Latest news with #anxiety
Health Line
8 hours ago
- Health
- Health Line
Anxiety Diagnosis
Key takeaways Diagnosing anxiety requires a comprehensive approach, including a physical examination and a thorough review of your personal history to rule out other medical conditions that may mimic anxiety symptoms. Various self-assessment questionnaires and clinical assessments, such as the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale, are used to evaluate the level and severity of anxiety. Effective management of anxiety involves a combination of medication, therapy, lifestyle adjustments, and open communication with family and friends. Read on to learn more about the process of diagnosing anxiety. During the physical examination You should be completely honest with your doctor. Many things can contribute to or be affected by anxiety, including: certain illnesses medications alcohol consumption coffee consumption hormones Other medical conditions can cause symptoms that resemble anxiety. Many anxiety symptoms are physical, including: racing heart shortness of breath shaking sweating chills hot flashes chest pain twitching dry mouth nausea vomiting diarrhea frequent urination Your doctor may perform a physical exam and order a variety of tests to rule out medical conditions that mimic anxiety symptoms. Medical conditions with similar symptoms include: heart attack angina mitral valve prolapse tachycardia asthma hyperthyroidism adrenal gland tumors menopause side effects of certain drugs, such as drugs for high blood pressure, diabetes, and thyroid disorders withdrawal from certain drugs, such as those used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders substance abuse or withdrawal Diagnostic tests It's suggested that you complete a self-assessment questionnaire before other testing. This can help you decide whether you may have an anxiety disorder or if you may be reacting to a certain situation or event. If your self-assessments lead you to believe that you may have an anxiety disorder, your doctor may then ask you to take a clinical assessment or conduct a structured interview with you. Your doctor may use one or more of the following tests to assess your level of anxiety. Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale The Zung test is a 20-item questionnaire. It asks you to rate your anxiety from 'a little of the time' to 'most of the time' on subjects such as: nervousness anxiety shaking rapid heartbeat fainting frequent urination nightmares Once you complete this test, a trained professional assesses your responses. Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) Developed in 1959, the Hamilton test was one of the first rating scales for anxiety. It's still widely used in clinical and research settings. It involves 14 questions that rate moods, fears, and tension, as well as physical, mental, and behavioral traits. A professional must administer the Hamilton test. Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) The BAI helps measure the severity of your anxiety. You can take the test by yourself. It may also be given orally by a professional or paraprofessional. There are 21 multiple-choice questions that ask you to rate your experience of symptoms during the past week. These symptoms include tingling, numbness, and fear. Answer options include 'not at all,' 'mildly,' 'moderately,' or 'severely.' Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) This 17-question self-assessment measures your level of social phobia. You rate your anxiety in relation to various social situations on a scale from zero to four. Zero indicates no anxiety. Four indicates extreme anxiety. Penn State Worry Questionnaire This test is the most widely used measure of worry. It distinguishes between social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. The test uses 16 questions to measure your worry's generality, excessiveness, and uncontrollability. Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale This seven-question test is a screening tool for generalized anxiety disorder. You're asked how often in the past two weeks you've been bothered by feelings of irritability, nervousness, or fear. Options include 'not at all,' 'several days,' 'more than half the days,' or 'nearly every day.' Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) The YBOCS is used to measure levels of OCD. It's conducted as a one-on-one interview between you and a mental health professional. You choose three items from a symptom checklist that are the most disturbing and then rate how severe they are. Then, you're asked whether you've had certain other obsessions or compulsions in the past. Based on your answers, the mental health professional grades your OCD as subclinical, mild, moderate, severe, or extreme. Mental health disorders that feature anxiety Anxiety is a symptom in several disorders. Some of these include: Disorder Symptoms Panic disorder High amounts of anxiety as well as physical stress for a short amount of time; physical stress can come in the form of dizziness, a high heart rate, sweating, numbness, and other similar symptoms Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Anxiety expressed as obsessive thoughts or as compulsive behavior that's acted upon repeatedly to relieve stress Phobias Anxiety triggered because of a specific thing or situation that isn't necessarily harmful or dangerous, including animals, heights, or riding in vehicles Social phobias Anxiety that's experienced in interpersonal situations, such as during conversations, in large social groups, or when speaking in front of a crowd The broadest anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), is different from these other disorders because it doesn't necessarily relate to a specific cause or behavior. With GAD, you may worry about many different things at once or over time, and the worries are often constant. Diagnostic criteria An anxiety diagnosis depends a lot on your description of the symptoms you're experiencing. Mental health professionals use the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' (often called the DSM) to diagnose anxiety and other mental disorders based on symptoms. The criteria differ for each anxiety disorder. The DSM lists the following criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): excessive anxiety and worry most days about many things for at least six months difficulty controlling your worry appearance of three of the following six symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, sleep disturbance, and difficulty concentrating symptoms significantly interfering with your life symptoms not being caused by direct psychological effects of medications or medical conditions symptoms aren't due to another mental disorder (e.g. anxiety about oncoming panic attacks with panic disorder, anxiety due to a social disorder, etc.) Anxiety diagnosis in children Childhood and the teenage years are full of new, frightening experiences and events. Some children learn to confront and accept these fears. However, an anxiety disorder can make it difficult or impossible for a child to cope. The same diagnostic criteria and assessments that are used for adults apply to children, too. In the Anxiety and Related Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-5 (ADIS-5), your doctor interviews both you and your child about their symptoms. Symptoms in children are similar to those in adults. If you notice anxiety symptoms or any anxious or worrying behaviors that last for more than two weeks, take your child to the doctor. There, they can be checked for an anxiety disorder. Some research suggests that anxiety can have a genetic component. If anyone in your family has ever been diagnosed with anxiety or a depressive disorder, get your child evaluated as soon as you notice symptoms. A proper diagnosis can lead to interventions to help them manage anxiety at a young age. What to do if you're diagnosed with anxiety Focus on managing your anxiety rather than on ending or curing it. Learning how best to control your anxiety can help you live a more fulfilled life. You can work on stopping your anxiety symptoms from getting in the way of reaching your goals or aspirations. To help manage your anxiety, you have several options. Medication If you or your child is diagnosed with anxiety, your doctor will likely refer you to a psychiatrist who can decide what anxiety medications will work best. Sticking to the recommended treatment plan is crucial for the medications to work effectively. Try not to delay your treatment. The earlier you begin, the more effective it will be. Therapy You might also consider seeing a therapist or joining a support group for people with anxiety so that you can talk openly about your anxiety. This can help you control your worries and get to the bottom of what triggers your anxiety. Lifestyle choices Find active ways to relieve your stress. This can lessen the impact that anxiety may have on you. Some things you can do include: Get regular exercise. Find hobbies that engage or occupy your mind. Participate in activities that you enjoy. Keep a daily journal of thoughts and activities. Create short-term or long-term schedules. Socialize with friends. Also, avoid alcohol, nicotine, and other similar drugs. The effects of these substances can make your anxiety worse. Communication Be open with your family and close friends about your diagnosis, if possible. It's not easy to talk about any mental disorder. However, the more the people around you understand your anxiety, the easier it becomes to communicate your thoughts and needs to them. Anxiety relief tips Stick to the treatment plan recommended by your psychiatrist. Consider seeing a therapist or joining a support group for people with anxiety. Find active ways to relieve your stress, such as getting regular exercise or keeping a daily journal. Be open with your family and close friends about your diagnosis, if possible. Avoid alcohol, nicotine, and other similar drugs. Focus on managing your anxiety rather than on ending or curing it.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
If You Have Imposter Syndrome, You Likely Live With These 9 'Unspoken Fears,' a Psychologist Says
If You Have Imposter Syndrome, You Likely Live With These 9 'Unspoken Fears,' a Psychologist Says originally appeared on Parade. Generally speaking, we try to stay away from "imposters," whether they're trying to manipulate us into handing over a bank account number or our heart (AKA a two-timing romantic partner). However, your inner critic may unfairly label you an imposter every time you pursue a goal. If you struggle to mute that internal monologue and start believing your critic has a point, you may have imposter syndrome."Imposter syndrome is the feeling or belief that we are not entitled to say something, do something, or be a particular way despite evidence to the contrary," explains Dr. Craig Kain, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist. "Clients express imposter syndrome when they tell me, 'I know I can do this—I am already doing it—but I still feel like a fake.'"Clearly, advice to "fake-it-'til-you-make-it" can only go so far, especially if you experience this imposter phenomenon. Dr. Kain warns that this self-deception can cause anxiety levels that become so paralyzing that you cannot find joy in your accomplishments and life. Working on your unspoken fears is useful. However, first, you need to recognize them. Here, Dr. Kain shares nine common, unspoken fears associated with imposter syndrome, as well as strategies for 9 Unspoken Fears in People Living With Imposter Syndrome, a Psychologist Says 1. Sounding ignorant Dr. Kain shares that people with this fear will often ask themselves, 'What if someone asks me something about a topic I don't know about and I have nothing to say?'"Because we falsely believe we should know everything about everything, we fear someone putting us on the spot," he warns. "This fear of humiliation is a very common one throughout people's lives."Related: 2. Revealing a working-class background Society often views wealth as something best measured in dollars and cents, which can make people with blue-collar roots feel especially self-conscious. For instance, Dr. Kain says that people may wonder whether they'll get judged for using the "wrong fork" at a lavish dinner party or wedding."This fear of social humiliation can be strong even after years of education and a solid white-collar career," he explains. "It can be extremely anxiety-provoking in situations where working-class people are stereotyped and looked down upon." 3. Pronouncing something incorrectly Dr. Kain notes that people with developmental differences are often prone to this unspoken fear of imposter syndrome."Because assisted technology is readily available and extremely useful, many of my clients have relied on audiobooks to get them through their education," he says. "They often go on to be highly successful despite struggling to read quickly or fluently. I have clients who have avoided jobs and careers because of the fear of being perceived as 'stupid' because they struggle reading aloud."Dr. Kain adds that people who aren't fluent in English or don't consider it their primary language are also at a higher risk of this one."If they have a strong need to blend in and not draw attention to themselves, if they have worked hard to eliminate an accent, the fear of 'giving themselves away' by mispronouncing a word can be extremely paralyzing," he 4. Difficult questions You've earned your way to expert status, yet you find yourself chronically asking yourself, "What if someone asks me a question I cannot answer? Won't they know I'm not the expert?" Dr. Kain experienced this one himself. When he started teaching, he wondered what would happen if a student asked him something he couldn't answer."I'm not really sure what caused my belief that I had to know everything about the topic I taught—perhaps it was because I was still under the naive impression my professors knew everything about their areas of expertise—but I worried I'd be seen as an imposter if I didn't," he says. "I'm slightly embarrassed to say it took me a while to realize students are perfectly fine waiting a week for an answer so that I could do some research." 5. Specific questions about your history The idea of answering questions you do know the answer to—such as about your education—may also trigger anxiety if you have imposter syndrome."This is common in people who come from working-class families or who didn't go to upper-tier schools," Dr. Kain says. "The idea that our family of origin's social status defines us as adults or that the school we went to somehow speaks to our intelligence later in life fuels this fear of humiliation and feelings of being an imposter."Related: 6. Having something to prove You may ask yourself, 'What if someone says, 'Prove it,' to me and I can't?' Dr. Kain notes that he often hears competitive athletes release this unspoken fear in therapy with him, especially when they're highly ranked due to stellar past performance."The fear that their success was due to luck and not hard work and skill can increase typical pre-game jitters to an unbearable intensity, all centered around an anticipated humiliation of being called a fake or imposter if they underperform," he may also experience this fear if you received high praise for a work presentation you gave to your company at an all-hands meeting and have since been tasked with speaking to the board of directors. 7. Sounding too intelligent or nerdy Having "smarts" is generally considered a positive trait. However, imposter syndrome has a funny way of turning it into a negative. Dr. Kain says people with this unspoken fear are typically scared that they'll say or do something that tips their friends off that they aren't that "cool." 'While they may, at times, feel like they belong, it is offset by feeling like they're an imposter," he adds that he primarily sees this fear in teens. However, it can strike people of any age and trigger emotional and psychological 8. Exposing a lack of experience People with imposter syndrome often live in fear that they'll say or do something that gets them tagged as "inexperienced.""This common manifestation of imposter syndrome often arises when we have recently mastered a new subject, task or skill, undermining our hard work and effort and discounting our accomplishments," Dr. Kain you have this unspoken fear, you might ask yourself, 'What if I don't know how to do something others think I'm supposed to know how to do?' 9. Forgetting everything during a presentation and performance Lights, what? People with imposter syndrome can experience stage fright long before the curtains go up."This version of the imposter syndrome capitalizes on catastrophic thinking and the notion that everyone in an audience would know and care if we messed up," Dr. Kain likes to remind clients that the audience is almost always rooting for them, not against them, and will understand if they lose their place."Most people in an audience are happy they are in their chair and not on stage presenting or performing," he 4 Tips for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome 1. Stop comparing They say comparison is the thief of joy. However, it's rocket fuel for imposter syndrome."So much of imposter syndrome is based on social comparison," Dr. Kain says. "We mentally paint a picture of how someone will react to us based on a limited amount of information we may have about them."He reminds clients that few people share their inner workings—including any unspoken fears of imposter syndrome they have."Having worked as a therapist for many years, I can assure you that most people do not have it nearly as together on the inside as they may want you to think," he explains. "Hardly anybody has it all figured out, and nearly nobody feels confident all the time."Related: 2. Remember that even experts make mistakes This tip is handy if you're afraid to say or do something that gets you labeled as inexperienced or if you don't know the answer to a question."Imposter syndrome lives in the fear of being 'found out, 'slipping up' and making mistakes," Dr. Kain shares. "It is helpful to remember that making a mistake does not make you an imposter. It simply makes you a human being." 3. Talk to someone Transform your unspoken imposter syndrome fear by saying it out loud. Dr. Kain says you may be surprised by what you hear in return."Let someone else know you feel like an imposter," he suggests. "It's rare to find someone who can honestly say they never felt that way themselves. If you do find someone who tells you they have never experienced imposter syndrome, there is a high likelihood they've accomplished this by avoiding challenging situations."Related: 4. Work on actual gaps No one is perfect. If the voice in your head has a point, there's no shame in working on a gap in knowledge or experience. In fact, it's a sign of maturity and can lead to growth."If you find that you truly are lacking in some area, figure out a way to make up the missing skills, information or experiences," Dr. Kain says. "Do what you can to be more comfortable in your own skin."Sign up for a course, volunteer your time, find a mentor—you and those around you will benefit from your humility and grit. Up Next:Source: Dr. Craig Kain, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist If You Have Imposter Syndrome, You Likely Live With These 9 'Unspoken Fears,' a Psychologist Says first appeared on Parade on Jul 22, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 22, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Plane Passenger Holds Stranger's Hand During Takeoff After He Notices She's 'Visibly Shaken' (Exclusive)
Chad Savage tells PEOPLE it just felt "natural" to comfort the person next to him during her first flight alone As Chad Savage's flight began to take off, he felt a soft touch on his hand.'I looked up and I could see her hand was trembling a bit,' he tells PEOPLE of the woman sitting across the aisle. 'I could see her body language [was] really anxious, and then I just grabbed her hand.' 'It just felt natural to do,' he adds. Savage admits he hardly knows anything about the woman. They didn't even exchange names. But he did overhear her anxieties about flying alone for the first time. For about five minutes, the complete strangers held hands during takeoff. But it never felt awkward or like a hassle. Instead, Savage says he thinks he got more out of the experience than the nervous flyer — something he never expected. 'At first, I was there for her. Now we're just here for each other,' he explains. 'It was really powerful for me.' As her worries began to quell, the strangers released their grip. Afterwards, the woman turned to Savage to thank him. 'She told me how much she appreciated that, how much it meant to her,' he says. 'She also told me that I should tell my parents that they raised me right, which is really, really nice.' Savage shared a clip of the experience to TikTok. The viral video, with just under a half a million views, led commenters to share their own experiences of comforting strangers. 'I was 14 flying alone and I was sat next to this mom and her kids,' one user wrote. 'I was in the window and she held my hand and treated me like her own. I'll never forget her.' 'I first started driving a semi truck and my first time in the Smokey Mountains it was dark and raining and I was scared,' another comment with over 5,000 likes said. 'On my CB radio I hear the driver behind call my truck because I was driving slow. Told him I was nervous. This UPS driver said 'I'm going to pass you, follow me, I'll talk you through this.' He talked me through the process and kept me calm. That was in 1995, I remember it to this day. We all need comfort sometimes.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Others shared words of encouragement and admiration for Savage. 'The fact that she felt okay to ask you says a lot about how you present yourself in public,' wrote one user. 'It's been really cool and inspiring,' Savage tells PEOPLE of the outpouring of support. 'It makes you feel so happy because that's the kind of platform that I want to build and that's what I want to be a part of.' For Savage, the experience has given him a new outlook on life. 'It really has refreshed my mindset and just in knowing what I feel like my purpose is, which is just to connect with people and spread kindness,' he says. 'If I can inspire anyone through this video to just go out of the way, just a little bit more each day, I promise the return would be something that they never expected.' Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Duncan Robinson embraces his anxiety. It's fueling a new chapter with the Pistons
Life for Duncan Robinson has been a balancing act. He understands he's worthy of all the success he's achieved. But an earlier version of Robinson, the one who struggled to find consistent playing time in high school, still creeps into his mind. It's a constant battle, fueled by anxiety, that has allowed Robinson to build an eight-year NBA career after going undrafted in 2018. He's used it to help him accomplish his childhood dream. Advertisement Robinson has long been intimate with anxiety. The two go all the way back to his junior year in 2011 at The Governor's Academy, where Robinson got inconsistent minutes on his high school basketball team. He's well acquainted with uncertainty. He knows the way expectations weigh on a psyche. For Robinson, none of his accomplishments have been able to silence his perpetual angst. Robinson prefers it that way. 'I've always had this anxiety of like, 'Am I good enough?'' he told The Athletic. 'Obviously, I have some God-given talents and abilities. … I sort of feel my superpower has sort of existed in that space of, 'I haven't really achieved anything yet.'' It's a healthy friction, he believes. A welcomed discomfort keeps him from complacency and pushes him toward progress. Robinson is now embarking on his eighth season after being undrafted. The ink is barely dry on his new three-year, $48 million contract, adding to the $70-plus million he's already earned. Yet, somehow, he still sees himself halfway up the proverbial mountain. The summit never gets closer. He's perennially in the same spot — high enough up to know he can achieve success, yet far enough away from the peak to prevent any real sense of security. Robinson is acutely aware of his shortcomings. He knows he's no physical prodigy. His measurables don't stack up in a league full of athletes. He's 6-feet-7 and shoots with the best of them. But that's not enough for ease. Robinson likes the 'razor's edge,' as he calls it. The feeling that he's never arrived. The 31-year-old forward is now 423 regular-season games into his NBA career, has shot 39.7 percent from 3 during that time and has NBA Finals experience. But still, Robinson battles the voice in his head questioning his on-court worth. After being considered an underdog for the majority of his career, Robinson found himself starting a career-best 72 games in 2020-21. It was the season after he solidified himself as a pillar of the Miami Heat's rotation. Advertisement Robinson's opinion of himself began changing as well. 'The public perspective shifted my own perspective of myself,' he said. 'The challenging part of that was realizing and coming to terms with the fact that a public perception should not be indicative of, or define how I think of myself or the process in which I take to get to the person that I want to be. 'As much as somebody can tell you, 'Aw, don't worry about what someone's saying,' or 'Don't worry about that,' we're all human beings. We see and hear things around us all the time. So, working through and getting to the other side of that — of I'm not defined by being an 'underdog,' I'm not defined by being 'overpaid.' I'm defined by what I show up and do every single day.' What Robinson did with his time in Miami was enough for Detroit's president of basketball operations, Trajan Langdon, to acquire him via a sign-and-trade that sent Simone Fontecchio to the Heat. Robinson is the second-oldest player on the roster behind 33-year-old Tobias Harris. His reluctance to settle and desire to persevere will be necessary on a team with a median age of 24.6 looking to advance past the first round. It could become a beneficial partnership for both Robinson and the Pistons. For Robinson, it's an opportunity to grow into a more expansive leadership role. For the Pistons, the franchise can now gain from his experience. Robinson brings a wealth of NBA knowledge. He understands what it's like not getting much playing time. He knows the feeling of hearing his name called as a starter. And the feeling of being relegated back to the bench after being a starter. 'The moments in my career, where on paper, are the biggest accomplishment or the moments where you have everything figured out have been followed by these just gut-punching setbacks,' Robinson said. 'And that's what life is, a lot of times. Everyone can sort of relate to that. It's not necessarily the fact that you go from a high to a low. But it's how you respond to it and how you find some equilibrium to find the peace and drive to continue to push forward.' Advertisement That peace and equilibrium will be needed in Detroit as one of the few veterans, along with Harris. Robinson's former Michigan teammate, Caris LeVert, 30, rounds out the veterans. Robinson said he has worked on his resilience in the same way he works on becoming a better player. 'Having resilience has been, sort of, the calling card of who I aspire to be,' he said. 'I'm a big believer in that, learning how to deal with setbacks and challenges is a skill as much as shooting or dribbling. And the skill is honed and acquired through repetition. The only way you can get better at dealing with it is having gone through it. 'So, that's one area of my career where I feel like I've been very fortunate is that from a young age. … I was challenged early on, (asking myself), 'Is this what you want to do? Is this what you want to be?' And I always just kept coming back to, 'Yeah, I mean, this is. I love basketball more than anything. It's what I do, not necessarily who I am. But in terms of the game itself, it's given me more than I ever could imagine.' Sharing knowledge, while also being open to receiving it, is one way in which Robinson is planning to continue to dedicate himself to the game. He is the only Piston who has experienced the intensity of the NBA Finals. A blend of the knowledge between what Robinson accumulated in his run to the finals, Harris' 67 playoff games and LeVert's 25 postseason appearances could prove to be vital on such a young team. Robinson, who was out with his new teammates for Las Vegas Summer League for the first time since signing, spoke about the Pistons' youth as what drew him to the team. He also notices a similarity between what he's been through and what he sees in his new home. 'When I think of a city like Detroit, I think of resilience,' Robinson said. 'I think of a city that's seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, and is still finding a way to bounce back. I think that embodies the people that inhabit it. And that's very much in tune and in line with everything my career has been.' Advertisement After sharing locker rooms with veterans like Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler, Udonis Haslem and Andre Iguodala, Robinson is now stepping into a new role. One where he will likely be relied upon in the same way he did with Wade during his rookie season. At least for Robinson, it helps that he has some familiarity with this group. 'Some crazy games last year,' he said with a laugh. 'But the thing that sticks out about this group is their physicality, their toughness and how hard they play. And honestly how they share the ball. That's the type of system you want to be in. Those are the types of guys you want to be around.' The belief Detroit has shown by investing in Robinson, to be impactful both on the floor and in the locker room, reaffirms he is good enough. The internal voice pushing Robinson to reach his full potential likely won't ever fully be silenced. But it's now a privilege for Robinson to share his wisdom with the youngest team he's been a part of. 'At this stage in my life,' he said, 'I really just kind of view it as I owe it to a game that's given me so much.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Trouble With Wanting Men
The stranger arrived at the bar before I did, as I intended him to, and was waiting for me at a table in back. He had the kind of face I like, and he had been a little difficult to pin down, delayed in his responses, which I also like. The place was loud with the 'having fun' sounds people make when they expect to have fun any minute now, so we were leaning in to hear each other. His hair, I thought, would be good to put my hands in. There comes a time, usually, when a few extra beats of eye contact are enough. We passed through these beats, took each other's wrists and met across the table, which was wide enough to frustrate kissing in the right way, keeping the rest of us well apart. Back at my place he was a little shy, I thought, or a little out of practice, but I felt he wanted me, which was what I wanted — to be organized and oriented by his desire, as though it were a point on the dark horizon, strobing. 'I was really looking forward to seeing you again,' he texted me the following week, around lunchtime, 'but I'm going through some intense anxiety today and need to lay low :(.' 'Totally understand,' I replied, but I didn't. Feeble, fallible 'looking forward' is not longing; a man should want me urgently or not at all. I was about to collapse into a ritual of frustrated horniness (fantasy, masturbation, snacks) when a friend urged me to join her and two other women for dinner. 'Of course he has anxiety,' said one of them, a therapist, who sat across from me at the restaurant. 'That's life. That's being alive and going to meet someone you don't know well.' 'Yeah,' said the woman beside her, a historian. 'It's called 'sexual tension.' Stay with it for a minute and you might get some.' 'They can't,' said my friend with triumphant disgust. She told us about a woman she knew who was dating a man from another city. After weeks of saying 'I can't wait to see you,' the man ghosted her during his actual visit. His explanation later? He'd been 'too anxious.' 'Aww, poor baby!' cried the historian, and we all cooed and moaned for the poor wittle fraidy-cat boo-boo, working ourselves into a frenzy of laughter over men's inability to 'man up and [expletive] us.' We were four women at a vegan restaurant in downtown Manhattan; we knew what show we were in, and we couldn't help but wonder, in a smug, chauvinistic way: Where were the men who could handle hard stuff? Like leaving the house for sex? The therapist mused about the anxiety of needing to 'justify the phallus.' 'You know,' she said, 'from the child's point of view, it's like, 'I get what Mom is for, but what are you for? What's the point of your thing?'' This sent us miming confrontations with imaginary members — 'Who invited you?' 'What's your deal?' 'Are you lost?' — which led to wisecracks about the not-so-precision scalpel of the surgeon the therapist was seeing. Privately, jokes aside, I am quite susceptible to penis — like, I worry that in some Hobbesian state of nature I might just automatically kneel to the prettiest one — but lately I have been bruised by the ambivalence of men, how they can first want me and then become confused about what they want, and this bawdy, diminishing humor soothed me, made me feel more powerful, more in control. 'When did the men get so anxious about desire?' asked the therapist, and I said I didn't know. 'Yes, you do,' my friend said. 'It was when they were put on notice that they can't just get drunk and grope us.' I haven't been dating long (just the other day my ex-husband and I received our Judgment of Divorce as an email attachment), but long enough to discover that I have a type. He is gentle, goofy, self-deprecating, rather deferential, a passionate humanist, a sweet guy, a 'good guy.' He tends to signal, in various ways, his exemption from the tainted category of 'men,' and it is perfectly understandable that he would wish to do so. It must be mildly embarrassing to be a straight man, and it is incumbent upon each of them to mitigate this embarrassment in a way that feels authentic to him. One of the reasons my marriage ended was that I fell in love with another man — whom I'll refer to by his first initial, J. Spontaneously graceful, with a soft voice and an inordinate, sad-eyed smile, J. made me laugh, stopping my breath. Being a 'good guy,' he intimated from the jump that he did not know how to 'do' relationships, giving me to understand that if I expected one with him (or, as he may have conceptualized it, from him), I did so at my peril (which was his peril, too, since he would hate to hurt me). Still, he pursued me; we seemed to be 'doing' something together. I keep encountering and hearing about men who 'can't.' Have these men not heard of 'don't want to?' My husband and I had an open relationship at the time that J. and I met, so the terms of our involvement were, at first, limited, and although J. exerted a pleasant pressure against these limitations, ultimately they suited him. I was the one who violated the terms by finding it intolerable, after a while, to care that much, in that way, for one person while being married to another. I could not disambiguate sex from love nor love from devotion, futurity, family integration, things I wanted with (from?) J., even as, throughout the year and a half or so that we saw each other, he continued to gesture to his incapacity to commit as if it were a separate being, an unfortunate child who followed and relied upon him, maybe, or a physical constraint. I stood there reaching for him while he sad-faced back at me like a boxed mime: He couldn't talk about it; he wished things were different; maybe someday the child would mature, the glass would break, but for now, there was really nothing to be done. It seems to me, surveying the field as a dating novice, that this kind of studiously irreproachable male helplessness abounds. I keep encountering and hearing about men who 'can't.' Have these men not heard of 'don't want to?' Maybe my friend was right about male anxiety at this moment. Maybe the men are taking a beat, 'laying low,' unsure of how to want, how to talk, how to woo. Maybe they are punishing us for the confusion. There are many routes to the species of disappointment I am circling here, but however we get there, the complaint is so common, such a cultural and narrative staple, that the academy is weighing in. We now have a fancy word, 'heteropessimism,' to describe the outlook of straight women fed up with the mating behavior of men. Coined by the sexuality scholar Asa Seresin, who later amended it to 'heterofatalism,' the term seems, at first glance, to distill a mood that is no less timely for being timeless. 'It was rly nice,' a close friend texted me recently, reporting on her third date with a lawyer. 'He's really really sweet and nice to me and good at sex. No doubt something humiliating and nightmarish will occur soon.' On more than one occasion, when my friend checked in with the lawyer to confirm tentative plans, he did not respond to her for many hours, or even a day. Granted, he worked a punishing schedule, but, my friend reasoned, it takes 90 seconds to send a quick reply. The dissonance between his caring and attentive in-person behavior and these silences confused her, and she mentioned this to him. The lawyer was sorry he had kept her waiting — he hadn't meant to — but, he said, her complaint had got him thinking: He unfortunately wasn't able to escalate whatever was happening between them into a 'relationship.' My friend clarified that she had not been asking to escalate anything, merely expressing a need for clarity about plans. He understood that, he said, but their 'communication skills' were obviously too different for them to continue dating. The humiliating and nightmarish part, she explained to me, was not so much the rejection as being cast against her will as 'woman eager for relationship.' In her memoir, 'Fierce Attachments,' Vivian Gornick describes the anguish of being ignored by a lover to her female friend: 'What I couldn't absorb,' she writes, 'was his plunging us back into the cruelty of old-fashioned man-woman stuff, turning me into a woman who waits for a phone call that never comes and himself into the man who must avoid the woman who is waiting.' 'I'm really done,' my friend said. 'I can't keep doing this. I don't want to be hurt and misunderstood constantly. I need to find some other way to live.' I agreed without thinking about it. (This is part of the pessimism, right? The feeling that further thinking about all of this is futile. Surely we have done enough thinking by now.) 'I wish I could just be gay with you,' she said, and I said I wished that, too, so much. This was our commiserative routine — what Seresin might call our 'performative disaffiliation with heterosexuality' — our spin on 'Take my wife, please.' Take my straightness, please. Take my attraction to men. Is 'heterofatalism' a useful concept? I took it up for a while, considered the positions. The writer and gender scholar Sara Ahmed has advanced the idea of 'complaint as feminist pedagogy,' arguing that to bitch is inherently transgressive, a form of resistance, while the philosophy professor Ellie Anderson suggests that women venting their dating woes constitutes a kind of negativity as rebellion. Was that what my friends and I were doing over dinner? Rebelling? The humiliating and nightmarish part was not so much the rejection as being cast against her will as 'woman eager for relationship.' If the experts say my romantic letdowns have some larger social significance, I am not going to argue. The men I want are not wanting me badly enough, not communicating with me clearly enough, not devoting themselves to me: All this certainly seems calamitous enough to warrant an 'ism.' And if it is an 'ism,' the problem cannot be me. It must be men, right? Men are what is rotten in the state of straightness, and why shouldn't we have an all-inclusive byword for our various pessimisms about them? Domestic pessimism (they still do less of the housework and child care); partner-violence pessimism (femicide is still gruesomely routine); erotic pessimism (the clitoris and its properties still elude many of them). And the petulantly proud masculinist subcultures that have arisen, at least in part, as reactions to these pessimisms keep coughing up new reasons to fear, rage against and complain about 'men.' But those 'men' are not the men my friends and I are feeling bleak about. It's the sweet, good ones. Dammit. I would like to believe there is something purposeful, resistant, even radical in the heterofatalist mode, but the more I voice it, the more I am inclined to agree with Seresin that it can produce nothing but more of itself. 'Heterosexuality is nobody's personal problem,' he writes. 'It doesn't make sense to extricate your own straight experience from straightness as an institution.' It isn't that my friend needs to find 'some other way to live'; it's that we all do. But instead of looking for it, we disaffected women 'perform' for one another this mutually enabling kind of maintenance, periodically off-gassing some of the shame and frustration of dating men and then chugging along with the status quo. Whatever Seresin's vision is, most of us can neither renounce our heterosexuality nor realize a significant renegotiation of its terms. What we can do, at least for now, is negotiate with ourselves. We can try to dodge 'old-fashioned man-woman stuff' by acting hopeless about relationships rather than 'eager' for them. Maybe this is the utility of 'heterofatalism' — naming the bitter pill before we force ourselves to swallow it and put on a carefree smile. Nice to meet you, 'good guy'; I am 'woman who expects nothing.' I was doubled over laughing, briefly tasting the knee of my jeans, while the man next to me on the sectional couch strummed a guitar and did a spot-on imitation of Bruce Springsteen. He had that lifting-something-heavy moan down cold, and he was improvising a song about work, American work in the American heartland, hyperbolically tough and tragic male work. Because I was losing it, he kept going, and I kept losing it, and at a certain point I wasn't sure if I was overpowered by amusement or just overpowered by him. On the way to his place, I had been texting with my aunt. 'Word from an expert,' she wrote. 'Wait til he wants it so bad he's nutsy cuckoo. Sounds facile but, man, truer words were never spoken. 'Make 'em Suffer' is my mantra!' I kept catching myself staring at his mouth, his bottom lip. He told me to slow down; he needed time to get a better sense of how I worked. I lay back to murmur, let him try stuff, and he warmed to his own control, putting his mouth right up to mine, then pulling away when I tried to engage his tongue. 'I see what you are,' he said finally, pinning my forearms. 'You're a bratty sub.' He held himself there, just out of reach, breathing on me. 'I like to make you wait,' he said. He did make me wait. I stood at the slot machine watching those cherries and fat yellow coins blur by, and they didn't stop. He was sweet with me in person, impulsive about biting my nose, but for stretches I wouldn't hear from him, or I would but only perfunctorily, and then, suddenly, he would pop up. Requesting clarification on what a man feels or wants or sees happening here has gotten me burned before, as it has many women I know. I have learned to regard such demands as 'demanding' in a feminized way — simultaneously bossy and supplicating, a reinscribing of the 'bratty sub' position. Taking my cues from him, I stayed mostly quiet. Call it 'communication pessimism.' On the bed, the 'female demand-male withdraw' pattern pulses with sensuality; in life it sometimes feels like it will drive me out of my senses. When my friend complained about the lawyer, I expressed outrage at his behavior and worked my way, quite naturally and along a well-worn groove, to a condemnation of all — OK, most — men as incapable of upholding basic standards of communication and care. I was thinking, of course, about J., and I am not proud that my instinctive response to the shame of being gender-stereotyped by life is to pay another stereotype forward. (Men suck. Groundbreaking!) That said, men's struggle to communicate in romantic relationships is widespread enough to have earned a psychological designation: 'normative male alexithymia,' or the condition of being unable to put words to emotions. This incapacity, Ellie Anderson argues, often forces women who date men to become 'relationship-maintenance experts,' solidifying what she cites as 'the most common communication pattern among heterosexual dating couples … the 'female demand-male withdraw' pattern.' Woman approaches man to discuss something; man removes himself. On the bed, the 'female demand-male withdraw' pattern pulses with sensuality; in life it sometimes feels like it will drive me out of my senses, and it creates work — tough, tragic female work. In the 1980s, the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild coined the term 'emotional labor' to describe paid work that 'involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job' (i.e. service work, health care, education). It must be an indication of our need for more ways to talk about the invisible affective labor that often falls to women that the term has suffered from 'concept creep,' stretching far past that original meaning to crop up in everyday conversations about unequal divisions of labor in our love lives. Anderson gives us a new term, related to but distinct from 'emotional labor' and more useful in parsing what we might call the micropolitics of dating: She calls the work women do to interpret mystifying male cues 'hermeneutic labor,' and she posits it as a form of 'gendered exploitation in intimate relationships.' The guy dating my friend may have been too busy lawyering to confirm his plans with her, but meanwhile, Anderson might say, my friend was working two jobs: one to earn her living, the other as sole manager of an emotional entanglement that was also his. Heterofatalism is partly just burnout. The stranger waiting at my usual back corner table looked a bit squarer than my average date — his hair appeared recently washed and cut, and he wore a button-down shirt — but some restless mischief played in his face, bearing itself fully in his laugh. Our conversation was brisk and jesting; I got the impression he was enjoying my company but that this was more bonus than criterion for him. He was partnered already, he had told me, and seeking only companionate sex; his dating profile referenced this clearly below a picture of him wearing a blue blazer and petting a donkey's head. We turned eventually to the subject of erotic temperament. He was interested in the possibilities that arise between people when any eventuality of marriage, procreation or fidelity was, so to speak, taken off the bed. What might then happen in that bed? In that community? In that world? Watching his clean-cut boyish form and listening to him speak with the eloquent enthusiasm of a connoisseur, the phrase that occurred to me was 'sex nerd.' Many dabblers in nonmonogamy were not really, he noted with a laugh, quoting the rapper Pusha T, ''bout dat life.' He was. I meet this type around sometimes: fluent in the language of polyamory, waving his respectful desire around like a plastic light saber: Pew pew. Why would you play with just one toy when you can take turns with all the toys? While at the same time vaguely subverting … something. Capitalism? What were my feelings, Sex Nerd wanted to know, about groups? I confessed to having no interest. What can happen between two people, that thing where a pair of beings lock onto and suspend each other, aching for and into each other — I was about that thing, that life. Sure sure, he got that, he respected that — but he had actually found that the intense, intimate kind of connection I described could occur between, say, four people. And when it did, he added with teeth, it was quite an experience. The bitterness does not replace wanting men, a man, the smell of a man's thin T-shirt, the dampness of the hair at his nape. I conceded that it was a fascinating prospect, but one I could not mentalize, or at least not in any way that moved me. Totally, he said, that was totally valid. He was generally eager to assure me that my desires were valid, both in person and later, when he wrote to me on more than one occasion to clarify that: 'If you feel our energies aren't matched, I won't argue,' and, 'If friendship only is preferred, I will understand,' and truly, 'No pressure.' Good guy. Protesting a bit much on the consensuality front, but basically a stand-up guy. Evolved, transparent, an enlightened creature of our new romantic age. If only I could desire a man like that, a man bringing such clear terms to the table, enough to be disappointed by him. (Isn't that what desire is? A site of potential disappointment?) But I couldn't, which was another disappointment. Two bodies were pressed together outside an entrance to the subway on my way home, the man's hand wrapped tightly around the back of the woman's head, and as I passed them a noise escaped me, a choking sound, a performance of disgust for the benefit of some bitter omniscience. The bitterness does not replace wanting men, a man, the smell of a man's thin T-shirt, the dampness of the hair at his nape after he exerts himself; the bitterness grows from the want and is mixed up with it. There must be something wrong, I keep thinking, with the way I desire. 'A good man is hard to want,' a good man wrote in the group chat. 'A hard man is good to find,' said another who knows I haven't had satisfying sex in a minute. 'A man is hard to find good?' said the previous man's girlfriend. 'A good find is hard to man,' I said, as if a guy were a tricky piece of equipment. 'Slow down, I need to get a better sense of how you work.' 'You're flattening the men,' a former lover wrote to me after I sent him a partial draft of this essay. 'They never get to be real — they're used to confirm a story about disappointment and frustration.' This man and I met last fall when he was, like me, reeling from romantic rejection, and within a half-hour we lunged at each other, as though by tacit agreement to be each other's comforting, orgasm-giving blankies for a time. We traded obsessive accounts of the failed relationships, cheered each other through the rigors of 'no contact,' watched Albert Brooks movies, belted Weezer songs to karaoke tracks on his couch. Whatever was happening between us went on for about six weeks, at which point I became annoyed that he was withholding something from me, though I couldn't say what exactly, and he became anxious about annoying me, and I accused him of coldness, and he accused me of being unfair, and so on. The familiar 'female demand-male withdraw' pattern descended over us like a polarizing spell, making me more goading and accusatory, him more defended and reserved. Unlike other, similar exchanges in my past, this one had an oddly mechanical quality, as though rather than venting real passions, we were locked into some tiresome, bewitched choreography. In 'Beyond Doer and Done To,' the feminist psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin describes the impasse two people can reach where 'each feels unable to gain the other's recognition, and each feels in the other's power.' In this state, which she calls 'complementary twoness,' both people feel helpless, both feel 'done to,' both feel the other is 'leaving us no option except to be either reactive or impotent.' Who knows how long the dance of complementary twoness would have lasted with my fellow Weezer singer had one or both of us felt ourselves to be in love. As it was, after a couple of weeks we were able to break the enchantment, and we remain friends. Eventually I admitted to him that it had felt more natural to me to default to 'wounded female' rather than assume responsibility for my desires. He, for his part, described a large-looming ex whose adept use of guilt had left its mark. It was one of those moments of becoming aware, suddenly and fleetingly, of how we play ourselves and cast others to play opposite us in the productions of our internal dramas known as days. My sexuality owes me neither protection nor affirmation; it is out for itself, out for a skirmish, a strain, a smell. He has questions now, about this piece. Aren't I oversimplifying the case of my friend and the lawyer? Isn't what happened there about more than communication? Don't I recognize a clear incompatibility, arising from both of their insecurities? And regarding hermeneutic labor: Why would a woman want to be with a man who required so much work? Such a woman must intuit that such a man is not ready for a relationship, or that he is unsure of his feelings for her. Isn't she just as much a part of the enactment of whatever 'heteropessimistic' outcome is looming there? In fact, isn't my taking my friend's side, as I seem to do here, related to the phenomenon I am diagnosing? Isn't the impulse to 'choose a side' itself perversely fatalistic, antithetical to the mutual recognition that is the very basis of a relationship? I toppled the whole structure of my life for a man who, when I asked him, 'Do you want to be with me or not?' replied, after a few seconds' silence, 'I want to be with you, and I want everything everywhere all at once.' J. was referring, of course, to the 2022 surreal sci-fi comedy set across a multitude of parallel universes in which many versions of the protagonists play out many versions of their lives, each millisecond branching fractal-like into countless alternate dimensions, creating infinite selves, infinite fates, infinite answers to the dilemma of how to be and with whom. This film had moved him deeply, seeming to capture qualities of his neurotype that he seldom saw portrayed. It occurs to me that the multiverse mind-set may also reflect the cognitive effects of dating apps that, defeatist by design, project a mirage of endless romantic possibilities across infinite timelines. One guy I went out with spoke with a hint of longing about the relationship between his grandparents, who barely spoke to each other before getting married as teenagers in Sicily, thrown together by slim-pickings village life, adolescent hormones and the oppressive myth of female honor. What a system, what a gamble, and then both people were trapped for life. But at least you were spared the anxiety of choice. At least there was that. The structure of my life needed toppling, it turned out, and I am grateful, and I have been doing my best to be J.'s friend. On a recent afternoon, my daughter and I sat on a blanket in a park with him. A group of teenagers were playing volleyball nearby, using a horizontally growing tree as their net. My daughter had a hankering to swing on that tree, and so we were keeping an eye on the teenagers, waiting for them to disband, urging her to be patient. A few days later, I received a characteristically whimsical text: 'In some other timeline we're still waiting by that tree for the teenagers to finish playing volleyball.' 'Some other timeline.' The phrase captures not only J.'s inclination to keep all possibilities perpetually and wistfully open but my own dogged attachment to a foreclosed dimension, my pouring into that hypothetical so much vitality, care and hope — laborious hope — that might have been, and might still be, reserved for what is possible and happening now, only once, in my fleeting middle age. To forego life for a fantasy: What could be more fatalistic than that? 'Maybe the problem is that you're a romantic,' says my former lover-slash-friend-slash-male-sensitivity-reader. 'And maybe so are the other fatalists.' Sure, maybe. We know — have long known — that romanticism and fatalism are dialectical lovers. When love fails, the very quality that elevated it above the common thrum of experience makes it impossible to imagine anything of the kind ever occurring again. The miraculous singularity of being in love is thus particularly fertile soil for a generalizing pessimism: 'I'm attracted to men because I love making bad choices,' goes one quintessentially heterofatalist tweet. This turn, from one man to the imaginary monolith of 'men,' both deprives the wounding man of specificity and shows him a certain loyalty; by casting him to play an entire gender, we make sure that we will meet him again. There is something here of the spirited young nun's frenzied renunciation, slamming the door on romance with an intensely romantic slam, then wedding herself to a male abstraction. One thing heterofatalism reflects is a persistent lack of faith that those we desire will be able to recognize us as commensurately human. I wonder how much, fearing what we expect and expecting what we fear, we summon the 'old-fashioned man-woman stuff' that keeps coming around. A woman comes, a man withdraws; this embodiment needn't necessarily become pregnant with larger meaning, but it often does. I end up wondering if it is my own fault somehow when the heterosexual dynamic cannot seem to transcend its own tropes, subvert its own symbolism, play out an entirely unpredictable scene. Seresin rightly pokes fun at the privileged ignorance of straights who, in moments of yearning to experience a desire that we imagine as more extricable from our own oppression, announce a wish to be queer. No relationship — regardless of gender, orientation, number of people — is immune from power dynamics; unequal distribution is always, so to speak, on the bed. But in queer relationships the roles are at least less determined, with perhaps more freedom and flexibility in who assumes which, and how. In other words, maybe our pessimism about straightness arises in part from a dawning sense of its anachronism. Maybe, like the surge of interest in straight nonmonogamy, it's part of heterosexuality's clumsy process of queering itself into a more fluid future. To break the impasse of 'complementary twoness' that can grip any pair of people, Jessica Benjamin imagines how we might collaborate, over time (and the time is crucial), to create an 'intersubjective third,' a space in which your needs and mine, your desires and mine, recognize and accept each other without competing for dominance. To create such a space, Benjamin says, requires a mutual surrender that is distinct from submission. I find this distinction difficult to grasp, which is perhaps to say that I experience desire in terms of a struggle that someone must lose. I am ready to cop to some unconscious masochism here. A good man is hard to want, after all, and my sexuality owes me neither protection nor affirmation; it is out for itself, out for a skirmish, a strain, a smell. 'The old way of mating is dead,' said my friend at our colloquy of female complaint over dinner, 'and the new one has yet to be born.' What is the new one? Pessimism may help us feel knowing, but really, we don't know. For now, life has us pinned here: 'I like to make you wait.' Jean Garnett has published essays in The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily and the Yale Review. A winner of the Pushcart Prize, she is at work on a book about relationships.
