I'm still alive

[wsloand]

So, I'm still alive. I've found that I'm not good at communicating, and in this regard, I'm not good at keeping up with people that I should keep up with. For example, someone who I would have considered my best friend at one time I just found his blog (Hi there stnuke). This in addition to other realizations over the past few months made me realize

Comments

[curlygirlymm]

Just so you know, John Gray (the author of Mars & Venus) is considered pretty much a fraud. He received his doctorate from getting life experience while traveling hippie-style around the country learning from his yogi. For the curious, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/women_rebuttal_from_uranus/welcome.htm

[wsloand]

Do you know any better books/articles/whatever to read that hit the points that he purports to hit (in general)? It's something that I'm wanting to read more about, and I chose to start with something that I'd heard of.

[curlygirlymm]

do you mean in general trying to find good ways of behaving in romantic relationships? You're talking to the right person- I'm a social psychologist and that's part of what we study. :-)

[wsloand]

Behaving and communicating (though these probably essentially go hand in hand). I glanced at your website this morning, and I noticed that you would probably know a bit in that area. :)

[curlygirlymm]

For a nice overview about the scientific research available on attraction and close relationships, try picking up an introductory social psychology textbook (you could probably get on onine pretty cheap if it was an old edition). This would be a pretty good overview without getting too much into the nitty-gritty. If you want to read more research oriented stuff, you could also read the "Attraction and Close Relationships" chapter of the Handbook of Social Psychology- although it's pretty long and not meant to be an entertaining read. Outside of that, a better respected romantic relationships researcher is John Gottman. It's an interesting departure from John Gray's claims- Gottman actually does research to back up what he says. (Gray- not at all. Gray's no more qualified to give romantic relationship advice than your average person.) Gottman has a book out there meant for the general public, although what he focuses on is mainly marriages. If you want more general information, try the social psych textbook.

Cheerio,

Marisa

[wsloand]

Thanks very much for the suggestion of Gottman. I found his books and ordered two of them from half.com.

At the moment, I think I'm looking for applied stuff that I can read (i.e. what I think that someone like Gottman would write), but in the future, I may look into the academic side of things.

Thanks again for the suggestions.