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You are reading The How to Live Newsletter: Your weekly guide offering insights from psychology to help you navigate life’s challenges, one Wednesday at a time.

WATCHING

My first and biggest love was N, who was a grade ahead of me. We fell hard and fast right before my senior year of high school and his first year at Stanford, and we were a couple for 4.5 years. Like many young couples, we had our song: “You Can Close Your Eyes” by James Taylor.

About a decade ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of James Taylor and Carly Simon singing it together in their home. The video captivated me, and I’ve revisited it on and off ever since. 

The song is undeniably beautiful, as is Carly’s harmony, but what stands out most is what’s not happening between them. If your subtext receptors are porous, and you’re as fascinated by human dynamics as I am, you might feel uncomfortable watching this, but I strongly encourage you to do so.

Psychologist and relationship expert John Gottman, whom I’ll write about in time, believes the most successful relationships are those whose “bids for connection” are met.

Bids are attempts from one partner to seek connection, affirmation or attention. A positive bid looks like this: Partner A is cooking dinner while Partner B is lingering nearby, watching. Partner B says, “I really need to call my mom back tonight,” to which Partner A, who is cooking, turns toward Partner B and says, “Do you want space for that, or should I make myself available?” Partner A might smile and say, “I’d love for you to be available.” And so a connection is made.

Conversely, a negative bid occurs when Partner B says the same thing but Partner A doesn’t turn around and simply responds, “Can you set the table?”

These seemingly small bids for attention, when ignored, can gradually erode a person’s self-esteem and destabilize the relationship.

In the below video, James Taylor turns to Carly Simon, seeking eye contact—a bid to connect during a vulnerable moment—but she misses it because she’s not looking at him. Later, it’s Carly who attempts a connection, but James doesn’t meet it. He’s hurt that his first bid was ignored, so he doesn’t reciprocate. Then, when their eyes do finally meet, it’s only for a second, but Carly wants more, and James refuses, withdrawing.

Of course, this analysis is conjectural, but it’s the dynamic between them that strikes me. The subtext and the failed bids to connect create an unsettling tension that makes watching their interaction all the more riveting.

CONTEXT: One thing to know, if you don’t, when watching the video is that James Taylor suffered from both depression and drug addiction, in and out of rehabs and psychiatric hospitals, during this time period, straining his relationships and marriage with Carly Simon.

READING (BOOKS):

There are some things that when you see them you can’t unsee them. Like how racism is built into the system, how women aren’t taken as seriously as men, and between straight partners, the inequitable emotional labor a woman is forced to shoulder.

What’s recently broken wide open for me is the toxicity of heteronormativity. The codes, the blind allegiance to a system that rewards the nuclear family and does nothing to help those outside this traditional structure.

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As someone who has never married, and has no children, I am deeply accustomed to the social imbalance, the discomfort of others at my family of one (plus animal), and the micro-aggressions that blame me for being without the things I wanted, and not at the system itself for building society based on a narrow vision of belonging.

And it’s my preoccupation with this topic that I’ve begun to feel like I only want to read books by bell hooks, for the rest of my days. (FUN FACT: she used lower case for her name because she wanted to redirect focus from her identity to her ideas. God I love her).

Communion is a book about the meaning of love in American culture, how women can and should reclaim their search for love as a heroic journey. There is no one better than hooks at breaking down toxic masculinity, and patriarchy into meaningful, life-shifting frameworks that always (pun intended) Rock My Soul.

I’m working on a special project with the artist Edwina White, and part of our research includes diving headfirst into visual art. I’m a huge fan of Art Brut & Bricolage and have been scouring art books.

My friend Monica Youn, author of the wonderful From, From, suggested I look into the work of Karen Green, a visual artist who works with text and visuals. Married to the late author David Foster Wallace, Green is a remarkable artist, and I am devouring her work.

As someone who believes in giving voice to the voiceless, Frail Sister is working overtime, constructing the story of Green’s disappeared Aunt Constance through artifacts, letters and art, imagining her in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The reconstruction and rescue of a lost life into a fully realized one is an act of pure love.

Next up is Bough Down. Most likely, I’ll be writing about these books soon. Many thanks to Monica!

READING (ARTICLES)

If you know me well, you know that I am Andrew Solomon’s NUMBER ONE SUPER-FAN. His facility with language, and ability to state in a single sentence what people spend 400 pages trying to say, speaks to a particular genius not many possess.

I hold him in the highest esteem and I encourage everyone to read the Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (a classic) and Far From the Tree (another classic).

And now, among many of his incredible articles is this one, one social media and suicide.

Parents may be the ones suing Meta now, but in ten years time, so too will the kids these platforms harmed.

THINKING ABOUT

Congruence.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that in any relationship, the first and most essential thing to look for is congruence. Does this person’s words align with their actions? If not, whether in friendship, mentorship or love, run.

When someone is congruent, they are reliable, stable, steady and safe. You can trust what they say they’ll do, and you always know where you stand.

When you feel like you’re in a swirl that’s larger than reason, when you feel off-kilter, knocked off balance in relationship with someone else, ask yourself if this person’s words and actions align.

There was a time when I would rush headlong into relationships—platonic and romantic—only to discover, once I was in too deep, that the person I was now attached to was incongruent, and dangerous for my psyche.

I’ll be writing more about this in the coming months, but for now, the concept is percolating…

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Until next week I will remain…