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I had so much love. And just because it came from friends, why should it matter less?
Initiative ignites friendship, while authenticity, productive anger, and vulnerability all sustain it by permitting us to show up as our full selves. Generosity and affection deepen friendships by verifying to friends just how much we love them. These practices strike a balance by allowing us to express our inner truth, while we create space to welcome our friend’s.
“I take measure of the value of the relationship in terms of whether we enjoy each other’s company, do things together, and share things with each other. The answer to all those questions is yes.” She’s in no rush to determine the fate of the relationship because “friendship is good too, and it’s not a second resort.”
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.
“It takes a leap of imagination to enter into a time in American history when, on one hand, sex between men was regarded as loathsome and if known was severely punished and the basis for social ostracism while, on the other, intimacy—including sleeping together—and closeness, mutuality, and expressions of love were strongly encouraged and even regarded as desirable.”
How do we feel human again? Through friendship, according to Sullivan. When we confide our shame, and friends accept us or even identify with us, we learn our disappointments don’t make us unhuman. They make us deeply human. Our friends permit us to accept our flaws, to allow them to be a piece of who we are rather than our scarlet letters.
Because we avoid what we feel shame over, we miss out on the opportunities to explore those pieces of our identity.
“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. Whatever alleged flaw triggered our shame becomes a part of
who we are, not the entirety of who we are. This is how the empathy we receive from friends makes us whole.
Lee was a threat because she reminded Callee of the ways her life was empty.
We take on what we experience. Our classroom is what we witness firsthand.
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. As Anaïs Nin, the French Cuban writer, puts it, “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
You’re never done figuring it out, but hopefully you’re better equipped to tolerate not knowing.
This uncertainty is also an offering—an opportunity not only to expand, evolve, and grow, but also to deepen our friendships by letting others be agents of our transformation.
The study lends credence to a psychological theory called reciprocity theory, which emphasizes that people treat us like we treat them. If we are kind, open, and trusting, people are more likely to respond in kind. Secure people, then, don’t just assume others are trustworthy; they make others trustworthy through their good faith.
As Nick revealed, even when critiqued, the secure don’t go into a self-defensive mode where they protect themselves, disregard others, and unwittingly damage their relationships. They freely express their needs, not looking to blame or accuse, but to understand and be understood (more on this in the anger chapter).
Often others perceive their disengagement as callous, but when avoidants withdraw, they are actually emotionally overwhelmed.
When he feels avoidant, “Other people’s emotions are really loud, and I can’t hear anything else,” so he inevitably withdraws.
The withdrawal frustrates those close to avoidants, who look for an explanation for their behavior. Others pry, coming up with complex and often unflattering hypotheses for avoidant behavior like “He’s a sociopath!”
Without feelings as a guide, avoidants often don’t know what is going on with them or why they act the way they do. When Lewis is in distress, it’s like he’s “trying to scream without a mouth.” Another avoidant described the urge to cry as “turning on the faucet, but no water is coming out.” The grave cost of appearing cool all the time, it seems, is feeling estranged from yourself.
Research finds, for example, that secure people modulate their disclosures depending on whether the other person reciprocates, whereas anxious people disclose, no matter the response of the other party.
Studies find that anxious people tend to wallow, obsess over issues, and blame themselves. As Lexi explains, “Dealing with anxious thoughts—it’s incessant. It’s nonstop, and it’s very draining. It is truly taxing mentally and physically.”
If you felt as alone as anxious people tend to, you’d probably do anything you could to feel better, and for anxious people, this looks like rage. “When you feel like the other person is about to leave you, there’s this overwhelming amount of emotion that makes you want to charge at that person to get them to make you feel better. I feel like I’m just out of control of my emotions and I need someone to soothe me because I can’t soothe myself,”
Vulnerable narcissists reveal the self-centeredness of pain, how we prioritize our needs and shun those of others when we’re hurting. They agree with statements like “I need compliments from others in order to be sure of myself” and “When others get a glimpse of my needs, I feel anxious and ashamed.” They feel low self-worth and are reactive and hostile. Vulnerable narcissists don’t mean to cause harm. They focus on getting their needs met, and dismiss those of others’, because as research finds, they assume (often incorrectly) that they’re the ones being slighted. For vulnerable narcissists,
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“whereas avoidant attachment is associated with overt narcissism or grandiosity, which includes both self-praise and denial of weaknesses, attachment anxiety is associated with covert narcissism, characterized by self-focused attention, hypersensitivity to other people’s evaluations, and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.”
Anxious people are so vigilant for rejection that they register cues of it while ignoring signals of their acceptance.
I recognize how my fears of rejection led me to reject others. But when I was fearful or nervous, I didn’t think about how I was treating others.
One hello can be the difference between being lonely and finding your best friend.
Remember: friends will only make your romance better.
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.
Much of friendship is defined by ambiguity; it’s rare that people straight up tell us whether they like us or not. Thus, our projections end up playing a greater role in our understanding of how others feel about us than how others actually feel. Our attachment determines how we relate to ambiguity. When we don’t have all the information, we fill in the gaps based on our security or lack thereof. Security leads us to navigate ambiguity with optimism. We value ourselves, so when we have limited data, we assume others value us too.
You not only have to show up. You also have to introduce yourself and stay present and engaged.
My motto is that if I ever meet anyone I think is really cool, I’m going to follow up with them and ask them to meet up again. Those sparks are too precious to waste.
Propinquity is proof that friendship isn’t magical. It’s overwhelmingly determined by the spaces we find or place ourselves in.
What feels vulnerable to us reflects our unique psyche, culture, and history. What feels vulnerable to me may not mean anything to you. Understanding and feeling attuned to others’ vulnerability is a key to developing and deepening friendships—and missing those cues can jeopardize them.
None of us wants to be misunderstood, but when we downplay our feelings, we invite misunderstanding.
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage,”
Suppressing vulnerability doesn’t abolish the weakness; it impedes us from practicing strength alongside it.
What do these results tell us? That the surest way to be consumed by our thoughts is to try to suppress them. Avoidance may have more mileage with suppression, but when it gets to be too much, avoidants are more susceptible to stress than the rest of us—because they not only have to deal with the stress but also with their self-imposed flagellation about being too weak to suppress it. For them, suppression may work for smaller, passing issues, but not for intense or prolonged stress.
the British Swiss philosopher, argued that if society were wiser, we all wouldn’t try so hard to hide imperfections.
“No,” I answered, surprising myself. “Because when you come to know someone deeply, you understand how their unlikable parts are hurt parts, and then these parts endear you rather than repel you.”
Lincoln’s response also highlights how our vulnerability may add something to our friends’ lives, rather than detract from them. Giving our friends the opportunity to help us, research finds, improves their mental and physical health and adds meaning to their lives.
Vulnerability involves expressing our insecurities directly.
These avoidant responses remind us that if we share and someone recoils, we weren’t necessarily wrong to share. The person may just be the wrong container for our sharing.
When you’re vulnerable, and they really know you, it feels like you can trust their love for you more fully, because they are showing love for who you really are.”
