Affection
You feel affection when you see or hear familiar people.
The longer you have known someone, the stronger the affection you feel when see or hear them. Your family and old friends make you feel the strongest affection - you've known them the longest.
If you don’t get enough affection every day, you will feel loneliness.
Affection and loneliness operate in the same manner as eating and hunger. If you don’t eat every day, you feel hunger. And the longer it has been since you have eaten, the stronger hunger becomes. Hunger stops when you eat. Similarly, if you don’t get enough affection every day, you feel loneliness. And the longer it has been since you have felt affection, the stronger loneliness becomes. Loneliness stops when you feel affection.
If you cry, you’re not getting enough affection.
Crying here refers to tears running down your face, not wailing or other sounds.
Crying is only directly caused by one emotion – loneliness. Crying can be indirectly caused by any strong emotion - if crying has been suppressed previously. Crying is often suppressed because it suggests emotional fragility. Suppressed crying is released later when a strong emotion mentally distracts you from continuing the suppression. Happy crying occurs when suppressed crying is released by a strong positive emotion, such as pride or affection. Oscar winners, for example, cry during acceptance speeches. People cry when meeting loved ones at the airport.
If you cry, you're lonely – it doesn’t matter what emotion you are feeling when you cry. And if you're lonely, you are not getting enough affection.
You can use crying to learn how much affection you need.
It’s hard to know if you are getting enough affection. Affection is hard to mentally separate from other positive emotions. Even if you could separate it, it’s hard to know what volume or strength of the affection you are getting.
You could use loneliness to know you’re not getting enough affection. However, loneliness is also hard to mentally separate from other negative emotions. By the time you might be able to separate it, it will be so strong you will be unhappy.
Crying is a reliable and easy way to learn how much affection you need. If you cry occasionally, increase the amount of affection you get and see if the crying stops. If the crying continues keep adding more affection until the crying stops.
Most people are not getting enough affection.
Most people release suppressed crying when confronted with a strong emotion. Most people, for example, will cry when watching tear jerker movies.
It’s not surprising that we’re not getting enough affection. In the ancient past, we spent virtually all of our lives with our families and friends – our most important sources of affection. Now we only spend a few hours a day with families or friends. Instead, we spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work with people we have known for minutes or months, not years or decades.
There are 4 ways to get more affection.
You could interact with more familiar people. You could, for example, arrange to meet on a weekly basis with another friend or family member.
You could spend more time with the familiar people you already interact with. Each week, you could spend another night out with friends or another weekend afternoon with family members.
You could also shift your time to more familiar people. You could spend less time with casual friends and more time with your best friends or family members.
Lastly, you could be more intimate when with familiar people. The more intimate your interaction, the stronger the affection you feel. You feel weak affection when you are sitting beside somebody watching a movie. You feel much stronger affection when you are facing someone having a meal together. You feel particularly strong affection when you make eye contact or see them smiling at you.
You can also get affection from alternatives to real people.
Recorded or transmitted people make you feel affection. Listening to voice mail from your friends or popular radio personalities makes you feel affection. Watching family videos or your favorite sitcom also makes you feel affection.
Pets make you feel affection. Pets make us feel affection because they spend a lot of time with us and have features that are similar to humans. We both have stereoscopic vision and routinely make eye contact with each other. Like humans, the longer you have known a pet, the stronger the affection they make you feel.
Music makes you feel affection. And the more familiar the music, the stronger the affection. You can always count on an oldie to make you feel affection. Music with vocals makes you feel stronger affection than purely instrumental music. Also, you feel stronger affection when you dance or sing along to music.
You cannot get affection from texting, emails or social networking.
You only feel affection when you see or hear somebody or a recorded version of somebody. A text, email, tweet or posting is just typed communication from somebody, not their image or voice.
It is easy to think you are getting affection when you are social networking. You are intensively and frequently interacting with many people. However, you are not getting what counts – the sight or sound of somebody. You are just getting their typed thoughts or clicked preferences.
The vast amount of time spent social networking has probably led to a significant increase in loneliness. People are replacing real interaction with digital interaction.
You can get most, but not all of the affection you need from alternatives to real people.
Getting affection from real people requires work. You have to coordinate your timing and location with the other person. And the other person might be late or not show. In addition, real people can also make you feel negative emotions like revenge, envy or humiliation.
Alternatives to real people are a much easier way to get affection. You don’t have to coordinate when and where you meet. You just watch TV or walk your dog when and where you want to. And there is no risk you will feel negative emotions.
Unfortunately, alternatives alone cannot provide enough affection to avoid loneliness. The affection you get from alternatives is weaker than the affection you get from real people. If you only got your affection from alternatives you would be lonely. You have to get at least some of your affection from real people.
Alternatives are a good source for most of your affection. The more you get from alternatives, the less you need from less convenient real people. This is why pets keep growing in popularity – people find them to a better way to get their affection than real people.
Affection is all that remains when romance ends.
When a couple “falls in love”, men feel monogynic love and women feel infatuation. Men stop feeling monogynic love 46 months after meeting a woman. Women stop being infatuated with a man 8 months after meeting him. Both men and women feel affection during this period which starts very weak but grows to be moderately strong after a few years of frequent interaction.
Although affection can grow to be moderately strong, it is never as strong as monogynic love or infatuation. Consequently, couples feel a drop in their feelings when monogynic love and infatuation end. The fireworks are followed by a weaker form of “love”.
In addition to being weaker than monogynic love and infatuation, affection does not motivate either person to please the other person like the romantic emotions do. Monogynic love rewards men for making their women happy. Infatuation rewards women for being sexually appealing to their men. Affection only rewards men and women for being with each other. You feel affection when you are with someone – whether they are happy or not. Couples who fight are making each other feel affection. They are facing each other and talking.
Affection is important to deciding whether to continue a relationship.
Once the fireworks end, romantic partners question whether to continue the relationship. If they stay together, they will be settling for the moderately strong emotion of affection. However, that affection will keep slowly growing stronger.
If they split and find a new partner, they will again feel the much stronger emotions of monogynic love or infatuation. But those fireworks will end – as they did before. And then they are just left with affection again. But that affection will not be as strong as the affection they would be feeling if they stayed with their previous partner.
Most people enjoy the roller-coaster of many romantic partners when they are younger and then switch mid-life to growing affection with one partner. When you are younger, romantic emotions are irresistible and the long term is unimportant. As you get older, the romantic emotions are easier to resist and affection becomes a more important source of happiness.
Deciding when to switch is an important life decision. The later you switch, the more you enjoy the romantic emotions early in life. The earlier you switch, the more you enjoy affection later in life.
Add more affection if you lose a source.
You will lose sources of affection – permanently and temporarily. You will permanently lose affection, for example, when you end a romantic relationship or retire from a full-time job. You will temporarily lose all your sources of affection if you take an overnight business trip. If you don’t compensate for these losses, you will become lonely and unhappy.
Permanent reductions require permanent solutions. Temporary reductions can be solved with temporary solutions. If you lose a romantic partner or full-time job, then find a new partner or job. If you are on an overnight business trip, use Skype or Facetime.
Friends are better sources of affection than siblings.
Siblings are obviously sources of strong affection – you’ve known them since childhood. Friends can also be sources of strong affection – if you’ve known them for many years. Siblings will make you feel stronger affection than friends but the difference is slight for old friends.
Envy is unavoidable with siblings. Envy is strongest with siblings. Even a slight difference in rank causes strong envy. If your rank has risen, your siblings will feel it. If your sibling’s rank has risen, you will feel it. That envy will make it difficult for you and your sibling to enjoy affection.
Envy is avoidable with friends. If your rank has risen, you can avoid envy by socializing with friends that share your new higher rank. If your rank has not risen, you can avoid envy by socializing with friends whose rank has not risen.
Friends try harder than siblings. Friends assume that you will socialize with new friends if they are poor friends. Consequently, they work at being good friends – being polite, punctual or interesting for example. Siblings assume that you “love” them and will always socialize with them – even if they are the equivalent of poor friends. Consequently, they don’t work as hard as friends do.
When people say they "love" someone, they usually mean they feel affection.
Love is a strong positive emotion you feel when you conclude that your loved one is happy. At any given moment, only three relationships involve love and only for a limited time. Mothers love for each child for 33 months old. Grandmothers love each grandchild for 33 months old. Men love women for 42 months. (Women are infatuated with a man 8 months.)
All other relationships are based on affection. Couples together more than 46 months only feel affection for each other. Mothers only feel affection for children older than 33 months. Grandmothers only feel affection for grandchildren older than 33 months. Children only feel affection for their parents or siblings. Fathers only feel affection for their children. Grandfathers only feel affection for their grandchildren. Friends only feel affection for friends.
Affection is probably the best source of happiness.
When you look at the happiness menu, you’ll see that all of the positive emotions have at least one major drawback – except affection.
Affection never ends. You can keep feeling affection as long as you interact with a familiar person. This is not true for any other positive emotion with one exception. As mentioned above, you only feel the romantic and parental emotions for limited durations for each partner or child. You only feel pride while your higher rank seems new. You only feel humor the first time you hear a joke or gossip. You only enjoy sex or food for brief moments – during orgasm or eating. You only enjoy excitement while scenery is novel to you. The other emotion that never ends is pleasing scenery. As long as you look at lush scenes, you feel its positive effect.
Affection is easy to get. You just need to be with other people, look at each other and talk about anything. The other positive emotions and sensations require work with one exception. Parenting emotions entail raising a child. Romance emotions require courtship. Sex and food sensations require a lot of preparation, physical activity and clean-up. Novel scenery requires traveling. The other emotion that is easy to get is pleasing scenery. You just need to walk to a park.
Affection cannot be overdone. There is no risk of getting too much affection, which is not true for other positive emotions – with one exception. If you pursue parental emotions too much, you’ll end up with a family you cannot afford or manage. If you pursue romantic emotions too much, you’ll end up with a string of exes and alimony payments. If you pursue sex too much, you risk an STD. If you purse food too much, you could end up overweight or diabetic. You risk harm when if you travel frequently to see novel scenery. The other emotion that cannot be overdone is pleasing scenery. You cannot overdo walking to the park.
Affection can be strong. Affection is not as strong as love, infatuation, pride, humor, sex, pleasing taste or excitement. However, it can become moderately strong if you have known someone for many years. And that affection is stronger than pleasing scenery. You happily talk about nothing with old friends for hours, but you don't stare at parks for hours.
You smile involuntarily when you feel strong affection.
You smile involuntarily, for example, when you make eye contact with an old friend and hear them talk.
Smiling is self-reinforcing. If you see an old friend smile, it makes you feel strong affection which makes you smile. Your old friend then sees you smile, which makes him feel strong affection and makes him smile again. You see him smile again which . . .
Like crying, involuntarily smiling is a useful indicator you can learn from.
Only two emotions cause you to smile involuntarily: affection and pride. The two smiles can be separated. Affection-smiling is a grin that usually lasts less than a second. Pride-smiling is teeth-showing beaming that usually lasts a few seconds. Affection-smiling only occurs when interacting directly with people. Pride-smiling typically occurs when you are thinking about a success. People never try to hide affection-smiling. People often try to hide their pride-smiles.
You can use affection-smiling to understand what makes you feel the strongest affection. Keep track of what you are doing or who you were with when you affection-smile. Then do more of that activity or spend more time with that person. The more you focus on these sources of affection, the less interaction you need to avoid loneliness.
You may need to learn to separate voluntary from involuntary smiling. Voluntary smiling can be separated because you will be aware of it. You will recognize that you are using the salesman's smile.
Popular people are good at making others feel affection.
When socializing, there are three positive emotions you can make others feel: pride, humor or affection. Compliments make others feel pride. Jokes make them feel humor. Interacting in any way makes them feel affection.
It’s difficult to make someone feel pride or humor on an ongoing basis. People only feel pride when you elevate their rank. You cannot keep elevating someone’s rank indefinitely. Jokes or gossip only make someone feel humor the first time you tell them. And it’s not possible to have endless supply of new jokes or gossip.
Affection is the smart way to make someone feel positive emotions on an ongoing basis. The more you interact with them, the stronger the affection they feel. And all you have to do is interact - no insightful compliment or witty jokes required. Just asking them questions about them does it.
It’s easy to be popular. The people that have made it a habit to smile and make eye-contact while talking to others are the people that everybody likes.
The longer you have known someone, the stronger the affection you feel when see or hear them. Your family and old friends make you feel the strongest affection - you've known them the longest.
If you don’t get enough affection every day, you will feel loneliness.
Affection and loneliness operate in the same manner as eating and hunger. If you don’t eat every day, you feel hunger. And the longer it has been since you have eaten, the stronger hunger becomes. Hunger stops when you eat. Similarly, if you don’t get enough affection every day, you feel loneliness. And the longer it has been since you have felt affection, the stronger loneliness becomes. Loneliness stops when you feel affection.
If you cry, you’re not getting enough affection.
Crying here refers to tears running down your face, not wailing or other sounds.
Crying is only directly caused by one emotion – loneliness. Crying can be indirectly caused by any strong emotion - if crying has been suppressed previously. Crying is often suppressed because it suggests emotional fragility. Suppressed crying is released later when a strong emotion mentally distracts you from continuing the suppression. Happy crying occurs when suppressed crying is released by a strong positive emotion, such as pride or affection. Oscar winners, for example, cry during acceptance speeches. People cry when meeting loved ones at the airport.
If you cry, you're lonely – it doesn’t matter what emotion you are feeling when you cry. And if you're lonely, you are not getting enough affection.
You can use crying to learn how much affection you need.
It’s hard to know if you are getting enough affection. Affection is hard to mentally separate from other positive emotions. Even if you could separate it, it’s hard to know what volume or strength of the affection you are getting.
You could use loneliness to know you’re not getting enough affection. However, loneliness is also hard to mentally separate from other negative emotions. By the time you might be able to separate it, it will be so strong you will be unhappy.
Crying is a reliable and easy way to learn how much affection you need. If you cry occasionally, increase the amount of affection you get and see if the crying stops. If the crying continues keep adding more affection until the crying stops.
Most people are not getting enough affection.
Most people release suppressed crying when confronted with a strong emotion. Most people, for example, will cry when watching tear jerker movies.
It’s not surprising that we’re not getting enough affection. In the ancient past, we spent virtually all of our lives with our families and friends – our most important sources of affection. Now we only spend a few hours a day with families or friends. Instead, we spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work with people we have known for minutes or months, not years or decades.
There are 4 ways to get more affection.
You could interact with more familiar people. You could, for example, arrange to meet on a weekly basis with another friend or family member.
You could spend more time with the familiar people you already interact with. Each week, you could spend another night out with friends or another weekend afternoon with family members.
You could also shift your time to more familiar people. You could spend less time with casual friends and more time with your best friends or family members.
Lastly, you could be more intimate when with familiar people. The more intimate your interaction, the stronger the affection you feel. You feel weak affection when you are sitting beside somebody watching a movie. You feel much stronger affection when you are facing someone having a meal together. You feel particularly strong affection when you make eye contact or see them smiling at you.
You can also get affection from alternatives to real people.
Recorded or transmitted people make you feel affection. Listening to voice mail from your friends or popular radio personalities makes you feel affection. Watching family videos or your favorite sitcom also makes you feel affection.
Pets make you feel affection. Pets make us feel affection because they spend a lot of time with us and have features that are similar to humans. We both have stereoscopic vision and routinely make eye contact with each other. Like humans, the longer you have known a pet, the stronger the affection they make you feel.
Music makes you feel affection. And the more familiar the music, the stronger the affection. You can always count on an oldie to make you feel affection. Music with vocals makes you feel stronger affection than purely instrumental music. Also, you feel stronger affection when you dance or sing along to music.
You cannot get affection from texting, emails or social networking.
You only feel affection when you see or hear somebody or a recorded version of somebody. A text, email, tweet or posting is just typed communication from somebody, not their image or voice.
It is easy to think you are getting affection when you are social networking. You are intensively and frequently interacting with many people. However, you are not getting what counts – the sight or sound of somebody. You are just getting their typed thoughts or clicked preferences.
The vast amount of time spent social networking has probably led to a significant increase in loneliness. People are replacing real interaction with digital interaction.
You can get most, but not all of the affection you need from alternatives to real people.
Getting affection from real people requires work. You have to coordinate your timing and location with the other person. And the other person might be late or not show. In addition, real people can also make you feel negative emotions like revenge, envy or humiliation.
Alternatives to real people are a much easier way to get affection. You don’t have to coordinate when and where you meet. You just watch TV or walk your dog when and where you want to. And there is no risk you will feel negative emotions.
Unfortunately, alternatives alone cannot provide enough affection to avoid loneliness. The affection you get from alternatives is weaker than the affection you get from real people. If you only got your affection from alternatives you would be lonely. You have to get at least some of your affection from real people.
Alternatives are a good source for most of your affection. The more you get from alternatives, the less you need from less convenient real people. This is why pets keep growing in popularity – people find them to a better way to get their affection than real people.
Affection is all that remains when romance ends.
When a couple “falls in love”, men feel monogynic love and women feel infatuation. Men stop feeling monogynic love 46 months after meeting a woman. Women stop being infatuated with a man 8 months after meeting him. Both men and women feel affection during this period which starts very weak but grows to be moderately strong after a few years of frequent interaction.
Although affection can grow to be moderately strong, it is never as strong as monogynic love or infatuation. Consequently, couples feel a drop in their feelings when monogynic love and infatuation end. The fireworks are followed by a weaker form of “love”.
In addition to being weaker than monogynic love and infatuation, affection does not motivate either person to please the other person like the romantic emotions do. Monogynic love rewards men for making their women happy. Infatuation rewards women for being sexually appealing to their men. Affection only rewards men and women for being with each other. You feel affection when you are with someone – whether they are happy or not. Couples who fight are making each other feel affection. They are facing each other and talking.
Affection is important to deciding whether to continue a relationship.
Once the fireworks end, romantic partners question whether to continue the relationship. If they stay together, they will be settling for the moderately strong emotion of affection. However, that affection will keep slowly growing stronger.
If they split and find a new partner, they will again feel the much stronger emotions of monogynic love or infatuation. But those fireworks will end – as they did before. And then they are just left with affection again. But that affection will not be as strong as the affection they would be feeling if they stayed with their previous partner.
Most people enjoy the roller-coaster of many romantic partners when they are younger and then switch mid-life to growing affection with one partner. When you are younger, romantic emotions are irresistible and the long term is unimportant. As you get older, the romantic emotions are easier to resist and affection becomes a more important source of happiness.
Deciding when to switch is an important life decision. The later you switch, the more you enjoy the romantic emotions early in life. The earlier you switch, the more you enjoy affection later in life.
Add more affection if you lose a source.
You will lose sources of affection – permanently and temporarily. You will permanently lose affection, for example, when you end a romantic relationship or retire from a full-time job. You will temporarily lose all your sources of affection if you take an overnight business trip. If you don’t compensate for these losses, you will become lonely and unhappy.
Permanent reductions require permanent solutions. Temporary reductions can be solved with temporary solutions. If you lose a romantic partner or full-time job, then find a new partner or job. If you are on an overnight business trip, use Skype or Facetime.
Friends are better sources of affection than siblings.
Siblings are obviously sources of strong affection – you’ve known them since childhood. Friends can also be sources of strong affection – if you’ve known them for many years. Siblings will make you feel stronger affection than friends but the difference is slight for old friends.
Envy is unavoidable with siblings. Envy is strongest with siblings. Even a slight difference in rank causes strong envy. If your rank has risen, your siblings will feel it. If your sibling’s rank has risen, you will feel it. That envy will make it difficult for you and your sibling to enjoy affection.
Envy is avoidable with friends. If your rank has risen, you can avoid envy by socializing with friends that share your new higher rank. If your rank has not risen, you can avoid envy by socializing with friends whose rank has not risen.
Friends try harder than siblings. Friends assume that you will socialize with new friends if they are poor friends. Consequently, they work at being good friends – being polite, punctual or interesting for example. Siblings assume that you “love” them and will always socialize with them – even if they are the equivalent of poor friends. Consequently, they don’t work as hard as friends do.
When people say they "love" someone, they usually mean they feel affection.
Love is a strong positive emotion you feel when you conclude that your loved one is happy. At any given moment, only three relationships involve love and only for a limited time. Mothers love for each child for 33 months old. Grandmothers love each grandchild for 33 months old. Men love women for 42 months. (Women are infatuated with a man 8 months.)
All other relationships are based on affection. Couples together more than 46 months only feel affection for each other. Mothers only feel affection for children older than 33 months. Grandmothers only feel affection for grandchildren older than 33 months. Children only feel affection for their parents or siblings. Fathers only feel affection for their children. Grandfathers only feel affection for their grandchildren. Friends only feel affection for friends.
Affection is probably the best source of happiness.
When you look at the happiness menu, you’ll see that all of the positive emotions have at least one major drawback – except affection.
Affection never ends. You can keep feeling affection as long as you interact with a familiar person. This is not true for any other positive emotion with one exception. As mentioned above, you only feel the romantic and parental emotions for limited durations for each partner or child. You only feel pride while your higher rank seems new. You only feel humor the first time you hear a joke or gossip. You only enjoy sex or food for brief moments – during orgasm or eating. You only enjoy excitement while scenery is novel to you. The other emotion that never ends is pleasing scenery. As long as you look at lush scenes, you feel its positive effect.
Affection is easy to get. You just need to be with other people, look at each other and talk about anything. The other positive emotions and sensations require work with one exception. Parenting emotions entail raising a child. Romance emotions require courtship. Sex and food sensations require a lot of preparation, physical activity and clean-up. Novel scenery requires traveling. The other emotion that is easy to get is pleasing scenery. You just need to walk to a park.
Affection cannot be overdone. There is no risk of getting too much affection, which is not true for other positive emotions – with one exception. If you pursue parental emotions too much, you’ll end up with a family you cannot afford or manage. If you pursue romantic emotions too much, you’ll end up with a string of exes and alimony payments. If you pursue sex too much, you risk an STD. If you purse food too much, you could end up overweight or diabetic. You risk harm when if you travel frequently to see novel scenery. The other emotion that cannot be overdone is pleasing scenery. You cannot overdo walking to the park.
Affection can be strong. Affection is not as strong as love, infatuation, pride, humor, sex, pleasing taste or excitement. However, it can become moderately strong if you have known someone for many years. And that affection is stronger than pleasing scenery. You happily talk about nothing with old friends for hours, but you don't stare at parks for hours.
You smile involuntarily when you feel strong affection.
You smile involuntarily, for example, when you make eye contact with an old friend and hear them talk.
Smiling is self-reinforcing. If you see an old friend smile, it makes you feel strong affection which makes you smile. Your old friend then sees you smile, which makes him feel strong affection and makes him smile again. You see him smile again which . . .
Like crying, involuntarily smiling is a useful indicator you can learn from.
Only two emotions cause you to smile involuntarily: affection and pride. The two smiles can be separated. Affection-smiling is a grin that usually lasts less than a second. Pride-smiling is teeth-showing beaming that usually lasts a few seconds. Affection-smiling only occurs when interacting directly with people. Pride-smiling typically occurs when you are thinking about a success. People never try to hide affection-smiling. People often try to hide their pride-smiles.
You can use affection-smiling to understand what makes you feel the strongest affection. Keep track of what you are doing or who you were with when you affection-smile. Then do more of that activity or spend more time with that person. The more you focus on these sources of affection, the less interaction you need to avoid loneliness.
You may need to learn to separate voluntary from involuntary smiling. Voluntary smiling can be separated because you will be aware of it. You will recognize that you are using the salesman's smile.
Popular people are good at making others feel affection.
When socializing, there are three positive emotions you can make others feel: pride, humor or affection. Compliments make others feel pride. Jokes make them feel humor. Interacting in any way makes them feel affection.
It’s difficult to make someone feel pride or humor on an ongoing basis. People only feel pride when you elevate their rank. You cannot keep elevating someone’s rank indefinitely. Jokes or gossip only make someone feel humor the first time you tell them. And it’s not possible to have endless supply of new jokes or gossip.
Affection is the smart way to make someone feel positive emotions on an ongoing basis. The more you interact with them, the stronger the affection they feel. And all you have to do is interact - no insightful compliment or witty jokes required. Just asking them questions about them does it.
It’s easy to be popular. The people that have made it a habit to smile and make eye-contact while talking to others are the people that everybody likes.
For more about emotions, visit: Happiness Dissected