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	<title type="text">Allie Volpe | Vox</title>
	<subtitle type="text">Our world has too much noise and too little context. Vox helps you understand what matters.</subtitle>

	<updated>2026-04-13T18:49:27+00:00</updated>

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		<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[My partner and I don&#8217;t share many interests. Should we break up?]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/life/485011/commonalities-significant-other-hobbies-interests" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=485011</id>
			<updated>2026-04-13T14:49:27-04:00</updated>
			<published>2026-04-08T07:00:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Caroline Sacks wasn’t used to dating quiet guys, guys who liked meditation, yoga, and the Grateful Dead.&#160; Sacks, a 29-year-old content creator who lives in Brooklyn, is more of a Bridgerton and Justin Bieber girl herself. In the past, she tended to date people who had the same interests and had similarly high energy. But [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<img alt="An edited image of the painting “In Love” by Marcus Stone where a man in 19th-century clothing sits at one end of a table overlooking a woman busy with her needlepoint. They sit in a lush garden." data-caption="Modern romance is marked by many, often contradictory, truisms. | ilbusca/Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="ilbusca/Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/04/GettyImages-2219277629.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=1.1390625,1.7904735870977,97.509375,96.359825964145" />
	<figcaption>
	Modern romance is marked by many, often contradictory, truisms. | ilbusca/Getty Images	</figcaption>
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<p class="has-text-align-none">Caroline Sacks wasn’t used to dating quiet guys, guys who liked meditation, yoga, and the Grateful Dead.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Sacks, a 29-year-old content creator who lives in Brooklyn, is more of a <em>Bridgerton</em> and Justin Bieber girl herself. In the past, she tended to date people who had the same interests and had similarly high energy. But those relationships didn’t pan out. So, rather than drop the Deadhead before their relationship really began, Sacks saw those differences as minor misalignments, something to be curious about instead of dismissing out of hand. Over the last six years, she’s been to several Dead and Company shows and she is now marrying the Deadhead. “If you met us separately, I really don&#8217;t think you would put us together in any way, shape or form,” Sacks tells Vox.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Modern romance is marked by many, often contradictory, truisms. Love is easy, but it <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/414654/relationship-couples-succesful-marriage-divorce-work-therapy">also requires hard work</a>, and yet <a href="https://www.vox.com/life/465847/romantic-ambivalence-love-positivity-negativity-mixed-feelings">feelings of frustration or annoyance are red flags</a>. For long-term happiness, your interests and lifestyle must be consistent, yet we’re told opposites attract.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The truth is, believing you have plenty in common with your partner is more important than your actual similarities, experts say. And part of the fun of being with someone whose interests are very different from yours is finding the activities you do enjoy together. “Imagine that if you line up the 10,000 things that two people might have in common,” says <a href="https://pauleastwick.com/pauleastwick">Paul Eastwick</a>, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis and author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723049/bonded-by-evolution-by-paul-eastwick/"><em>Bonded By Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection</em></a>. “All you really need to craft a relationship that feels fulfilling is the ability to build around three or four of those things.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why we date similar people</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">People do typically form relationships with those of similar ethnicity, religion, education, and lifestyle behaviors; it’s <a href="https://ndg.asc.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/McPherson-2001-ARS.pdf">known as homophily</a>. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/104/1/250/7918057">Research has shown</a> that the closer you are to a person, the more alike you probably are.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">We naturally self-sort based on our interests, too; if you frequent a certain bar or join a local civic organization, you’ll meet people who share at least one thing in common with you. “When you think of how two people would meet if they have zero things in common, it&#8217;s hard to come up with a lot of scenarios,” <a href="https://psychology.msu.edu/directory/chopik-bill.html">William Chopik</a>, an associate professor of social and personality psychology at Michigan State University, tells Vox. “People often meet through their mutual interests. They&#8217;ll meet at a run club, or at work, or at church maybe.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">And dating apps make screening for these similarities easier than ever; it’s not difficult to, say, write off hikers or keep your eyes peeled for fellow art enthusiasts. Although apps <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/09/dating-app-setup-diversity/679938/">broaden the dating pool</a> to include people outside of your usual social contexts, all it takes is a swipe to weed out potential matches based on your perceived dissimilarities. But that can be ill-advised, because what we <em>think</em> we want in a partner isn’t necessarily what we <em>actually</em> want. In a study, Eastwick found that the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/504114b1e4b0b97fe5a520af/t/5f03601ada29481aa88007b2/1594056736117/Sparks2020JESP.pdf">qualities people say they find attractive</a> aren’t necessarily present in the people they end up with.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Having similar interests doesn’t mean you’re entirely compatible either. “In general, we say that two people are compatible when they can be together without constant friction,” <a href="https://complicated.life/find-a-therapist/berlin/relational-counsellor-couples-counsellor-alessia-marchi">Alessia Marchi</a>, a couples counselor <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886923000570">who has studied compatibility</a>, tells Vox in an email. That means people mesh when their core values and big-picture goals — whether they want kids, their political leanings, how they <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23653236/how-to-find-life-purpose-values-talent">find purpose and meaning</a> — are aligned. Liking the same movies isn’t as important.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“In some cases, these differences can enrich the relationship, allowing partners to learn from each other and adding variety and value to their shared experience,” Marchi says.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Insisting that your soul mate possesses all your same interests means possibly missing out on a would-be good partner because they like camping and you don’t. “Maybe you overlook someone who&#8217;s 85 percent similar,” Chopik says. “You tried to get someone who&#8217;s 90 percent similar, but maybe the 85-percent person was perfectly fine or nicer or had other characteristics that they didn&#8217;t put in their Tinder profile.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Perceived common ground matters more than actual similarity</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Two people can be vastly different, but so long as they <em>believe</em> they have a lot in common, they have a higher likelihood of staying together, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02654075251349720">research has found</a>. When you like someone, you might be more motivated to find common ground — something as simple as that you both enjoyed rock climbing that one time, or that you both <a href="https://youtu.be/3uAh-opNpDg?si=-Lk-dq68AENQ515f&amp;t=24">like cooking stews in the winter</a>. “If you are dramatically different than your partner, it might not matter if you don&#8217;t think that,” Chopik says. “If you have a crush or you seek out similarities, odds are you&#8217;ll find them.” </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Actively focusing on your similarities instead of your differences could improve your relationship, too. In an as-yet-unpublished study, researchers found that after people considered their similarities with their partner, they thought about the person more positively. “Just reflecting and asking yourself, ‘What did we agree on? What did we have in common today?’” says one of the study’s authors, <a href="https://x.com/AnnikaFrom">Annika From</a>, a postdoctoral associate at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The specific areas of overlap aren’t of importance — what matters is that you find them. Rather than insisting on a partner who likes salsa dancing as much as you do, finding new hobbies together should be an “active construction process” that you build into your identity as a couple, Eastwick says. Salsa dancing might not be what you end up seriously bonding over anyway. Why limit yourself?  </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">And you may discover similarities as you partake in new experiences together. Romantic relationships can help open doors to novel insights and events, which help <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.70082">expand your sense of self and identity</a>. “If you think you don&#8217;t have things in common, maybe you do,” Chopik says. “You both went to this horrible art showing and you bonded over how much you hated the pretentious people.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">When differences add excitement</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">You don’t need to convince your partner of the joys of arcade games just because you like them; it’s perfectly healthy for each partner to have unique interests they partake in solo or with friends. And if it is important to you that your significant other shares your love of cooking, for instance, consider less obvious ways of including them, like tasking them to pick a recipe or a dessert pairing. Sacks, the content creator from Brooklyn, has gotten her fiance, who she described as a relatively unskilled chef, involved in the kitchen, and they whip up curries and protein bowls together.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Knowing someone finds you fascinating despite not sharing any of your interests can even be a turn-on. One study found that when participants perceive someone with different hobbies as being interested in them, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00125.x">that person becomes more attractive</a>. When they express curiosity about your hobbies, you invite them into your world, exposing them to potentially fresh perspectives, knowledge, and skillsets. “It&#8217;s so exciting to have this chance to see the world through somebody else&#8217;s eyes, through somebody else&#8217;s vantage point,” Eastwick says.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">For Sacks, that means listening to the Grateful Dead on road trips because it’s what her fiance loves and dragging him to violin cover band concerts when no one else will go with her. “You wouldn&#8217;t say that we would be a natural brand fit,” she says, “but I think it&#8217;s just a curiosity and excitement for one another that it doesn&#8217;t matter.”</p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[The secret to successful conversations with strangers]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/advice/484072/how-to-talk-to-strangers-small-talk" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=484072</id>
			<updated>2026-04-07T14:57:51-04:00</updated>
			<published>2026-03-30T08:00:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Explainers" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[You may generally disregard unfamiliar faces as background characters in the movie that is your life, but almost everyone you care about was once a stranger. Aside from the people who have been in your life since you were born, every relationship has a getting-to-know you process where you transition from unknowns to knowns.&#160; Strangers [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<img alt="An illustration of three singing birds perched on a branch with leaves." data-caption="It’s time to let Sid go. | duncan1890/Getty Images" data-portal-copyright="duncan1890/Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/GettyImages-2211030197.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" />
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	It’s time to let Sid go. | duncan1890/Getty Images	</figcaption>
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<p class="has-text-align-none">You may generally disregard unfamiliar faces as background characters in the movie that is your life, but almost everyone you care about was once a stranger. Aside from the people who have been in your life since you were born, every relationship has a getting-to-know you process where you transition from unknowns to knowns.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Strangers can bring so much meaning to everyday moments, in big ways and small ones. In her new book <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/once-upon-a-stranger-the-science-of-how-small-talk-can-add-up-to-a-big-life-dr-gillian-sandstrom/6db581e03a8cb4e9?ean=9780063385412&amp;next=t"><em>Once Upon A Stranger: The Science of How “Small” Talk Can Add Up to a Big Life</em></a>, <a href="https://gilliansandstrom.com/">Gillian Sandstrom</a>, an associate professor in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, makes the case for why we should make more attempts to connect with unknowns. Sandstrom draws on research that both extols the virtues of interacting with strangers (<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120668119">talking with them improves well-being</a>) and helps quell your fears (<a href="https://clarkrelationshiplab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/BoothbyCooneySandstromClark2018.pdf">people enjoy talking to us more than we think</a>).</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Among the most nerve-wracking of stranger encounters are ones where you’re the unknown entity in a group: at a new job, a knitting club, or on the block. Everyone is unfamiliar to you, but to them, you’re the sole stranger. Here, Sandstrom offers some advice on how to integrate into the unit, and why you probably aren’t as embarrassing as you think.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><em>This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>Is there a difference between talking to a stranger on the street versus going into a new a cappella group and they all know each other and you don&#8217;t? Is the stranger scenario different for each of those contexts?&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">There is something different when you know that you might see the person again, because you probably worry more about their judgment. You want them to like you, so that when you see them again, you might want to talk again. Sometimes people worry [the other person doesn’t] want that. So you might think, <em>I see the same person at the bus stop every day and I could say hi. But what if I do and then I don&#8217;t like them? Or if they&#8217;re boring and then I&#8217;m going to have to talk to them every single time I go to the bus stop? So it&#8217;s better to just not talk at all.</em> It&#8217;s definitely scarier when you know that there&#8217;s the potential to see people again; you really want to make a good impression. It feels higher stakes. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>Would this type of conversation fall under the umbrella of small talk?</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The way you start a conversation works the same way whenever you&#8217;re talking to someone that you haven&#8217;t met before, regardless of what&#8217;s going to happen in the future, if you&#8217;re going to see them again or not. You have to figure out, <em>What are we going to talk about? I don&#8217;t know you, so I don&#8217;t know which topics are good and which topics are not good, and we have to fumble our way to finding some common ground</em>. The choir [you just joined] is a good conversation starter. You&#8217;ve chosen the same thing to do. Or you&#8217;re working for the same employer. You have something in common, which could be an easier conversation starter.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>What stuck out to me in the book was what you call Sid, this insidious voice in your head who’s telling you not to talk to strangers, and that you&#8217;re not interesting and nobody likes you. That voice is even stronger in situations where everybody knows each other and you are the new person. What advice would you have to quiet that voice?&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">That voice in our head that&#8217;s like, “You suck, you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re doing, nobody likes you” — part of that comes from always comparing ourselves to others. There&#8217;s research showing that we generally think we&#8217;re better than average at almost everything, but not at social stuff. This is almost the only thing where we think we&#8217;re not better than average. Who are you comparing yourself to? We compare ourselves to highly social people, the people who are really good at this. That&#8217;s partly why we think that we&#8217;re not any good, because we&#8217;re comparing ourselves to the best of the best. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">We have to be better at realizing, yes, there are some people like that, but we don&#8217;t have to compare ourselves to those people who are really good. If you look around the room, probably more people are like you desperately trying to figure it out and have a decent conversation.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">I am a researcher, so I&#8217;m all about the data. Okay, Sid, what data do you have? Show me the receipts. We don&#8217;t talk to strangers very often, and when we don&#8217;t have enough data, we can&#8217;t [easily] be like, “Oh yeah, I remember that great conversation I had.” We remember the really bad stuff. If you ever had a conversation with a stranger that didn&#8217;t go well, or you tried to talk to someone and it was a bit awkward or they didn&#8217;t want to talk, that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re going to remember. For me, what helps quiet Sid is to be able to say, “No, you have no basis for what you&#8217;re telling me. You have no data.”&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>I was really struck by your study that showed </strong><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103122000750?via%3Dihub"><strong>most conversations with strangers go well</strong></a><strong>; there are very few that are total trainwrecks. That speaks to the idea that we&#8217;re making this up. It&#8217;s not that bad.</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">When we don&#8217;t have data, we have to imagine stuff, and it&#8217;s easier to imagine those trainwrecks. That&#8217;s the stuff we remember. It&#8217;s the drama.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>It also ups the stakes, especially if you’re the new person at work and thinking, “I&#8217;m going to say something stupid, and they&#8217;re going to see me every day and think I&#8217;m an idiot for the rest of the time that we work together.”</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">There&#8217;s this research on who we&#8217;re willing to confide in. People, in certain situations, would rather share something with someone they don&#8217;t know, because if they share it with someone they do know, every time they see that person they&#8217;re going to be reminded of the fact that they shared that thing. The same is true here. If you tell a joke that nobody laughs at, you might think that every time you see them, you’ll be reminded of that joke and it didn&#8217;t go over well. They&#8217;re probably not thinking of it. The spotlight effect is when we feel like other people are noticing all our flaws more than they actually do, and then, that changes how you act, and it makes things more awkward. There&#8217;s a self-fulfilling prophecy going on. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>What if you said something stupid and everyone laughed. How do you move on?</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">If it was me, I&#8217;d try to make a joke about it. There have been so many times where I have continued to feel bad about something, and every once in a while, I bring it up and people are like, “I don&#8217;t even remember that.” What you could do is say, “I&#8217;m still thinking about that horrible joke I told last time.” Guaranteed, they&#8217;ll be like, “What joke? I don&#8217;t even remember.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>Why is it worth talking to strangers, especially the ones that you are going to see regularly?&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">It does not feel the same if you&#8217;re on a dodgeball team and you&#8217;re not talking to anybody on your team. The fun comes from being able to joke around and trash talk the opponents together and have a cup of tea afterwards. What would it feel like if you didn&#8217;t have any of that? It would be empty.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">A lot of people join a group, and then, they find a couple people, and then, anytime they go to the group, they talk to those few people, and that&#8217;s it. I try really hard not to do that. I try to meet lots of people. I play in an amateur orchestra. How do you turn a chat at the orchestra to something outside of the orchestra? If you did want to turn it into something lasting, you need that repeated contact. If you&#8217;re seeing the same people every week, that&#8217;s a good start. But then, you also have to be willing and brave enough to say, “Let&#8217;s grab a coffee afterwards.” </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>What if you don’t want to take these relationships further?</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">That’s fine. You shouldn&#8217;t feel like you have to get their name and their contact info and do something, but you can if you want to. There&#8217;s research on how having a diversity of interaction partners is important. You learn different things from different people.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>What misconceptions do you think people have about the value of interacting with strangers?&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">People start by thinking, <em>I&#8217;m not going to have anything in common with them. Why would I? What&#8217;s in it for me? </em>One of the reasons that we connect with other people is because we can do more together, and we feel safer when we&#8217;re in a group. We&#8217;re going to thrive. The workplace is going to be able to produce more, because we&#8217;re going to be better at teamwork, and we&#8217;re going to trust each other more. But for that to happen, someone has to go first. You have to be thinking about the “we.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong>I like the way you put it: Someone has to go first. It almost feels like we’re at a school dance, and we’re all standing on the sidelines, but we want the same thing.</strong></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">That&#8217;s the biggest misconception in terms of talking to strangers, period: We walk around thinking we&#8217;re the only ones who are anxious and that we don&#8217;t know what to do and that they don&#8217;t want to talk to us. But everybody&#8217;s feeling that way. It takes one person to be brave, to figure out how to ignore Sid&#8217;s voice in their head and just do it anyway. </p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[3 things all great listeners do]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/advice/483744/active-listening-skills-curiosity-distractions" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=483744</id>
			<updated>2026-03-27T11:47:17-04:00</updated>
			<published>2026-03-26T08:00:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Most of us would like to believe we’re good listeners — but the truth is, we all struggle to really pay attention when someone else is talking.&#160; “Most of the time when you ask people, ‘How well do you think you&#8217;re doing at listening to people?,’ they&#8217;re going to say, ‘Really well,’” Graham Bodie, a [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<img alt="An illustration of two paper cups connected with string. A mouth speaks into one cup while an ear listens to the other." data-caption="" data-portal-copyright="Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/GettyImages-2247577517.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" />
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<p class="has-text-align-none">Most of us would like to believe we’re good listeners — but the truth is, we all struggle to really pay attention when someone else is talking.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“Most of the time when you ask people,<em> </em>‘How well do you think you&#8217;re doing at listening to people?,’ they&#8217;re going to say, ‘Really well,’” <a href="https://www.grahambodie.com/">Graham Bodie</a>, a media and communication professor at the University of Mississippi, tells Vox. “But then when you ask about other people, they tend to say, ‘People are bad.’”&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">One study found that <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13421-024-01630-8#Sec14">we recall more of what we said to someone</a> compared to what was said to us. At best, people remembered 44 percent of any one conversation; other research has shown listeners’ <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Brooks_Alison_J1_Conveying%20and%20Detecting%20Listening_b9171a7a-a2d2-4ff4-85c3-f9494c1dce0b.pdf">minds wander nearly a quarter of the time</a> while conversing. Amid the cacophony of devices dinging, children interrupting, and to-do lists haunting, your friend’s story about their vacation can quickly become background noise. Or you end up focusing more on what you’re going to say once they’re finished than on really hearing them.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Many times, it’s those closest to us whom we hear the least. As your mom complains about her neighbor <em>again </em>and your mind wanders to your to-do list, you might subconsciously signal listening behaviors — a nod, smiles, a few “mhm”s — effectively fooling her into thinking you’re paying attention. But this is the worst sin of all, according to <a href="https://people.rcsi.com/chrisvn">Christian van Nieuwerburgh</a>, professor of coaching and positive psychology at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and co-author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/776041/radical-listening-by-christian-van-nieuwerburgh-and-robert-biswas-diener/"><em>Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection</em></a>. “This half-listening is actually really detrimental to relationships because it damages expectations,” he tells Vox. “It can be hurtful to people when they&#8217;re expecting us to listen and suddenly we don&#8217;t.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">On the other hand, when people feel heard, they report feeling more <a href="https://d-nb.info/1203067801/34">positively about their relationships</a>, <a href="https://cdn2.psychologytoday.com/assets/2024-05/Itzchakov%20%26%20Reis%202023%20COP.pdf">safer with their conversation partners, and more open to compromise</a>, which could encourage them to open up more. Listening to someone is one way to make them feel loved, according to <a href="https://sonjalyubomirsky.com/">Sonja Lyubomirsky</a>, the author of <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-to-feel-loved-sonja-lyubomirskyharry-reis?variant=43816462450722"><em>How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most</em></a>, the book she co-wrote with social psychologist Harry Reis. “When was the last time someone was really curious about you, just couldn&#8217;t wait for you to finish your story? It&#8217;s very compelling,” she tells Vox.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">If you want to forge stronger connections with those around you, especially the people you intimately know and love, it’s worth bolstering your listening skills. Deep listening requires curiosity, comprehension, and reflection, experts say. And sometimes, it means admitting when you’re distracted.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“Good relationships are founded on good conversations,” <a href="https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/management-and-organizations/faculty/collins">Hanne Collins</a>, assistant professor of management and organizations at UCLA, tells Vox. “And good conversations are really founded on good listening.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1) Go beyond active listening</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Much of our understanding of listening originates from the concept of active listening, coined by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s. To do it, you are supposed to give your full attention to the speaker, ask follow-up questions, suspend judgment, and keep the conversation on topic. Other research has identified similar <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373568154_Listening_to_Understand_The_Role_of_High-Quality_Listening_on_Speakers'_Attitude_Depolarization_During_Disagreements">components of high-quality listening</a>: attention, understanding, and positive intentions. You can probably intuit what this looks like in practice; closing your laptop when in active conversation (attention), saying something like “It sounds like you have a lot going on right now” (understanding), and biting your tongue when you feel the urge to judge (positive intentions).</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The problem with these frameworks, according to Bodie, is they turn listening into a checklist. “If that&#8217;s your idea of good listening, it&#8217;s a misconception because then you go about laying down that template in every situation you find yourself in, and you become this robotic ChatGPT listener, as opposed to a human who can navigate and adapt to the varying situations that they find themselves in,” Bodie says.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Life presents a multitude of conversation types — a business meeting, an argument, a gossip session — and we need to adapt our approach to listening for each one. A friend going through a hard time might simply need an empathetic ear; you may ask more follow-up questions when getting pet-sitting instructions from a neighbor.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">It’s important to regularly reflect on how you show up in conversations. “Are my listening habits helping me or hindering me in this context, in this situation, with this person, in this meeting, and so forth?” Bodie says. Think about some recent interactions you had. What do you tend to listen for (and often miss)? How do you respond? What does your face and body language convey? Do your follow-up questions come across as warm and curious or critical? Do you even ask follow-up questions at all?&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2) Listen to learn</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The function of listening isn’t just to formulate a response — it’s to understand your conversation partner. Lyubomirsky and Reis describe it in their book as “listening to learn.” Growing up, kids are generally taught to pay attention in order to respond to teachers in class, parents at home. “It&#8217;s such a habit for us to constantly respond,” Lyubomirsky says. “So when you&#8217;re talking, I&#8217;m listening with half an ear, but the other half, I&#8217;m really trying to rehearse my answer to you.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">When you’re listening to learn, your only objective is to take in another’s point of view. Lyubomirsky likened the experience to watching a movie. “When you&#8217;re watching a film, unless you&#8217;re a filmmaker or you&#8217;re writing a paper on the film, you&#8217;re just taking it in, right?” she says. “You&#8217;re not formulating a response, you&#8217;re not thinking, <em>What am I saying next</em>?”</p>

<div class="wp-block-vox-media-highlight vox-media-highlight">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What if no one listens to you?</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>All good conversations involve mutual self-disclosure and an imbalanced chat is going to feel really weird. In situations where your conversation partner isn’t inquiring about you, you could respond by drawing connections to your own life or offering insight instead of asking follow-up questions, Collins says.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Resist the urge to tune out a blabbermouth. By modeling good listening skills, you might inspire others to improve, van Nieuwerburgh says. After you’ve heard what your conversation partner has to say, you could reply, “By the way, I wanted to tell you about <em>X</em>.”&nbsp;</li>



<li>If it’s a persistent problem with one person, you can bring up the conversational imbalance, Lyubomirsky says. Try saying, “I feel like you’re not listening to me as much as I’d like you to,” or “I feel like I’m doing all the asking. Can you pose some questions to me?” The people who love you should, ideally, want to know more about you, too.</li>
</ul>
</div>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Perhaps the most visible ways of signalling your understanding to the listener are to paraphrase and ask follow-up questions. <em>What I think I’m hearing you say is…; Tell me more about…; How did they react when you told them that?; This sounds like that other time you…</em>. The key is to let the other person lead, according to <a href="https://www.taylornicolewest.com/">Taylor West</a>, a postdoctoral research fellow in the positive emotions and psychophysiology lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “People will tell you what they want to talk about, but you have to let them,” she says.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Continually pulling the conversational thread requires curiosity. Without it, there can’t be connection. This is especially important to be aware of in long-term relationships. “We often stop being curious about the people that we know the best, that we&#8217;ve known for longest, because we think that we know everything about them, and yet, there&#8217;s always something new to learn,” Lyubomirsky says.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Of course, you won’t be endlessly interested in everything your partner or best friend or kid has to say. Maybe your spouse has recently gotten into gardening and their talk of bolting and hardening off makes your eyes glaze over. But you can — and should — find ways to manufacture interest, Lyubomirsky says, because it’s crucial for showing the other person that you’re still engaged. Maybe you read up on plants native to your area so you have some basis from which to ask questions, or just ask them what they are most excited to grow next year. There’s always something to learn.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3) Figure out how to reset when you’re distracted</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">We all zone out occasionally, or get too tired to engage properly; experts say it’s best to simply own up to these limitations. Telling a coworker, “Let me just finish this email and you’ll have my full attention” is better than half-listening while you type. Asking a friend if you can revisit a conversation when you aren’t so fried may prevent you from saying something less than helpful or that you’ll later regret.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">It might be awkward or even embarrassing, but we need to normalize admitting when we’re not totally present, says Bodie, the communication professor: “I’m so sorry, I got distracted by those sirens. What were you saying?” In meetings at work, you might say “I apologize, I was thinking about what you said earlier and wasn’t fully listening. Could you repeat that?” if you feel comfortable.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">You should also take a critical look at your workspace, home, schedule, and general habits to figure out how to minimize distractions. “Is the way in which my office is structured, is the way in which my day is structured, is the way in which people expect me to multitask, are those things incentivizing distraction?” Bodie says. You could dedicate phone-free hours at home or seek out a calm, quiet environment when you’re hanging out with friends.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Giving someone your full attention and genuinely hearing what they have to say is one of the greatest gifts you can give. It doesn’t always come easy, but with a little effort, you can be the kind of listener everyone wants to confide in. “Conversation is a skill,” says Collins, the UCLA professor. “It&#8217;s something that we can practice and get better at.”</p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
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			<title type="html"><![CDATA[The fine line between healthy confidence and delusion]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/advice/482425/optimism-bias-unrealistic-motivation-delulu" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=482425</id>
			<updated>2026-03-24T12:28:45-04:00</updated>
			<published>2026-03-17T08:00:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Where would humanity be without our mild delusion? Many of the technologies we take for granted, from the light bulb to iPhones, would cease to exist without relentless resolve. Stephen King, rejected dozens of times, persisted and became one of the world’s top-selling authors.&#160;Any entrepreneur maintains a bit of in the face of the staggering [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none">Where would humanity be without our mild delusion? Many of the technologies we take for granted, from the <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6476085/">light bulb</a> to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna44278117">iPhones</a>, would cease to exist without relentless resolve. <a href="https://lithub.com/the-most-rejected-books-of-all-time/">Stephen King, rejected dozens of times,</a> persisted and became one of the world’s <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/74149-publishers-weekly-annual-adult-bestsellers-1990-2013.html">top-selling authors</a>.&nbsp;Any entrepreneur maintains a bit of in the face of the staggering statistic that <a href="https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/">nearly half of US businesses close within five years.</a> Hopeful romantics are indeed a touch overconfident when you consider <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/16/8-facts-about-divorce-in-the-united-states/">a third of Americans who have ever wed get divorced</a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">So we pursue longshot careers and love, buy lottery tickets, and train hard to better our 5k time due to a tendency to assume the best, known as the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211011912">optimism bias</a>. The phenomenon describes the near-universal disposition to overestimate the likelihood of good things happening, and underplaying the risk of negative ones. Whenever anyone <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/">considers themselves smarter</a> or more capable than the average person or <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5380125/">more likely to win big at a casino</a>, that’s the optimism bias at work.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">It stands to reason, then, that moderate delusion can be a positive force. Research has found a <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2894461/">sunny disposition to mitigate symptoms of depression</a>. When you expect the best, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211011912">you’re less stressed and anxious</a> and actually <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2894461/">perceive a higher quality of life</a>. But there are also limits. Unrealistic optimism can lead to risky behaviors: overspending (<em>I’ll make more money soon!)</em>, not wearing a seat belt (Other<em> people get in car accidents, not me!</em>) or forgoing insurance (<em>I’m healthier than most!)</em>. Then <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167220934577">there’s the inevitable disappointment</a> if you fail to land the promotion you swore you were getting, or if your feelings for your crush go unrequited.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“Some people say you should be very pessimistic, because then you&#8217;re never disappointed,” says <a href="https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/chris-dawson/">Chris Dawson</a>, a professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Bath, “but that&#8217;s not optimal, because pessimism, always thinking the worst, makes us feel bad. We get depressed, and [it] doesn&#8217;t motivate us to do anything. So yes, you&#8217;re never disappointed, but you&#8217;re constantly in a state of anxiety because you&#8217;re expecting bad things to happen.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">So, how to strike the appropriate balance between optimism and realism? Experts say to focus on what you can control and don’t let optimism prevent you from reading the writing on the wall.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">“Optimism’s greatest power”</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The optimism bias leads people to think that positive things will happen to them, but not without any effort. “It&#8217;s not a belief that things will just turn out okay by magic,” says <a href="https://affectivebrain.com/?page_id=161">Tali Sharot</a>, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/165087/the-optimism-bias-by-tali-sharot/"><em>The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain</em></a>. “It&#8217;s more belief that we have control and we have the ability to make our life better, to be healthy by doing the right things, to be successful by doing the right things, to have good relationships by going out and finding them.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The realization that we have some control over our fate is what <a href="https://psychology.wfu.edu/christian-waugh/">Christian Waugh</a>, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University, calls “optimism’s greatest power.” Even if the likelihood of, say, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/13/16257084/bestseller-lists-explained">writing a New York Times bestseller</a> is relatively low, “if I&#8217;m optimistic about it and I get that sense of control,” Waugh says, “then I do the behaviors that are necessary for making that thing happen. By being optimistic, I have now improved my probability of that thing happening.” The best version of optimism inspires action, whether that’s working harder or asking for help and support. Instead of assuming a lofty goal is beyond the realm of possibility, a touch of overconfidence helps you forge a path toward achieving it.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Of course, excessive optimism is subjective. Everyone has their own version of reality, Sharot says: “You have to have a somewhat delusional view of your children or of your spouse, of your relationship…of yourself, your future, and your health. … Not perceiving reality as it is is not necessarily a bad thing,” she says.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">When optimism becomes unhelpful</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">If your view of the world is super untethered from reality, more optimism will do little to help you course correct. In a study he conducted, Dawson found that participants who thought they would be financially better off in a year, and therefore were more optimistic about their economic status, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167220934577">had lower long-term well-being</a>. (The same was true for those who were overly pessimistic about their financial outlook.) This might be due to disappointment when their expectations don’t match reality. Realists, on the other hand, were happiest.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Failing to acknowledge direct feedback, evidence, and past failures creates a vacuum of unrealistic optimism. Spending too much time and effort on a pursuit at the expense of your relationships, health, and bank account when the world is giving you plenty of signs to stop is likely not going to help you achieve your goals. (For instance, skipping days of work to make a podcast when you’ve already been warned about your attendance, or pursuing a potential partner who has not shown romantic interest is not a great idea.) The world is constantly offering us feedback worth paying attention to. Are you making progress, however small, or are your efforts largely going unnoticed? Are you making the same mistakes time and again? </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“We tend to forget things that have failed in the past, and we don&#8217;t incorporate failure when forming new expectations,” Dawson says. “What we tend to do is over-remember things that went well, and yes, we incorporate those things into our expectations, but we tend to gloss over a failure. Even if we do remember it, we think, well, that was probably someone else&#8217;s fault.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to be optimistically realistic</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The line between delusion and optimism lies in your ability to learn from setbacks and mistakes and adjust accordingly. “Sometimes we find ourselves paying more attention to the reassuring facts than the less reassuring facts,” says <a href="https://humanecology.rutgers.edu/people/faculty/neil-weinstein/">Neil Weinstein</a>, distinguished professor emeritus at Rutgers University. Both are valuable data points.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">For example, anyone pursuing a career in the arts — notoriously competitive and not the most lucrative — may want to maintain a flexible day job that allows them to earn money while following their dreams. But they should still be aware of other signs of progress (or lack thereof); if they struggle to land an agent and opportunities to showcase their work, they might want to pivot to other creative goals and sustain optimism for those. You might not become a professional painter whose work hangs in the Met, but you can still take classes to improve because you enjoy it, or even sell some of your work for money. “I want to still learn and adjust in case things don&#8217;t work out,” Waugh says.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The goal isn’t to avoid disappointment entirely, but to accept it as one fleeting moment. Optimism is what allows us to maintain momentum in life. Experiencing disenchantment after setting your sights a little too high is still preferable to pessimism, according to Waugh. “Being pessimistic about things for months at a time lingers, and that is the thing that&#8217;s going to bring your overall mood down and affect well-being and resilience,” he says. “Moments of disappointment, however much they hurt, aren’t.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">What optimists do best is brush off those letdowns and don’t let them derail their life, Sharot says. Each failure is another data point for what you could do better next time.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">A taste of delusion gives us the motivation to make our fantasies materialize. So long as we don’t ignore signs it’s time to change course, it’s worth embracing a life of fanciful dreams.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“It&#8217;s fine to be optimistic,” Weinstein says, “but not have blinders on.”</p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[How to figure out your finances after a breakup]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/advice/481697/post-breakup-finances-budget-subscriptions-bills" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=481697</id>
			<updated>2026-03-06T18:51:37-05:00</updated>
			<published>2026-03-09T06:15:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Money" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="The Even Better Personal Finance Starter Pack" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Nobody tells you how expensive breaking up is. (Or maybe they did and I didn’t want to hear it.) Overnight, your expenses soar, your safety net vanishes, your financial goals shift from long-term dreams into short-term survival. You might need to pack up and move unexpectedly, purchase furniture you didn’t budget for. Your dollars went [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none">Nobody tells you how expensive breaking up is. (Or maybe they did and I didn’t want to hear it.) Overnight, your expenses soar, your safety net vanishes, your financial goals shift from long-term dreams into short-term survival. You might need to pack up and move unexpectedly, purchase furniture you didn’t budget for. Your dollars went further when two people contributed to the rent, the bills, the groceries, the dinners out. Now, you must recalibrate from a financial “we” to a sole earner “me.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">When marriages dissolve, there is a <a href="https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/in-divorce-will-i-really-lose-half-of-everything-i-own/">clearer roadmap for how to divvy up shared assets</a>, guided by the laws of your state, attorneys, and mediators, according to financial therapist <a href="https://amandaclayman.com/">Amanda Clayman</a>. Unmarried couples are largely on their own to navigate the breakup process despite sometimes being just as financially intertwined.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Breakups are immensely painful on their own, but with the additional challenge of sorting out your new financial reality, the transition can be even more difficult. Getting your financial life together post-breakup goes beyond budgeting and is just as much about how you want your money to make you feel in this new phase of life. “Let there be a relationship between data and emotion,” Clayman says, “because data often surfaces emotion, and that&#8217;s not an enemy in this process.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Take stock and make an exit plan</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">If the breakup was acrimonious and you are concerned about your ex draining a joint bank account, you may want to remove your share of the funds, Clayman says, and you should close all shared accounts once you’ve both removed your portions of the money. (You might consider taking your money out before breaking up if you don’t feel confident your partner will honor an equitable split.)</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">In order to divide your shared funds, you’ll need a clear picture of the extent to which you and your ex’s finances are merged. Go through two months of personal and joint bank statements and make a list of all the subscriptions, plans, loans, and accounts you share with your ex. This may include the lease, joint bank accounts and credit cards, any bills that may or may not autopay out of this account, streaming subscriptions, and shared purchases you’re still paying off (like a car).&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Then, go through each bill and account — from Netflix to the water payment — and revoke your ex’s access, change passwords and associated email addresses, or open a new account in your name. For instance, if you’re staying in the apartment you shared, you might need to call the electric company and get the bill transferred to your name if it was previously held by your partner. “You&#8217;re more in protect mode than build mode or maintenance,” says <a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/scott-rick">Scott Rick</a>, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan. “You&#8217;re just ensuring that you aren&#8217;t sharing accounts and having unexpected names on things, and surgically removing this person financially from your life.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">When it comes to shared debt, like a loan for a car you both drove, decide which of you will take over the payments and the car itself, Rick says. Although each of you might have contributed equally, it may not be worth the pain of a protracted battle or shared custody. The sooner you can decide who has ownership, the better. “My impression is that people are often better off just cutting their losses,” he says, “not feeling compelled to keep interacting with someone who&#8217;s bringing them pain.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Set a time frame for when you’d like this disentangling process to be completed, Clayman says. If you both struggle to come up with a timeline or are disagreeing on how to split certain shared expenses, Clayman and Rick recommend bringing in outside help, whether that’s a mediator or financial therapist, or even a trusted friend or family member. “Just an outside perspective to help find solutions if the two of you aren&#8217;t in the best head space,” Rick says. “This outside person can take into account, ‘This person&#8217;s struggling financially, maybe more than this other person, so maybe we can find a win-win arrangement here.’”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Track your spending before making major decisions</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Often, after a major life transition, people act hastily as a means of retaining a sense of control. You might be motivated to downsize your apartment, cancel all your streaming services, and severely constrict your spending — and based on your income, which hasn’t changed, that might be wise. But unless you comprehensively track your spending, you won’t know the extent to which you need to tighten the purse strings.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">If you’re moving, perhaps unexpectedly and suddenly, you’ll need to make an immediate decision on where you’ll live, what you can afford, and what necessities you’ll want to furnish this new place. Try to look for a flexible arrangement, like a sublease or a month-to-month lease. Since you might not be staying in this place long, avoid stocking up on expensive furniture purchases that you’ll have to move in a few months or that might not fit in your longer-term home. Instead, browse your local Buy Nothing group or Facebook Marketplace to find free or heavily discounted items to get you through the transition.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Clayman recommends giving yourself three to six months to pay attention to your cashflow. Because your lifestyle and way of living will inevitably change, so will your spending. Instead of buying groceries for two people, you’re shopping for one and your food may last longer. You might not notice these trends right away unless you actively monitor them. Rick suggests manually entering each expenditure into a spreadsheet to have a conscious understanding of where your money is going. <a href="https://backend.production.deepblue-documents.lib.umich.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/aad7e559-4a05-4d81-a365-8384b3f31895/content">Making emotional purchases does help alleviate sadness</a>, Rick has found in his research, so don’t feel guilty for the occasional impulse buy just because. But don’t bury your head in the sand when it comes to how much you’re actually spending. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Use this monitoring period as a time to reflect on what you want to spend your money on, as opposed to what you and your partner collectively wanted to spend. You might decide saving for a vacation is no longer a priority and instead want to put those dollars toward dinners with friends. “Instead of coming from a place of lack where I used to have so much money, and I didn&#8217;t really have to think about this, and I could just do what I wanted, now it&#8217;s like, I have fewer dollars. Let me really ask myself, what is the most important thing to me?” Clayman says.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">After a few months, you’ll start to observe trends: <em>My rent is eating up way too much of my monthly take-home pay; I’m spending a lot on little treats and Ubers; the electric bill actually went down now that only I live here</em>. Then, you can start making some changes, whether that’s looking for a new place to live or curbing your shopping. “Just say, ‘I&#8217;m going to give myself three months to gather data on this,’” Clayman says. “That gives us three months to process the feelings. It gives us three months to stress test the idea of living alone or getting a roommate. We&#8217;re using money to create a structure for analysis and decision-making.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">However, you might not have the luxury of time or savings to make these gradual adjustments. In this case, problem-solving mode will be your default: finding somewhere to live (even if that’s crashing with family or friends), selling items for extra cash, and identifying immediate savings opportunities (shopping at discount grocery stores instead of organic markets or doing your nails at home). Apps like <a href="https://www.rocketmoney.com/">Rocket Money</a> can help you pinpoint specific subscriptions to cancel.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Embrace the fresh start</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Beyond the logistical considerations, breakups offer an opportunity to reevaluate your spending and financial goals. Perhaps your partner was largely in control of paying the bills and tracking cash flow. Now, you can take more agency and consider why you felt comfortable with such a dynamic. “Why do I have all of these attachments around the idea of being taken care of?” Clayman says. “What is that revealing to me?”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">A breakup, as painful as it is, disrupts routine, and with that comes the chance to build something new. The weekly takeout and movie ritual you held with your partner might not jive with your current lifestyle — and you can put those funds toward something that better aligns with your values. “When we have a big life transition, the gift of that life transition is that you are forced to become conscious and to reevaluate your circumstances,” Clayman says. “Think of how we embrace that opportunity to live more consciously and to feel our feelings and to process what it means before we just go and put down new stakes in this new territory.”</p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
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			<title type="html"><![CDATA[Is it okay if I don’t love my partner all the time?]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/life/465847/romantic-ambivalence-love-positivity-negativity-mixed-feelings" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=465847</id>
			<updated>2025-11-26T06:42:11-05:00</updated>
			<published>2025-11-26T06:42:00-05:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="The Highlight" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. Early into her relationship with Thomas, Leigh was on the fence. Those days should’ve been rife with butterflies and intrigue, but something was off. Sure, Thomas was kind, gentle, shy — [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none"><em>This story was originally published in </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/467014/welcome-to-the-november-issue-of-the-highlight"><em>The Highlight</em></a><em>, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/support-membership?itm_campaign=article-header-Q42024&amp;itm_medium=site&amp;itm_source=in-article"><em>join the Vox Membership program today</em></a><em>.</em></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Early into her relationship with Thomas, Leigh was on the fence. Those days should’ve been rife with butterflies and intrigue, but something was off. Sure, Thomas was kind, gentle, shy — in other words, unlike the guys she used to date — but Leigh was unsure if she found his attentiveness enticing or annoying. She was, in a word, ambivalent. Over the ensuing weeks, though, her attraction grew, and four months later, she was “bonded and invested” in Thomas. The feeling wouldn’t last.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">As soon as Leigh overcame her ambivalence, Thomas seemingly fell into his. “He became — and has maintained — a high level of avoidance through this relationship,” says Leigh, a 33-year-old psychologist who asked to be referred to by her middle name in order to speak about her relationship. “Actually, he&#8217;s become the highly ambivalent one. So he&#8217;ll be quite avoidant, and then if he sensed me pulling away just a little bit, then he comes running back.” And so the cycle continued for two-and-a-half years.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Among the many unrealistic romantic ideals, the notion that your relationship must be nothing but positive is among the most misguided. “I call these the ‘Disney did us dirty’ ideas,” says licensed clinical psychologist <a href="https://dralexandrasolomon.com/">Alexandra Solomon</a>. Very few relationships are wholly uplifting and supportive, and just as many are outright toxic and dismissive. Everything else falls in the middle.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Ambivalent relationships are marked by elements of both positivity and negativity — in other words, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38300552/">mixed feelings</a><strong> </strong>— and they’re incredibly common. Research has shown that nearly half of our <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7089572/">social networks are made up of ambivalent connections</a>: the <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/412909/in-laws-grandparents-family-relationship-conflict-advice">in-laws who get on our nerves,</a> the friend who sometimes makes jokes at our expense, and, yes, the partner who chronically forgets to put dishes in the sink. In a study of long-married couples, about 60 percent of participants reported <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12313190/">feeling ambivalent toward their partner</a>. The other 40 percent reported feeling pretty good about their marriages, according to <a href="https://psych.utah.edu/people/faculty/uchino-bert.php">Bert Uchino</a>, a professor of social and health psychology at the University of Utah and one of the study’s authors. But maybe the researchers caught these couples on a good day. Perhaps reality is less rosy.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">While emotionally uncomfortable, ambivalence also leaves its mark on the body. In his decades of research, Uchino has found that interacting with (<a href="https://academic.oup.com/abm/article-abstract/33/3/278/4569368">and even talking about</a>) someone who has both positive and negative qualities <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876009001949">results in higher blood pressure</a> than engaging with someone who is purely positive. Similarly, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10865-010-9270-z">receiving support from an ambivalent tie</a> can increase blood pressure. Another study of older married couples found that people who both viewed their partner ambivalently and were perceived as ambivalent by their spouse had <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797613520015">greater coronary-artery calcification</a>, a hardening of the arteries.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Still, mixed feelings don’t need to be seen as a threat to the relationship, a harbinger of impending doom, or a cause for stress — if only because they’re so common. It&#8217;s certainly possible to feel ambivalent toward a toxic partner, and ambivalent relationships can devolve into unhealthy ones. However, the reality of any given relationship may be much more banal, and therefore complicated.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">So where is the line between a relationship worth salvaging and one worth leaving? Indeed, in relatively healthy, non-abusive relationships, the presence of ambivalence can actually motivate couples to improve their communication or spend more meaningful time together.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“A healthier narrative around ambivalence, I think, is warranted,” says <a href="https://www.zoppolat.com/">Giulia Zoppolat</a>, a postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam University Medical Centers. “Understanding when it&#8217;s okay and a natural thing of life and then being able to recognize when instead, it&#8217;s more like an alarm bell of there is something really wrong here that I need to work on and [take] action on.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Signs of ambivalent relationships&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Ambivalence can come and go in phases, or it can become a defining feature of the relationship. You might move through periods where you feel confident your partner sees you, hears you, understands you, and others where the connection is strained. You could also experience a sustained bout of fence-sitting, unsure of whether you want in or out.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Usually, ambivalence is predicated by transitional life moments, whether deciding to move in together, whether to remain faithful, or after having a kid. These are events that “pull forward both positive and negative behaviors,” according to Uchino. These trajectory-altering decisions could make you question all the pros and cons of the relationship. Is this the life I want? Do I want this life with this person? Is there someone else <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34990192/">whom I could picture myself with</a>?</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“This is not necessarily a bad thing,” Zoppolat says. “If you&#8217;re trying to make a big decision in your relationship — like, should we have a child together, should we move to a different city or country together? — these big life changes. It&#8217;s functional. It&#8217;s important to really think about the relationship and whether you want to make this big commitment with this person.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Within these crossroads, there may be inconsistencies in support that can also contribute to ambivalence, Zoppolat has found in her studies. Your partner might be engaged and active in childrearing some weeks and distant and unhelpful at other times. Outside of major life changes, the accumulation of routine and everyday arguments — domestic inequities, financial stress, how to prioritize one another — can snowball into relationship ambivalence. The realization that the person you live with doesn’t care about a sink constantly full of dishes, for instance, could be a source of ongoing negativity.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The consequences of ambivalence</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Holding conflicting feelings toward your romantic partner impacts how you view the relationship — and your behavior within it. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506231165585">Ambivalence can lead to</a> less intimacy, thoughts of breaking up, distress, anxiety,&nbsp;and lower well-being as well as <a href="https://sciety-discovery.elifesciences.org/articles/by?article_doi=10.31219/osf.io/rwu58_v1">declines in relationship and life satisfaction</a>. This can lead to particularly volatile behavior, oscillating between supporting your partner and giving them the cold shoulder. Since it’s easier to feel entirely optimistic or completely hopeless about the relationship rather than a mix of both, it’s common to be pulled one way or the other. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“We see that people are more likely to do constructive things, like wanting to resolve an issue in their relationship, want to spend more time with their partner in positive ways, and engage with their partner more positively,” Zoppolat says. “But there&#8217;s also a flip side where they may be more critical or want to distance from their partner.”</p>

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote"><blockquote><p>To accept ambivalence is to embrace the humanity in another, flaws and all, to understand how even the most important relationships can be sources of negativity at times.&nbsp;</p></blockquote></figure>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Simply admitting your fence-sitting to yourself can feel threatening: <em>This isn’t the fun, loving relationship I thought it was.</em> This out-in-the-open ambivalence is detrimental to relationships, according to <a href="https://www.ru.nl/en/people/faure-r">Ruddy Faure</a>, an assistant professor of social and cultural psychology at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “In general, explicit ambivalence seems to be bad for relationships and for well-being in general,” he says. “People feel more stressed, less happy, and that typically relates to more negative relationship outcomes as well. People are less satisfied, more likely to break up.” Perhaps the conflicts are too deep, too difficult to solve — or shouldn’t be solved. No more excusing harmful behavior.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">There can be upsides to ambivalence, though. According to Solomon, maintaining contradictory feelings is a sign of emotional maturity. Ambivalence leads people to spend more time thinking about hardships in their relationship, but it also <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38300552/">inspires them to improve it</a>. These positive changes not only impact how you feel about your partner, but can also minimize the physical effects of ambivalence — the high blood pressure, the coronary-artery calcification — and therefore stave off any potential chronic health issues. “When you&#8217;re talking about something like cardiovascular disease, it&#8217;s a long-term, decades-long process,” Uchino says. Limiting the amount of time you walk around with high blood pressure because you occasionally hate your partner bodes well for your health.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Dealing with mixed feelings</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">So how do you keep the negative from outweighing the positive? Research lacks definitive answers. But anyone who feels unsafe in their relationship should feel inspired to end the relationship, says licensed marriage and family therapist <a href="https://theemoeari.com/">Moe Ari Brown</a>.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">In order to properly address ambivalence, you need to mine its roots, Brown says. What are you truly feeling? What feels off? Is there something you want to change about the relationship? Has time illuminated quirks and habits you find unsavory? What new wants and needs are you discovering? Are you unsure about the future of the relationship? Has the spark died?</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Then, try to determine if there’s an ask you can make of your partner that will increase connection. If your ambivalence stems from feeling like you no longer have fun together, try suggesting former (or new) rituals: You might need to start dating each other again. Keep the language positive, Solomon says, since “I’m feeling ambivalent about our relationship” isn’t likely to land. You could say something along the lines of, “I really missed how in the early months of our relationship we would always have a show we were watching together. Can we be a little more intentional about watching something?” instead of, “You don&#8217;t ever spend time with me.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Ultimately, working through ambivalence is an internal process. The tendency to make ambivalence the other person’s fault is a common reflex, and we often fail to recognize the role we play, the times we pull away, or the critical comments we make. But instead of ruminating over past arguments, make an effort to remember the positive moments, too: the memories of early dates, vacations, inside jokes. “Having these positive biases really help people move forward in their relationships and be able to forgive more easily,” Faure says. “Or also just being a little bit more persistent and invested in a relationship, even when the relationship is going through a rough patch.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">To accept ambivalence is to embrace the humanity in another, flaws and all, to understand how even the most important relationships can be sources of negativity at times. Even the fairy tale romances have their fair share of ups and downs. Research shows that simply being aware <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10653557/">of the less-than-positive emotions</a> you harbor toward your partner can help you regulate your emotions, have more constructive conversations, and lead to greater relational satisfaction. Romantic ambivalence may not be the ideal, but it’s normal, and certainly preferable to the alternative.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">As for Leigh and her ambivalent boyfriend Thomas, his hot-and-cold tendencies would ultimately be the couple’s undoing. Earlier this year, he insisted Leigh <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/24127335/living-together-cohabitation-before-marriage-relationship-milestones">move in with him</a>, only for him to reverse course three months later — after she’d already made herself at home. “It absolutely broke everything in me, and so I just receded from him,” Leigh says. They’ll cohabitate through the end of their lease, but have effectively split.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The most heartbreaking part for Leigh is that despite her initial hesitations and his perpetual ambivalence, their connection grew. After all the breakdowns and reconciliations, she couldn’t stomach another.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“This time,” Leigh says, “where do I rebuild from here?”&nbsp;</p>
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			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
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			<title type="html"><![CDATA[You should be having more slumber parties with your friends]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/life/466856/sleepover-friendship-adulthood-closeness" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=466856</id>
			<updated>2025-11-10T13:52:58-05:00</updated>
			<published>2025-11-12T06:30:00-05:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Friendship" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[It had been a long week, and Tonna Obaze really wanted to hang out with her friend Bria. But she also didn’t want to get off the couch. A logical solution emerged: a sleepover. They both worked late that Friday night — Obaze, 28, is the founder of a consulting firm — and Bria arrived [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none">It had been a long week, and Tonna Obaze really wanted to hang out with her friend Bria. But she also didn’t want to get off the couch. A logical solution emerged: a sleepover.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">They both worked late that Friday night — Obaze, 28, is the founder of a consulting firm — and Bria arrived in sweats once she finished up. They raided Obaze’s fridge, ordered takeout, and queued up a movie, but they barely made it past the opening credits before launching into a freewheeling conversation covering everything from family to therapy to dating. Eventually, they fell asleep on the couch, side by side. Though the friends both live in New York City, they yearned for more distraction-free time together than a 90-minute dinner reservation afforded. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“There were even a couple tears shed where we, as people in our late 20s, our early 30s, have just been yearning to get back to this friendship where you can sit on the couch and eat whatever&#8217;s in the fridge, watch a movie, and just catch up with each other with no ending or timing in sight,” Obaze says.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The humble sleepover is a youthful rite of passage that gradually becomes less thrilling as you age. Once a place for snacks, movies, and staying up way past bedtime, the allure begins to fade as teens gain more independence. Who needs to hole up in a friend’s basement when more exciting activities await? For many who partake in the traditional American college experience, those four years can be seen as one giant sleepover, consisting of romantic and platonic sojourns alike. Then, where, and with whom, you sleep becomes more about function than fun: Shacking up with roommates, romantic partners, and family is a matter of convenience and obligation.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">But as the constraints and responsibilities of adulthood mount, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/366620/loneliness-epidemic-coping-demographics-america-social-connection-mental-health">spending time with friends falls lower on the priority list</a>, there’s a case to be made for the sleepover — a purely platonic hangout among friends who simply want to see more of each other. Not to be confused with those of the sexual kind, the platonic adult sleepover ones are particularly attractive to young-ish women without children who crave deeper connection with their friends (and have the time and resources to do so). Men, on the other hand, who <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/387146/gender-gap-friendship-expectation-conflict">tend to bond over activities rather than emotions</a>, may find purposefully inviting a friend to spend the night awkward and juvenile. But they could stand to benefit from something as seemingly silly as a sleepover. And they sometimes do, in the case of camping, multiday conventions, and other activity-based overnight excursions. </p>

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote"><blockquote><p>An extended, concentrated hangout is a far better use of your free time than the occasional happy hour.&nbsp;<br></p></blockquote></figure>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Dedicating several hours to a pal in as intimate a location as possible sets the scene for more vulnerable conversations. Even if the itinerary for the evening falls on the banal side — eating, watching TV, sleeping — simply living alongside another person can bring you closer.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Feeling like a kid again</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">A common refrain among many adults is the relative difficulty in <a href="https://www.vox.com/explain-it-to-me/373489/making-friends-adulthood-relationships-social-life">making and maintaining friends in adulthood</a> — how the whole ordeal was easier, more straightforward in childhood. A lot of that ease boils down to the amount of time children spend with their peers in school and extracurricular activities. See someone frequently enough and you move through the strangers-to-friend pipeline fairly quickly.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Baked into this adolescent friend-making process is hanging out beyond school walls. Playdates, sports, and, yes, sleepovers, become the canvas for which kids and adolescents <a href="https://www.vox.com/23759898/kids-children-parenting-play-anxiety-mental-health">forge deeper connections,</a> to goof around in relative privacy, to see how other families live. Adult sleepovers serve many of these same functions in an open-ended format.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">And if time is what adults lack in their friendships (which <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0305834&amp;os=999999.9&amp;ref=app">research says they do</a>), sleepovers provide plenty of it. For obvious reasons, a parent’s schedule might not be very amenable to overnight hangouts with friends, but the ritual doesn’t need to be exclusive to single women in their 20s. If you’re looking to get the most out of what limited time you have, an extended, concentrated hangout is a far better use of your free time than the occasional <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/408429/friendship-scheduling-months-advance">happy hour you need to schedule four months in advance</a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Sleepovers are also great opportunities to get the whole family involved, too: What’s stopping you from hosting a backyard campout with a few families in the summertime? Aside from departure in the morning, there are few time constraints, few distractions, few obligations beyond prioritizing your friends — and perhaps acting like a kid again.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">At the sleepovers she hosts at her Lakeland, Florida, home, Maegan Thompson, 31, often plays games, sits by the bonfire, and watches TV cuddled up next to ten or so friends (some of whom do have kids at home), much like she did as a child. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“The things that you used to be able to bond with other people over when you were younger,” she says, “are the same things you get to bond over when you become an adult.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Intimacy and banality</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">These laid-back activities eliminate the need for pretense, to constantly perform or entertain one another. In a culture where the pressure exists to curate and broadcast life’s every moment, letting your guard down and simply coexisting with a friend can unlock new levels of intimacy. “We&#8217;re just there to be with one another, rather than to be more impression-management concerned,” says <a href="https://coms.ku.edu/people/jeffrey-hall">Jeffrey Hall</a>, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, “or trying to make a good public appearance when you go out to drinks or to go out to dinner.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">In other words, sleepovers are, in essence, purposeless. They allow friends to be boring together, a much-needed antidote to the pressure to be always-on. And research shows that doing even the most basic of daily activities — like eating, reading, or cleaning — in the presence of another person <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506251364333">makes the task more enjoyable</a>. Why not watching TV and sleeping, too? “A sleepover also includes things like hours and hours and hours of time spent late into the night,” Hall says, “really relaxed and embracing all of that enjoyment of friendship without having to have an end [time].”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">During her most recent sleepover, Los Angeles-based Deandra Kanu and her long-distance best friend binge-watched TV, lay in bed, and not much else. “I think that it&#8217;s the ability to just be yourself without entertainment,” the 29-year-old says. “That&#8217;s what a sleepover is. You guys are the entertainment.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Nowhere else is this lack of impression management more apparent than in the act of getting ready for bed. You might get a chance to perform your nightly skincare routines in tandem, comment on someone’s choice of pajamas, observe how many pillows they need to fall asleep. “You&#8217;ve seen how I do my hair at night,” says <a href="https://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty-page/jkrems/">Jaimie Arona Krems</a>, an associate professor of psychology and the director of the <a href="https://www.center-for-friendship.com/">UCLA Center for Friendship Research</a>, “or you&#8217;ve seen my big, stupid sleep shirt, and we&#8217;re still friends, and you didn&#8217;t tell anyone else.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Feeling safe and comfortable enough to tangibly bare all, sleepover attendees might be more willing to be more emotionally vulnerable, too, according to Krems. Cocooned and protected in your home (or the home of someone you love), you might let your guard down, be more disclosing. To just be.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“The home is an environment where people feel more comfortable. You&#8217;re allowed to let down your guard a little bit more,” says Obaze, who recently hosted Bria for a sleepover. “When you give people that ability to make themselves at home, and you&#8217;re open, they&#8217;re also open, and you can just do so much more.”</p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[The most important questions to ask when picking a health care plan]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23905148/health-insurance-obamacare-ppo-epo-premium-deductible-copay-cobra-explainer" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/even-better/23905148/health-insurance-obamacare-ppo-epo-premium-deductible-copay-cobra-explainer</id>
			<updated>2025-11-04T11:31:01-05:00</updated>
			<published>2025-11-04T11:30:46-05:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Health Care" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Policy" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Vox Guides" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Selecting a health insurance plan in the US is a little like going through a maze, or solving an impossibly difficult crossword puzzle. It can be a morass of hard-to-figure-out terms — HMO, PPO, deductible, premium, coinsurance — and plans. Under another Donald Trump presidency, understanding Affordable Care Act insurance plans may get even more [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p>Selecting a health insurance plan in the US is a little like going through a maze, or solving an impossibly difficult crossword puzzle. It can be a morass of hard-to-figure-out terms — HMO, PPO, deductible, premium, coinsurance — and plans. <a href="https://www.kff.org/quick-take/what-trumps-2024-victory-means-for-the-affordable-care-act/">Under another Donald Trump presidency</a>, understanding Affordable Care Act insurance plans may get even more confusing. Whether you’re choosing an employer-sponsored plan or you’re shopping on the health insurance marketplace, this chore might be one of the more complicated things you do all year.</p>

<p>“Things change year to year, so even if you think that you’ve got it figured out, you could have a plan that works super and then the insurers will make changes and then that can throw things off for you next year,” says <a href="https://pahealthaccess.org/portfolio/jessica-foster/">Jessy Foster,</a> the deputy director of policy and partnerships at the Pennsylvania Health Access Network. “There’s a lack of transparency &#8230; that makes it hard for people to know what the cost of any specific service is going to be.”</p>

<p>There are generally <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/health-insurance/how-to-get-health-insurance/">four ways to get health insurance</a> in the US: employer-sponsored health insurance, individual or private plans purchased through the <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/">health care marketplace</a> formed by the <a href="https://www.vox.com/obamacare" data-source="encore">Affordable Care Act</a>, Medicare, and Medicaid.&nbsp;</p>

<p>You can’t just decide to do so whenever you want, however. There are a few conditions under which you can enroll in health insurance:</p>

<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>If you start a new job, you’ll be able to elect health coverage if your employer offers it.&nbsp;</li>



<li>If you’re turning 65, you can <a href="https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/sign-up/when-does-medicare-coverage-start">sign up for Medicare</a>.&nbsp;</li>



<li>If you are low-income, you may qualify for free or reduced-cost health insurance through <a href="https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/index.html">Medicaid</a>. Each state has its own eligibility requirements.</li>



<li>If you’re turning 26 and are still on your parents’ plan, you’ll need to get on your employer’s plan or find coverage through the <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care" data-source="encore">health care</a> marketplace.&nbsp;</li>



<li>If you’ve experienced a <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/qualifying-life-event/">qualifying life event</a> — like losing coverage, getting married, having a baby, or moving — you can enroll in health insurance.</li>



<li>Otherwise, you can sign up or make changes to your existing plan during open enrollment. Employers set their own open enrollment period for employees to make their selections. <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/quick-guide/">Open enrollment for the health care marketplace</a> is November 1 through January 15.</li>
</ul>

<p>Whether you’ve just turned 26 and are selecting a plan for the first time or are making a change during open enrollment, here are some questions to ask yourself before choosing health insurance. No single factor will determine your choice; rather, take all things into consideration.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is my budget?</h2>

<p>The language associated with health insurance can be confusing. Here are important terms to know:</p>

<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/premium/">premium</a> is the amount you pay every month to your insurer for coverage. If you get your insurance through your job, this comes out of your paycheck before taxes are taken out.&nbsp;</li>



<li>The <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/deductible/">deductible</a> is the amount of money you pay for health services before your insurance kicks in.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Once you’ve hit your deductible, you’ll pay <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/co-payment/">copayments</a> for any <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care" data-source="encore">health care</a> service that’s covered under your plan. The amount — for instance, $20 — is fixed for each appointment.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/co-insurance/">Coinsurance</a> works similarly but is a percentage of the cost of a covered service and not a flat fee; again, this is only applicable after you’ve hit your deductible.&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/">Out-of-pocket maximum</a> is the most you have to pay for deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance in a given year. Once you hit the out-of-pocket maximum, your insurer pays 100 percent of the costs. This cost doesn’t include your monthly premium or out-of-network care.</li>



<li>For example, your <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/health-insurance/how-much-is-health-insurance/">premium could be $115</a> a month with a $2,000 deductible. You’ll need to pay for the first $2,000 of covered services yourself; after that point, when you go to a doctor, you’ll only pay a copay (say, $20 for a doctor’s appointment) or coinsurance (where you’ll be responsible for 30 percent of the total bill, for instance). Once you hit your out-of-pocket maximum — say, $4,000 — after spending that amount on deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance, you won’t pay anything for services.</li>
</ul>

<div class="wp-block-vox-media-highlight vox-media-highlight">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Confused about your benefits?</h2>



<p class="has-text-align-none">Medical costs keep going up, and yet our two political parties are <a href="https://www.vox.com/health/466458/health-care-insurance-marketplace-premiums-2026">stuck in an impasse</a> over what to do about health care policy — while patients hang in the balance. And now, here again is that stressful time of the year — even without government chaos — to sign up for your health insurance and other benefits for next year. Health care costs and the cost of living keep rising, making these decisions all the more important for your financial well-being.</p>



<p class="has-text-align-none"><a href="https://www.vox.com/23914351/health-insurance-plans-open-enrollment-guide-obamacare-medicare-dental">We’ve covered open enrollment from every angle in the Vox guide to using your benefits</a> to make sure you know why the system works this way and how you could make it work the best for you. Read on to learn:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.vox.com/health/466458/health-care-insurance-marketplace-premiums-2026">Why are my health insurance premiums going up so much?</a><br></li>



<li><a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/393261/therapy-mental-health-benefits-insurance-coverage">How to figure out if your insurance plan covers therapy</a></li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.vox.com/23901293/dentist-delta-dental-insurance-cigna-aspen-metlife-aetna">Why dental insurance also isn’t included in your health plan</a></li>
</ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23892823/healthcare-flexible-spending-account-fsa-hsa-wageworks">The bizarre backstory of flexible spending accounts</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-text-align-none">You can also read the whole package <a href="https://www.vox.com/23914351/health-insurance-plans-open-enrollment-guide-obamacare-medicare-dental">here</a>.</p>
</div>

<p>When selecting a plan from the marketplace, you’ll have four price options to choose from: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Bronze has the lowest monthly premium but highest copays and deductibles. As you ascend from silver to platinum, the monthly premium rises but the copays and deductibles are lower.&nbsp;</p>

<p>For people who are shopping for health care on the marketplace and have lower incomes but don’t qualify for Medicaid, they’re likely to qualify for <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/cost-sharing-reduction/">cost-sharing reductions</a>, Foster says. A cost-sharing reduction lowers the amount of copayments, deductibles, and coinsurance. But you must enroll in a silver-level plan to get the extra assistance. “If they are eligible for that extra assistance,” she says, “that might lower or, in some cases, totally get rid of some of those deductibles and those plans will suddenly become comparable to a gold-level plan or, in some cases, even better.”</p>

<p>Even if you don’t qualify for cost-sharing reductions, you likely have access to <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/premium-tax-credit/">tax credits</a> that lower your monthly premium if you’re purchasing insurance through the marketplace. These credits are based on your income and your household (i.e. if you’re single, married, or have children).&nbsp;</p>

<p>You’ll want to take all costs into consideration when choosing a plan, not just the premium.&nbsp;</p>

<p>“Comparing premiums across health plans is like comparing apples to oranges to lemons to limes,” says Noah Lang, the CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://www.stridehealth.com/">Stride Health</a>, a platform that helps independent workers find the best Affordable Care Act health insurance plan for their needs. “These are different fundamental financial products you’re buying at the end of the day.”</p>

<p>What can you realistically spend on a premium each month? How much money comes out of each paycheck for health insurance? What is the maximum amount you would be okay with spending for a doctor’s visit? Would enrolling in Medicare cost less than remaining on your employer plan if you’re over 65 and still working?&nbsp;</p>

<p>Would you rather pay a higher premium but get charged less when receiving care? Or do you feel more comfortable paying a lower premium monthly but shouldering higher costs for care?</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What are my medical needs?</h2>

<p>To help determine your answer to the latter two questions, you’ll need to evaluate what your medical needs are and whether your doctors are in-network. There are different types of plans that determine your network of providers. You’ll most likely encounter plans that fall under one of five plan types: health maintenance organization (HMO), preferred provider organization (PPO), exclusive provider organization (EPO), point of service (POS), and high-deductible health plans (HDHP).</p>

<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/what-is-hmo">HMOs cover</a> care you receive from in-network providers, with exceptions for emergencies. You’ll need a referral to see a specialist. HMOs generally have lower premiums and out-of-pocket and prescription costs.&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-a-ppo-how-does-it-work-1738672">PPOs</a> have a list of preferred providers that cost less if you use them. This list may be broad or limited, so definitely see if your preferred providers are on it. You don’t have to stay in-network for care, but it will be more expensive to go out of network. You don’t need a referral to see a specialist. PPOs are also more expensive.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.goodrx.com/insurance/health-insurance/epo">EPOs</a> have lower monthly premiums than PPOs but require you to stay in-network when seeking care. You typically don’t need a referral to see a specialist.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/pos-point-of-service-plan-1738762">POS plans</a> allow patients to choose between staying in-network and going out of network for providers, but you’ll pay more for out-of-network services. You’ll need a referral before going to a specialist. POS plans may be <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pointofservice-plan-pos.asp">more expensive than HMOs and less expensive than PPOs</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hdhp.asp">HDHPs</a> have lower monthly premiums, but as the name implies, a higher deductible — for 2025, the minimum HDHP deductible is $1,650 for individuals and $3,300 for families. You may be able to see both in-network and out-of-network providers, based on the plan. You’ll also be able to open a health savings account (HSA), an account that you and/or your employer can contribute to that you can use to pay for medical expenses not covered by the HDHP, like copays and prescriptions. The funds in an HSA are not subject to federal income tax.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

<p>Determine your health priorities based on the plan options available, Foster says. If your priority is staying with your preferred doctor, you may want a PPO. If you want to see a lot of specialists and don’t want to get a referral every time, a PPO or EPO might work for you. If you haven’t been to the doctor in a while but suspect you’ll need to catch up on a lot of appointments, you may want a plan that has lower copays and a higher monthly premium. If you’re mainly focused on keeping costs down and are generally healthy, you could opt for a high-deductible plan. Just be aware of the exact dollar amount in these high-deductible plans. “We’ve seen some really, really high deductible plans where it’s $7,000 to $8,000 per person, or double that for the family,” Foster says, “and not a realistic amount that most people can pay.”</p>

<p>While it’s hard to know in advance, consider how often you will be seeking medical care. Are those preferred providers and prescriptions covered? Will you want to seek referrals from your primary care doctor? If you’re anticipating surgery or pregnancy, you may want to choose a plan with a lower deductible. If you regularly visit specialists, you’ll want a plan that doesn’t require referrals but lists your doctor as an in-network provider. If you don’t anticipate seeking care beyond a preventative visit, you may want a plan with a lower premium.</p>

<p>“If you’re one of these people that says ‘I want a plan where I don’t have to have referrals, I can see any doctor that accepts Medicare, I can go to any hospital or facility that accepts Medicare,’ then that type of flexibility will cost you money,” says David Luna, the president and co-founder of <a href="https://www.conniehealth.com/">Connie Health</a>, a digital platform that helps seniors choose a Medicare plan. “If you’re okay with having a plan similar to your employer plan where you’re paying zero [in premiums], but when you use it, you’re paying a copayment, then you would look at a Medicare Advantage plan.”</p>

<p>Keep in mind that some plans don’t offer <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/dental-coverage/">dental</a> or <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/vision-or-vision-coverage/">vision</a> coverage and you might need to add on those services through the marketplace or a separate plan offered by your employer.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Does this plan cover doctors and medications I already know and like?</h2>

<p>A lower premium won’t be as effective if your preferred providers are out of network. “If you have a doctor you love and you want to keep, that might drive you to pick a health plan that you’re willing to spend more for,” Lang says.&nbsp;</p>

<p>While researching plans, look through their provider list to see if your doctors are in-network. Most insurance providers have a searchable directory where you can input your practitioner’s name. “You don’t want to enroll in a health plan that doesn’t have very many doctors or one clinic in your area,” Lang says, “because then you might not have easy access to care.”</p>

<p>Don’t forget to look up any specialists you see, too: dermatologists, therapists, chiropractors, orthopedic surgeons, or fertility clinics. If you’re unsure if a provider is in-network, call them and ask.</p>

<p>Some plans have <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2016/05/03/03_tiered_networks.pdf">tiered provider networks</a> where they are priced based on the value of care they provide, Foster says. Keep in mind where your preferred providers fall if your plan is tiered. “There can be a tier one, tier two, tier three,” Foster says. “Tier one might be, let’s say $10, $20 copay. But if your doctor’s in-network but they’re tier three, that $20 copay might suddenly be $80 per visit.”</p>

<p>Similarly, check to see if your current prescriptions are included in the plan’s <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/formulary/">formulary</a>, a list of prescription drugs covered by the plan.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Could I use some help with this?</h2>

<p>It’s completely normal to still have questions even after reviewing plans. For help navigating the health care marketplace online portal, you can call the <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/contact-us/">Marketplace Call Center</a> where someone can walk you through enrollment. Platforms like Stride Health allow for a more user-friendly enrollment experience, plus offer free support from advisers, Lang says.</p>

<p>You can seek the help of a professional <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/navigator/">navigator</a> or <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20131031.857471/">assister</a> who can answer your questions and help you enroll. Navigators are funded by federal or state grants while assisters are funded by different grants administered by the states. These services are free and you can chat in person, over the phone, or online. Navigators and assisters are unbiased and will not vouch for one insurance company or plan over another. The government maintains a <a href="https://localhelp.healthcare.gov/">searchable database</a> where you can find local navigators and assisters. According to Foster, it can be difficult to get an appointment with a navigator or assister during the first few days and last days of open enrollment. Make a plan early if you want to work with these professionals.&nbsp;</p>

<p>You can also opt to get <a href="https://localhelp.healthcare.gov/get-contacted">contacted directly</a> by a <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/agent/">health insurance agent or broker</a>, who is trained to help you enroll in a plan. Agents and brokers may work for a specific health insurance company and thus won’t sell plans for companies they don’t represent; they may also earn commissions. You don’t need to pay extra to work with agents or brokers.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>“Ask all the questions. Don’t be shy,” Foster says. “I always tell folks if it was easy, we wouldn’t have jobs like navigators and assisters because we would be obsolete.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none"><strong><em>Update, January 2, 2025, 10:30 am ET: </em></strong><em>This story, originally published October 16, 2023, has been updated with 2025 numbers and information.</em></p>
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			<entry>
			
			<author>
				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
			</author>
			
			<title type="html"><![CDATA[How to be a better complainer]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/life/466064/complaining-effectively-rumination-catharsis-venting" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=466064</id>
			<updated>2025-10-29T11:05:44-04:00</updated>
			<published>2025-10-29T06:00:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Among my least admirable qualities is my penchant for complaining. I’m quick to vent to anyone who’ll listen, to moan and groan over any minor nuisance. In other words, if I’m annoyed, inconvenienced, or even slightly put out, you’ll know.&#160; Take, for instance, a recent flight that devolved into a delay, a diversion, a missed [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none">Among my least admirable qualities is my penchant for complaining. I’m quick to vent to anyone who’ll listen, to moan and groan over any minor nuisance. In other words, if I’m annoyed, inconvenienced, or even slightly put out, you’ll know.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Take, for instance, a recent flight that devolved into a delay, a diversion, a missed connection, another delay, and eventually, arriving at the wrong airport, about which I griped to at least five friends and my mother. Or my whines before, during, and following an ultramarathon I willingly participated in. I complain for sport. And, to some extent, everyone else does, too.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">To complain is human, according to <a href="https://www.clemson.edu/cbshs/about/profiles/index.html?userid=RKOWALS">Robin Kowalski</a>, a psychology professor at Clemson University. Everyone does it to varying degrees. Some are infrequent kvetchers, while others complain incessantly and always seem to have an excuse for why any potential solution to their woes is insufficient. It should come as no surprise, then, that venters on the extreme end of the spectrum tend to drive people away.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">But complaining isn’t all bad, Kowalski says, and it’s especially useful when it helps solve a problem. For me, expressing angst scratches an itch that simply staying quiet does not. By airing my grievances, I might lessen their power over my emotions, or at least make a joke out of them, my thinking goes. The tricky part is knowing how much to complain and to whom.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“If we&#8217;re a good complainer, we&#8217;re going to complain strategically,” Kowalski says. “We&#8217;re going to do it in moderation.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why we complain</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">We usually feel the need to complain when there is a mismatch between expectation and reality that leaves us feeling dissatisfied. The food delivery took longer than anticipated. A friend always talks about themselves without asking you about your day. Your kid’s soccer practices are too far away.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The problem is, we aren’t very effective complainers. According to a study, the majority of our complaints are meant simply to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167292183004">vent frustration</a> (often about another person) or to elicit sympathy, not to come up with a game plan on how to fix the situation. As a result, one of the primary motivators of complaining is catharsis. Actively suppressing emotions has been linked with <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-007-9080-3">negative well-being</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796708001162?via%3Dihub">stress</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28569538/">lower self-esteem</a>, and <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3939772/">even early death</a>, not to mention the observed experience of anxiety and inner turmoil. </p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“We can get that release from it by complaining,” Kowalski says. “That&#8217;s where the psychological benefit comes from.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Getting validation from the people around us that our complaints are justifiable can also be cathartic, according to psychologist <a href="https://www.guywinch.com/">Guy Winch,</a> author of <a href="https://www.guywinch.com/books/the-squeaky-wheel/"><em>The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining The Right Way to Get Results, Improve Your Relationships, and Enhance Self-Esteem</em></a>. It reinforces how that annoying thing was indeed annoying and we’re not imagining things.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Other functions of complaining are a little less obvious.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">We sometimes complain in order to shape the way others view us, according to Kowalski. For instance, complaining about the quality of wine at a restaurant in order to convey that you have high-class taste, when maybe you’re perfectly satisfied.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Griping can help hold people accountable for their behavior, too. If your partner is always late coming home from work, and you make your annoyance known, they may offer an explanation.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Finally, complaining is an excellent icebreaker. “Think about when you go to a doctor&#8217;s office, invariably, you&#8217;re going to be sitting there waiting forever,” Kowalski says. “You don&#8217;t know these other people in the waiting room, but you may complain to these total strangers about the very fact that you&#8217;re having to wait, because that&#8217;s something that you have that you have in common.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The consequences of too many complaints</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Anyone with a friend or in-law who never hides their dissatisfaction can attest to the obnoxiousness of excessive complaining. These whiners drive people away with their negativity and dissatisfaction. But why do they continue?</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Because complaining can become reflexive, and over-complainers may not even think about why they’re doing it or what they hope to achieve, Winch said. Complaining has become nearly ubiquitous given the relative ease of airing a grievance online, whether through a negative Google review or TikTok. Posting a few negative reviews doesn’t necessarily mean we’re complaining too much, but when it becomes a default, we may become less mindful of when and why we’re lamenting.&nbsp;</p>

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote"><blockquote><p>Try to spread the love and avoid venting to only one person, or just stick to one topic.</p></blockquote></figure>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Failing to think up a solution isn’t necessarily a bad thing — not every complaint needs to be resolved — but we can get <a href="https://2024.sci-hub.se/5915/287fe76db27e1a08a87693c9acadc012/kowalski1996.pdf">stuck ruminating</a> if we don’t address certain issues. Worse still is a phenomenon called <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2007/07/co-rumination">co-rumination</a>, where two people constantly complain to one another. “It&#8217;ll bond you,” Winch says. “You&#8217;ll feel really tight, and then you&#8217;ll feel really depressed.” On top of that, if you rely on the same person as a sounding board, there’s a risk of irritating them, too.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Complaining also has contagious effects. Listening to another’s grumbles might make us aware of our own dissatisfaction and therefore more likely to make complaints, Kowalski says. If you spend enough time mired in complaints, the scales will seem perpetually weighed against us, and the world becomes a negative place where we can never win.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to be a better complainer</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">An effective complainer knows when, why, and to whom they’re griping. To get better at venting, first take stock of how often you do it, about what, and how it makes you feel. If you’re grumbling about your commute to your spouse every day and the conversation only makes you feel worse, you’re not getting the cathartic benefit of complaining. Once you start to notice the frequency of your complaints, the more aware you’ll become in the future.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Also, pay attention to others’ reactions. Maybe you notice your best friend rolls their eyes and pulls their phone out when you launch into yet another diatribe — that’s a good sign you may be complaining to them too much. Try to spread the love and avoid venting to only one person, or just stick to one topic. “Just be strategic in your audience that you&#8217;re selecting for your complaints,” Kowalski suggests. This might look like biting your tongue about work complaints in front of your boss, but expressing your discontent with a close friend.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">You might decide you don’t even need an audience at all. Journaling can be an effective way to air your complaints without annoying anyone. You could also vent aloud to yourself if it helps you blow off some steam. “Somebody cut me off yesterday when I was driving,” Kowalski says. “I had a lot to say that they couldn&#8217;t hear.”&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Finally, think about what you hope to achieve by complaining: To get a refund for poor service? For a friend to make an effort not to cancel plans? Validation? An apology? “Once you know what that is, then you work backwards,” Winch says. “What&#8217;s the best way to get it? How do I get that person to do that thing?”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">For customer complaints or interpersonal grievances where you hope someone will change their behavior, Winch suggests what he calls a complaint sandwich. Start with a positive observation, then voice your concerns, and wrap up with how you’d like to move forward. Something like, “I love this spa, but my most recent service was disappointing. I’ll definitely be back, but I’d really love a discount.”&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Still, you want to be selective when having these conversations, and reserve it for the complaints that really matter to you. Venting to another person and getting validation feels nice, but you need to have an action-oriented step, too. What can you do to improve the situation? You have more control than you think.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“There&#8217;s got to be the validation, the compassion, and then the action, the problem-solving,” Winch says, “something that makes you feel that you have agency.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">This nugget of wisdom was a wake-up call. My complaints almost certainly lacked an element of problem-solving. I was just blowing hot air, surely annoying everyone around me. Moving forward, I don’t know if I’ll minimize the number of complaints I make, but I will be more selective of my audience — and mindful of the solutions to my issues.</p>
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				<name>Allie Volpe</name>
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			<title type="html"><![CDATA[The upside to ranking your friends]]></title>
			<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/461697/best-friends-adults-relationship-qualities-ranking" />
			<id>https://www.vox.com/?p=461697</id>
			<updated>2025-10-22T06:09:08-04:00</updated>
			<published>2025-10-22T06:09:00-04:00</published>
			<category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Advice" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Even Better" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Explainers" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Friendship" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Life" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="Relationships" /><category scheme="https://www.vox.com" term="The Highlight" />
							<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. Derek Gregory hasn’t been in the same state, let alone in the same room, as his best friend Ringo in nearly two decades. Their relationship dates back to the early 1980s, [&#8230;]]]></summary>
			
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<p class="has-text-align-none"><em>This story was originally published in </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/463044/welcome-to-the-october-issue-of-the-highlight"><em>The Highlight</em></a><em>, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/support-membership?itm_campaign=article-header-Q42024&amp;itm_medium=site&amp;itm_source=in-article"><em>join the Vox Membership program today</em></a><em>.</em></p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Derek Gregory hasn’t been in the same state, let alone in the same room, as his best friend Ringo in nearly two decades. Their relationship dates back to the early 1980s, when Gregory and Ringo met as teens in high school, bonding over a shared taste in music and similar haircuts. With Ringo, there was always something to talk about.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“He was big and expressive and larger than life and fell in love with things and people and ideas and music and whatever it was that he was into at the time,” Gregory says, “and could communicate that passion in a way that is hard to ignore.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">After graduating, Gregory moved away from Southern California, where he and Ringo grew up, but they’ve kept up their long-distance relationship ever since. Now 56, Gregory, a content creator in Denver, still maintains daily conversations with Ringo, despite the fact that the latter currently lives in Australia. They’ll send each other voice notes while sitting in traffic, bits of music they’re working on, the minutiae of their days. Ringo’s lust for life, his “spark” as Gregory puts it, their ability to make one another laugh, to cheer one another on during their best days and to support each other on their worst, is the tether connecting the two men across continents and time zones.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Most <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/12/what-does-friendship-look-like-in-america/">people</a> <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0305834">have</a> <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/">friends</a>&nbsp;—&nbsp;people to confide in, support, gas up, with whom to laugh, grab dinner, mutually despise the same things. Plenty of studies have underscored the benefits of these relationships: <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9902704/">Having friends promotes</a> physical <a href="https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/chopik2017pr.pdf">health</a> and well-being, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032714008350?via%3Dihub">staves off depression</a> and <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316">even early death</a>. But what special perks does <em>best</em> friendship confer? What qualities do the top confidantes inhabit that others don’t?&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The term “best friend” can hark back to the days on the playground when kids ranked and quantified social relationships for sport. You might think: Do you really need a best friend as an adult? But having —&nbsp;or being —&nbsp;a best friend can be an important signifier. Knowing who rises to the level of a “best” friend can be helpful when weighing the amount of relational upkeep a relationship requires. Fostering <a href="https://www.vox.com/23130613/fewer-friends-how-many">a few quality connections</a> may also be more beneficial for happiness than having dozens of less close friends.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“What research has consistently shown in the past three decades is friendship is a reliable marker and predictor of individual well-being,” says <a href="https://scholars.csus.edu/esploro/profile/meliksah_demir/overview">Meliksah Demir</a>, an associate professor of psychology at California State University Sacramento. “However, it is not necessarily the number of friends that you have, but it is the quality of your best friendship, along with other friends that you have, that makes a difference in your well-being.”</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Centuries of best friends</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Although the term “best friend” didn’t enter public consciousness until the 20th century, the concept has been around since antiquity. Among Aristotle’s <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/friendship/">three classifications of friendship</a> — pleasure, utility, and virtue — relationships of virtue are supreme. Beyond just being fun or useful, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/26718/chapter/195542923">these friendships are stronger</a>, more durable, because each member strives to make the other better. Roman politician Marcus Cicero <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/cicero-friendship-and-social-distancing">dedicated his treatise</a> on friendship, “De Amicitia,” to his best friend Atticus. As early as the fourth century, best friendships were ritualized through a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/04/22/1245859170/siblings-brotherhood-sisterhood-greece-china">marriage-like ceremony called &#8220;adelphopoiesis,&#8221;</a> or &#8220;brother-making.” For centuries, women wrote to their friends <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/416230/friendship-romantic-relationship-balance-jealousy">using passionately affectionate language</a>.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Best friendships were especially pivotal for women who, historically, left their homes and communities to join those of their husbands, says <a href="https://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty-page/jkrems/">Jaimie Arona Krems</a>, an associate professor of psychology and the director of the <a href="https://www.center-for-friendship.com/">UCLA Center for Friendship Research</a>. Without blood relatives to depend on, friends — especially best friends — <a href="https://archive.org/details/mindofherownevol0000camp_x2i4/page/156/mode/2up?q=natal">were crucial for support.</a> Today, with young adults increasingly moving farther away from their families of origin for school or work, friends carry many of the same functions as kin.</p>

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote"><blockquote><p> It wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s, when friendship emerged as an arena of serious academic study, that the term “best friend” exploded in popularity.</p></blockquote></figure>

<p class="has-text-align-none">But these connections weren’t always referred to as best friends, according to <a href="https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/clist.aspx?id=497">Rebecca Adams</a>, a sociology professor and gerontologist at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. “Close friend” or “confidant” were more common. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s, when friendship emerged as an arena of serious academic study, that the term “best friend” exploded in popularity, Krems notes. In recent decades, expanded vocabulary, like “BFF” and “bestie,” has further normalized the notion of having one, or few, supreme friendships.&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Qualities of best friendship</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">In research, there are a number of attributes participants use to describe their friends: <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e0891fde-37aa-4b4e-8941-897979d5c0cf/content">trustworthy, honest, supportive</a>, <a href="https://www.psypost.org/what-makes-someone-a-perfect-friend-heres-what-new-research-says/">loyal, reliable</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00329-w">ethical, pleasant, available</a>, <a href="https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&amp;context=psych-fac">positive, open</a>, <a href="https://leaflab.austenanderson.com/Papers/An%20exploratory%20study%20of%20friendship%20characteristics%20and%20well-being,%20Anderson%20&amp;%20Fowers,%202020.pdf">sympathetic, efficient, outgoing</a>. Best friends, Krems says, exhibit all of those qualities, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11196206/#sec25-21676968241248877">but to a deeper degree</a>. “It&#8217;s more trust, more disclosure, more understanding, more intimacy, a greater sense of sort of shared reality,” she says. You can have multiple best friends in varying contexts, too: a best friend from work, a best friend from childhood, a best friend from the gym.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Best friends are also those you’re willing to go to bat for, even when it’s inconvenient. In friendship studies, says <a href="https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/psychology/faculty-staff/beverley-fehr.html">Beverley Fehr</a>, a social psychologist at the University of Winnipeg, researchers will often ask participants to rank relationships on a scale of acquaintance, casual friend, good friend, close friend, and best friend. What differentiates these levels of friendship is the level of support you offer them. “You might help a close friend with moving, but you might not be as likely to support that person in an intimate way during a divorce, for example,” Fehr says. “Whereas with best friends, the expectation is that we&#8217;re there for them, they are there for us, across situations, regardless of what the need is.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Having at least one person who knows you intimately and has your back can be enough to stave off what’s known as <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/24006316/feeling-lonely-social-emotional-existential-loneliness-epidemic">emotional loneliness,</a> Fehr says. Distinct from the experience of social alienation where you long for a larger community of friends, emotional loneliness can arise when you lack a strong, deep connection with one or a few people. “Very often, people think of that close, intimate connection as having to be a romantic partner,” Fehr says, “but it also could be a very close connection with a friend. To feel that you have a best friend probably helps with reducing the emotional loneliness of wishing you had a close tie with someone.”&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The question of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/well/family/husband-wife-best-friend.html">whether</a> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Marriage/comments/1evre5w/should_your_spouse_be_your_best_friend/">your spouse</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@kighleyyy/video/7541116137996619038?q=should%20husband%20wife%20be%20your%20best%20friend&amp;t=1757965030731">should be your best friend</a> has been the subject of heated debate. In Adams’s early studies, she says <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/458700/single-men-mental-health-romance-friendship-relationships-masculinity">men would list their wives as their best friend</a>, while women would not — they’d name other women. Similarly, Krems’s research participants often don’t consider a romantic partner or family member their best friend, she says, despite the fact that many say <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/well/family/husband-wife-best-friend.html">they want their significant other to be their best friend</a>.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Time may also play a role in who you consider a best friend. A 2020 study of US college students found that participants, on average, <a href="https://leaflab.austenanderson.com/Papers/An%20exploratory%20study%20of%20friendship%20characteristics%20and%20well-being,%20Anderson%20&amp;%20Fowers,%202020.pdf">were friends with their bestie for nine years</a>, suggesting that these relationships are ones of longevity. In the absence of extended history, Adams believes best friends might also be those you see most often.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The researchers of the 2020 study also found evidence supporting Aristotle’s ancient theory that best friendships might be ones of virtue: “Our results suggest that there may be a form of friendship in which the primary value lies in the good qualities of the friend and in the friendship itself rather than solely in the instrumental benefits the friend provides,” the authors write.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The crux of best friendship, according to 27-year-old Jay Palmer, is trust. Palmer, a warehouse operations specialist, met his two best friends, whom he refers to as E and Z, online while playing XBox a few years ago. A few months into their friendship, they encouraged Palmer, who hails from Michigan, to visit them in Colorado. Soon enough, he was moving in with Z in Aurora.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Palmer felt comfortable uprooting his life to be closer to E and Z because of the basis of loyalty on which their friendship was built. They opened up to one another, shared secrets, vulnerabilities, personal histories. They give each other space to be upset with each other. “We trust that each of us have each other&#8217;s best interests at heart,” Palmer says. Although they live under the same roof, Palmer says he misses Z when he’s not around.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Should we rank our friends?</h2>

<p class="has-text-align-none">To claim a best friend, you also admit to having less-best friends, people that fall further down in the pecking order. This might seem cold and calculating, but friendship researchers have found we tend to subconsciously rank our connections. One theory, put forth by British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, posits that humans can only maintain around 150 social connections — strangers, family, and friends included — called Dunbar’s number. Those people are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/05/robin-dunbar-explains-circles-friendship-dunbars-number/618931/">stratified into various tiers</a> ranging from best friends in the inner circle to people you’d recognize on the street on the outermost rung.&nbsp;</p>

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote"><blockquote><p>You’re more likely to invest time and emotional resources in the friends you’ve already devoted significant time and energy to: the three to five people in your closest friend circle.</p></blockquote></figure>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Because everyone has <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02654075231154937">limited social energy</a> — it’s impossible to meaningfully interact with every single person you’ve ever met — you’re more likely to invest time and emotional resources in the friends you’ve already devoted significant time and energy to: the <a href="https://www.vox.com/23130613/fewer-friends-how-many">three to five people in your closest friend circle</a>.</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">For Heather Kelliher, having a clear picture of with whom she needs to put in the most effort is crucial. Though she met her four best friends in the US, Kelliher, 36, now lives outside of London where she works in cybersecurity. To maintain her friendships, the group plays games virtually over Zoom once a month, regularly exchange texts in a group chat, and FaceTimes whenever they can.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Initially, she worried her inner circle might forget her, but after over two years abroad she’s relieved to have a regular cadence with her best friends. Because she understands exactly who her inner circle is, she knows when it’s time to get another call on the books. “I haven&#8217;t talked to Rachel in a month,” Kelliher says, “I should probably check to see how she&#8217;s doing.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">A second framework, the <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2688027/">alliance hypothesis of friendship</a>, claims that people track their friends’ other relationships to see where they rank relative to those other friends. If a pal considers you their best friend — either they’ve said as much in conversation or your relationship is particularly close — <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/research-suggests-friendships-are-built-alliances">you’re more likely to call them your best friend in return</a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">These rankings can sometimes play out painfully and publicly. Take bridal parties, for example, where one friend is singled out as the best man or maid of honor. That may come as a shock to some because people often conceal their friend hierarchy, the researchers found, to “make multiple people think that we&#8217;re their best friend,” Krems says.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">That may make it difficult to know where you really stand with your friends. “Saying, ‘This person is my best friend,’ that&#8217;s putting your cards on the table,” Krems says, “and putting your cards on the table — that&#8217;s a real signal of commitment, that you are all in on that person, because it cuts off the possibility of alternatives.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">But is it fair or ethical to order friends so concretely? Krems says she’s seen evidence in her studies that when people refer to someone as their best friend, they’re more satisfied with the relationship and feel even closer to them. Beyond the obvious upsides of friendship, having a best friend in particular confers added psychological benefits, Krems notes: higher well-being, resilience, and satisfaction.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">The term “best friend” provides Rachel Taylor and Kariyona Craighead, besties since middle school, clarity on how to sufficiently prioritize one another. Since their friendship holds more weight than others, they know how much time to devote to one another. Even during 12-hour days on set as a cinematographer, Taylor, 24, will make time to send quick texts to Craighead, also 24, and other friends letting them know she got their message and will respond thoughtfully when she has time.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Throughout their decade-long friendship, Taylor and Craighead have gone through countless transitions, from adolescence in Charlotte, North Carolina, to adults working full time — or in Craighead’s case, in law school. Other friends from their middle school group have grown distant, but their bond remains steadfast. “Just having that safety within that other person, you know that you can always go to them,” Craighead says. “Having that emotional safety and reliability.”</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">Best friendship is, in essence, the greatest return on your emotional investment. Because it does take effort to maintain relationships, and is thus not possible to be a best friend to everyone, we inherently pour ours into those who we know will return it in kind.&nbsp;</p>

<p class="has-text-align-none">“Knowing people do put different levels of effort into their friends, and knowing which people value you, can help you invest where that investment does best,” Krems says. “You maintain the relationship that is best for you to maintain.”</p>
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