How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends
Ratings11
Average rating4.1
Instant New York Times bestseller Is understanding the science of attachment the key to building lasting friendships and finding “your people” in an ever-more-fragmented world? How do we make and keep friends in an era of distraction, burnout, and chaos, especially in a society that often prizes romantic love at the expense of other relationships? In Platonic, Dr. Marisa G. Franco unpacks the latest, often counterintuitive findings about the bonds between us—for example, why your friends aren’t texting you back (it’s not because they hate you!), and the myth of “friendships happening organically” (making friends, like cultivating any relationship, requires effort!). As Dr. Franco explains, to make and keep friends you must understand your attachment style—secure, anxious, or avoidant: it is the key to unlocking what’s working (and what’s failing) in your friendships. Making new friends, and deepening longstanding relationships, is possible at any age—in fact, it’s essential. The good news: there are specific, research-based ways to improve the number and quality of your connections using the insights of attachment theory and the latest scientific research on friendship. Platonic provides a clear and actionable blueprint for forging strong, lasting connections with others—and for becoming our happiest, most fulfilled selves in the process.
Reviews with the most likes.
I think book could be useful for anyone pushing past their mid 20s, as friend groups tend to start dwindling down. There are a good number of tips to maintaining your friendships and how to communicate grievances so that your needs in the relationship can also be met. Since the book is for making friends the author didn't delve into it, but it would have nice to have more discussion of when to call it quits in a friendship, since many of the tips came with thorough examples I just feel like this would have been a good opportunity to guide the reader through ending relationships that were not healthy for either party.
My only other gripe for the book is as the author mentions, the studies are often studies of small groups of white heterosexual American college students. So while the book is based in science, the science itself is not a good representation of the population.
*review copy via Netgalley
Didn't find it was telling me anything new yet, and I wasn't in the mood for it. Might try again in the future.