Getting squozed

That is what my fiance calls it when administering a hug that is likely to be slightly painful in its enthusiasm. In turn, I have a creepy tendency to squeeze my cat’s head so that his hair flattens down and reveals what a tiny, adorable little noggin he has. He doesn’t like it any more than I like getting squozed. 

At least, it turns out, there’s a reason we want to pulverize cute things with our love. According to this article:

“Some things are so cute that we just can’t stand them. We think it’s about high positive-affect, an approach orientation and almost a sense of lost control. It’s so adorable, it drives you crazy. It might be that how we deal with high positive-emotion is to sort of give it a negative pitch somehow. That sort of regulates, keeps us level and releases that energy.“

I buy it.

Leave a Reply