Sonja Lyubomirsky

Love among friends, neighbors.

My friends and I often say, I love you to each other.

And people are confused.

I'll be on the phone and I'll say, I love you so much.

And I hang up the phone and my kids are like, who are you talking to?

And I'm like, that's my friend.

Because I love my friends very much.

So we define love very broadly.

That's exactly right.

It is very common to not feel loved, at least maybe even during a period of time during a romantic relationship.

It may be in a particular domain of that relationship, maybe certain activities you do together that you sort of don't feel loved by your partner.

Maybe when they don't do chores in the house, you don't feel loved by them, or they don't respond to your texts, you don't feel loved by them.

So I do think it's extremely common.

Often it's not being invited.

Actually, that was a very common one, not being invited to something, sort of not being included to maybe a social event.

Not remembering something important to you.

I think feeling loved is very highly related to sort of feeling understood.

And so when people feel like, I'm not really seen, I'm not understood, that this person never asked me about something.

you know, this passion of mine.

Forgetting a birthday, you know, often it's those kinds of events that really, like, drive it home.