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400 Friends and No One to Call: Breaking Through Isolation and Building Community
We can be well-connected, with 400 friends on Facebook, and still have no one to count on. Despite the inclusive promise of social media, loneliness is a growing epidemic in the United States. Social isolation can shatter our confidence. In isolating times, we're not only lonely, we're ashamed because our society stigmatizes people who appear to lack support.
As a single, fifty-eight-year-old woman who finds herself stranded after major surgery when her friends don't show up, Val Walker has woven into the narrative her own story. A well-established rehabilitation counselor, she was too embarrassed to reveal on social media how utterly isolated she was by asking for someone to help, and it felt agonizingly awkward calling colleagues out of the blue. As she recovered, Val found her voice and developed a plan of action for people who lack social support, not only to heal from the pain of isolation, but to create a solid strategy for rebuilding support.
400 Friends and No One to Call spells out the how-tos for befriending our wider community, building a social safety net, and fostering our sense of belonging. On a deeper level, we are invited to befriend our loneliness, rather than feel ashamed of it, and open our hearts and minds to others trapped in isolation.
As a single, fifty-eight-year-old woman who finds herself stranded after major surgery when her friends don't show up, Val Walker has woven into the narrative her own story. A well-established rehabilitation counselor, she was too embarrassed to reveal on social media how utterly isolated she was by asking for someone to help, and it felt agonizingly awkward calling colleagues out of the blue. As she recovered, Val found her voice and developed a plan of action for people who lack social support, not only to heal from the pain of isolation, but to create a solid strategy for rebuilding support.
400 Friends and No One to Call spells out the how-tos for befriending our wider community, building a social safety net, and fostering our sense of belonging. On a deeper level, we are invited to befriend our loneliness, rather than feel ashamed of it, and open our hearts and minds to others trapped in isolation.
Paperback
First published March 26, 2020
About the author
Val Walker
3 books5 followersVal Walker, MS, is a contributing blogger for Psychology Today and the Health Story Collaborative in Boston. Her newest book, 400 Friends and No One to Call: Breaking Through Isolation and Building Community, was released on March 26, 2020, with Central Recovery Press. Walker is the author of The Art of Comforting (Penguin/Random House, 2010) which was a gold medalist for the Nautilus Book Award in 2011.
She received her master of science degree in rehabilitation counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University, and is a rehabilitation consultant, speaker and educator. Her articles and interviews have appeared in AARP, Time, Good Housekeeping, Coping with Cancer, Marie Claire and the Boston Globe.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 30, 2020
I am not sure what to make of this book. The title intrigued me because like everybody else I also have 400 friends and nobody to call, and even when I did call them I was fobbed off with a “catch up sometime” a sometime that never came. Once Upon a time, people put a time and a date on meeting up with friends but Today it seems people refuse to do that preferring to “see how the week unfolds” (translation: If nothing better comes up) “I will reconfirm later” (translation: I am not committing now and will pull out for sure later) or “I’m busy right now” (translation: I won’t to call you back if I ever get unbusy) I’ve lost track of the times I have reached out and said “let’s catch up” and been let down. I now accept that people aren’t that interested in catching up with me and I no longer ask them. That’s how loneliness starts. There really aren’t that many answers, Val explores the loneliness felt by herself and others after surgery and sickness and points to support groups and connecting on a community level but it doesn’t somehow ring true for me. If you no longer attend school or work you no longer have a connection to the world and community groups feel rather shallow And superficial never allowing for deep connections. She fails to mention that Even people who are surrounded by people don’t have anybody to really listen to them or anybody they can Be themselves with, there are a great many people who feel they are not understood, or who, when meeting people, simply listen to all the problems or stories of the other party and never have their need to be heard addressed. What a sad state of the world it is.
October 25, 2022
How I read this: Free ebook copy received through Edelweiss
This has a couple of good ideas and resources for getting out of isolation. However, the resources are only for the US - most of them don't work for outside of it, nor do they have equivalents. The ideas were good as well, but I felt like the book was being repetitive about them - it's like I kept getting the same info back again and again, although the author had seemingly already spoken about it, albeit from a slightly different angle. Everything was also a little bit choppy, there are many lists and many tests that don't really have any real scoring to them, or the answers to which are fairly obvious.
But I did like the main theme of the book, the fact that it's not really most of our faults for being lonely and that society often just makes us question ourselves as to why or how it's our fault, when in reality it can happen to almost anyone, and it seems is happening increasingly so to a lot of people due to how we currently structure how our society works. A lot of the narrative was focused on forgiving yourself for being stranded like that and trying to see past self-blaming - and getting out of the social anxiety rut. A lot of the methods the author talked about - like helping and thinking of how you could be useful to others yourself instead of how someone's judging you - are also things I've come across commonly in some philosophies, but are not things that are widely shared outside of mindfulness practices and such. So for someone who has not yet done a lot of soul-searching or therapy, this could indeed be a good resource.
However... As a quite lonely person myself with few friends, I find that this book hasn't really given me any new information on how to be less lonely. It was a book about how loneliness feels and how you shouldn't judge yourself, and that's all good, but what to do next? I don't feel like I even know how the author 'got over it'. The whole narrative makes you feel like she did, but when I think back... I'm not sure she told us about exactly how? So she made up with an older friend. So she met someone who invited her to one party. That's it? Happy ending? I feel like something is missing.
There are also these sort of 'success stories' at the end. They were definitely warm and nice to read, but also admittedly? Kind of boring. But I'm also unsure whether they furthered the cause of the book. No real takeaways for me. Some of them were also repetitive in the suggestions of what we should do. I get it, Meetup.com is everyone's preferred solution - but what if there are no groups where I am? And what if people at gyms would rather avert their eyes and run away, lest they have to say hello to someone else? (I really hope that's a regional issue and this isn't relevant in the US, for which this book was written.).
Anyway, at the end of it there are also some (regional) resources, like projects, some books, some websites, specifically for over 50s. Those looked good, but are not applicable to my situation, so I will not give any opinion on them.
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
This has a couple of good ideas and resources for getting out of isolation. However, the resources are only for the US - most of them don't work for outside of it, nor do they have equivalents. The ideas were good as well, but I felt like the book was being repetitive about them - it's like I kept getting the same info back again and again, although the author had seemingly already spoken about it, albeit from a slightly different angle. Everything was also a little bit choppy, there are many lists and many tests that don't really have any real scoring to them, or the answers to which are fairly obvious.
But I did like the main theme of the book, the fact that it's not really most of our faults for being lonely and that society often just makes us question ourselves as to why or how it's our fault, when in reality it can happen to almost anyone, and it seems is happening increasingly so to a lot of people due to how we currently structure how our society works. A lot of the narrative was focused on forgiving yourself for being stranded like that and trying to see past self-blaming - and getting out of the social anxiety rut. A lot of the methods the author talked about - like helping and thinking of how you could be useful to others yourself instead of how someone's judging you - are also things I've come across commonly in some philosophies, but are not things that are widely shared outside of mindfulness practices and such. So for someone who has not yet done a lot of soul-searching or therapy, this could indeed be a good resource.
However... As a quite lonely person myself with few friends, I find that this book hasn't really given me any new information on how to be less lonely. It was a book about how loneliness feels and how you shouldn't judge yourself, and that's all good, but what to do next? I don't feel like I even know how the author 'got over it'. The whole narrative makes you feel like she did, but when I think back... I'm not sure she told us about exactly how? So she made up with an older friend. So she met someone who invited her to one party. That's it? Happy ending? I feel like something is missing.
There are also these sort of 'success stories' at the end. They were definitely warm and nice to read, but also admittedly? Kind of boring. But I'm also unsure whether they furthered the cause of the book. No real takeaways for me. Some of them were also repetitive in the suggestions of what we should do. I get it, Meetup.com is everyone's preferred solution - but what if there are no groups where I am? And what if people at gyms would rather avert their eyes and run away, lest they have to say hello to someone else? (I really hope that's a regional issue and this isn't relevant in the US, for which this book was written.).
Anyway, at the end of it there are also some (regional) resources, like projects, some books, some websites, specifically for over 50s. Those looked good, but are not applicable to my situation, so I will not give any opinion on them.
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
February 16, 2023
With everything that we've all lived through in the past through years, we need this more than ever to help us get our lives back on track. Written before the pandemic, the book is perhaps even more relevant now as we try to navigate a world that can feel more isolating than ever. The author is an expert at giving practical guidance on finding support systems, networks, and connections to get out of our own way and back into the world.
February 22, 2023
Life seems so challenging at times, everyone living in their own little bubbles of isolation. Val shares her heartfelt story of having so many friends on social media, yet feeling ashamed to reach out to them and tell them how lonely she was. She gives you some real life examples of how to be brave and break through and connect to others. A great read and resource!
February 17, 2023
Self-help books, when lined up, must cover am area of at least 5 miles. Is there one apt to today, right here, right now? Yes! 400 Friends and No One to Call by Val Walker is the book of the day, this day right here. Read it!
April 17, 2020
“It takes a village to provide the support we need.” - Val Walker
Themes: isolation, self-isolation, support (groups), bonds, networks, friendship, loneliness, support systems, mental health, life crises, long lost connections, reunions, family, communities, FOMO, stigma, involvement and social media.
Themes: isolation, self-isolation, support (groups), bonds, networks, friendship, loneliness, support systems, mental health, life crises, long lost connections, reunions, family, communities, FOMO, stigma, involvement and social media.
February 16, 2023
Timely and important book…especially dealing with the isolation from the pandemic. Excellent suggestions.
February 17, 2023
A very helpful book for people who need to rebuild their support networks. This is a timely and important book, and it is full of useful information
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews