The Psychology of Mate Stealing
I watched someone deliberately seduce my friend’s partner. It wasn’t accidental. Wasn’t a situation that spiraled. It was a calculated strategy. The person identified a good mate. Recognized…
Author
the nerd
What Your Jealousy Type Reveals
I discovered what I was jealous of by watching what made me rage. My partner spent time with someone attractive. I felt nothing. He emotionally connected with someone.…
The Midlife Crisis Is Real
My father woke up at forty-five and realized he’d become someone he didn’t want to be. Not gradually. Not over years. Overnight, it seemed. One day he was…
Teenage Brains Want Danger
My teenage neighbor started skateboarding off a bridge. Not a low bridge. A bridge high enough to cause serious injury. And he knew this. But his brain was…
Neglect Scars Deeper Than Trauma
I know someone who survived something horrifying. A single traumatic event that would make most people’s histories seem easy by comparison. And yet, they’re more functional than my…
Is TikTok Parenting Toxic?
I watched a parent film her toddler’s tantrum. Not to help the child. Not to document a developmental milestone. But to capture the tantrum itself for TikTok. To…
The Critical Period Myth
My cousin didn’t learn to read until she was eleven. By the age-based metrics that schools use, she was already behind. The critical window had supposedly closed. She…
When Personality Becomes Your Prison
I know someone who’s been angry for thirty years. Not intermittently angry. Not going through an angry phase. Perpetually, consistently, fundamentally angry. At the world. At people. At…
Introversion Is Just Social Anxiety
I believed I was introverted for years. I didn’t like parties. I felt drained by social events. I preferred solitude. All the markers of introversion were there. So…
Why Anxious People Become Visionaries
The entrepreneur who built the most successful company I’ve watched was a wreck. Constantly anxious. Always imagining worst-case scenarios. Obsessing over details everyone else ignored. Unable to relax…