An interesting article for its focus on relating and the effects on close relations. I admit to looking for a bit more circumspect empathy in the article than I

An interesting article for its focus on relating and the effects on close relations. I admit to looking for a bit more circumspect empathy in the article than I could find. Ham radio is, metaphorically speaking, a distance-closing, signal-qualifying activity. Cutting the noise down, isolating, and developing the signal characteristics. It has important elements of helping practitioners hear and be heard. IMO all of this applies in many cases to those close relationships so described as wanting something. Wanting what--this is an important question for those who are relating. So we look to the signal again. It's an attempt to close the distance. One can even read the author's points regarding relational neglect in the reverse, from the POV of someone who is possibly exhausted by what they may not have yet been able to perceive as a permanent, subjective lack of skill or interest in relating. Yet, by elaborate social constructs, they are still held to account. Especially in the world of those ads shown in the article. Such a person will at some point naturally attempt to reestablish technical attention in the relationship as an anchor point for their identity. (Which I think is just a thing that happens; if opposites attract, then you have a lot of awkward, technical people in long-term relationships which ask a lot of their mediocre relating skills) The net effect of the activity overall is often a development or deepening of identity. This development must always be done in some scenario involving characteristics of subjectivity, aloneness, and isolation, i.e. the hero's journey. That it calls attention and energy from other relationships may also be seen as a sort of crucial reservoir-building for those very same relationships. Those who are in the "oh, that's not us, we're not like that person, how strange" camp may want to take a deeper look at the development of modern views on hobbies and interests from a therapeutic and developmental POV.