Science of Friendship

By: Kyler Shumway, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Kyler Shumway

Loneliness isn’t our natural state.

As relationship-oriented creatures, human beings are hardwired for connection. In fact, it’s at the heart of our survival - both as a species and as individuals. This makes America’s current loneliness epidemic all the more concerning.

But the truth is that it’s hard to make friends. So many of us yearn for belonging but fear the icy sting of rejection, the long dark night of isolation. All of us deserve a place to belong, whether we’re completely friendless or we feel lonely in crowds.

And that connection is possible. Kyler Shumway, CEO of Deep Eddy Psychotherapy, knows this firsthand. His own success story with friendship stems from a lifeline of loneliness, rejection, and heartache. And in his inspiring Audible Original, The Science of Friendship, he offers you insights into what friendship is, how it works, and how to cultivate more rewarding connections in your own life - regardless of how lonely you may or may not feel. How does interpersonal connection work on a neuroscientific level? What schemas do we live under that keep us unconnected from one another? Why do some friendships evolve into romantic relationships or even become toxic?

At its core, Shumway’s lessons are a rewarding, life-affirming look at how to make our disconnected world just a bit more connected. With his help, you can learn to become a good friend to your community, to those around you, and (most important) to yourself.

©2021 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.

Were My Expectations Too High?

This is a great story about friendship and a guy who had sought to find it and help others. Unfortunately, I came in with the hope that it would solve my problems and teach me how to be a better friend or to build closer friendships. The story is amazing, and it provides all sorts of insight into the human condition. But the ideas about making friends seemed rather generic with clichéd analogies around farming. I'd listen to another program by this author in a heartbeat, but I have to mark it down for not delivering on what I wanted: actionable advice.

Meh

Nothing particularly ground breaking or insightful here. Might help change your perspective on some things but that’s about it

The importance of human connections

Some of us put our friends and family on the back burner to get ahead at our jobs. Kyler informs us that this is a mistake. Our human connections are as important as healthy eating and exercise. He lets us know how to make and keep our relationships with other people.

Heartwarming and Informative

My top wish for this listen was that it should have had an accompanying pdf, or better yet, a guidebook like other Great Courses. I’m bummed that I can’t look at the bibliography.

I treated this as more an introductory/application (enrichment) course in friendship. To that end, it was great. Practical. Didn’t waste time.

Yes, the speakers youth and naïveté were a bit cringe at times, and as a conservative, I do not appreciate the work dogma; But most will probably agree with it.

If you can chew the meat and spit out the bones, this is great. I loved that it’s newer and includes recent, updated research that I didn’t hear in books written even a couple of years prior.
Great listen.

Interesting and helpful

Author did a great job of breaking down human relationships and how to create them and maintain them with theory as well as actionable steps. Recommend to anyone wanting to understand relationships better and what to focus on in their current ones.

Great series

Lots of storytelling but also lots of great science on the topic. A couple unusual mispronunciations that are a bit distracting (he keeps saying “longetivity” (not a word) instead of “longevity.”But still a recommended title. You’ll enjoy it, some eye-opening studies covered.

Good and relatable intro story for introverts.

I have listened to a lot of TGC audios and this is one of the books that has the most relatable introduction story. It's so interesting that I lost my sleepiness in the first chapter alone.The speaker is also relatable.

I learned a lot from this book. I notice it talked about some concepts that another book about the science of love from TGC talked about too. It was a good refresher to me.

I would recommend to anyone but specially to introverts like me.

Life changing, compassionate.

Very insightful, honest and helpful. We all have it within ourselves to live and be loved, this book gives us some wonderful tools to help those friendships blossom.

Great

This is a meaningful, nicely put together course. It gave me a few things to think about. It could make a difference to some people.

A heartfelt wish for you to improve your life

Shumway goes into details about his personal life at the risk of embarrassing himself in his earnestness to convince you of the value and truth behind his messages. His belief that we can end the loneliness epidemic I found inspiring and comforting. He offers tips to help you love yourself more, find places to meet new people, approach people who are of different sexual identity or race or political affiliation than you, and... then there's a big gap.

He doesn't actually tell you how to introduce yourself to people you want to befriend or how to make small talk. He goes into detail about strengthening friendships that you've formed and leaving abusive friendships, but offers little in the way of advice on how to actually make friends.

I would suggest pairing this with "How to Talk to Anybody, Anytime, Anywhere: 3 Steps to Make Instant Connections", which is also free on Audible with Plus membership. Using that 30-minute lecture, you'll learn how to make friends out of strangers, and using these lectures, you'll learn how to make friendships last or end, and even how to become friends with yourself.