The book we’ve chosen to kick off the Hard Feelings Book Club is Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make - and Keep - Friends by Marisa G. Franco. We're super excited to read this with you 🎉
We chose this title as our first because it really reflects why we’re starting this club in the first place: to build connection. This book digs into the importance of friendship, and what is required from us to maintain healthy platonic relationships.
For many, making friends isn't easy, especially as adults. The road to friendship is paved by our experiences, attachment styles, and skill at navigating interpersonal relationships. We can't change our past experiences, but we can shift our attachment styles and develop new skills to foster deeper connections.
Dr. Marisa G. Franco shares plenty of research, great examples, humour and warmth as she explores what blocks the path to friendship, and ways to open ourselves to new experiences with courage and vulnerability.
We hope that this book will offer you some insight into what it takes to establish meaningful connections, and support you as you deepen your relationships. We look forward to sharing this book with you as we create a warm, welcoming and connected community.
If you’re interested in reading along, you can order your copy of Platonic in our online store or wherever you like to get your books (we recommend supporting small local book shops) and get reading!
We'll upload more to our blog within the coming weeks to discuss ideas we thought were interesting, questions that arose, and reflection prompts to guide meaningful conversations. We hope you join the discussion!
Taima's Reflection:
I found Platonic to be a super warm, inviting, and invigorating look at friendship. Dr. Franco includes such vital insight backed by research and humour to create a comprehensive yet digestible analysis of attachment theory within our friendships. We often don’t place as much emphasis on platonic love, which is why reading Platonic was so eye-opening for me. Friendship takes just as much effort as our romantic relationships.
A couple of things that really stood out to me were the ideas that friendships don’t happen organically, they require effort and intention, and that we need to be the friends we want to have ourselves. If we want honest and authentic friendships, we have to be honest and authentic ourselves. If we want our friends to make an effort to see us, we have to make an effort to see them.
What I really loved about this book is that a lot of what Dr. Franco talks about are things that I already kind of subconsciously knew but needed to hear out loud in order to really understand. This is what made it so digestible and enjoyable to get through, because an overload of new information can sometimes be very overwhelming. Having her explain how our past experiences shape how we understand and operate in friendship, how our vulnerability is a strength, and how platonic love is one of the greatest loves, felt very reaffirming and comforting. It’s what I knew, and yet somehow something I needed to be woken up to. I’m looking forward to discussing the book with you in our first book club meeting on November 29th at 6pm. We will send out the Zoom link closer to the date and you can sign up by emailing us at info@hardfeelings.org
In the meantime, the following prompts might support and guide your reading and reflection. There's no need to use them or address these prompts directly while contributing to the discussion board. If you do find them helpful feel free to use them in your responses.
Reflection Prompts:
- On page 90, Dr. Franco says, “Be the friend you want.” What characteristics do you admire in your friends and those you have healthy relationships with? Why do you admire these traits? Are these traits you’re trying to implement more in your life?
- On page 142, Dr. Franco says “The secret to authenticity, then, is security.” It can be hard to be authentic in relationships when we feel anxious and unsure of how the other person will respond. In what ways can we practice being more securely attached in order to create more authentic friendships?
- Dr. Franco offers many ways for dealing with conflict. I personally really love how she quotes Dr. Simpson by saying, “secure people make insecure people look good in conflict” (183). They don’t shame or invalidate. Secure people know how to co-regulate, they’re able to soothe both their own feelings as well as the other persons. She explains that a secure person might ask themselves during conflict, “if we are a team, and both our needs are equally important, how do we solve this problem in a way that honors both our needs?” What are ways in which you can become better at practicing co-regulation and honor both your needs and your friends' needs?
- How do you feel after you hangout with particular people? Dr. Franco explains that how you feel after can be a signifier of how comfortable you are with this person. Do you feel safe and comfortable with them? Who are you when you feel safe? Feeling safe and secure allows you to be your most authentic self. Is your most authentic self the person that is showing up in that friendship?
- In what areas do you struggle most in regards to your friendships? Do you show up as your most authentic self? Are you securely attached or do you find you’re more anxious or avoidant?
- How do you resolve conflict? Are there ways in which you’d like to become better at resolving conflict?