed followers would come out of hiding to read my blog again. Anyhow, the title I used was Break-Up Days--
And wouldn't you know, my hits exploded over the next few days! I'm guessing that most of you out there thought, erroneously of course, that Xing Fu & I had called it quits. So there it is! Proof that people love a little schadenfreude & that my happiness does not make for good blog fodder as now my readership is down.
So I put this question out into the blogosphere--Is it true that a blog is more interesting when the writer is not happy or at least not contented?
A bit of a follow-up post from the quirky kissing one from a bit ago. I read an interesting article in Redbook the other day that got me thinking--yeah, bad sign. It was entitled The Kissing Project and pointed out some interesting facts. One that struck me the most was that kissing & hand-holding are usually the first to go in a LTR. How depressing! And upon reflection I do realize that kissing does dwindle--at least it did with my ex-husband--mebbe a smooch in the morning--mebbe days without a peck at all. Most likely had to do with the fact that I didn't like him too much and the thought of swapping spit at that point disgusted me...
The article points out also how men & women respond to kissing--men to spread testosterone & for both generating the feel-good hormones of oxytocin & endorphins--oxytocin is that infamous "bonding" hormone. So isn't it interesting that when a couple is "bonded" they actually stop hormonal bonding when they stop kissing. Couples seeking therapy are sometimes counseled to kiss more--apparently the research indicates that it can help. And so the article lists a few experiments. I looked at each one & compared to what Xing Fu & I do.
First & foremost--we are pretty touchy-feely anyway and have no problem smooching a lot. But the one "experiment" that stuck out was actually one that I had absolutely no need to even consider (the other ones, yeah, could be interesting), but this one suggested making over his kissing style. The problem I have with that is if you are reading this as a married couple or even in a LTR, it would totally suck if you've been dealing with a bad kisser for this long & it hadn't occurred to you to fix this a waaay long time ago...(apparently some men love the tongue thrust & swirl to the point of dripping...eeewww).
Here's the link if anyone would like to read it themselves:
http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/advice/kissing-tips
Pucker up!
