INPUT ARTICLE: Article: A good relationship will flourish when you have common interests and do things together. You might go snowboarding together or join a language class. Your relationship will last longer when you commit to doing active and interesting things together. Although you and your boyfriend have common interests, you also have your own interests. In a successful relationship, both partners will make an effort to do each other's favorite activities from time to time. A good boyfriend will pay attention to you, not his phone. It's okay to check messages once in a while, but if he is constantly checking sports scores or social media updates from friends, his attention is wandering away from you. A gentle reminder to put away his phone may be warranted, but if you have to constantly remind him, there might be a larger conversation about why he is choosing to ignore you. Make sure you also turn off your phone. He needs to feel like you're paying attention to him too. A good boyfriend will be affectionate with you by being physically close and cuddling.  Your physical chemistry is important for long-term happiness, so good sex is definitely important. But it's also important to be affectionate with hand-holding or snuggling while watching a movie.

SUMMARY: Cultivate some common interests. Do each other's favorite activities. Make sure he turns off his phone. Get affectionate with each other.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: One way to be an individual is to find something that you truly and deeply care about and to make an effort to really explore it. If you don’t know what you’re good at yet, then you should try to join more clubs at school, pick up a sport, or take a class in Japanese, creative writing, watercolor painting, tap dancing, or really anything at all that you’ve been wanting to try. Finding something that you love and sticking to it will help you boost your confidence while finding a new way to help you express yourself. Along with finding a new hobby, you can work to see if you can turn it into a passion. You may discover that you really want to be a writer, photographer, or dancer, and this will give you even more confidence and conviction in your abilities. Not every person has to be creative to be an individual. However, exploring your creative faculties can open up new ideas and can make you feel more aware of new possibilities. Try your hand at writing a short story, a poem, a play, or even a novel, or work on writing a skit with your friends just for fun. Explore your artistic side and work on drawing, ceramics, oil painting, or charcoal sketching just to see what strikes your fancy. You don’t have to be particularly good at it, but you should be willing to try if you want to be an individual.  Even if all you can draw are stick figures, exercising the creative part of your brain can help you see the world in a new, original way. This is a big part of being an individual. Being creative can also help you discover new ideas you didn’t know you had. You may never have thought about the world in a certain way until you tried your hand at writing short stories. Another way to be an individual is to step outside of your comfort zone and to accept the new challenges the world may bring. Volunteer in a new part of town; run for class president; apply for a job that you’re not sure you’re qualified for. Help your friend figure out a difficult project. When a challenge comes your way, don’t bat it away and stick to the things you know, but make an effort to try new things and to tackle new and difficult questions.  True individuals are always growing and changing. They face challenges with fortitude and work to find the best way to succeed, no matter how difficult the circumstances are. Of course, if you’re overbooked, you don’t want to say yes to everything, either, or you’ll be too busy to grow as a person. But if you’re worried about trying something new because you think you might fail, then you should take up the challenge and see what you can do. Another way to be an individual is to surround yourself with independent thinkers whose ideas and ways of life you admire. You can learn a lot from people who are creative, interesting, and not afraid to be who they are. If you spend all of your time with followers or with people who don’t really have much to teach you about the world, then it’ll be harder for you to grow as an individual. This doesn’t mean you should ditch every person who you deem to be too boring for you, but it does mean that you should seek out people who challenge you and inspire you to be a better version of yourself. True individuals are critical thinkers. They evaluate every aspect of a situation before reaching a conclusion, and they use a large knowledge base to help them find the best approaches to tricky situations. They don’t accept everything they hear from their friends or on the radio and do their own research, making sure that they’re reaching the best conclusions instead of resorting to lazy or incomplete thinking.  True individuals think outside the box and know that most situations are more complicated than they seem. They don’t accept everything they hear at face value, even if it’s coming from a person they respect. Individuals are always asking a lot of questions and aren’t afraid to admit when they don’t know an answer. They know that the best way to be informed is to question everything. Become more well-read. Read every book you can get your hands on, from the complete works of Virginia Woolf or Franz Kafka to contemporary non-fiction about historical events or modern science. The more you read, the more knowledge you gain, and the more information you have at your disposal. One of the reasons you may be struggling with becoming an individual is because you feel like you have to fit the expectations of your parents, friends, significant other, or society at large. If you truly want to be an individual, then you have to do what is best for yourself, not what your parents expect you to do. It can be hard to say no to people or to tell them that your goals are different from theirs, but this is the only way you can truly move forward.  For example, if your parents want you to go to med school because you come from three generations of doctors but you’d rather study creative writing, be up front about it. You don’t want to fall into a life that doesn’t feel like your own. Of course, you shouldn’t go against all of the expectations of society just to be an individual, but because you really think you’re doing what’s best for you. For example, if you drop of out college, do it because you have a great reason for it, not because you think it would be rebellious.

SUMMARY:
Find a new hobby. Explore your creative side. Accept challenges. Spend more time with people you admire. Use your critical thinking skills. Don’t do things to fit other people’s expectations.