Here's how the Internet and your cell phone are ruining your life. Jessica says, "With so many different ways for people to communicate, we have this sense of instant communication and the expectation becomes that when you reach out to someone they should respond instantly.
"People have this sense that something is going wrong in the process if they don't hear from someone right away. And sometimes that results in frantic behaviors like calling or texting again and again.
"We like to say these technological advances are wonderful tools if used correctly but can introduce new pitfalls. People can also get themselves into situations where they create a false sense of intimacy because they have that instantaneous contact."
That is so true, even in non-romantic relationships. I send an email on Facebook and 10 minutes later I'm wondering why the hell I haven't heard back yet. And it's not just the technology either. It's the whole way we date.
"One of the things we talk about in the book," Ryan says, "is the last 100 years of dating and how different patterns have emerged. There used to be a very formalized courtship process. Now we find ourselves in a place and time where there is a certain casual nature to the way people date. There isn't that real formality. There's a looseness and there's a lot more hanging out and hooking up."
And so, they explain, we do this casually until we decide we're ready to look for something serious and then, says Jessica, "People expect that when they're ready for a long-term, committed relationship that this will be a switch they can just flip and say 'Now I want something more serious so I will know how to explore potential and how to develop a relationship that has intimacy.'
"The trend is towards keeping it casual, not defining things, not having defined dates, and our observation has been that this ambiguity is what causes a great deal of anxiety in the process."
And so, to clarify the symptoms, they can include but are not limited to, sweaty palms, heart palpitations, obsessive thoughts, lack of appetite, insomnia. "We see stalking behaviors," says Jessica, "and some other very drastic behaviors."
The good news? Apparently anxiety is one of the easiest disorders to treat.
"The simple thing to do," Ryan says, "is learn a systematic approach to cultivating a relationship. And learning that things don't grow overnight and must be consciously cultivated.
"This includes a process that allows you to date different people at the same time, to pace yourself and to really deal with the anxieties as they come up by identifying them as what we call weeds, pulling those weeds and redefining what's happening, not according to the old blueprint that you're familiar with but a new way of thinking and processing the information."
Remember, stalking very rarely works. So, chill out. Maybe turn off the Blackberry. Maybe go live on an island in Japan for three years, play a little hard to get. That oughta get his attention.