Kat Vellos

This is a book about friendship, something I've been focusing on more in the context of the pandemic and after moving to a new city (again) in my 30s. It's an easy read, combining actionable ideas with information and personal anecdotes.

The book is aimed at people living in large cities, and some parts are just ridiculously San Francisco. Vellos describes a "Friendship Incubator" system where you set out to become closer friends with someone by following a three-month program: after marking the start and end dates in both of your calendars, you deliberately spend time together at least once a week, doing a variety of activities (hanging out at both of your homes, going out, having a heart-to-heart conversation). I can't quite come to terms with the artificiality of it: why not just spend more time with someone whose company you enjoy?

But overall, there's plenty of food for thought here, and some good actionable ideas. For example, Vellos recommends inviting people over to your home, even if it's messy. Her description of an imperfect home was almost offensive in its obliviousness (having no concept of what an actual mess is, she reassures us that it's okay to have some mail on the counter and a couple of dishes in the sink!). But I did make an effort to invite over the one friend who lives close enough to see in person, and it really is so much better than Zoom.

Vellos' overall perspective of what matters in a friendship is different from mine. She seems to see friends as almost interchangeable and easily replaceable:

If your frequency hopes are out of sync, you've got some decisions to make. Have a conversation about what you're each feeling and willing to offer. The person who wants more frequency either has to find a way to be happy with less, or find another friend who can be as available and dedicated as they are. The person who wants less frequency either has to step up and offer more time to demonstrate that they value the friendship, or they need to understand if the other person wants to step back to prioritize other people who can meet their connection needs.

I found it hard to imagine a situation where I like someone enough that I want to spend significantly more time with them, yet would deliberately choose to step back from the friendship because we can't spend as much time together as I'd like. I'm at the point in my life where several of my good friends have young children and just don't have much time for socializing, but we catch up when we can, while the people who are more available develop naturally into closer friends over time. I'm not going to actively replace one with another just because I'd prefer weekly interaction while they can only do once a month; I just don't think friends are fungible like that.

But this was valuable in that it made me think about what does matter to me in a friendship. Vellos lists four "seeds of connection" at the core of good friendships: proximity, frequency, compatibility, and commitment. She tells a story about someone befriending "random awesome people", with the idea that basically anyone can become a good friend if you just get to know them, and I'm not really sold on that. So it made me realize that compatibility is most important to me: I'd much rather be friends with someone I really get along with, even if they live far away and I can't see them that often, than with someone conveniently nearby whose personality just doesn't click with mine.

There's an extensive collection of conversation-starter questions in the back of the book, and I've enjoyed the conversations that they prompted. But I haven't tried them with new acquaintances, only with someone who was already close enough that we were sitting in my house looking at the books I was reading. What's a risk you took that worked out well? As you've gotten older, have you outgrown any previously-held beliefs? What do you think are over-valued and under-valued in society? The author uses these in the context of meetup events where the whole purpose is to meet new people, and I haven't quite figured out how to insert them into normal conversation.

So there are pros and cons, but this book is oddly compelling overall, and I keep coming back to it. I keep flipping through to find things I (dis)agree with, and reading reviews on social media, and reflecting about it in this extensive review. It's a book that makes you think, regardless of whether you agree with it, and there's a lot of value in that.… (plus d'informations)