I'm a 32-year-old woman, and I went on one date with a guy I'd been talking to online. We have texted some since our date but haven't made solid plans to hang again. Basically, he'll text me and we'll chat, and then I won't hear from him for a week. The waiting is making me really obsessive. I find myself constantly wanting to text him. I know I shouldn't chase him, but the urge is so strong. What's going on?

--Disturbed

Sometimes, when two people get engaged, the intended groom is the last to know. The guy asks you, "So, whatcha up to Saturday? Wanna grab a coffee?" And you're like, "I thought we'd have an afternoon wedding. But coffee's fine, too."

It should help to understand that this sort of crazy -- the intense desire to text him -- doesn't come out of some magical, vine-covered mental love fountain within you. In fact, there's nothing romantic about it. It's just the mechanics of our human motivational system, which works like a machine. Russian psychologist and psychiatrist Bluma Zeigarnik discovered that just as pressure in a machine builds up and needs to be released, tasks we've left incomplete seem to cause emotional tension -- seriously uncomfortable feelings, a sort of mental itching. This motivates us to do the thing we've left undone so we can stop feeling so unsettled.

So, sure, you like the guy, but one date in, you're dying to text him not because he's "the one" but because you're suffering through what I like to describe as the emotional version of a really bad need to pee. Reminding yourself that it's just psychological hydraulics might help you weather the discomfort of not texting and then be all cool when the guy eventually calls: "Jason? Jason who? ... Oh, right! Heyyy! Hold on a sec," you say, as you descend the ladder and put down the glue roller you've been using to wallpaper your bedroom ceiling with huge blown-up photos of his face.

For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.