Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

What we try to suppress defines us (more on this in the vulnerability chapter), or, in the words of one of my psychology supervisors, “Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.” That’s why we don’t heal shame by hiding it.

For our life to feel significant, we crave someone to witness it, to verify its importance.

Our friends advertise the kaleidoscope of ways we can live. They expose us to new ways of being in the world, showing us another life is possible.

Scientists have found that of 106 factors that influence depression, having someone to confide in is the strongest preventor. The impact of loneliness on our mortality is akin to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. One study found the most pronounced difference between happy and unhappy people was not how attractive or religious they were or how many good things happened to them. It was their level of social connection.

We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.

We live in a society in which it is acceptable to cancel plans with friends for work, but never vice versa.

Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.

How people thought their romantic partner viewed them, the study found, was less a reflection of how their romantic partner actually viewed them and more of a reflection of how they viewed themselves. People say, “You have to love yourself before someone can love you,” because if you don’t love yourself, you won’t notice when they do.

Secure friends make you feel safe. You’re scared to tell someone you experience bouts of depression, or broke ties with your great-aunt, or put ketchup on your eggs, and your secure friends make you feel loved regardless. Researchers found that secure people report being more accepting of others and better listeners. In chapter 1, we discussed how friends can make us feel human again when we experience shame. Secure friends do this better than anyone else. They provide us with friendships that heal.

Friendships are tiny interventions of love and empathy and oxytocin that calm our bodies, keep us healthy, and ready us for connection.

The theory emphasizes that our identity needs to constantly expand for us to be fulfilled, and relationships are our primary means for expansion.

As writer James Baldwin puts it, “Nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.” That’s why we don’t heal shame by hiding it. When we share it, and our friends love and accept us, we are released from the labor of guarding our shame.

When choosing friends, we are freer to prioritize the truest markers of intimacy, such as shared values, trust, admiration of each other’s character, or feelings of ease around each other.

There's no looming vow, formal ritual, or genetic similarity to retain us in friendship’s open palms. Through friendship, we can self-select into some of the most affirming, safe, and sacred relationships in our lives, not because of the pressures from society to do so, but because we elect to do so.

When affection forces us to choose between being loved and being understood, we'd rather be understood.

Friends, distinct from parents, do not expect us to live out their hopes at once for us. With friends, distinct from spouses, we're not shackled with the insurmountable expectation of being someone’s everything, their puzzle piece to completeness. And distinct from our children, we aren't the sole propagator of our friends’ survival. Our ancestors lived in tribes, where responsibility for one another was diffused among many. Friendship, then, is a rediscovery of an ancient truth we've long buried: it takes an entire community for us to feel whole.

Had I not killed her, she would have killed me.

None of us wants to be misunderstood, but when we downplay our feelings, we invite misunderstanding.

Hanging out with different friends dilated my personality like a peacock fanning its tail.

Don't take friendship for granted. Don't be passive, letting friendship fizzle because you forgot to reach out. Don't dip out when friends need you. Don't wait for calamity to rock you into realizing friendship is priceless. Engrave friendship on your list. Make being a good friend a part of who you are, because a deep and true core that needs to belong lies within us all.

But even when we assume we're unlikable, and we are, consequently, withdrawn and cold, people still like us more than we think.

Most of us look forward to the day when our identity hardens, like a cast protecting against life's dings. When we're younger, we yearn for the moment when we'll be fully formed and have life figured out. Maybe it's when we find love, or have kids, or write that book, or retire. And then we get older and realize that moment never happens. You're never done figuring it out, but hopefully you're better equipped to tolerate not knowing.

If you don’t have anybody who’s generous and loving and full of grace in your life, then go be that in somebody else’s life. It’s not about what you get. It’s about what you can contribute to this relationship. What can you bring as an offering? And that’s how community is built. It’s built on the offerings of the generous and the loving.

When we’re so consumed by how others treat us, we desire to hold them accountable without holding ourselves accountable, demanding more from our friendships than we offer them.

People overcome their anxiety by repeatedly exposing themselves to their fears and coming to realize that the lion they feared is actually a Shih Tzu with a shadow. When you no longer avoid that which you fear, eventually the anxiety dissipates, but consistent avoidance crystallizes the fear.

Our thoughts often hurt us more than our bullies do. The truth is, no one cares about your social clumsiness as much as you do. They’re too busy worrying about their own.

When secure people assume others like them, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy termed “the acceptance prophecy.” Danu Anthony Stinson, a psychology professor at the University of Waterloo, and her colleagues hypothesized that “if people expect acceptance, they will behave warmly, which in turn will lead other people to accept them; if they expect rejection, they will behave coldly, which will lead to less acceptance.

Secure people know their worth, so they assume others do too. They assume people like them. Insecure people, however, assume the opposite. Rejection sensitivity—the tendency to project rejection onto ambiguity—is a key feature of anxious attachment, and it hurts anxious people and their relationships.