Sonja Lyubomirsky

I mean, sometimes people really do dislike others for certain traits or behaviors.

But we do it, we sort of overdo it.

We do it too much.

And one of the keys to feeling loved is being known to the other.

And if you're hiding...

you know, your vulnerabilities, your contradictions, your sort of messy insights from the other person, you won't feel love because you'll always wonder if they really knew me, then they wouldn't love me.

And it turns out that we often, when we disclose or show some of those contradictions or blemishes at the right pace, right?

We don't sort of dump them all at once when the person already knows us a little bit.

We often actually better liked.

You know, there's this famous case when JFK, after the Bay of Pigs, admitted to making a mistake and his approval ratings shot up.

So sometimes admitting failures can actually increase people's liking of us.

So you feel admired.

You feel, yeah, like you're impressed.

You're impressed at the other person, but you don't actually feel loved.

When you think about the definition of unconditional love, I mean, that's basically what unconditional love is, is that we're loved despite our blemishes and some of our flaws.

Yeah, it's performance.

And, you know, it's very human.

You know, we all do it.

And maybe that's part of the kind of social lubricant that is part of a conversation.

But really, by the way, I think conversations are really the key to feeling loved.