Visual Summary / DVFZ Books
Beat loneliness by building relationships that last
Three strategies drawn from psychology, philosophy, and one nine-year-old who already knows how to do it.
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01 The problem
Loneliness is common, and it does not feel the same to everyone
Loneliness is not rare and it is not evidence that something is wrong with you. Governments treat it as a public problem now. The United Kingdom appointed a Minister for Loneliness in 2018, Japan did the same in 2021, and an Australian initiative reported that five million Australians were living with problematic levels of it.
The numbers in the book come from the Roots of Loneliness Project, which reported in 2022 that 52 percent of Americans consider themselves lonely and 47 percent say they lack meaningful relationships. Twelve percent feel they have no close friends at all.
What the book does with that is more useful than the statistics. Drawing on a 1979 study, it sorts the feeling into four sets, and the sets are not equally serious. Naming yours tells you what to do next.
Loneliness does not feel the same to everyone.Rubinstein, Shaver & Peplau, 1979
Read the four sets and say out loud which one describes you this week. If it is the fourth, the book's own advice is to take that to a qualified mental health professional rather than working through it alone.
02 The core idea
Three ingredients make a relationship that lasts
The book runs on one image the whole way through. You are brewing what the author calls an Anti-Loneliness Potion, and it takes three ingredients, each drawn from a different part of you.
Self-Worth comes from the pure thoughts of your mind towards yourself. Friendship comes from the clean motives of your heart towards another. Love grows from the high hopes of your spirit. A fourth is added at the very end, Selfless Love, which the author calls the secret ingredient.
One thing has to come out before any of them goes in. Every one of the four sets of lonely feelings is fed by self-doubt, and self-doubt spoils the mixture. Take authority over it first.
Write the three words down in sequence: Self-Worth, Friendship, Love. The order is not decoration. The second will not hold without the first, and the third asks the most of you.
03 Strategy one · yourself
Self-worth refills itself, so pour in all you have
The first strategy is to become your own good friend. The recipe asks for all the self-worth you have, and that is a reasonable thing to ask, because self-worth is self-sustaining. The book calls it a well of living water, as opposed to a pool of self-pity full of muck.
The self-love involved is not vanity. The book takes its definition from Thomas Aquinas, who described self-love as a substantial union: you and yourself in agreement about wanting what is good for you. Aquinas also called self-love the form and root of friendship, which is exactly why this strategy comes before the other two.
What the well gives back is contentment, and contentment changes how you are with everyone else. Content people argue less and defend themselves less, so more of what is good in them shows. The book calls the result magnetism: good recognises good, and that is usually how a friendship starts.
Self-Worth is the enduring knowledge, acceptance, and belief that however you may feel about yourself at any moment, whatever you may possess or not possess in terms of human qualities and worldly things, and no matter what you achieve or not achieve in your lifetime, you remain essentially good, and therefore are worthy to love and be loved.Gian Pittard's own definition
The next time you are alone and restless, look around and do one small useful thing in front of you. The book's nine-year-old waters the plants. The task is not the point. Proving that your own company produces something is the point.
04 Strategy two · another person
Friendship is a need, and the need has two halves
The second strategy opens with a plain question: is a friend a need or a want? The book answers need, and cites the research finding that satisfying social relationships are vital for good mental and physical health. If it is vital, it is not optional.
The practical half is what a friendship does for you and for them. Shared laughter, shared activity, mutual encouragement, better health on both sides. That half you can explain to anyone.
The sentimental half you cannot explain, and you do not have to. You forgive a friend who is always late for dinner because they are dear to you. Michel de Montaigne gave the shortest possible account of it when he was asked why he loved his friend: because it was he, because it was I. Genuine friends rarely know why. They only know they are good for each other.
The longing for interpersonal intimacy stays with every human being from infancy throughout life … the human being is born with the need for contact and tenderness.Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, 1959
05 Strategy two · the line
Having a need is fine; being needy is a different thing
The same chapter draws the line that decides whether a friendship survives. Expecting honesty, goodwill and respect is healthy, and there is no genuine friendship without those acts of decency. Expecting one person to answer all of your social needs, whenever you want, is not healthy.
The book is direct about what happens when an unhealthy expectation goes unmet. You drop into the third set of lonely feelings, Desperation, and start feeling helpless, vulnerable and abandoned. Then you cling, and the clinging is what makes the other person step back. A good friend may stay, but the friendship is not the same afterwards.
There are two ways to hold the line. The practical way is to keep your self-worth strong, so you are not asking one person to supply it for you. The sentimental way is to appreciate that the person simply exists in your life, and expect nothing in particular beyond that.
Pick one friendship and name a single expectation you have never said out loud. Then decide which it is: decency, or availability. Only the first is fair to ask of anyone.
06 Strategy three · both directions
Selfless love works even when you have nothing to give
The third strategy has two parts. Reciprocal love runs both ways: you are there for them, they are there for you, and both of you know it. Selfless love runs one way, asks for nothing back, and is the ingredient the author keeps for last.
Selfless love is defined in the book as an attitude of humble service and a willingness to drop everything to help another person in need. Notice what it does not require. Not a good week, not energy, not anything you have to bring with you. Only your presence and your honest capacity.
That is why it matters most on the worst days. When you feel empty you cannot even feel yourself, so telling you to go work on your self-worth is useless. Take the other route instead. Sit quietly beside someone who wants nothing from you but your company. You may receive something you never knew how to ask for, and your self-worth starts rebuilding from there.
Children feel strong, thanks to the love of those who love them. This is what gratifies them and gives them a privileged position. They don't put their trust in a career or a medal, but only in the love of those who love them.Fr. Luigi Maria Epicoco
Choose one person who loves you and spend twenty quiet minutes with them, doing nothing in particular. No agenda and no conversation you have to get through. Showing up is the entire exercise.
07 The whole book
Three ingredients, and one you add last
None of the three works alone, and the sequence is the argument. Self-worth makes friendship possible, friendship makes love easier to give and to accept, and love feeds back into self-worth.
Self-Worth
Be your own good friend. You remain essentially good whatever you feel, own or achieve, and the well does not run dry.
Friendship
Need a friend without being needy. Enjoy what the friendship does for you, and like them just because.
Love
Reciprocal love keeps a relationship alive. Selfless love reaches people who have nothing left to give, including you.
The author's last word is not that you should stop feeling lonely. It is that loneliness brings you back to your humanity and reminds you that you need other people. Beat it each time it returns, and make one more person less lonely while you are at it.
Adapted from Three Highly Effective Relationship Strategies According To My Research
Gian Pittard · © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 30 cited sources in the source edition