Living

Why is it so hard to hook up in Toronto?

Posted on by JoeyDavid

All a long I’ve been blaming myself on why I’ve been single forever, it’s got to be me, than I realized it’s just not that, it’s the people in Toronto. And finally many, many people have gave me confirmation I am not the problem. Thank you. Toronto just sucks.

Why is it so hard to hook up in Toronto?

Is there something particular about our city that makes courtship especially difficult here? We present four theories.

Last month, a New York Times article declaring the “end of courtship” went viral.

The piece’s central lamentation—that technology has usurped romance, or, as one interview subject put it, that dating has devolved into “a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy”—probably resonates, in some way, with the average Torontonian single.

But the more relevant conversation to be had here in Toronto is about how, arguably, we’ve never, as a city, experienced anything more than a tepid pick-up culture.

In fact, the rise of digital communication notwithstanding, Toronto has earned something of a reputation for being particularly un-flirtatious—a phenomenon that residents from more sexually aggressive Canadian cities, like Montreal and Halifax, are often quick to bemoan.

The question is, why? What is it about Torontonians—or Toronto itself—that makes it so unlikely to get hit on offline, out in the public sphere?

After conferring with a number of twenty and thirty-something Toronto dwellers across lines of gender and sexual orientation, plus an expert or two, I’ve assembled a list of possible explanations:

1. Our keep-to-yourself culture: Known for being rigid, arms-crossed concertgoers and eerily silent transit riders, it follows that Torontonians are reserved when it comes to displays of spontaneous, romantic interest, lacking the requisite ballsiness to approach a stranger.

This isn’t to say that individuals are necessarily aloof, but the mores of our quite-large city have ingrained a culture of shame around talking to strangers without a “practical” purpose—and that includes flirting.

“It’s been my feeling here that people aren’t really receptive to being casually asked out in person,” says Peter, 30, a Toronto social-work student who primarily uses online dating to meet women.

“I feel like if I just walked up to someone in a bar, it wouldn’t be considered ‘normal.’ There’s no kind of known social codes around it. I wouldn’t know if the person was single, or if it would be awkward. Basically, I’d feel like a sleazeball.”

Samantha Joel is a Ph.D student in the psychology department at the University of Toronto. Her research includes analyzing how people make decisions about romantic relationships.

“I would say there’s a strong social norm in Toronto to keep to oneself in public spaces, to not make eye contact or start up conversation,” she notes.

“It’s seen as very peculiar if someone breaks these norms, and even seen as a sign they wouldn’t be a good potential partner. If a stranger expresses interest, I think people here respond to it with suspicion, and might see it as an indicator that the person isn’t completely stable.”

So, not only are we afraid to break the tacitly agreed-upon code of silence, but we may well be perceived as creepy if we do it to express romantic interest.

2. Water, water everywhere: Full disclosure: the majority of individuals I interviewed who complained about Toronto’s lack of sexual aggressiveness were relatively young, professional, heterosexual women, some of whom perceived that the romantic odds in Toronto were stacked against them.

Priya, 35, a Toronto-based freelance writer, observed that heterosexual men outside of Toronto—both in other Canadian cities and abroad—were much more forward.

“Guys in Toronto are spoiled; there are a lot of attractive women here, so men have a perceived notion of abundance, of the interchangeability of women—an ‘I don’t want to be tied down with this one when I can get this one,’ kind of thing,” she says.

She adds that the onus is on women, too, but that she’s never had much luck with asking out a guy she didn’t know.

Heather, 26, recently moved to Toronto from Halifax to attend graduate school.

“Because there are so many people in Toronto, everyone thinks about their other ‘options’ and not about what’s right in front of them,” she observes. “Halifax is small; you know what the dating pool’s like and egos aren’t as big, so people are more willing to put themselves out there.”

Shannon Tebb, owner of the Toronto dating-consulting service Shanny in the City, is a professional dating consultant, matchmaker, and life coach.

“There is lots of competition in this big city—beautiful women are a dime a dozen,” she says, suggesting that Toronto’s straight men may have something of an advantage. Assuming there is truth to this phenomenon, it doesn’t exactly encourage pride-on-the-line courting of strangers.

There’s even some statistical evidence to support this claim: According to the 2010 Statistics Canada census, women accounted for 50.4 per cent of Canada’s total population; in Toronto, the total number of women exceeded that percentage, albeit slightly, making up 50.9 per cent of the city’s inhabitants.

Further, StatsCan data from 2011 shows that, between 2006 and 2011, most provinces and territories saw increases in the number of women aged 20 to 34; in downtown Toronto, the existence of large financial, governmental, health, and educational institutions has made the proportion of working-age people exceed the national average.

One could extrapolate, then, that Toronto is particularly full of youngish people and especially youngish women (whether or not they’re interested in men), giving straight men the sense of having boundless options.

And when you’re not straight? Duncan, a 26-year-old student originally from Nova Scotia, says meeting someone in Toronto is easier than in a place like Halifax.

“Being in a bigger city’s better when you’re gay—though I do agree that out in the public sphere, Torontonians are really standoffish.”

3. We’re work-obsessed: Torontonians have a reputation for being career-focussed to a fault. Mary-Ann, 32, is a public servant originally from Quebec. Though she now lives in Montreal, she spent the last seven years in Toronto.

“I had a huge learning curve with Toronto dating,” she says. “I was used to a dating climate where things are more straightforward. In Montreal, for example, you’ll be in a liquor store or convenience store and there’s this constant flow of flirtatiousness—it’s just more part of the everyday. I didn’t get those little gems in Toronto.”

She wonders if it’s because Torontonains are simply more stressed out.

“People work their asses off in Toronto because it’s such an expensive city—the rent is so expensive.”

Shannon Tebb believes the sheer number of pedestrians that one passes each day makes it tough to connect with anyone. “The constant hustle and bustle tends to limit one from stopping and taking the time to notice an individual passing by. This notion of always being in a hurry, not taking the time to relax and enjoy sitting in the park, can really reduce your chances of finding love.”

Indeed, we may be tenser in Toronto than those in a smaller, more inexpensive city like Montreal. And, compared to a bustling yet engaging city like New York, we’re further burdened by our aforementioned, almost crippling sense of social reserve.

4. The 2 a.m. Syndrome: Some of the people I spoke with argued that, while getting hit on in a Toronto bar isn’t a total rarity, the way in which it often happens is a turn-off. Priya says Toronto’s bar scene suffers from “2 a.m. syndrome.”

“Last call hits, the level of drunkenness and energy changes, and people are seriously on the make. And then you are in danger of the gross come-on,” she says.

Perhaps we can’t win, then, and perhaps these generalizations are too vast to be relatable. And yet, I stand by the claim that, on balance, Toronto mores make it a particularly tough place to meet someone organically—outside of the internet, through mutual friends, or an old-fashioned blind set-up.

So before mourning the end of courtship entirely, perhaps we Torontonians should first contemplate why we failed to be a good pick-up city from the get-go.

Dogs May Mourn as Deeply as Humans Do

Posted on by JoeyDavid

When I rescued one of my two dogs, Osker, he appeared to be depressed and I saw it in his eyes. I don’t know his story, wish I did, but according to the animal shelter he was a stray, and maybe he really missed his former family. Then 2 months later I rescued Scooby, who  wasn’t that depressed, he’s one of those happy-go-lucky dogs.  But ever since I got them, coincidently both at 2 years old at the time,  they are inseparable. Osker is thriving now and happy obviously.

If this article isn’t any indication that dogs have feelings just like most humans, then I don’t know what else can.

Jon Tumilson’s dog, Hawkeye, was an important part of his life.

And, as it turns out, Tumilson was an important part of Hawkeye’s life.

After the Navy SEAL was killed in Afghanistan last summer, more than a thousand friends and family attended the funeral in Rockford, Iowa, including his “son” Hawkeye, a black Labrador retriever who, with a heavy sigh, lay down in front of Tumilson’s flag-draped casket. There, the loyal dog stayed for the entire service.

Hawkeye’s reaction to his owner’s death generated a lot of buzz online and in the media. But it’s not unusual, according to pet experts, for some dogs to mourn the loss of a favorite person or animal housemate.

Grief is one of the basic emotions dogs experience, just like people, said Dr. Sophia Yin, a San Francisco-based veterinarian and applied animal behaviorist. Dogs also feel fear, happiness, sadness, anger, as well as possessiveness.

Dogs who mourn may show similar signs to when they’re separated for long periods of time from the individual they’re bonded to, she said. Of those signs, depression is the most common, in which dogs usually sleep more than normal, move slower, eat less and don’t play as much.

The beginnings of such a strong inter-species bond between humans and dogs dates back some 15,000 years, when early man and the ancestor of today’s dog roamed the Earth together.

Today, after thousands of years of friendship, there’s a great deal of attunement between humans and dogs, not only in terms of comprehension of each other’s gestures and body language but also emotionally, said Barbara King, a professor of anthropology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

It’s not just evolutionary logic, or reading peer-reviewed science literature that’s convinced King that dogs (as well as cats) feel deep grief. Interviews with astute pet owners for her upcoming book, How Animals Grieve, and the power of observation, has also led her to this conclusion.

Case in point: a grainy video posted on YouTube that captured the image of a scruffy terrier running onto a busy highway in Chile to rescue another dog, hit moments earlier, by a car. As vehicles whiz by the terrier, he instinctively wraps his paws around the injured dog, dragging him off the road to safety.

“When you look at that sort of example, again, you see that these dogs are thinking and feeling creatures, and that sets the stage for grief,” she said.

Through her research, King has found that in households with two dogs who’ve lived together for a number of years, some owners report that when one dog dies, the other gets depressed. Skeptics might point to a change in daily routine as the cause of depression or, perhaps, because the owner is upset and grieving. But King feels differently.

“The surviving dog is searching around the house for a lost companion — looking in favorite places, going to places that they spent with their friend, very pointed actions that tell you the dog is missing his friend,” she said.

In an effort to understand what dogs are thinking, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta are conducting brain scans of dogs using functional MRI (fMRI).

Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher on the project, hopes their work will reveal secrets of the dog-human relationship, from the dog’s perspective.

Even with high-tech tools, though, determining whether canines experience grief would be tough, he admitted, because he believes it’s unknown how grief looks in the human brain. If it were known, however, Berns said researchers could then look for this emotion in the dog but it would require showing pictures, perhaps movies, of the deceased human or canine.

“It would be fascinating to figure out,” said Berns, who normally uses fMRI technology to study how the human mind works. “If I were to speculate, I would guess that, like people, some dogs mourn and others don’t.”

King agrees. After all, she said, dogs possess unique personalities and react differently, even in the same situation. Whether a dog grieves hinges on a dynamic mix of life experiences, added King, including how they were raised and what their people or animal housemates were like.

If a pet mopes around the house after the death of a canine or human companion, Yin suggests the best thing owners can do is to get their dog’s mind off the loss by engaging their pet in fun activities such as a game of fetch, brisk walks and play dates with other pets. “The activity depends on what the dog historically likes,” she said.

Don’t expect a quick fix. It may take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, pet experts believe, before a dog’s spirits begin to lift.

15 Great Psychology Quotes and What Makes them Great

Posted on by JoeyDavid

Quotations can provide us with insight into understanding ourselves, inspiration for how to achieve greater personal fulfillment, and pointers for achieving our goals.  Famous psychologists tend to provide famous quotes, but psychologists don’t have a corner on the market when it comes to providing wisdom and inspiration.

I hope you agree that these 15 quotes are an excellent, if not eclectic, collection of sources of wisdom, inspiration, and good old practical advice!

 

Ophelia, by John William Waterhouse, 1894

1.  “We know what we are but not what we may be.”  Ophelia in Hamlet Shakespeare provides us with this inspirational quote. What may we be? We could be anything. We know our identity now but we could become whatever we want to be. The interesting feature of this quote is that Ophelia provides these encouraging words in a lengthy speech preceding her decision to end her life over the despair she experienced as a result of what she perceives as Hamlet’s , unjust condemnation of her (the “get thee to a nunnery” speech). The line that begins this memorable quote is: “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter…”  The context in which the quote occurs provides a certain irony but on its own, the idea that there are no limits to our potential are wonderful words to live by.

 2. “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 things that do not work.”  Thomas Edison  1847-1931

This inventive genius provides us with perspective on the ways in which our efforts may not seem to provide results. Persistence in the face of disappointment is the key to success. Reframing failure in terms of efforts that “do not work” can help keep you going until you find a solution that does.

3. “The brain is wider than the sky.” Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Writing well before brain science discovered that our nervous systems have the potential to make trillions of synaptic connections, Dickinson talked about the power of human imagination.  In our minds, we can travel anywhere in the universe or beyond.  Each of our brains can explore anything and expand to our maximum potential through our thoughts alone.

4. “Great spirits have often overcome violent opposition from mediocre minds.” Albert Einstein , (1879-1955)

Following up on Dickinson’s observations about the brain’s potential, it seems appropriate to talk about Albert Einstein. His brain did prove to be wider than the sky as he reinvented the way that we conceptualize space and time. As an aside, Einstein’s brain, which inadvertently landed on a shelf in Wichita, Kansas, was found to have several unusual features once it was scientifically studied. Einstein had a larger than average parietal lobe, which may have provided the neurological machinery  to help him create his revolutionary ideas about space. In any case, Einstein’s quote reminds us to keep true to our vision even if we encounter resistance.

5. “We are so made, that we can only derive intense enjoyment from a contrast and only very little from a state of things.” Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

It’s about time we had a quote from a psychologist, I guess. This gem by Freud provides insight into the human desire for novelty. Sameness is boring, change keeps us alive, according to Freud.  Although we tend to think of Freud as the champion of our biological motives, with this quote, we can count him now as an advocate for intrinsic motives as well.

6. “I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.” Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

If you didn’t know that Lincoln authored this quote, you might think that another Abraham-namely Abraham Maslow-was its author. According to Maslow’s self-actualization theory, we strive to achieve our inner potential which may or may not result in success. The “light we have” is our unique ability to become the best we can be.

7. “Don’t become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin.” Ivan Pavlov   (1849-1936)

Nobel-prize winning physiologist  Pavlov was certainly someone who penetrated the mysteries of behavior and this quote captures the essence of the scientific method. Whether or not you’re a scientist, looking beneath the surface is excellent advice. Understand the “mysteries” going on around you, can help you keep your brain and mind in top condition.

8. “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” William James (1842-1910)

Before you saw the name of the quote’s author, you may have guessed that it was uttered by Harvard professor Timothy Leary.  However, the psychedelic movement of the 1960s was foreshadowed by the explorations of William James, the “nitrous oxide philosopher.”  What makes this a great quote is not its advocacy for mind-altering drugs, in my opinion, but that we can alter our lives by altering the way we interpret the events in our lives. For more on this topic, we turn next to Hamlet.

9. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Hamlet has the distinction of being the Shakespearian role with the largest number of lines. His lines, like those of the play in general, are among the most quoted and quotable from a psychological point of view. I find this to be a great quote because of its relevance to cognitive theories of coping.   Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus, authors of Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, defined stress as the result of an appraisal that the threat of a challenge outweighs your perception of your ability to manage the threat.   This definition is now the cornerstone of cognitive stress theories. You can translate this quote into your life as suggesting that if you change your thoughts about a potentially threatening situation, you can also lower your stress.

 

10. “Colorless green ideas sleepfuriously.” Noam Chomsky (1928-  ) 

Is this a sentence, you ask? In Chomsky’s framework, yes it is. Chomsky pointed out that a sentence can be syntactically correct but semantically meaningless.  To translate this quote into your daily life, remember that if you’re not careful in your choice of language, you can also produce semantically meaningless sentences that have consequences other than what you intended such as the infamous “Stupid Sports Quotes.”

11.  “Education survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.” B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

The authors of great quotes often have dual interests.  Like Pavlov and James, B.F. Skinner dabbled in areas outside of his own discipline. Skinner developed a philosophy of education that he expressed in his book “Walden Two.” According to Skinner, you can build a society entirely on the basis of positive reinforcement. In this quote about education, Skinner expresses the sentiment that resonates with all teachers.  We can teach you the specifics of our subject matter, but we hope, on a larger scale, to inspire you to seek continued enlightenment: a love of learning for the sake of learning.

12.    “There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding.” Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

Erikson’s observations about human development paved the way for psychologists to think about life-span development at a time when the considered wisdom emphasized childhood as the only real time for growth and change. Taking the standard psychodynamic perspective and translating it into a biopsychosocial framework spurred research and theory on such topics as identity and generativity. The “miracle” of “vigorous unfolding” provides a metaphor that we now understand as the potential for continued evolution of personality over time. We aren’t complete by the time we are 5 or 12 years old. We can continue to evolve throughout life as we encounter new experiences and stimuli for greater understanding of ourselves and others.