“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” I was talking some time ago with a young, but not very young, friend of the family about how come she had not married. “There’s nobody around here that is eligible,” she said. “In New York City? Last time I...
Figuring out whether someone will be around three months from now. “I know men are unreliable, but I can’t believe what just happened with Johnnie. He told me he loved me. I finally slept with him last week, and since then he hasn’t called. What do you think...
Not very much, it turns out. Let me define falling in love as well as I can, so we know what we are talking about. One person finds himself/herself excited and preoccupied with someone else and desirous of touching that person and being with that person as much as...
Charming and Witty Vs. Friendly It is still the practice of young people, and some not so young, to go to bars in order to find someone to date. This works sometimes. It is possible to meet someone for the first time while working, or walking in a park, or in any...
When people cry, it is for a good reason. Start off with an idea that may seem controversial: whenever someone cries, it is because that person is sad—usually because of an impending loss or a remembered loss Most of the time it is obvious why someone cries: something...
The following is a true story, but the people have been disguised. As a psychiatrist, I spend much of my time talking to people who have been disillusioned and disenchanted by unhappy relationships. I ask them, and everyone else, for that matter, what attracted...
As it happens, by coincidence, a number of my patients have just been married or are planning to be married. Among these weddings, for the first time in my experience, are marriages between two women. And there have been a number of them. They do not seem to me...
“Promiscuous” is a term that is almost always used when speaking about a woman. And it is pejorative. It refers to a woman—usually a young woman—who has sex frequently and casually. This behavior is considered reprehensible and evidence of an emotional failing of some...
Coming to the end of the same relationship—over and over again In our society, young couples are settling down at a much later age than they did fifty years ago. When I married my wife, she was twenty years old; and no one suggested that she was too young. Many of her...
The natural pace of a dating relationship Throughout the animal kingdom—from mammals and birds down to insects—there are complicated mating rituals, behaviors we refer to archly as “courtship” rituals. Standing back and observing these behaviors from a respectful...
Some commonplace things seem to happen without special premeditation, effortlessly. We grow up, find work, find someone to marry, have children and accomplish other such purposes without paying them much attention. So it seems. Perhaps that is true for some...
The social rules for dating change from one generation to the next. There was a time when a proper young man and woman could not speak to each other unless they had been formally introduced. That practice seems silly now. On the other hand, I understand from my...