What's in the Stars for Valentine's Day?
by Dabney Oliver February 05, 2010 12:46 PM EST
Whether you are hitched, recently ditched, playing the field or in love -- Valentine’s Day can be special or a big old bust. Don’t give into the temptations to overhype the holiday, and take care of yourself and a loved one by sign.
Aries
Aries like activity. Work up a sweat on Valentine’s Day this year. If you are partnered, then you can think of some fun ways to get sweaty together. And if you're single, then lace up your Nikes and join the local running club to meet someone new this February 14.
Taurus
Help your man -- come right out and tell him what you want this Valentine’s Day. Taurus women love gifts so much that the pressure can be unbearable for men on this holiday. Try to set realistic expectations for the opposite sex and don’t just drop hints -- come out and ask for what you want. Single? Treat yourself well this February 14. Buy yourself the prettiest flowers you can find and head off to the spa for the day.
Gemini
Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday this year -- perfect to plan a day trip for you and a loved one. Get out of your environment and have a mini adventure together. Check out a diner or some unexpected little hideaway. Unattached Twins, treat yourself to a new book or pack up your laptop and head out to the local coffee shop. Park your pretty self on a couch and see who you meet.
Cancer
For Cancers, the way to the heart is through the stomach. That's right -- it might be cliche but a good, old-fashioned, home-cooked meal always says "love". Light candles, break out the negligee and feel the romance. In between sweeties? No matter -- cook yourself your favorite meal and rent a sappy '80s flick.
Leo
Leos are all about romance. They can’t live without it. This doesn't mean that romance for the Lion comes in a traditional box of chocolates or a home delivery of flowers. Leos want a gesture that speaks to how truly special they are. Help your loved one know what you need to make you feel appreciated. Single Leos, sign up for an art class or go out and take some tango lessons on February 14.
Virgo
Valentine’s Day this year falls on a Sunday. This is great news for Virgos; they should be treated to a luxurious breakfast in bed by a loved one. For the Virgin, it's not about the splashy gift or the usual trappings -- it's about doing nice things for one another to express love. For that matter -- all unattached Virgos will find giving to others on February 14 a fulfilling gesture of love.
Libra
You are the sweetest of Valentines in the zodiac -- you're built for this day. You know how to make those around you feel loved. Remember, if you have an expectation to receive in kind, you may need to communicate your needs ahead of time. Not everyone understands how to demonstrate the essence of this day like a Libra. Single Libras, gather up all your other single friends and have a fabulous dinner party.
Scorpio
Let’s be blunt here: Scorpios know how to be sexy. Out of any day of the year, this is the one to break out that lacy black thing (even if you have yet to figure out exactly how it goes on). Be sure to express your lusty desires to a loved one February 14. Not coupled? No worries. This is a great day to set intentions, collage and get specific about what you want to be doing and with whom you want to be a year from now.
Sagittarius
On this day, express your adventurous nature by cooking an international feast for your lover. Think sensual foods and sensual cultures. Italian maybe, or Spanish. Do it up. As a Sagittarius, you'll be having so much fun dancing around your tapas with a rose in your teeth that you'll be irresistible to your loved one. If you are celebrating your freedom and independence this February 14, plan a weekend getaway.
Capricorn
Normally you can be a bit of a workaholic. On Valentine’s Day, don’t let work get in the way of expressing how you really feel about your loved one. If you think it might be too difficult to pull your mind away from the office, set expectations with your honey. Capricorns love getting flowers delivered to them at work the Friday before February 14. It's a way of infusing a little love into an environment that could use it. If you are not feeling the day on Sunday, focus on “working” on yourself and set some goals for where you would like to be a year from now.
Aquarius
This Valentine’s Day, do what feels uniquely right for you. Skip the Hallmark sentiment and go for creating a new tradition that speaks to your heart. Your loved one will appreciate how you've infused your own personality into the date. Not coupled? Of any sign in the zodiac, you are the one to care least about this holiday, believing that it was created for commercial purposes. Celebrate your freedom from the schmaltz this February 14!
Pisces
You big sap! You love Valentine’s Day. That’s okay -- so do lots of others. Ask your loved one to plan something special. If your loved one is not so good at that, well, you may need to pull your head out of your dreamy haze for a couple hours to plan an indoor picnic or run down to the local video store and rent a romantic movie to set your imagination on fire. If you find yourself solo this February 14, make sure to call friends and have an alternative plan. Pisces need to be around love this day no matter if it's family, friends or lovers.
MY THOUGHTS
NOT MUCH TO SAY. I'M AN ARIAN. AND I DID SWEAT A LIITLE. BUT NOT IN A GYM. I WENT SHOPPING FOR SHOES IN LILIW! WAT A VALENTINE!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Making Love Last
Make Romance Last
By Helen Fisher
O, The Oprah Magazine | November 18, 2009
I have a friend who met her husband at a red light. She was 15, in a car with a pile of girls. He was in another car with a crowd of boys. As the light turned green, they all decided to pull into a nearby park and party. My friend spent the evening sitting on a picnic table talking to one of the guys. Thirty-seven years later, they are still together.
We are born to love. That feeling of elation that we call romantic love is deeply embedded in our brains. But can it last? This was what my colleagues and I set out to discover in 2007. Led by Bianca Acevedo, PhD, our team asked this question of nearly everyone we met, searching for people who said they were still wild about their longtime spouse. Eventually we scanned the brains of 17 such people as they looked at a photograph of their sweetheart. Most were in their 50s and married an average of 21 years.
The results were astonishing. Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months toâ??at bestâ??three years. Yet the brains of these middle-aged men and women showed much the same activity as those of young lovers, individuals who had been intensely in love an average of only seven months. Indeed, there was just one important difference between the two groups: Among the older lovers, brain regions associated with anxiety were no longer active; instead, there was activity in the areas associated with calmness.
We are told that happy marriages are based on good communication, shared values, a sturdy support system of friends and relatives, happy, stable childhoods, fair quarrelling, and dogged determination. But in a survey of 470 studies on compatibility, psychologist Marcel Zentner, PhD, of the University of Geneva, found no particular combination of personality traits that leads to sustained romanceâ??with one exception: the ability to sustain your "positive illusions." Men and women who continue to maintain that their partner is attractive, funny, kind, and ideal for them in just about every way remain content with each other. I've seen this phenomenon, known as "love blindness," in a friend of mine. I knew him and his wife-to-be while we were all i n college, when they both were slim, fit, energetic, and curious: a vibrant couple. Today both are overweight couch potatoes. Yet he still tells me she hasn't changed a bit. Perhaps this form of self-deception is a gift from nature, enabling us to triumph over the rough spots and the changes in our relationships. I'm not suggesting you should overlook an abusive husband or put up with a deadbeat bore. But with the holidays upon us, it's worth celebrating one of nature's best-kept secrets: our human capacity to love…and love…and love.
What is intimacy to you?" Recently, I asked this of a man I've been seeing. He replied, "Doing things together." I knew what he meant.
Most of us have a primal craving to be truly known by someone before we die, to build a deeply committed relationship based on honesty, trust, self-disclosure, respect, appreciation, interdependence, and togetherness. But the sexes often define intimacy differently. When women want to draw closer, we face each other, lock eyes in what has been called the "anchoring gaze," and proceed to reveal our hopes, our worries, our lives. To women, intimacy is talking face-to-face—a behavior that probably evolved millions of years ago when ancestral females spent their days holding their infants up in front of them, soothing them with words.
Men, however, often regard intimacy as working or playing side-by-side. Sure, they might discuss a bad week at work, even troubles in their love lives. But rarely do they share their secret dreams and darkest fears. (When they do, they often use "joke speak," camouflaging their feelings with humor.) And men almost never look deeply into each other's eyes. Their approach to intimacy probably also harks back to prehistory: Picture ancestral males gathering behind a bush, quietly staring across the grass in hopes of felling a passing buffalo. They faced their enemies but sat next to their friends.
This is why, to build intimacy with a man, I do things with him—side-by-side. That way, when I talk, he isn't threatened by my gaze.
Curious to find out more about such gender differences, I asked 4,876 members of the Internet dating site Chemistry.com , "What would you do as an intimate activity with a partner?" and offered various choices. I found that men were far more likely to regard "debating" as intimate. I wasn't surprised: Intimacy requires being in your comfort zone, and men's testosterone is associated with competitiveness. On the other hand, women were more likely to consider "organizing a neighborhood or community party together" and "taking a vacation together with a crowd of your closest friends" as ways to be close. Because estrogen is associated with social skills and nurturing, I wasn't surprised by this either.
What I didn't expect was that 95 percent of all respondents rated "talking heart-to-heart with your partner about your relationship" as something they'd do to be intimate, while 94 percent felt that "doing something adventurous together" spelled togetherness—with hardly any difference between the sexes. If these results are any indication that men are learning to appreciate women's need to talk, while women are understanding the male way of showing love ("actions speak louder than words"), then bravo!
There are, of course, many other things you can do to cultivate togetherness . Help your partner achieve his goals. Face your problems as a team. Develop a private spiritual or religious world. Choose a new interest to pursue jointly. Do chores together. Play.
And get the oxytocin flowing. Oxytocin is a brain chemical that produces feelings of trust and attachment. Men get a blast of it when they kiss, women feel a rush when they hold a lover's hand, and during orgasm, both partners are flooded with the powerful substance. So last but not least, enjoy each other physically. Good sex really does build intimacy.
MY THOUGHTS
SO, THERE IS A WAY TO MAKE LOVE LAST. BUT WE NEED TO WORK ON IT. IT'S NOT AUTOMATIC AND IT'S NOT YOUR PARTNER'S RESPONSIBILITY. IT'S YOURS! IF YOUR PARTNER IS NOT DOING HIS/HER SHARE, LET GOD HANDLE THAT FOR YOU. LOVE CAN LAST. I KNOW....
By Helen Fisher
O, The Oprah Magazine | November 18, 2009
I have a friend who met her husband at a red light. She was 15, in a car with a pile of girls. He was in another car with a crowd of boys. As the light turned green, they all decided to pull into a nearby park and party. My friend spent the evening sitting on a picnic table talking to one of the guys. Thirty-seven years later, they are still together.
We are born to love. That feeling of elation that we call romantic love is deeply embedded in our brains. But can it last? This was what my colleagues and I set out to discover in 2007. Led by Bianca Acevedo, PhD, our team asked this question of nearly everyone we met, searching for people who said they were still wild about their longtime spouse. Eventually we scanned the brains of 17 such people as they looked at a photograph of their sweetheart. Most were in their 50s and married an average of 21 years.
The results were astonishing. Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months toâ??at bestâ??three years. Yet the brains of these middle-aged men and women showed much the same activity as those of young lovers, individuals who had been intensely in love an average of only seven months. Indeed, there was just one important difference between the two groups: Among the older lovers, brain regions associated with anxiety were no longer active; instead, there was activity in the areas associated with calmness.
We are told that happy marriages are based on good communication, shared values, a sturdy support system of friends and relatives, happy, stable childhoods, fair quarrelling, and dogged determination. But in a survey of 470 studies on compatibility, psychologist Marcel Zentner, PhD, of the University of Geneva, found no particular combination of personality traits that leads to sustained romanceâ??with one exception: the ability to sustain your "positive illusions." Men and women who continue to maintain that their partner is attractive, funny, kind, and ideal for them in just about every way remain content with each other. I've seen this phenomenon, known as "love blindness," in a friend of mine. I knew him and his wife-to-be while we were all i n college, when they both were slim, fit, energetic, and curious: a vibrant couple. Today both are overweight couch potatoes. Yet he still tells me she hasn't changed a bit. Perhaps this form of self-deception is a gift from nature, enabling us to triumph over the rough spots and the changes in our relationships. I'm not suggesting you should overlook an abusive husband or put up with a deadbeat bore. But with the holidays upon us, it's worth celebrating one of nature's best-kept secrets: our human capacity to love…and love…and love.
What is intimacy to you?" Recently, I asked this of a man I've been seeing. He replied, "Doing things together." I knew what he meant.
Most of us have a primal craving to be truly known by someone before we die, to build a deeply committed relationship based on honesty, trust, self-disclosure, respect, appreciation, interdependence, and togetherness. But the sexes often define intimacy differently. When women want to draw closer, we face each other, lock eyes in what has been called the "anchoring gaze," and proceed to reveal our hopes, our worries, our lives. To women, intimacy is talking face-to-face—a behavior that probably evolved millions of years ago when ancestral females spent their days holding their infants up in front of them, soothing them with words.
Men, however, often regard intimacy as working or playing side-by-side. Sure, they might discuss a bad week at work, even troubles in their love lives. But rarely do they share their secret dreams and darkest fears. (When they do, they often use "joke speak," camouflaging their feelings with humor.) And men almost never look deeply into each other's eyes. Their approach to intimacy probably also harks back to prehistory: Picture ancestral males gathering behind a bush, quietly staring across the grass in hopes of felling a passing buffalo. They faced their enemies but sat next to their friends.
This is why, to build intimacy with a man, I do things with him—side-by-side. That way, when I talk, he isn't threatened by my gaze.
Curious to find out more about such gender differences, I asked 4,876 members of the Internet dating site Chemistry.com , "What would you do as an intimate activity with a partner?" and offered various choices. I found that men were far more likely to regard "debating" as intimate. I wasn't surprised: Intimacy requires being in your comfort zone, and men's testosterone is associated with competitiveness. On the other hand, women were more likely to consider "organizing a neighborhood or community party together" and "taking a vacation together with a crowd of your closest friends" as ways to be close. Because estrogen is associated with social skills and nurturing, I wasn't surprised by this either.
What I didn't expect was that 95 percent of all respondents rated "talking heart-to-heart with your partner about your relationship" as something they'd do to be intimate, while 94 percent felt that "doing something adventurous together" spelled togetherness—with hardly any difference between the sexes. If these results are any indication that men are learning to appreciate women's need to talk, while women are understanding the male way of showing love ("actions speak louder than words"), then bravo!
There are, of course, many other things you can do to cultivate togetherness . Help your partner achieve his goals. Face your problems as a team. Develop a private spiritual or religious world. Choose a new interest to pursue jointly. Do chores together. Play.
And get the oxytocin flowing. Oxytocin is a brain chemical that produces feelings of trust and attachment. Men get a blast of it when they kiss, women feel a rush when they hold a lover's hand, and during orgasm, both partners are flooded with the powerful substance. So last but not least, enjoy each other physically. Good sex really does build intimacy.
MY THOUGHTS
SO, THERE IS A WAY TO MAKE LOVE LAST. BUT WE NEED TO WORK ON IT. IT'S NOT AUTOMATIC AND IT'S NOT YOUR PARTNER'S RESPONSIBILITY. IT'S YOURS! IF YOUR PARTNER IS NOT DOING HIS/HER SHARE, LET GOD HANDLE THAT FOR YOU. LOVE CAN LAST. I KNOW....
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