Category: Relationships

Quirky self-presentation

Do You Talk to Yourself, to Others?

I am only a decent Sociology student. Triggered, my friends. They either knit their eyebrows, or they angry emoji me. “Why so humble?” or “Don’t nonsense!” But I wasn’t kidding or angling for compliments. Here’s the ambiguity that ever complicates social life: Is one speaking to the other, or is...

Empath Partner Types

3 Potential Partner Type Matches for Empaths

Do you feel things first, then think? Do you hear what people not say? Do you, as Judith Orloff says, “sense other people’s emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in [y]our bodies, without the usual filters”? If so, you probably are an empath. If not, do any friends spring to mind?...

NUS SC2216 Emotions and Social Life

Reading List: NUS SC2216 Emotions and Social Life

Philosophy intrigues me. But like most of you, I hold onto a stereotypical fear of the subject: too abstract. In some sense we are right; there are technical branches within philosophy which deal with signs and symbols. (Not the kind of ‘logic’ we understand.) Yet there is also phenomenology, which...

Annette Lareau Parenting Styles

Annette Lareau: Parenting Styles & Unequal Childhoods

Struck by a wave of random joyfulness, I returned home from tuition one day galloping with my front hoofs up. My mother, seeing my excitement, interrupted: “Finish your homework first!” I was momentarily puzzled. I can’t be happy until I finish my homework? Then I realized she misinterpreted my hand gestures....

Emotionless Smartphone Commute Singapore

Emotionless Singapore: Not True, Not Relevant

According to Gallup, Singapore is the least emotional country in the world. This is probably worth celebrating if you were Durkheim (Mestrovic, 1993), who believed individual desires are infinite and required social control, for the good of both society and individual. Yet the survey findings are deeply problematic. I will...

A Sociological Empath

SG Streetspeaks: Walking with a Surveyor

[Learn more about Streetspeaks in Author’s Note below] [Some Mandarin] Where: Choa Chu Kang Interchange When: Mar 2016, Monday, 1630h, Cloudy Train/bus interchanges specialize in annoyances. I can never pass them without the bombardment of lurking men and women and boys and girls looking to trap the weak-willed. It makes me...