Marisa G. Franco > Quotes

“What we try to suppress defines us (more on this in the vulnerability chapter), or, in the words of one of my psychology supervisors, “Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.” That’s why we don’t heal shame by hiding it.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Our friends advertise the kaleidoscope of ways we can live. They expose us to new ways of being in the world, showing us another life is possible.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“For our life to feel significant, we crave someone to witness it, to verify its importance.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Scientists have found that of 106 factors that influence depression, having someone to confide in is the strongest preventor. The impact of loneliness on our mortality is akin to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. One study found the most pronounced difference between happy and unhappy people was not how attractive or religious they were or how many good things happened to them. It was their level of social connection.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“We live in a society in which it is acceptable to cancel plans with friends for work, but never vice versa.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“The theory emphasizes that our identity needs to constantly expand for us to be fulfilled, and relationships are our primary means for expansion.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Anything unspeakable to you is affecting you.” That’s why we don’t heal shame by hiding it. When we share it, and our friends love and accept us, we are released from the labor of guarding our shame.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“When choosing friends, we are freer to prioritize the truest markers of intimacy, such as shared values, trust, admiration of each other’s character, or feelings of ease around each other.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“As writer James Baldwin puts it, “Nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Friendships are tiny interventions of love and empathy and oxytocin that calm our bodies, keep us healthy, and ready us for connection.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Secure friends make you feel safe. You’re scared to tell someone you experience bouts of depression, or broke ties with your great-aunt, or put ketchup on your eggs, and your secure friends make you feel loved regardless. Researchers found that secure people report being more accepting of others and better listeners. In chapter 1, we discussed how friends can make us feel human again when we experience shame. Secure friends do this better than anyone else. They provide us with friendships that heal.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“The impact of loneliness on our mortality is akin to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. One study found the most pronounced difference between happy and unhappy people was not how attractive or religious they were or how many good things happened to them. It was their level of social connection.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“she left feeling a different type of lonely, the type you feel when you’re around people but uncomfortable being yourself.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Avoidants’ go-to strategy for coping with emotions is repressing feelings. When uncomfortable feelings arise, they withdraw or stonewall. Often others perceive their disengagement as callous, but when avoidants withdraw, they are actually emotionally overwhelmed. Lewis, the love and relationships coach, said he felt “sensations and not feelings” before becoming secure. He described tolerating emotion as a “muscle” avoidants haven’t built up. When he feels avoidant, “Other people’s emotions are really loud, and I can’t hear anything else,” so he inevitably withdraws.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“At one point in our lives, friendship was at the center of all our universes, like it is for Selina. And in that time—if it was healthy—it elevated our character, making us more moral, empathic, and whole. Callee’s story demonstrates that, through self-expansion, friendship helps us figure out who we are.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“object permanence,”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“The other thing the group revealed was that when we feel accepted and loved, it helps us develop certain qualities that lead us to continue to connect better (the rich get richer, as they say).”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Don't take friendship for granted. Don't be passive, letting friendship fizzle because you forgot to reach out. Don't dip out when friends need you. Don't wait for calamity to rock you into realizing friendship is priceless. Engrave friendship on your list. Make being a good friend a part of who you are, because a deep and true core that needs to belong lies within us all.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Attachment is what we project onto ambiguity in relationships, and our relationships are rife with ambiguity. It’s the “gut feeling” we use to deduce what’s really going on. And this gut feeling is driven not by a cool assessment of events but by the collapsing of time, the superimposition of the past onto the present.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Queer and asexual people, who developed terms like “queerplatonic” (friendships that go beyond social norms for platonic relationships) and “zucchini” (your queerplatonic partner), show us that, while typically our friends are not as close to us as our spouse or sibling, they can be.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Avoidant attachment. Avoidantly attached people are similarly afraid others will abandon them. But instead of clinging to avoid this outcome, they keep others at a distance. Intimacy signals, to them, that they could be hurt, so they push others away, eschew vulnerability, and leave relationships prematurely.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“If you trust people, you make them more trustworthy,” said Ernst Fehr, a professor at the University of Zurich and one of the authors of the study. 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.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Most of us look forward to the day when our identity hardens, like a cast protecting against life's dings. When we're younger, we yearn for the moment when we'll be fully formed and have life figured out. Maybe it's when we find love, or have kids, or write that book, or retire. And then we get older and realize that moment never happens. You're never done figuring it out, but hopefully you're better equipped to tolerate not knowing.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Meta-analyses have found, for example, that exercise decreases our risk of death by 23 to 30 percent, diet by up to 24 percent, and a large social network by 45 percent.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“The study was revolutionary because it illustrated that learning doesn’t just happen when a teacher lectures at the front of a classroom. We take on what we experience. Our classroom is what we witness firsthand.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Anxious attachment. People who are anxiously attached assume others will abandon them. To keep themselves from being abandoned, they act clingily, are overly self-sacrificing to accommodate others, or plunge into intimacy too rapidly.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“There’s also research that looks at empathy and friendship unfolding in the brain. It finds that seeing friends excluded activates the same part of our brains triggered when we are excluded. This is not true for strangers. Empathy, then, is part of friendship. And friendship does not only make us empathic toward our friends. It makes us empathic generally.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

“Lauren, Melvin, and Marquee each took major steps forward because they were in a space where they felt connected to others, which ultimately allowed them to grow. The group was safe not only because it was a place where they could share their shame and still be loved, but also because it was a place where people could gently and honestly give them feedback to help them evolve. And the strong relationships they developed with the other group members helped them appreciate and accept this feedback, not as putdowns but as acts of love.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends