Book

The Friendship Fix

Feeling like your inner circle's all moved away? Pulling your hair out over your Bridezilla BFF? Struggling with whether to 'friend' or not to 'friend' your ex on Facebook? Wondering how to get to know your hilarious coworker better without seeming like a stalker? Still stinging from a friendship breakup? Dr. Bonior's first book, The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing, and Keeping Up With Your Friends is now available from Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press. Here's the scoop:

More women than ever before are trekking through their twenties and early thirties not with husbands and children, but instead with their friends by their side, as they navigate jobs, school, dating, and even their Caribbean vacations. But while these friendships take on an ever-increasing importance, they're often entered into arbitrarily and are riddled with constant drama, stress, and confusion. Adding to the storm is the explosion of social networking websites and instant communication, forces that are dramatically altering our notions of intimacy, privacy, and affection. While it is often assumed that most young women are focused only on finding/keeping/dumping/getting over a man, the new truth is that women's platonic relationships are often their real sources of joy or pain.

The Friendship Fix is the first book to delve into all of these aspects of friendship, including:

How your personality shapes what friends you fall for, and why, as in romantic relationships, it's easy to get into patterns of infatuation with "Ms. Wrong"

How modern technology and social networking have revolutionized our friendship-making, friendship-keeping, and friendship-breaking

And how to avoid the pitfalls of these sites and instead use them to become the healthiest you

How friendships can make or break your emotional, physical, and financial health.

The increasing role of coed friendships, work friendships, friends-as-family, and how to handle when "Just friends" becomes "It's complicated."

The author, a clinical psychologist and professor who specializes in young adult development and writes a twice-weekly mental health column for the Washington Post Express, uses a wealth of clinical expertise to explore how to maximize one's satisfaction within her platonic relationships in this rapidly changing world. She uses clinical anecdotes, modern research, and a healthy dose of humor to help readers identify which friends are right for their personalities and how to find them, keep them, and thrive with them. Taking into account individual psychology and modern pop culture, Dr. Bonior provides a practical guide to navigating the world of friends in all their forms: old friends, work friends, online friends, and the new ideal: friends-as-family.

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Praise

"A clinical psychologist cleanly dissects friendships in a surprisingly entertaining manner. In her debut, Bonior (Psychology/Georgetown Univ.) dispenses smart advice, flush with wit and sarcasm, aimed at women grappling with their relationships. Not only does she embrace and trumpet the importance of friendship, the author also offers relevant ideas and non-silly steps to put yourself out there and start creating new friendships. Bonior covers every type of friendship from childhood to college to adult, and from casual acquaintance to Facebook friend to co-worker. Her book will help readers patiently wade through their BFFs getting married, moving away and/or having children while they're still sitting home alone eating ice cream out of the carton. Girlfriends are reminded when to receive, when to give, when to support and when to shut up. Much of the content, to be sure, is what readers will already have been taught or learned and maybe even tried before, but there's nothing like a gentle dose of common sense from time to time. Bonior also tackles often overlooked and weighty topics, such as how to help friends struggling with depression and mental illness. In one section, the author addresses the murky waters of friendships that evolve into something more when one friend develops feelings for the other. An overdone topic taken from clinical to fabulous."
—Kirkus Reviews

"This book is awesome... because I'm in it. And because I sort of apologize to everyone in the two pages I'm in. So if you're sort of mad at me, you should probably buy this book. Or buy it if you aren't mad at me."
—#1 NY Times best-selling author Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess