We will continue to get into some audio instruction, this time on the first step of three (4, 5, 6) in the second phase of courtship—Emotional Attraction. And how Romantic Dynamics® works at the beginning of phase two. We will then cover each of the remaining five steps of courtship out of the nine total in their audios.

In this fourth lesson, and each one thereafter, I will list the notes I’ve used to give speeches to my classes on these steps, so I will use those as we go along.

I wanted you to have them here so that you can see what I’m addressing in the audio.

An Overview of Romantic Dynamics®:

The Nine Steps of Courtship

▪ Step 4 - Finding Value in Each Other

▪ Emotional Attraction

▪ The Emotional Bond

▪ Arousal is on a spectrum from low to high, from “danger” to “sexual.”

▪ Likewise, friendship is on a spectrum from low to high

▪ Friendship, we can say right now in our definition, is "consistent, mutual, shared positive emotion" and parallels the 3 part definition of Aristotle.

▪ Friendship quality also depends on character maturity, and you can see that it operates within the four factors above.

▪ Why We "Like" Each Other

▪ LIKING Vs. LOVING

▪ We “like” those who “like” us back.

▪ We “like” those who “are like” us in similarity.

▪ It’s “familiarity” and “I scratch your back; you scratch mine.”

▪ So we can “like” each other without sacrificing ourselves to make each other happy.

▪ In “love,” we make each other happy but may have to trade off sacrifices: something that requires generosity, trust, and maturity.

▪ Commonality

▪ Reciprocal altruism

▪ Why We "Love" Each Other

▪ MARRIAGE: FRIENDS FOREVER

▪ Finding “close friendship” with your spouse leads to increased happiness, according to a 2014 study by the National Bureau of Economics

▪ Couples that actively celebrated good news (rather than actively or passively dismissed it) have had a higher rate of relationship well-being.

▪ The “honeymoon phase,” with its "high levels of passionate love" and "intense feelings of attraction,” lasts about a year, according to a 2005 study by the University of Pavia, Italy.

▪ Being “useful” requires being reliable. Therefore, friendship must be “consistent.” This doesn’t mean a 144-word sentence uttered vaguely at each other every blue moon. Being “mutual” doesn’t mean “being identical.” It requires that we make team up and make mature, joint decisions in our lives - decisions that are wise and fair in behavior. Words are just words. Perhaps your grandmother once said, “You can’t judge a book by its cover. That applies here. Here, we can define “mutual” as something more collaborative, creative, and complex than, “I scratch your back, and you scratch mine.”

▪ If we were to decode Aristotle’s meaning of “good,” we might say in “good character,” which, as we have been discovering, requires many features of maturity - good boundaries, ethics and morality of decisions, and other adult behaviors.  Not online bullying or negativity, gossip, or any other crass behavior that is so very common on social media.

▪ Finally, being “pleasant” is another way of saying that friends share positive emotions and promote happiness in each other.

▪ Why We Are "In Love With" Each Other

▪ Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec said, “Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.”

▪ He also said, “I have tried to do what is true and not ideal.”

▪ This is the most that we can hope for in love, and it is the best that we can experience - that love is messy and imperfect, which is the wonder of it. In this way, we may always enjoy and desire the striving for love’s perfection without ever needing to reach it perfectly.

▪ One of the most common phrases said by a person breaking up a relationship is, “I love you, but I am not in love.” This is said so often that we sometimes say it as an automatic default. It may be so, but some of us still know it to be true and accurate emotionally. We feel happy about a person, but something is “missing.”

▪ Why We "Hate" Each Other

▪ The English word for “Hell” is derived from an Indo-European word meaning "to cover," which is associated with burial, and by extension, with a "place of the dead." The three questions commonly asked about it are:

▪ Is it temporary or permanent?

▪ Is it a state of consciousness or lack of consciousness?

▪ Why do some people go there?

▪ Hell is Pathological Narcissism

▪ Consider monster myths and Zombie movies

▪ Friendship

▪ Consistent

▪ Relates to the quality of personal boundaries

▪ is a fit for committed and lasting relationships, planning (for success), loyalty, and all the other personal boundary aspects

▪ Forms a foundation on which a story can be built - like the theme of a story

▪ An island of safety to return to

▪ Mutual

▪ Mutual means "fair" - win/win, not win/lose

▪ It is part of what fails when there is narcissism or dependency

▪ It is what fails when there is a mismatch of maturity, the requirement for both quality friendship and lasting partnership

▪ Balance, which is also "health" as far as emotions go

▪ Evolutionarily advantageous, Reciprocal Altruism

▪ Shared

▪ Means "in person" and forms the basis for making a team for two and testing that.

▪ We are wired for in-person socializing and romance, not email, texts, or tweets.

▪ also lends ownership

▪ also prevents projection and other immature ego defenses that we see operating when people communicate electronically

▪ Positive Emotion

▪ Not the Emo Club, which is based on negativity and is weak

▪ Is synonymous with happiness, value, and self-esteem

▪ Note the difference between good sex and happiness or between success and happiness

▪ They can co-occur but do not naturally lead to each other, except in the case of Csikshentimihalyi's FLOW STATE, caused by balance and alignment of the cognitive, emotional and passion-based

▪ Means that depressed and anxious people are not good friends while in the throes of their problem

▪ Value and Investment

▪ Value = Happiness

▪ Value = happiness, but value = worth of something

▪ Is dynamic and changing

▪ Can have a "drain" or "siphon" on it, but also a "feeder"

▪ For example, one's circle of friends outside the romance

▪ Or the well-being that comes from income to a degree

▪ Family

▪ What Goes In Must Come Out

▪ the second law of thermodynamics - that energy is neither created nor destroyed

▪ if you are a taker, the chickens will come home to roost someday

▪ Like a credit card

▪ Beliefs

▪ composed of ideas with emotion

▪ and so values are a part of beliefs in that they are an emotional valence

▪ tabletop model, with

▪ idea

▪ evidence

▪ emotional glue

▪ sense of reality and what is real

▪ Optimizing Investment

▪ Consider what people consider a 'bargain"

▪ Vs. what people consider a "ripoff"

▪ How many relationships have you been in that were a bargain?

▪ How many were ripoffs?

▪ The former had positive emotions and value

▪ The latter drained your positive emotion and value

▪ Self-esteem

▪ Positive Emotional Energy

▪ Depression and anxiety have low self-esteem

▪ Well-being and Confidence are the two flavors of high self-esteem

▪ Stress is "negative self-esteem" and is composed of

▪ Hurt

▪ And Loss

▪ The Opposite of Stress

▪ Hurt outside if through the boundary causes ANGER, which can lead to violence or depression

▪ Loss outside if through boundary causes ANXIETY, which can lead to addiction or worry/panic and masochism

▪ Stress is unhappiness

▪ Happiness, self-esteem, value, and friendship relieve stress

▪ if anger is in you, it's yours and drains your well-being

▪ If anxiety is in you, it's yours and drains your confidence

▪ Well-being

▪ The sense of being full or having one's needs met, fed well, mothered

▪ Enables your engine to run cool and to be efficient without waste

▪ Confidence

▪ The state of being able to withstand risk, change, or loss, to be fathered

▪ The energy of action, getting things done

▪ The Four Laws of Emotional Dynamics

▪ The 1st Law

▪ Love = Happiness = Self-esteem = Well-being + Confidence

▪ Identity

▪ Oxytocin and Well-being

▪ Vasopressin and Confidence

▪ The Chemistry of Couples

▪ The 2nd Law

▪ Stress = Hurt + Loss

▪ Hurt

▪ Loss

▪ The 3rd Law

▪ Unhappiness = Anger + Anxiety

▪ Anger = Hurt that gets in you

▪ Anxiety = Loss that gets in you

▪ The 4th Law

▪ Unhappiness has three directions

▪ Passiveness, Destructiveness, and Constructiveness

▪ Anger = Depression + Aggression + Assertiveness

▪ Anxiety = Impulsive Avoidance + Masochism + Courage

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