Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends Hardcover – September 6, 2022

If you're lonely or struggling, read this book. Making friends doesn't have to be a chore, and it doesn't have to be elusive.I'm in my late 30s and I have two young kids, and I know how hard it is to fit anything else into the day, yet reading this book gave me hope and optimism for making more friends. Just as the pandemic was starting, my husband and I moved (it was a move we'd started before the pandemic hit), and we ended up in a new town with zero contacts, work-from-home jobs, and virtual school.Over the last two years, community has been too hard to come by, and I've felt the sadness that is not knowing enough people around me. After two years of the pandemic chaos, I decided to make a concerted effort to build more friendships and connections in this town. This book is the perfect tool for understanding how friendships start, with clear takeaways for what to do (and how to do it).This book is great for nerds (like me) as well as casual readers who want to figure out how to make new friends. Marisa G Franco is a PhD psychologist who studies friendships, relationships, and attachment, and she's sifted through hundreds of studies on how friendships are made and distilled it into stories and ideas that can be immediately implemented. I was given an early review copy to read in advance of publication, and here's what I learned:** Most people (wrongly) assume that other people don't like them. The good news? Most people actually like you more than you think! That means the voice in your head saying people don't like you ISN'T TRUE. Thank goodness.** Most people are waiting for someone else to initiate something. That means we're ALL waiting for someone else to make the first move! The good news is that if you initiate, you have a really good chance of making new friends. Initiation can look like making an observation and asking a question, like "I really like this music, what do you think?" or "What a gorgeous dress, are you a designer?"** Initiation can be relatively small, like "I noticed XYZ, what did you think?" She shares this "insight-question" from another researcher and I immediately used it at the coffee shop the next day. I also started using the initiation strategy to text other parents from my kids' classrooms and say hello. "Hey, I'm so-and-so's mom, I'm so glad we're in class together, let me know if you ever need to coordinate!"We live in a world where it's harder and harder to make friends. Countless headlines reveal that most adults have only a few friends, if that. Many men have only one close friend, and many more would say they have zero adult friends. When we don't have friends and community, our physical/emotional wellness suffers.If you read this book and commit to taking just one of the actions in it each week, chances are you'll know dozens of people by name by this time next year. For me, I'm specifically missing community—people who know my name, and whose name I know—and this book has inspired me to reach out and strike up new conversations with people. Even if they're not my best friends (yet), I'm so much better off for it.

If you have any interest to go deeper into platonic friendships this book is a phenomenal read on the subject! Ever since I became friends with a woman back in 2002, I have had a passionate interest in reading non-fiction books about platonic friendship. Twenty years later, I still enjoy a close friendship (platonic) with her. I have also read several hundred books on friendship!There are a handful number of books out there that stand head and shoulders above the run-of-the-mill friendship books. Franco's book now joins those elite books that take us deep into platonic friendship. In an amusing twist of irony, she makes platonic friendship appear "sexy." That's just a joke. But what I mean by that ironic joke, is that she truly does the unthinkable for a book on platonic friendship. She fleshes out the subject from personal experience, deep research, delightful anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book, and provocative but grounded interpretations to make the platonic friendships highly desirable in 2022.In our Western culture it is quite common to view platonic friendship experience as second-rate or quite bland when viewed in light of either romantic or sexual love. From the very first page she provokes the reader to think about the connection between platonic love and the contemporary psychological theory of attachment. For any student of the history of friendships you are going to love when Franco connects dots between friendships going back a hundred years and to present day healthy platonic attachment.She does what the title promises. That's why it is a must read for all friendship lovers or those who want to grow in their friendship experience. After introducing the subject, she takes you through the attachment theory and then proceeds to refer back to it in various ways throughout the book. She makes you think reflectively about your attachment styles and how they impact your inner self (and friendship) when faced with various platonic friendship scenarios. But she doesn't get lost in a dense, abstract psychological forest. I have read books by psychological experts who get lost in the theoretical forest. But not Franco.I give Franco a standing ovation for taking a subject that typically invokes a low-cultural desire ("platonic") and making it highly desirable and enjoyable. She stays in the platonic lane and uncovers the beautiful communal boundaries for present day platonic connection. At no point in the book does platonic experience become a poor-boundaried pushover to sexual love or romantic love. As she stays in the platonic lane, she truly makes platonic friendship a great and special gift. This book easily rises to my top five books I have read on platonic friendship in the past twenty years. I got a copy in advance from Net Galley.

Hard book to find elsewhere. I love the thoroughness of this book which is why I brought it. However, as seen in the pictures it's a bit roughed up. I'm not going back and forth with returns and the side is fine. I recommend this book, very good read.

This thoughtfully written, engaging book by Dr. Franco comes to us as a gift and a guide in world that urgently needs to be reminded of the power of friends and social connection in general. Franco's impetus for the book was the realization that she, like so many of us, have overvalued romantic love and undervalued the gentle but powerful love of friends... "why settle for the one, when you can have the many"Through case studies, personal observations, reams of social research and examples across history (my favorite being a story about Lincoln), Franco demonstrates time and time again how vitally important our social network (and i don't mean FB or Insta) is to our mental, emotional and even physical health.And what's most helpful is the prism through which she helps us understand why we sometimes have trouble making or keeping friends - attachment theory. The more securely attached, the more trusting we find the world, and the easier to make, forgive, makeup with, and keep friends.And for those of us dealing with anxious or avoidant attachment issues, Franco has tips and tricks to help us out - so that we can lead more fulfilling and nurtured lives. Through the friends who are our mirrors, our mentors, our shoulders to cry on, our cheerleaders, and our confidantes, our lives have meaning and purpose - all said in a flowing, erudite and at times funny prose (OPP - other people's puppies).A timely and vital book, well worth reading and reading again. Kudos to Dr. Franco!