Platonic: How Understanding Your Attachment Style Can Help You Make and Keep Friends

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.

the spark is real. So 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. Following up with these promising seeds of connection will lift your chances of finding the deep friendships you are looking for.

People with anxious attachment try to merge with people they’re close to, building relationships of such closeness that their sense of self dissolves. Such intimacy soothes their fears of abandonment while making them vulnerable to an unhealthy friendship dynamic

avoidants are shame-prone.

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.

Their faith in others also reassures them that they’ll have support when disappointed.

the more positively we feel about ourselves, the more likely we are to assume others like us. And the more unworthy we feel, the more likely we are to underestimate how much others like us.

If we want to make and keep friends, we need to swim against the tides of disconnection that have been gradually contaminating us for centuries.

“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.”