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May 21 - June 2, 2023
“The disorder leads to conditions that foster the disorder.”
I remember turning down invitations from high school friends to hang out and being confused about my behavior. They’d ask me to go to the mall and I’d just say no. “She doesn’t want to hang out with us,” they said to one another. I did, though. It just felt vulnerable to admit it. It was my avoidance speaking.
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.
If we do the internal work, if we face ourselves, then we won’t just make friends by saying all the right things; we’ll feel the right things deep inside us.
But friendships require initiative, and that means we must confront our gravest fears.
One hello can be the difference between being lonely and finding your best friend.
friendship as something that happens when we make it happen. We can believe that we can get closer to people if we try.
School settings provided him with the ingredients sociologists consider essential for connection: continuous unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability.
having close friends betters our romantic relationships.
one person can never complete us or fulfill us so deeply that we do not need or benefit from friendship.
lay the foundations by developing strong friendships. Remember: friends will only make your romance better.
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.
Assume people like you.
When you think an interaction isn’t going well, ask yourself if it is your thoughts that have given you that sense or if it is the other person’s behavior. What behaviors has the person demonstrated that have indicated that they disapprove of you? If you cannot pinpoint any particular behaviors, then your anxious thoughts may be overly cynical in guessing what the other person is thinking.
I’m proud of you if you are able to initiate, no matter whether you make friends. You’re still building a new skill either way. The effort confirms that you’re positioning yourself to get the results you seek. You win no matter what.
But Clive eventually realized that a social context wasn’t just something that was happening to him; it was something he could create.
the social climate isn’t a static reality. Our perception of it is linked to the actions we take within it.
People overcome their anxiety by repeatedly exposing themselves to their fears
We have to overcome overt avoidance by showing up and overcome covert avoidance by engaging with people when we get there.
instead tell ourselves that others like us, that they’d be happy to connect, that we are likable.
others like me.
trust yourself when you meet someone who feels familiar or comfortable, when there’s chemistry, when you sense you might be experiencing a kindred spirit.
friendship isn’t magical. It’s overwhelmingly determined by the spaces we find or place ourselves in.
when you’re building early relationships, costs diminish the likelihood of the relationship progressing.
We can initiate a conversation with strangers by using the insight and question method
Am I inviting people out? Am I saying hello? Am I engaging with them? Am I checking in?
‘So be a friend like that.’ Be a friend like that to someone. 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 vulnerable, it doesn’t just feel like our secrets are at stake, but our entire being.
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.
The truth is, what feels vulnerable for us reveals something deeper about what we’ve learned to be ashamed of.
Me saying something that feels vulnerable, that’s vulnerability. But even more vulnerable is for me to let them know, behaviorally or through nonverbal cues: it’s our willingness to not just share something vulnerable, but to actually be vulnerable in the moment of sharing it,”
It’s when there’s a mismatch of the content (this is me being vulnerable) and the nonverbal cues (this is no big deal) that misunderstanding can arise. I call this mismatch “packaged vulnerability.”
When we package our vulnerability to seem less helpless, we run a greater risk of receiving a flat response—not because people don’t care, but because they don’t sense that this is a moment when caring is important.
vulnerability, aligning our actions with our words, gets us the connection and support we need.
What life-giving art have we been deprived of because the artist was too afraid to reveal their pain through their craft?
she realized the ways in which her perfectionism was fueled by shame,
people like vulnerable people more,
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.”
“a way into a relationship that feels deliberate.”
Vulnerability cements connection, not just because it leads us to be perceived as more honest and genuine but also because it conveys that we like and trust the person we’re interacting with.
“We didn’t curate our personas for each other; we were just raw and honest.
the fact that she was really open with me signaled to me that she valued our friendship.”
vulnerability is authentic and oversharing isn’t. Oversharing is a defense mechanism,
oversharing occurs compulsively, an automatic twitch to reduce our anxiety, whereas true vulnerability occurs deliberately after we discern we are safe with someone.
Instead of conveying that we like and trust the person we interact with, which occurs when we share gradually, oversharing often conveys instead that we need to get something off our chest, and any listener will do.
The avoidantly attached, for example, don’t respond as well to vulnerability. Since they are more uncomfortable with emotion, when others are vulnerable, the intimacy, trust, and love inherent to the interaction may be eclipsed by their discomfort with feelings. Other people’s feelings threaten what they repress in themselves.
Without vulnerability, “there’s a ceiling you reach in friendship that you can’t exceed,”
“If you’re not vulnerable, all of your friends’ love, support, and attention is not about all of you, as you know it. Their affirmation doesn’t land in the same way. 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.”
“Self-compassion creates a solid core of stable self-worth. And that gives us a safe place to land no matter where showing vulnerability leads us,”
Self-compassion has three components: Self-kindness: being kind and understanding toward oneself (It’s okay that you failed that test. It was really hard.) Mindfulness: having a balanced reaction to painful thoughts and feelings, not underreacting or overreacting (I notice I’m feeling sad right now.) Common humanity: seeing one’s experience as part of the larger human experience (Everyone fails from time to time.)
