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In summary, limerent fantasy is, most of all, intrusive and inescapable. It seems not to be something you do, but something that happens. Most involuntary are the flash visions in which LO is reciprocating. Compelling, seductive, tempting, or even, as one man described them, “tantalizing,” the longer limerent fantasy is a deliberate attempt to achieve relief of the limerent yearning through imagining consummation in a context of possible events. Limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless firmly rooted in reality. Sometimes it is retrospective; actual events are replayed in memory. This formv predominates when what is viewed as evidence of possible reciprocation can be reexperienced. Otherwise, the long fantasy is anticipatory; it begins in your everyday world and climaxes at the attainment of the limerent goal. The intrusive “flashes” may be symbolic; you find LO’s indication of returned feelings expressed by a look, a word, a handclasp, or embrace. The long fantasies form a bridge between your ordinary life and that intensely desired ecstatic moment. The two types of fantasy are ends of a continuum, not mutually exclusive. The duration and complexity of a fantasy often seem to depend on how much time and freedom from distraction is available. The bliss of the imagined moment of consummation is greater when events imagined to precede it are believed in. In fact, of course, they often represent grave departures from the probable, as an outside observer might estimate them."

 

one of my first interviewees estimated that his limerence consistently averaged 85 percent. As Fred put it:
“Thinking thoughts of Laura intruded while I was working, and it was that struggle with myself that, I suppose, was one of the most unpleasant aspects of the thing. As far as free time was concerned, while shaving, walking about, waiting for sleep to come at night—this was often at 100 percent. On a couple of occasions, especially after Laura had been particularly unfriendly, my limerence would take a sharp, unfortunately temporary, drop, sometimes going as low as 20 percent. When I got back home, the average went down, gradually, to maybe 60 percent the first month, 50 percent the second, and it leveled off, by the time I met Linda, to 10 percent or less.

 

But don’t get the impression that it was a consistent downward progression. Sometimes, even after I had been back in the United States for four months, I would occasionally have days at 90 percent.”

"Margrit, a 36-year-old sportswriter, met Bert on March 6th, and by the next day, her preoccupation percentage had gone up to 15 percent (she thought about him 15 percent of the time). He telephoned her that day. The day after that, on the 8th, it rose to 20 percent. That evening they had their first date, which was successful enough to bring her preoccupation up to 55 percent the next day and to 65 percent on the three days after that.
The second date, on the 12th, raised her preoccupation percentage even higher, to 80 percent. However, Bert broke the date they had scheduled for the 15th. At this point, Margrit’s preoccuaption percentage was still at 80 percent."

 

"After he broke the date, it went even higher"

 

Up to this point, everything had been on the plus side; Margrit had been not only preoccupied, but pleasantly so. After the broken date, she found her attraction had intensified and her preoccupation increased to 90 percent, but the next three days consisted of unhappy intense limerence. These were days in which she did not hear from him. Then he called again and sounded really interested in her after all, at which time her preoccupation went up to 100 percent, this time a happy 100 percent.
Bert, in fact, was vacillating. On the 21st he broke the next date leaving her this time in more intense misery than she had felt before. During the next three days, both her preoccupation level and her intensity of unhappiness diminished but did not reach neutrality"

 

"Margrit’s feelings fluctuated in relation to whether Bert’s behavior was interpreted as indicating interest or rejection. The intensity of her feelings—at least as measured by preoccupation percentage—and the direction of her feelings—positive or negative—represent two different aspects of her experience. When Bert was rejecting Margrit, the intensity of her limerence would sometimes actually increase.

 

The course of limerence is, then, a rise, often very rapid, to a more intrusive thinking pattern than you may ever have experienced. This is invariably an expectant, even joyous period. It is what Stendahl termed the first crystallization, the initial focusing on LO’s admirable qualities. Then, under appropriate conditions of hope and uncertainty, the limerence intensifies further. At the peak reached by the first crystallization, perhaps 30 percent of your waking thoughts revolve around LO; at the height of limerence, after what Stendhal called the second crystallization, the figure soars to virtually 100 percent. Subsequently your reaction may remain at that height for days or weeks, with only small and temporary respite, or it may begin to undergo a final decline, or, as is most typical, it may drop and then rise again one or more times before the decline that almost always follows sooner or later. The astounding thing is that the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the state seems almost unrelated to the intensity of the reaction. Limerence at 100 percent may be ecstasy or it may be despair, and it may change from positive to negative at any level of intensity."

 

 

"I don’t mean to imply that limerence is the sole determiner of the person’s emotional well-being. Even at its height, you carry on your ordinary activities and are affected by other events in expected ways. But a portion of your mentality is in its control. When limerence is at its peak, the other things in life are shunted off to the side and thought about only to the extent that limerence leaves room for them.

As it was repeatedly described to me, the course of limerence is as follows:
1. The limerent reaction begins, usually at a point discernible at the time and later recalled. Sexual attraction as such need not be experienced, although (a) the person is someone you view as a possible sexual partner, and (b) the initial “admiration” may be, or seem to be, primarily physical attraction.

2. Once limerence begins, you find yourself thinking about LO and receiving considerable pleasure from the process. There is an initial phase in which you feel buoyant, elated, and, ironically, for this appears to be the beginning of an essentially involuntary process, free. Free not only from the usual restraints of gravity, but emotionally unburdened. You may be attracted to more than one potential LO. You feel that your response is a result of LO’s fine qualities.

3. With evidence of reciprocation from LO, you enjoy a state of extreme pleasure, even euphoria. Your thoughts are mainly occupied with considering and reconsidering what you may find attractive in LO, replaying whatever events may have thus far transpired between you and LO, and appreciating qualities in yourself which you perceive as possibly having sparked interest in you on the part of LO. (It is at this point in West Side Story that Maria, the contemporary Juliet, sings I Feel Pretty.)

4. Your degree of involvement increases if obstacles are externally imposed or if you doubt LO’s feelings for you. Only if LO were to be revealed as highly undesirable might your limerence subside. Usually, with some degree of doubt its intensity rises further, and you reach the stage at which the reaction is virtually impossible to dislodge, either by your own act of will, or by further evidence of LO’s undesirable qualities. This is what Stendhal called crystallization. The doubt and increased intensity of limerence undermine your former satisfaction with yourself. You acquire new clothes, change your hairstyle, and are receptive to any suggestion by which you might increase your own desirability in LO’s eyes. You are inordinately fearful of rejection.

5. With increases in doubt interspersed with reason to hope that reciprocation may indeed occur, everything becomes intensified, especially your preoccupation percentage. At 100 percent you are mooning about, in either a joyful or a despairing state, preferring your fantasies to virtually any other activity unless it is (a) acting in ways that you believe will help you attain your limerent objective, such as beautifying yourself and, therefore increasing the probability that you will impress LO favorably during your interaction, or (b) actually being in the presence of LO. Your motivation to attain a “relationship” (mating, or pair bond) continues to intensify so long as a “proper” mix of hope and uncertainty exist, as it did for Margrit when Bert showed interest but seemed to act on it unpredictably.

6. At any point in the process, if you perceive reciprocation, your degree of involvement ceases to rise—until, of course, you become uncertain again. Usually, however, what might be an obvious sign of interest to an observer is not so obvious to you. “Lover’s spats,” games in which the timid partners attempt to conceal from each other the full nature of the reaction that has seized them, as well as the inevitable differences between their interests, prevent full reciprocation in each other’s eyes and allow the intensity to continue to increase.

"nine and a half months after his first attraction for Harriet, he began to transfer his limerence to a new person.

 

FEAR OF REJECTION

The pleasures of love are always in proportion to the fear.23

 

Along with the emphasis of positive qualities perceived in LO, and preoccupation with the hoped for return of feelings, you fear that your limerence will be met by the very opposite of reciprocity: rejection.

 

The most frequently reported physiological correlates of limerence are heart palpitations, trembling, pallor, flushing, and general weakness. Awkwardness, stammering, and confusion predominate at the behavioral level. And shyness. When limerent, you are fearful, apprehensive, nervous, anxious—terribly worried that your own actions may bring about disaster. Many of the commonly associated physiological reactions are the result of this fear, and there are other consequences as well. Stendhal, who speaks of himself in the third person, describes some of these:

[The man in love] is aware of the enormous weight attaching to every word he speaks to his beloved, and feels that a word may decide his fate. He can hardly avoid trying to express himself well, . . . From that moment candour is lost.

In your beloved’s presence even physical movements almost cease to be natural, although the habit of them is so deeply ingrained in the muscles. Whenever I gave my arm to Leonore, I always felt I was about to fall, and I had to think how to walk.

“Gregory had been married to Beatrice for 25 years and had feared that she would leave him at any moment throughout almost the entire period. This uncertainty perpetuated his limerence, providing both fear—and joy.
“I lived in constant fear of divorce. The only times I even felt at all safe were when she was pregnant or had a small child."

 

"I would do everything I could think of to try and win her affection. I’d buy flowers, take the kids out, mow the lawn, paint the kitchen, just about anything I thought she’d like. Sometimes she’d give me a look of real appreciation; other times she’d get angry. She was unpredictable. I could never be sure of how she’d react, whether something I’d do to please her would have the right effect or its opposite."

 

"And it was all done very subtly, no fighting or screaming or anything crude like that. And another thing, she was always beautiful. From the day I met her until the day she died, she was the most beautiful woman on earth. And she really was. Other men thought so, too. She never got fat or let herself go, and she wore clothes with elegance. She was a real queen and she ruled my emotions for a quarter of a century. It’s completely different now with Beth. She and I are more like equals, like really good friends."

 

"I would have to say I’m more content with Beth than I ever was during those years with Beatrice. But I also have to admit that with all the worry she caused me, she also gave me some great moments. They call it ecstasy, and I’d agree with the term."

 

"

"However unappealing it may be in a universe conceived as orderly and humane, the fact is undeniable; fear of rejection may cause pain, but it also enhances desire."

 

"When you are limerent, you experience considerable self-doubt and uncertainty about your own reactions. You wonder “Am I ‘paranoid’ to be so concerned about trivia?” And yet you find you cannot help noticing “little things” and endlessly analyzing them for meanings that are not apparent. The explanation is that reciprocation requires a reaction by LO similar to yours."

 

"According to Russell, “The belief in the immense value of the lady is the psychologic effect of the difficulty of obtaining her, and I think it may be laid down that when a man has no difficulty in obtaining a woman, his feeling toward her does not take the form of romantic love.”29 He was only stating what mothers have passed down to their daughters for centuries."

 

"psychologists speak of “the Romeo and Juliet effect,” in which parents who attempt to interfere in the romance of their children may in fact intensify it"

 

"Uncertainty about LO’s true reaction is an essential aspect of your own limerence. Removal of the uncertainty is the goal, and because your desire is so unrelenting, so imperative, you continually search for the meanings underlying events. This brings us to the matter of hopefulness, as essential to the development of a full limerent reaction as uncertainty. Since limerent fantasy is rooted in the limerent’s actual life situation, it would seem to follow that hopefulness must be similarly grounded. Well, yes and no. The problem is once again that it is not objective reality, but reality as it is perceived that provides the base for limerent hopefulness. Just as lack of confidence and fear of no response in LO may be based on misperceptions of reality, so hope of reciprocation of feeling turns out to require little foothold in actuality once the limerent reaction has fixed itself. It is primarily the true nature of LO’s reaction to yourself that is obscure to your limerent eye, and it is this confusion that causes so much stress and anxiety over how to behave, what to say, how much to reveal, or how fast to move.

The inclination to sift through nuances of speech and subtleties of behavior for evidence of limerent hope presented itself repeatedly in the interviews."

 

"Many actions of which you are quite unaware may communicate distaste for the person with whom you are conversing. These include clenching your teeth, holding your lips tight together, rubbing your nose or making brisk and repetitive movements such as flicking the ash of a cigarette or drumming your fingers. Thus the limerent’s seemingly excessive concern over trivia may not be entirely unfounded."

 

"The rocky course of progression toward ecstatic mutuality may involve not externally created difficulties, but the feinting and parrying, the minor deceptions, and the falsehoods of the lovers themselves that are so frequent as often to have been viewed as a “natural” aspect of the romantic love pattern.42 (They also occur in sexual seduction and in many other forms of human interaction.) The lovers’ fears lead them to proceed with a caution that they hope will protect them from disaster. Rather than commit themselves, they flirt. They send out ambiguous signals more or less as trial balloons. Reason to hope combined with reason to doubt keeps passion at fever pitch. Too-ready limerent availability cools them."

 

"Another informant, Virginia, was unusually frank:
“The man I am in love with is really silly. If he knew how I felt, he’d leave instantly. He’d feel insulted, and I wouldn’t blame him in the least.""

 

"At any stage, being in love means wanting his love. I may be hating him and wishing he would come back so I could reject him, but I still want him to come back. Wanting him to want me is what it’s all about. That’s what one yearns for. The agony—it’s so trite but it is agony, there’s no better word—comes with doubt. To think that he might not be interested is to feel as if I’ve been stabbed with a knife. It hurts so sharply and inescapably.”"

 

"

Writing in 1964, totally from a male perspective, sociologist Peter Blau says:

The woman who impresses a man as a most desirable love possession that cannot easily be won and who simultaneously indicates sufficient interest to make ultimate conquest not completely beyond reach is likely to kindle his love.

 

To safeguard the value of her affection, a woman must be ungenerous in expressing it and make any evidence of her growing love a cherished prize that cannot be easily won . . . if she dispenses [sexual] favors readily—to many men or to a given man too soon—she depreciates their value and thus their power to arouse an enduring attachment.46

 

Simone de Beauvoir notes that a woman can lose her attraction to a man in the same way:
The knight departing for new adventures offends his lady, yet she has nothing but contempt for him if he remains at her feet. This is the torture of the impossible love. . . .47
Games, playacting, subterfuge, coyness, the sending of ambiguous messages and trial balloons that can be retracted or denied if such seems a wiser course: Such deviations from straightforward honesty become essential limerent strategies."

 

"

Is this deplorable state of affairs a necessary aspect of love? It does seem essential to limerence; hence the need for a new term. It appears, sadly enough, that limerent demands are contrary by nature when a limerent response in the other person can be killed by too early or blatant a display of affection. “Love,” in most of its meanings, involves concern for the other person’s welfare and feelings. Affection and fondness have no “objective”; they simply exist as feelings in which you are disposed toward actions to which the recipient might or might not respond. In contrast, limerence demands return. Other aspects of your life, including love, are sacrificed in behalf of the all-consuming need. While limerence has been called love, it is not love. Although the limerent feels a kind of love for LO at the time, from LO’s point of view limerence and love are quite different from each other.

 

It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them.49 No wonder those who view limerence from an external vantage are baffled by what seems more a form of insanity than a form of love. Jean-Paul Sartre calls it a project with a “contradictory ideal.” He notes that each of the lovers seek the love of the other without realizing that what they want is to be loved. His conclusion is that the amorous relation is “a system of infinite reflections, a deceiving mirror game which carries within itself its own frustration,” a kind of “dupery.”50

It should also be clear now that limerent uncertainly as well as projection can be viewed as the consequence of your limerent inclination to hide your own feelings: If you hide your true reactions, then LO, if indeed limerent, can be expected to do the same. When LO appears not to be eager, or even interested, it is not unreasonable to interpret that behavior as evidence itself of limerence; and a kind of “paranoia” becomes an entirely logical consequence of a situation that may indeed be what Simone de Beauvoir has called it: “impossible.”

 

Because one of the invariant characteristics of limerence is extreme emotional dependency on LO’s behavior, the actual course of the limerence must depend on the actions and reactions of both lovers. Uncertainty increases limerence; increased limerence dictates altered action which serves to increase or decrease limerence in the other according to the interpretation given. The interplay is delicate if the relationship hovers near mutuality; a subtle imbalance, constantly shifting, appears to maintain it. Each knows who “loves more.”

 

If limerence were measurable by an instrument that enabled its intensity to be read by the points on a dial, one could imagine that, if lovers sat together reading each other’s degree of reciprocation, the dials would rarely if ever set themselves at the same point on the scales. For instance, if you found yourself more limerent than your partner, then your limerence might decline through reduced hope, or if your partner’s were higher, it might decline through reduced uncertainty. Perhaps such true awareness would provide a means of controlling the reaction."

 

"It is useful to distinguish sexual fantasies from limerent ones. Limerent fantasy is rooted in reality—that is, in what the limerent person interprets as reality. Your limerent daydreams may be unlikely,even highly unlikely, but they retain fidelity to the possible. The image of the moment of consummation, in which your LO indicates to you by word or gesture that the feelings are returned, is the more blissful—even when only in fantasy—if the events imagined to lead up to it could actually occur. As beautiful as a scene on a Caribbean island may be with you and LO dancing together in the moonlight, the scene brings the glow of bliss only when you are able to fill in the gaps, as it were, between present circumstances and the desired event. In acute phases, limerent fantasies are intrusive rather than voluntary, and they often reach a peak of satisfaction in a situation that may or may not lead to a sexual embrace.

In contrast, sexual fantasies are for most persons under more or less voluntary control. Here, it is necessary to distinguish between fantasy and arousal—the latter being a physiological as well as psychological state accompanied by definite sensations in the genital region. Fantasy is mental activity which creates and or augments those sensations. Sexual fantasies may involve intrusive and involuntary desire, but they differ from limerent imaginings (at least for those whom I interviewed) in that sexual fantasizing may also involve strangers, imaginary individuals, and situations that could not take place—even ones that you would not wish to have take place. Group sex, rape, seduction by a mysterious stranger, intercourse with animals: Such fantasies can be arousing for people who would not actually wish to engage in them in real live"

 

"Of course, we know that these activities are sometimes actually enacted by some people, but the point here is only that many people can become aroused by the thought of sexual partners, acts, and situations that are not truly desired. The limerent, however, passionately desires that every detail of the limerent fantasy should actually take place. Furthermore, the moment of imagined consummation is often a handclasp, mutual gaze, words of endearment, or even a sigh."

 

@frenchkiki  does this subject interest you (limerance) and what do you think of it?  I would love to hear of  your views.

"It must also be emphasized that there is a difference—if not an incompatibility—between sexual competence and limerence. The “missionary” position so denigrated by sexual sophisticates is in fact the position of limerence. Lewdness is out of place in the limerent’s fantasy, and female limerents have reported weeping during coitus when it seemed obvious that the partner’s feelings consisted primarily or exclusively of “impersonal” lust."

 

"As Jane reported:
“There I was, finally, in Frank’s arms and in his bed. His attention was fully on me, and by all rights I ought to have been in the height of ecstasy, but it wasn’t like that at all. Every aspect of his sexual performance wounded me deeply. I searched for evidence of love in his actions but found only a kind of animal, automatic, impersonal lust.
“It was not that he was behaving badly. He wasn’t really. It was just that I wanted his love so badly that I was supersensitive to every move on his part that might possibly indicate love. I kept feeling that I and my love were, really, just a body to him. I kept worrying about it. When he entered me, I felt a terrible pang of simultaneous joy and grief—joy for his presence, grief for the fact that I couldn’t feel his love, only his sex drive. And his friendliness. He wasn’t being a brute, not in any way. It was me, but I couldn’t help it.
“And so I started to cry when he started to come. I knew the closeness would soon be over and I wanted it to go on. At the same time, I was not being a good sex partner. I realized that, and that just made it worse. Really, it was horrible.”

 

 

"In The Group, 95 percent of the women and 91 percent of the men rejected the statement that “the best thing about love is sex.” Others told me in interviews that “whether sex occurred or not was irrelevant.” As Desmond Morris says:
. . . if two young people are in love today, they will laugh at the desperate athleticism of the copulating nonlovers. For them, as for true lovers at all points in history, a fleeting touch on the cheek from the one they adore will be worth more than six hours in thirty-seven positions with someone they do not.57"

 

 

"a 16-hour survey of random radio programming by a local popular music station in Connecticut in 1977, 45 percent of the songs concerned erotic or romantic love. Of this music, 40 percent expressed pleas for return of feeling, and 30 percent contained mournful descriptions of the pain of unreturned love.1"

 

"The secretly limerent person fixated on an LO who gives little or no positive response more quickly runs out of “material” capable of holding a friend’s interest."

 

"The basic similarity in the situations was that there existed a relationship between the two people during which occurred the neutral and totally nonamatory contacts that perpetuated the limerent reaction. Because Fred saw Laura daily, their neutral contacts were more frequent than most.
Another factor in these cases was that the limerent person was handicapped in trying to end the limerence by transferring the feelings to a more receptive LO, although in most cases, as in Fred’s, some attempt along these lines was made."

 

"Note here the tendency to find value of some kind, despite the suffering. Such “rationalizations” were common among interviewees."

 

"It seems to me that being romantically attracted to Laura means that I am bending my image of her until it is distorted. Things that might produce an unpleasant picture, I simply do not see. When she appears by relatively objective standards, beautiful and capable, I look long and hard. But when she is not at her best, when I catch her face in an unflattering angle, I turn my eyes away. If she were in love with me, she would do the same, and we might both be aware of the process in the other because we could feel it in ourselves. If that is true, “loving back” is actually furthering a deception. Only the best angles are allowed to show or be seen. To do anything else is to increase the risk of the dreaded rejection. But it is a disservice to a person not to perceive them the way they really are. I try to find the reality in Laura, but I know that I can look directly at her and perceive only that which excites me."

 

"Yet I find myself twisting the whole thing upside down and convincing myself, at least momentarily, that for Laura to be uninterested in what is most important in my life is somehow an advantage!
Fred has been thinking that being with someone who knows nothing about his work might enable him to get away from it, whereas if he were often in the presence of someone in his field, it would be harder to relax. But after working out this complex rationalization, as he calls it, he rejects it."

 

 

According to a nationally represented study, a range of 20-40% of men and 25% of women confessed to having cheated on their spouse at least once.  

 

Some 60% of men and 53% of women confessed to girlfriend/boyfriend stealing (mate poaching).

 

Divorce rates are around 50% for first marriages and higher for second and third.

 

The actual numbers for cheating and mate poaching are probably higher than the survey due to lying.  I'm not surprised at the results of this at all.

 2 activities I want to try in the future:

 

1. Improv

 

2. Yoga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

 

I've listened to half of "The Power of Now" via phone and I'm still fairly clueless about what he's talking about most of the time...anybody know?

 

It seems to be mostly mumbo jumbo

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+power+of+now

 

"The Power of Now and A New Earth sold an estimated three million and five million copies respectively in North America by 2009.^[9] In 2008, approximately 35 million people participated in a series of 10 live webinars with Tolle and television talk show host Oprah Winfrey.^[9]"

On Friendship:

 

"This, of course, is what friendship is, an invisible force that is
real and emotional, thoughtful and potentially wise, entertaining,
joyful, and full of love. Without it we have no training ground
in which to work out our character, no winner's circle in which
to celebrate it. Without friendship, we have no place to realize a
destiny of success or happiness."

 

"women care about friendships in a different way
than men do. Women want to know how friendships succeed, fail,
and grow. They want to solve the mystery of this invisible force in
our destiny. They want, need, and must belong to a group of
friends. This is why the feminine need for friendship is so deep, so
intense, and such a source of pleasure and pain."

 

"a "gender instinct" to fit in or belong to social
groups as opposed to the masculine gender instinct that drives
rank-seeking among male groups; and the feminine gender instinct—
driven by what is called the female Oedipal period of
life—for finding interest in all things mysterious and wanting
answers to even the small riddles of daily life"

 

"Both men and women are equally gifted at having a capacity
to love"

 

"

Quantum Psychology:

 

"The energy quality of our emotions distinguishes our good
moods from our mood disorders. It powers our mental ability to do
work, to create, to calculate, to tell stories, to learn, and to grow. It
powers our friendships and our very capacity to love."

 

"we think of the positive emotional energy
that exists in our relationships, what we're really referring to is our
self-esteem. Every relationship "system" has a degree and quality
of self-esteem to it, both contributed by individuals and as a collective
whole. There are families with high self-esteem and low selfesteem,
corporations with high self-esteem (we might call it morale)
and low self-esteem, and married couples who, combined, have
high self-esteem or low self-esteem. These levels of self-esteem correspond
to the levels of positive human emotional energy present."

 

On Female Friendship:

 

"Something that gnawed at her: there
was no opportunity to share feelings on a consistent, mutual basis
with other women. The lack of opportunity for sharing not only
made her feel malaise in her mammalian brain, it cut right into the
lifeblood of feminine instinct in her reptilian brain: the need to
belong and share feelings. The consistent, mutual, positive energy
of friendship must be shared—ideally, in person."

 

"Friendship is consistent, mutual, shared positive emotion."

 

"

"as many a
woman today would be when advised by close friends to do
something "in her best interest" that doesn't feel right. The need 

to belong to a group of friends is so strong in a woman's reptilian
brain that it sometimes causes her to do things that will harm
her marriage, career, or even health just for the ongoing permission
and identity of belonging.

We can see how this force of femininity might drive many an
adolescent girl to drugs in order to belong to a certain crowd. It is
at work when a woman is in a dead-end career that makes her
miserable, yet she dallies and delays when presented with a chance
to change jobs because the office friends are "just so close to me."
Nearly every man I have ever met has talked about how his girlfriend
wants "to get serious" when her friends start getting married,
or how she feels "like I need more space to go out" when her
friends become newly single or divorced. The woman's need for
belonging is a force that men often do not understand, because it
is at the level of passion, a deeply hardwired survival instinct of
the reptilian brain."

 

"women
need a connection to not just what is sisterly about friendship but
also what is maturely maternal about it. The feminine instinct not
only has an impact on female friendships on the individual level of
bonding, it is also a lifeline to all that is feminine, nurturing, and
maternal—the universal feminine. I have seen many a woman with
an otherwise stellar career, fantastic marriage and children, healthy
body, and healthy finances, describe feeling painfully, passionately 

empty, lost, or without identity as a woman. This is usually because
she feels disconnected from an exclusively feminine source of universal
nurturing—from female friends."

 

"The reptilian brain is not exactly discriminating as to whom we
befriend. It runs on instinct, the illogical, passionate desire in
women to belong to a group of friends (sometimes without regard
for the quality of that group), and the illogical, passionate desire
in men to lead or achieve rank in a group of friends (once again,
sometimes without regard for the quality of that group)."

"Using the definition from
biologists, then, the most "alive" friendships are ones where we
are active, deciding things together on purpose. This is why some
friendships feel stale, regress, or die. They are not alive in a biological
sense because one or the other person is being too passive"

 

"the value of
"breaking bread" as a way of encouraging friendship with clients
and partners, and dining with others uses all five senses to accomplish
intimate connection. It is perhaps one of the most presentminded
activities we engage in."

 

"Sometimes people are very closed off and don't easily reveal
who they are or what they prefer. These folks have developed what
you might call "walls" in the boundary. These are places of psychological
scar tissue from being hurt or invaded too much in youth. No
amount of energy expended to get them to open up will work. They
are going to permanently say no to talking about certain issues.
The friend with walls in her boundary can appear to be very
tough and resistant to stress, but this is not the same as mature
strength of boundaries. The walls say no to every request for intimacy
or sharing, one of the four prime features of friendship in
your master checklist. What's more, the walls leave the friend
lonely and "starving" for emotional connection, much as a country
with locked borders becomes isolated from the international
community."

"The girl on top, unlike the top
"alpha male," may not feel good about having that rank because
in many cases it takes away some of the safeness of belonging she
once enjoyed.

Competition for women in the workplace is far more about
higher-brain personality type. A Warrior woman in a law firm
may be vigorously competitive, whereas one with a Lover temperament
may not compete with anyone but herself. Down at the
primal, female reptilian-brain level, though, it's about belonging,
normalcy, and harmony versus exclusion, ostracism, and disorder."

 

"It's about multiple, joined circles of friends. Women are more secure
when they belong to triangles within circles of friends, linked
to circles within triangles of other circles."

 

women behavior?:

 

"Once again, your degree of belonging may play out in multiple
circles of friends, and yet you can juggle them all with the natural
feminine tendency to make introductions: to harmonize and join
various circles of friends.

If you were to hide or keep your circles of friends separate and
distinct (as the male reptilian brain tends to do), you present yourself
with extra energy expenditure in maintaining these separate
relationships."

 

"you can find the points where all
your circles of friends join and, whenever you get the chance,
introduce members from the various groups."