Helpful guide if a bit repetitive. Great tips on getting back into the real world, building relationships with the people around you, and making friends outside of technology.
Summary:
Loneliness is one of the biggest problems in our world today, and it's on the rise. Allen researched what worked for our ancestors for centuries and spent time with cultures focused on building community, such as African tribes and Italian villages known for their close connections. She focuses on five key traits for relationships: proximity, transparency/vulnerability, accountability, a shared purpose, and consistency. In contrast, the American culture is centered around independence, success, and a do-it-yourself mindset, the opposite of what is needed to build relationships. Technology has also designed our modern lifestyles to be secluded, doing everything from our own home and comparing ourselves to others on social media, but that's not how we were designed to be socially or sprititually. To that end, Allen provides advice on how to build your village and find close friends right where you are.
Verdict: 7.5/10
I was not expecting this to be a "Christian book," but it’s good. She points back to the Bible as even God is relational in the Trinity, and the devil's greatest weapon is keeping us isolated. The language emphasized the 'warfare against loneliness.' There was a little heavy-handed self-help inspiration thrown in, but Allen countered this by offering practical steps to obstacles that so many of us encounter in social settings.
A lot of her advice comes down to being vulnerable and interacting face-to-face. If you're not seeing people in-person, then you're not having that same personal connection. The amount of Facebook followers does not equal one's amount of friends. Research shows that the average person can only handle a network of 150 people, so Allen starts with finding those 2-5 closest friends that we can build a deep connection to go through life together.
What stuck with me most was how much of a cultural shift Americans need. One of my favorite anecdotes in the book was about an African village where the women washed clothes together in the river. They soon "modernized" and got washer-dryers for all the homes in town. However, depression went up. The Rwandan pastor sagely suggested that “the more resources a person gets, the more walls they put up and the more lonely they become.” To connect with others, we have to tear down our walls and share every-day life with others around us.
Some of this advice really called me out like the tendency to maintain friendships from previous residences instead of connecting with people in your present location. Or of unrealistic approaches like needing your friends to have everything in common with you or aren’t in the same life stage as you. Allen looks at the different types of friends too as each person has their own skills and fulfills different needs than others (you wouldn't ask one friend to be the comforter, the challenger, and the comic all in one). It's valuable to look at what each friend provides you and what you provide to them as well.
Another main aspect Allen covered was accountability, having a trusted advisor to correct us and make us better. We don’t like being called out, but it’s what good friends do. Acceptance and tolerance is not real friendship. While we should accept and love a person for who they are and not expect them to be someone else, a good friend will tell you when you're making a foolish or harmful decision. Allen says conflict should make, not break, a friendship as you fight through it and grow together.
The closer you live with people, the more your rough edges scrape against each other, but the pain is worthwhile. And we need grace and forgiveness in relationships with other sinful humans. Obviously, there are some toxic conflicts that we should avoid but conflict is safe when you know you won’t quit each other. Friends are often inconvenient. Get over it and don’t quit when things get hard or uncomfortable.
Besides the elements needed to build relationships, Allen also highlighted some of the common traps against making friends. Idleness is a big one as friendships require effort to maintain. Codependency is another as it relies on someone to give you meaning that only God can. People will let you down, don’t turn them into an idol instead of an individual. One that comes up a lot in our tech era is the comparison game, which makes us compete against the people we should be working with.
Overall, this book made me reevaluate how I approach my friendships and how I can improve - exactly what a self-help book should do. And it helped me look at my community in the greater context of my faith as well. I'd recommend this to anyone looking to make friends and get out of their relational rut.
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