Mark: Scientists warn that chronic loneliness is more detrimental to your health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Yet, our modern world is practically designed to make us lonely. Today, we're exploring a book that argues the solution isn't more friends—it's building a messy, inconvenient village. Michelle: Worse than smoking? That's a heavy-hitting stat. It reframes loneliness from just a sad feeling to a public health crisis. It’s not just in your head; it’s in your body. Mark: Exactly. And the book that tackles this head-on is Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World by Jennie Allen. What's fascinating is that Allen isn't just a writer; she's the founder of a massive women's movement called IF:Gathering and holds a Master's in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. Michelle: So she's not just talking theory; she's in the trenches of community building. That makes this interesting. She’s seen this problem at scale. Mark: Precisely. And the book was a massive success—a New York Times bestseller and it even won the ECPA Book of the Year Award, which shows just how deeply this message is resonating with people who are tired of feeling alone. Michelle: Well, that’s most of us, isn't it? Let's dive in.

Mark: Allen starts not from a place of academic expertise, but from a moment of extreme vulnerability. The book opens with her, the author of a book on connection, having a full-blown panic attack on her closet floor, convinced she was utterly alone. Michelle: Wait, hold on. The author of a book on finding your people had a panic attack from loneliness while writing it? That's... both shocking and incredibly relatable. Mark: It’s the ultimate "physician, heal thyself" moment. She describes weeks of isolating herself to finish the book, which led to a fight with her sister, feeling disconnected from her husband, and realizing her friends had stopped calling. It all culminated in this panic attack, fueled by a vivid nightmare that her friends were gossiping about her. Michelle: Oh, that’s a specific and terrible fear. The feeling of being on the outside of the very circle that's supposed to protect you. Mark: Exactly. And in that moment, she says she was consumed by a single, powerful thought: the lie that "I am all alone." This is the core problem she identifies. She draws on the work of neuro-psychiatrist Curt Thompson, who says every human has three fundamental needs: to be seen, to be soothed, and to be safe. When those needs aren't met, we feel this profound loneliness. Michelle: I love that framework: seen, soothed, and safe. It’s so simple but it covers everything. It’s like our brains are wired for village life, but we're living in these isolated digital boxes. The system is glitching. Mark: That's a perfect way to put it. Allen argues that our modern lives—from our suburban cul-de-sacs to our curated social media feeds—are engineered for isolation. We've traded front porches for private backyards. We text instead of dropping by. Michelle: But she calls the feeling a "lie." What's the difference between feeling lonely and believing a lie that you're alone? Mark: That’s the crucial distinction. A feeling is a temporary state; a lie is a foundational belief you build your reality on. When you believe the lie, you stop reaching out. You assume rejection. You retreat further. The way she fought back wasn't by waiting for the feeling to pass; it was by attacking the lie. The morning after her panic attack, she made a choice. She called her friends, she called her sister, and she was brutally honest about her fears and insecurities. Michelle: Wow. That takes guts. How did they react? Mark: With love and support. Her friend Lindsey’s response is so telling. After Jennie poured out all her fears, Lindsey said, "Jennie, I’ve never felt so close to you." Her vulnerability didn't push them away; it pulled them closer. It proved the lie was, in fact, a lie. She wasn't alone; she had just convinced herself she was. Michelle: That’s a powerful opening. It basically gives every reader permission to admit they're struggling with this, because even the expert on the topic is, too.

Mark: And that leads directly to her next big point. Fighting back isn't just about "making more friends." It’s about completely redefining what friendship and community even mean. Michelle: Okay, so if it's not about finding your own cast for a real-life version of the TV show Friends, what is it? Because I think for most of us, our idea of friendship is shaped by that fantasy—always available, doors unlocked, life revolving around a central coffee shop. Mark: And Allen argues that fantasy sets us up for disappointment. She says real community, a real "village," is messy, inconvenient, and requires commitment through conflict. She contrasts the TV ideal with a few powerful, real-world examples. One is a trip she took to her family’s small village in Italy. Michelle: I'm picturing pasta and beautiful scenery. Mark: There was that, but what struck her was the family dinner. It was loud, chaotic, and full of arguments. She didn't understand the language, but she could feel the tension. When she asked her cousin about it, he just shrugged and said it was normal. They fight, but they’ll all be back at the same table for lunch tomorrow. They're committed. Michelle: So a real 'village' isn't about perfect harmony. It's about commitment through the mess. It's about knowing you can have a fight and still be family tomorrow. That feels much more realistic, and frankly, more secure. Mark: Exactly. And it’s not just about family. She tells another story about women in a remote African village. Their daily ritual was washing clothes together at the river. It was their social hub, their therapy session, their support group. Then, progress came. They got washing machines. Michelle: Oh, I think I see where this is going. They got convenience, but they lost connection. Mark: Precisely. The rates of depression among the mothers in the village rose sharply. They lost their built-in, daily reason to gather. They lost their village. It shows that community isn't a luxury; it's essential infrastructure for our well-being. Michelle: That’s a fantastic and heartbreaking example. It highlights that we need these structures of inconvenience to force us together. But Allen also talks about accountability, which sounds... potentially awkward. How does she suggest we do that without alienating everyone we know? Mark: She gives a very personal example. Her own friends—Ashley, Lindsey, and others—sat her down one day and called her out. They told her she had a "hard heart" about a relational issue she was dealing with. One of them said, "It feels like you’re closed off somehow to your part in this whole thing." Michelle: Oof. That's a tough conversation to have, and an even tougher one to receive. Mark: Absolutely. Her first reaction was defensiveness. But because they had built a foundation of trust, she was able to hear them. She realized they were doing it out of love. That’s accountability in action. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s what real friends do. They don't just co-sign your feelings; they challenge you to be better. Iron sharpens iron, as the proverb goes, and sharpening is a noisy, friction-filled process.

Michelle: Okay, so we need a messy, inconvenient, accountable village. It sounds amazing, but also exhausting. How does a normal person with a job and kids and a million things on their plate even start? Mark: That's the million-dollar question, and she gets super practical here. She acknowledges that it feels impossible, and she even cites research that gives a daunting number. A study from the University of Kansas found it takes about 200 hours of interaction to turn an acquaintance into a close friend. Michelle: Two hundred hours! That feels like a part-time job. Per friend! So what's the shortcut? Or is there no shortcut? Mark: There's no shortcut on the time, but there is a strategy for how you spend it. Allen's big idea is shared purpose. Instead of trying to carve out separate "friend time," you invite people into the life you're already living. Your work, your hobbies, your volunteering, your church. Michelle: That makes so much sense. You're not adding "make friends" to your to-do list; you're finding friends within your to-do list. Mark: Exactly. She shares the story of her nonprofit, IF:Gathering. She says her team feels more like family than coworkers because they are bound together by a shared mission. They see each other at their best and worst, not just in scheduled hangouts, but in the trenches of working toward a common goal. The work itself becomes the 200 hours. Michelle: I love that. It reframes everything. The people you serve with at the food bank, the parents on your kid's soccer team, your colleagues on a tough project—those are all potential villagers. But what about the traps? She must talk about what derails this. Mark: Oh, she does. She calls them the enemies of community. Things like codependency, fear, laziness, and especially gossip and comparison. She tells this cringe-worthy story about venting to her sister and accidentally pocket-dialing a friend of the person she was complaining about. Michelle: Oh no. My worst nightmare. Mark: Right? It was a mortifying reminder that gossip is poison. It creates an "us vs. them" dynamic that is the exact opposite of the "we" that defines a village. And comparison is just as toxic. It makes you see a friend's success as a threat to your own, when a village is supposed to be a place where you celebrate each other's wins. Michelle: It feels like she's framing this as a battle. You have to actively fight for your people, both against external pressures and your own worst instincts. Mark: That's the core message. It is a fight. She argues it's a spiritual battle against an enemy who wants us isolated and ineffective. Building community is an act of defiance.

Mark: So when you pull it all together, Allen's argument is that finding your people isn't a passive search for compatible personalities. It's an active, spiritual fight to build a resilient, committed, and beautifully imperfect support system in a world that pushes us toward isolation. Michelle: And it's a fight against both external forces—like how our suburbs are designed—and our internal fears of being vulnerable or inconvenienced. The most powerful idea for me is that the messiness is the point. Conflict, accountability, showing up when it's hard... that's not a sign the friendship is failing; it's a sign that it's real. Mark: Exactly. It's about choosing to stay. She closes with a powerful quote from the Bible, from the book of Ruth, which is really a vow of commitment between two women, a mother and daughter-in-law. Ruth tells Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." It's a profound vision for friendship. Michelle: It really is. It makes you wonder, who in your life right now could be your 'village' if you were willing to be a little more intentional, a little more inconvenient, and a lot more real? It's a great question for all of us to reflect on. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.