First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

Does Facebook Know If We’re Happy?

Valentines Day was a piece of cake, or more precisely, a chicken pot pie, which I made from an Ina Garten recipe for friends who were coming to dinner. The midday weather was spectacular, and while my dough was resting in the fridge, I took Rose for a stroll in the park, and afterwards, we all watched the Olympics on TV. In other words, I felt happy. That is, until I stumbled onto Facebook’s Relationships and Happiness page, and their Gross National Happiness Index, which measures happiness based on the positive or negative words people use in their status updates. What a ludicrous barometer. “Just as expected,” FB writes, “people who are in a relationship or marriage do seem to be happier than everyone else.”

I will NOT let social media ruin my buzz. Let’s get the expert, Bella DePaulo, on the case.

All You Need is Love (all together now)

A few days after posting The Benefit of Awe, I decided to get in touch with Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and “Chief Scientific Advisor” to Chemistry.com to learn more about her point of view. Here’s our unedited email exchange:   Continue reading »

The Benefit of Awe

I took myself to the movies on Saturday, and saw The Third Man, a British film noir masterpiece, and it put me in the best mood. And still this morning I breezed into my car with lifted spirits. Even the jerk that cut me off from the right lane couldn’t sour me. I turned on NPR, and the host announced that in honor of Valentines Day, he’d be featuring conversations about love, EVERY day this week. Not that there’s anything wrong with love, but does it have to be for a whole week?   Continue reading »

Be Generous

There are occasions when analyzing how happy I am seems petty compared to what’s going on in the world. (Not often enough, I’m afraid.) The catastrophic earthquake in HAITI has such far-reaching consequences, that I hope, if you haven’t done so yet, you’ll consider making a donation. Here’s a list of a varied group of agencies offering relief to Haiti, in this moment of urgent need.

Update: If you have a mobile phone with a major wireless carrier, you can send a $10 donation to Red Cross Haiti relief by texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999. It will be charged to your next cell phone bill.

Is Chemistry Overrated?

Here’s an excerpt from the always wonderful Ariel Levy, writing in The New Yorker about a new memoir on the trials of marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

For all the variability in the meaning of marriage, one fairly consistent element over time and place was that it had nothing to do with love. “For most of history it was inconceivable that people would choose their mates on the basis of something as fragile and irrational as love and then focus all their sexual, intimate, and altruistic desires on the resulting marriage,” [Stephanie] Coontz writes. In fact, loving one’s spouse too much was considered a threat to social and religious order, and was discouraged in societies as disparate as ancient Greece, medieval Islam, and contemporary Cameroon. The modern Western ideal of marriage as both romantic and companionate is an anomaly and a gamble. As soon as people in any culture start selecting spouses based on emotion, the rates of broken marriages shoot up.

FYI, Stephanie Coontz is the writer of Marriage, a History.

(Illustration by Sophie Blackall from her site, Missed Connections.)

What If Marriage Makes You Lonelier?

Vanishing Point
by Freya Manfred

The moment arrives when you say,
“I don’t dislike this man,
but how did I marry him?”
Something about his wintry voice,
the way he can’t or won’t show his face,
and how small and alone you feel
out here on earth’s curve,
driving day and night,
never reaching a destination,
until you realize you’re running parallel to him,
and you’ll never meet.

from Swimming with a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2008.

(Image: Vertigo, Magic Staircase by Belgian artist, Leon Spilliaert, 1908)

The Wedding Vow

Sharon Olds, described as one of America’s greatest living poets, is 67 years old today. In 2005, Olds declined the invitation by First Lady Laura Bush, to read from her work and attend festivities at the White House. Depending on my mood, I respond differently to Olds’ poem, The Wedding Vow. Sometimes reading it makes me sad that I’ve never had the altar experience, but more often, I’m grateful to momentarily wrap myself in the love and commitment she beautifully describes.

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What Are Friends For?

During the Clinton years, I learned to drink Manhattans at the 500 Club, a Mission district bar in San Francisco. I no longer remember how the custom got started, but for years, like clockwork, every Monday at 6:30, John, Doris, Fred and I would grab a cozy booth by the door and order cocktails. These seasoned drinkers would laugh as I slurped my Bloody Mary, a beverage they considered strictly brunch material. It took some coaching to acquire the grownup taste for Makers Mark Manhattans, but I’ve never looked back.

Our foursome set a few ground rules. No mates. No dates. No excuses. One by one, we would go around the table, and share our latest triumphs and defeats. It was comforting to begin the week with a standing date, timed just long enough to make us hungry for the next installment. I always left the 500 Club happy, and a little drunk, then grabbed a nearby burrito and went home.

When Can We Trust Love at First Sight?

Here’s my one incident of genuine love at first sight. Genuine in the sense that decades after the first moment when our eyes locked, which was accompanied by an abiding sense of calm, we still feel the same way about each other.

Alas. My story is not about romantic love, but even so, there was an unusual certainty when I met William (my dearest friend who happens to be gay). One look and an exchange of hellos, and we were bonded for life.

Since then, I’ve locked eyes with many men, and breathlessly wondered (most recently in June), is this my true love at first sight? But not one has stood the test of time. Not one except William. And I’ve decided that it counts.

Do you still believe in it?

You Will Marry the First Person Who Tells You Your Eyes Are Like Scrambled Eggs

The title of today’s post is from Frank O’Hara poem, Lines For the Fortune Cookies. (I’m resentful of fortune cookies, but I have one shredding in my wallet from years ago, which reads: The love of your life will appear in front of you unexpectedly.) MADMEN fanatics will remember the opening episode of Season 2 when Don Draper notices a man at a bar reading from O’Hara’s 1956 collection, Meditations in an Emergency. On the right are images of the poet by the artist Alex Katz, whose painting The Black Dress was such an inspiration as I was developing this site, that I decided to use it as my “emblem.”

LINES FOR THE FORTUNE COOKIES by Frank O’Hara

I think you’re wonderful and so does everyone else.
Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you–even bigger.
You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.
You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.
You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
In the beginning there was YOU–there will always be YOU, I guess.
You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.
Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.
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