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July 17 - August 25, 2025
“For our life to feel significant, we crave someone to witness it, to verify its importance.
“a negative view of human nature, a biased view against some groups of people, a mistrust of social institutions, and a disregard of ethical means for achieving an end.”
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.
Before 1800, there wasn’t even a word for loneliness as we know it today. The word “lonely” described the state of being alone, rather than the exquisite pain of it.
One large study found that heavy social media users were either the least lonely or the most, depending on whether social media was used to schedule inperson interactions or replace them.
Perhaps remnants of our evolutionary past lead us to assume that friendship happens organically. Because it once did. But it doesn’t anymore.
“How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved,”
Overt avoidance is when people don’t show up to events because they are too uncomfortable. When people invite you out, and you don’t show up, they’re less likely to invite you out again; they don’t know you might be anxious and instead will take your actions to mean that you’re not interested in them (people assume rejection easily, we’ve found).
May I assume that others like me.
Am I inviting people out? Am I saying hello? Am I engaging with them? Am I checking in?
“Does your voice shake? Are you emotional? Are you nervous? That’s actually communicating to the person, ‘This is important to me.’ 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.
“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
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.”
To keep from oversharing, we need to understand our motives when sharing, to ask ourselves, “Why am I sharing this?” Our sharing should reflect the safety we feel in a friendship, rather than the lack thereof that we are trying to compensate for.
Vulnerability says explicitly, “I acknowledge you have power over me, and I’m hoping you’ll use it kindly.” Dominance says, “You have no power over me. I have power over you.”
“It’s impossible to love and control someone at the same time.”
If your voice shakes, let it. If it’s scary for you to share, say so. If you start to tear up, let tears fall.
Authenticity doesn’t mean always doing what we want or expressing what we think or feel (that’s rawness). It means we are responsive, rather than reactive, intentional rather than primal. It’s choosing behaviors that express who we are rather than being triggered to act in ways that don’t.
I spend an hour organizing the toiletries while my friend hangs out on the balcony, gazing at the ocean. I feel overworked, so she must be lazy. Or my roommate tells me, “Please wash the dishes.” I feel condescended to, so she must be condescending. Another friend leaves my party early because he needs to finish up some work. I feel disregarded, so he must be uncaring. Projection muddles our feelings with our evaluation of the other person. Avoiding it requires us to own our feelings instead of shaping them into character judgments.
cumulative.
“Treating different things the same can generate as much an inequality as treating the same things differently.”
Authenticity is a state of presence we access when we aren’t hijacked by threat. It’s who we are underneath our defense mechanisms.
▶ To be more authentic in threatening situations, restrain from indulging in what comes reflexively, because it is likely a defense mechanism. Be mindful and aware of the triggers that propel you to self-protect without indulging them. Pause and breathe. Shift your attention from defensiveness to openness. Access your higher self.
To stave off social anxiety that impedes authenticity, focus on the person in front of you instead of yourself.
“Hey. I realize part of this is my fault because I didn’t communicate this [admitting fault], but I was hurt that you didn’t interact with others more at the book launch [non-blaming expression of feelings]. I know you probably didn’t realize I wanted this [assuming positive intent], and I appreciate that you flew across the country to attend [perspective taking], but I would have loved it if you got to know other people there [non-blaming expression of need].”
“Secure people make insecure people look good during conflict,” Dr. Simpson told me. They engage in co-regulation, where they soothe not only their own feelings but also those of the other party.
What do I hope to achieve through this conflict? 2. What’s my role in this problem, and what’s my friend’s? 3. Do I see the conflict as a way to make the friendship better? 4. Can I calmly approach my friend? 5. Am I ready to balance sharing my perspective with taking my friend’s?
To counteract the negativity bias, we need to rehumanize our friend after bungled conflict, to consider them more broadly rather than filing them down to whatever appendage of them materialized in conflict.
Bake for friends. • Send friends cards. • Teach friends a skill. • Offer to connect friends with someone who might be helpful to them. • Offer to help friends reach a goal (e.g., to walk with them if they are trying to exercise more). • Spend more time with friends. • Buy friends gifts when you see something they might like. • Cook for friends. • Offer to run errands for friends (walk their dog, pick up groceries). • Venmo friends money for coffee or a meal to treat themselves. • Drive friends to the airport. • Let friends borrow clothes or books. • Babysit friends’ kids. • Share helpful
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The problem with fawning, however, is that it muddles our clarity on whether we give because we love or because we want to earn love.
Just because I wasn’t selfless didn’t mean I was selfish. It meant I was human.
In our friends’ times of need, new age friendship boundaries default to the all-or-none of “Given my current state, I can’t offer you anything,” whereas communal boundaries require us to ask ourselves, “Given my current state, what can I offer?”
Homohysteria describes straight men’s fears of being perceived as gay, and researchers argue that these fears impede emotional intimacy among men.
Instead of only asking why our friends don’t try more, we also must evaluate whether we make them feel safe to.
“Anxious people never feel like there can be enough love. So they will smother the other person with affection to the point at which they can no longer keep up,”
“When I am complimented, sometimes I feel like the other person clearly doesn’t know me.”
“it’s terrifying to feel love because it’s something dangerous that can be taken away from me.”
