"To decide to romantically cohabitate with another person for the rest of your life, to make a family with that person, is to go to war. To borrow the language of my mother — you had best love their dirty drawers, because you will be seeing them."
Exploring the American Idea since 1857. Run by Chris Heller and Alessandra Ram The Atlantic Twitter In Focus From the Archives
Ask
Submit
April 2, 2013
January 25, 2013
![There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting Love (According to Science)
It is what she calls a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.” She means that love is a connection, characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person—any other person—whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day. You can experience these micro-moments with your romantic partner, child, or close friend. But you can also fall in love, however momentarily, with less likely candidates, like a stranger on the street, a colleague at work, or an attendant at a grocery store. Louis Armstrong put it best in “It’s a Wonderful World” when he sang, “I see friends shaking hands, sayin ‘how do you do?’ / They’re really sayin’, ‘I love you.’”
Read more. [Image: Paramount Pictures]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/32b080c4068cfcf0fb5731b42fb58b4e/tumblr_mh6vluedRx1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting Love (According to Science)
It is what she calls a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.” She means that love is a connection, characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person—any other person—whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day. You can experience these micro-moments with your romantic partner, child, or close friend. But you can also fall in love, however momentarily, with less likely candidates, like a stranger on the street, a colleague at work, or an attendant at a grocery store. Louis Armstrong put it best in “It’s a Wonderful World” when he sang, “I see friends shaking hands, sayin ‘how do you do?’ / They’re really sayin’, ‘I love you.’”
Read more. [Image: Paramount Pictures]
November 28, 2012
November 12, 2012
Besos, Frida: Letters From Great Artists to Their Friends and Family
Here’s what happened when 12 visual artists turned to the written word to express themselves.
[Images: not shaking the grass, Archives of American Art, Brain Pickings]
August 24, 2012
August 23, 2012
![Boys on the Side: How Hookup Culture Affects Women
Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s—are for the first time in history more successful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
Read more. [Image: Emiliano Granado]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m97ucoV5eD1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Boys on the Side: How Hookup Culture Affects Women
Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s—are for the first time in history more successful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
Read more. [Image: Emiliano Granado]
August 8, 2012
May 24, 2012
![Love in the Time of Syrian Revolution
When Farah said goodnight to her boyfriend one evening in January 2007, she had every reason to expect to see him the next day. Though she’d only been dating Omar for a month, the two students at Syria’s Damascus University already shared a special connection. Their first date had been over coffee. Soon, they were wearing matching clothes. “See you tomorrow,” they told each other that evening. But that “tomorrow” would not come for five turbulent years.
When Farah called him the next day, Omar did not answer. She looked for him in the dormitory and asked his friends, but no one would tell her where he was. She began to suspect that Omar, who was several years older and claimed to occasionally “travel,” had been playing games with their relationship. “I was angry, hated him a lot, and did not forgive him,” she recalled.
What she only learned later was that, in the early hours of the morning, eight Kalashnikov-wielding mukhabarat state police had arrested Omar in an Internet café where he had been chatting on MSN with a Syrian opposition member outside the country and e-mailing reports on detained students to international human rights organizations and Western embassies. At the time, Farah didn’t know he was involved in opposition activities, which had gotten him arrested before. Omar had so internalized his awareness of the regime’s reach that he’d kept this part of his life even from her. […]
Five years later, peaceful protests calling for Assad’s ouster turned to an armed uprising, with at least nine thousand killed so far, according to United Nations estimates, and opposition leaders calling for international intervention. For better or worse, Syria’s uprising may never have become what it is without the dedication of activists like Omar, and later Farah, who sacrificed for years, putting everything on the line to resist one of the world’s cruelest regimes. But their story also shows the perseverance of common human bonds even in the most trying circumstances, and the ability of Farah and Omar to rediscover their love, despite the turmoil that has permeated every layer of Syrian society, in one small but symbolic victory over the regime that would keep them apart.
Read more. [Image: AFP/Getty]
This is a beautiful, excellent story: ”And yet, for all the force of their love, it had taken an uprising to bring them together.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4jcqseRuk1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Love in the Time of Syrian Revolution
When Farah said goodnight to her boyfriend one evening in January 2007, she had every reason to expect to see him the next day. Though she’d only been dating Omar for a month, the two students at Syria’s Damascus University already shared a special connection. Their first date had been over coffee. Soon, they were wearing matching clothes. “See you tomorrow,” they told each other that evening. But that “tomorrow” would not come for five turbulent years.
When Farah called him the next day, Omar did not answer. She looked for him in the dormitory and asked his friends, but no one would tell her where he was. She began to suspect that Omar, who was several years older and claimed to occasionally “travel,” had been playing games with their relationship. “I was angry, hated him a lot, and did not forgive him,” she recalled.
What she only learned later was that, in the early hours of the morning, eight Kalashnikov-wielding mukhabarat state police had arrested Omar in an Internet café where he had been chatting on MSN with a Syrian opposition member outside the country and e-mailing reports on detained students to international human rights organizations and Western embassies. At the time, Farah didn’t know he was involved in opposition activities, which had gotten him arrested before. Omar had so internalized his awareness of the regime’s reach that he’d kept this part of his life even from her. […]
Five years later, peaceful protests calling for Assad’s ouster turned to an armed uprising, with at least nine thousand killed so far, according to United Nations estimates, and opposition leaders calling for international intervention. For better or worse, Syria’s uprising may never have become what it is without the dedication of activists like Omar, and later Farah, who sacrificed for years, putting everything on the line to resist one of the world’s cruelest regimes. But their story also shows the perseverance of common human bonds even in the most trying circumstances, and the ability of Farah and Omar to rediscover their love, despite the turmoil that has permeated every layer of Syrian society, in one small but symbolic victory over the regime that would keep them apart.
Read more. [Image: AFP/Getty]
This is a beautiful, excellent story: ”And yet, for all the force of their love, it had taken an uprising to bring them together.”
March 28, 2012
In Focus: A Collection of Kisses
One of the most intimate human gestures, a kiss can convey greetings, give comfort, express joy, and above all, show love. Gathered from news photos over the past few months, this collection of kisses features playful moments, emotional reunions, public displays of affection, and some pure expressions of love.
See the rest. [Images: Reuters, AP, Getty]
February 14, 2012
"The day before he died he got to see his grandson Endy, who gets to live in the world because Jack broke a vow to God."
—
If you haven’t yet, spend a few minutes with this story from NPR’s Morning Edition.
(via npr)
RSS feed: http://theatlantic.tumblr.com/rss
-
Joining The Atlantic
I’m excited to announce that next month I’ll be joining The Atlantic with the somewhat intimidating title of “Entrepreneur in...
-
-
Hello.
(Scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick.)
-
-
Why removing the queerness of Gatsby matters
In one of the film’s stupidest choices, Nick ends up in a sanitarium after Gatsby’s death. His pure...
-
an autobiography
-
Attention All Photography Enthusiasts
Voting for our annual photo contest ends today! Browse through 50 stunning finalists and pick your...
-
