David Robson, author of The Laws of Connection, shares his tips on building relationships of all sorts while also demystifying the craft of writing.

Hi, I'm dhruti Shah, and this is my podcast.

Have You Thought About. I'm a writer who loves to find out

about what passions people are pursuing, especially if they're

blending together their skills in unusual ways. In each

edition, I'm going to chat with someone I find particularly

interesting and who's managed to fit things together in their

life or profession that you might not think of as an obvious

match. Here I'm speaking to author and science writer David

Robson. Now, David, first off, you investigate the connection

between the human and the science. That's your thing, and

your previous books include the intelligence trap and the

expectation effect. You've got this amazing book out now called

the laws of connection. So

this is all about the psychology of relationships,

not just romantic relationships. No, not at all. It's kind of

platonic friendships, our relationships with our

colleagues, our family members. It's really examining the

psychological barriers that we have that prevent us from

connecting with all of these people in a more deep and

authentic way. We know from numerous surveys that lots of

people feel lonely. That's probably not a new phenomenon.

It probably is because we have something in our psyche that

just prevents us from connecting in the way that we could do, and

that was what I found through all of this scientific research,

is actually so many of us have the potential for the social

connection that we crave, and it doesn't take much to change our

behavior to achieve that. So there's so many opportunities to

get the social support, the understanding that you require,

and we just need a bit more encouragement in reaching out to

find that support with your

writing, though, you tend to bring a little bit

of you into it, even though you have that really strong

journalistic rigor, especially with the science involved there

as well. Do you never feel vulnerable when you're pulling a

book like this together? Yeah, I

did feel vulnerable with this book, I

felt, you know, I speak about my own shyness in the book, because

as a teen, I was incredibly shy. I had, like, a pretty bad speech

impediment, until I was about 16, actually, and so, you know,

I had some close friendships at school, and I was always

grateful for them, that they could see past this kind of

speech impediment, but it did mean that I, even after I'd

fixed that, I just found conversation incredibly awkward

and difficult, like I hadn't had the kind of practice that I

think most kids have with talking to strangers, you know,

building rapport, having those kind of kind of casual

conversations with people you don't know. And I did feel very

vulnerable talking about that in the book, because there's still

a lot of stigma around shyness, I think, and especially in a

professional context, I was worried that people might judge

me for that, and that I would miss opportunities because

people couldn't shake the idea, but because I was shy in the

past, that I might be more confident and outgoing now. And

also, you know, you're just worried that people are gonna

kind of say nasty stuff, like, oh, you know, you haven't really

got over it at all, like you're still, you know, you don't want

people to start to try to remind you of what you were, or to see

you through that lens at all. So I was scared of that. But

actually, you know, some of the research that I uncovered while

researching the laws of connection showed that we tend

to be far too pessimistic about people's reactions to our

vulnerabilities, and actually, people have a lot more empathy

than we recognize, and they often see a lot more courage in

our revelations than we expect them to. And so I felt like I

had to practice what I preach, and I wanted people to know that

I've been through this journey, so that they would know that if

they were in a similar position, that they would be able to do

the same. But

with the book, it's a help book, not one of those

sort of woohoo help books. There is significant science there,

and you've gone through and there are 13 laws. Why was it so

important for you to have that sort of engagement with the

audience, a potential reader, in the way that you wrote it.

I think like self help books get a lot of flack,

and I think that's because they have been in the past. They've

been based on anecdote. You had some kind of guru who was just

kind of giving their their life story in their worldview,

without any evidence or backing. But this is very much based on

really rigorous scientific research, all of it is evidence

based. That's important for me. Like, I don't want to take

advice that hasn't been tried and tested, so I wanted to

provide that to the reader too. I apply everything that I've

learned through the scientific research. So I also kind of do a

road test in the real world to check that it is practical to

apply. It's a narrative book, like, it's not just a set of

bullet points. So I do try to tell the story of the science. I

try to mix that with history and philosophy too. I hope that

makes it just more interesting to the casual reader. It helps

us to put this science in context when you look at

literature or history or personal anecdote. But I also

wanted people to have something really practical to take away

from it. I wanted to be able to write a book that I could have

given to my 16 year old self and that he would have been able to

apply, and that his journey from being this kid who was so shy he

could barely go into a shop to buy a newspaper without feeling

kind of mortified at the interaction with the cashier. I

wanted to write the kind of book that. That person would be able

to apply, and that would be equally relevant and interesting

for someone who's in the position that I am now, who

maybe feels a little bit shy and just needs kind of more

encouragement to be even more social. So I wanted it to have

as wide a pill as possible, and I wanted people to be able to

use what I'd learned. What's your

favorite thing that you've learned, that you've

really gone out of your way to change your behavior about

connection in the course of researching and writing the

book. Well,

something that was transformational for me was the

discovery of this phenomenon called the liking gap. That's

because in my 20s, say, my social anxiety kind of took the

format. I was actually very excited about going to parties

and meeting new people, but I would still beat myself up after

those meetings, I'd kind of replay all of the awkward

moments in the conversation. Anytime I'd said something

slightly clumsy, made a pauper, used the wrong word, they would

really stick in my mind. And so even though I'd got a lot better

at actually forming the initial spark of a friendship, I felt

like I kind of self sabotaged afterwards. And you know, even

if I'd really liked and respected someone, it would lead

me to kind of avoid them in the future, because I felt so

embarrassed about my initial interaction. And I found that

this is actually the common phenomenon when scientists have

got two strangers to talk and they've asked each of them to

complete questionnaires that ask them, you know, how much did you

like this person? How much would you want to be friends with

them? How much would you like to spend more time? To spend more

time with them? What you find is that each party tends to really

like the other person. It's actually easier than we think to

form that rapport, but they assume the other person didn't

feel the same way. They assume that the other person didn't

like them as much as they liked the other person. That's the

liking gap. And it seemed to describe this feeling that I'd

always had, that maybe, maybe the other person was just being

polite when we'd had this nice conversation, and that actually

they didn't really want to be my friend. I'm just recognizing

that this was a common phenomenon. It helped me to

treat myself with more self compassion, because I realized I

wasn't so unusual with feeling this. You know, through that

self compassion, it just helped me to be more confident, to kind

of make the move after having had a great conversation with

someone, to just be brave enough to say, like, maybe we should

meet up for coffee. Or, you know, at work, maybe we should

collaborate on something. They invited me to a party. Rather

than assuming that they were just being polite and they

didn't really want me to go there. I would take up the

invitation. In all of these cases, I'd find that my

instincts had been wrong, the liking gap was not real, that

actually they did like me as much as they seemed to like me,

and it was just, you know, just that one piece of information

just really cured a lot of my social anxiety. You spent

three years doing this particular book and yes, do

you know it's very well researched, very well sourced,

but your brain surely must hurt through all that reading and all

that understanding and decoding and then applying, as you say,

the science that you've been reading

about, to be honest, that's where the real

pleasure of the writing comes from. For me, is that challenge

is like a creative challenge of, how do you give shape to all of

these pieces of research that aren't always explicitly

connected to one another. You know, it's kind of identifying

those trends and what the research is showing. And so

essentially, you know, when I first started looking into this,

I just compiled a huge Word document where I just kept every

lead that I discovered, like all of the references I just kind of

put into this document. And what was so satisfying to me was I

didn't feel I had to work very hard, actually, to create this

kind of narrative. Like, actually, the chapters just fell

out very naturally. It's not like I was shoe holding research

together that didn't really fit. Like, you know, all this

research from multiple different angles, multiple different

sources were all pointing in the same direction. That's always a

pleasure, where you just feel the story tells itself about me

having to do a lot of heavy lifting. I think what did take

more kind of brain work was really, then kind of trying to

distill those lessons in a way that was digestible for people,

you know, just selecting like, which pieces of research,

because there's so many like, which to bring to the forefront,

which to leave, kind of in the background, just how to craft

each individual chapter so that you're leading the reader

through through that without them having to make a lot of

effort. But again, that's the that's the challenge, but that's

also the pleasure of doing it. And I loved like, looking into,

you know, the history and the philosophy, too, of friendship

that widened my own perspective. Like, I love reading Michelle de

Montaigne's essays, for example, because there's so much wisdom

contained in that knowledge from five or 600 years ago. You know,

you often see that these people were writing things that, then

is being proven by the research. And that's always a pleasure to

see that actually, when science is catching up with the arts

and when it comes to connection, it's not just

about building, you're also quite open about letting go, and

that's something that emerges within the body of the text too.

Was that something that you were expecting for the book to

include? And

actually, my partner had always kind of

complained at me that he thinks I kind of cling on to

friendships for too long, even when the other person hasn't

treated me well or treated me with respect. And he kind of

felt like I was too much of a people pleaser. You know, I get

very sentimental about friendships, and I do find it

very hard to cut ties. You know, I haven't really done that much

in my life, and I'm not certainly the book isn't telling

us to kind of be brutal with what friendships we carry along

with us and what to let go. But I do talk about the science of

ambivalent relationships or frenemies, and that's people you

know very much like the people my partner was frustrated by.

These are the people that can act like they're your best

friend one day, and then they can really lash out at you the

next. Or they can let their jealousy get in the way of their

friendship. Or sometimes they're just neglectful. They only

contact you when they kind of obviously want something and

then are happy to let it go when you when you need them. The site

shows that these ambivalent relationships are often more

stressful than the people who just consistently unpleasant or

cold towards us, because they keep us in this state of

uncertainty, like we don't know if we're going to meet Dr Jekyll

or Mr. Hyde, and that makes it a lot more painful when we see

them. You know, even if they're nice, we still feel a bit

stressed because we don't know when they're going to turn on

us. That did make me think we do have to be more mindful of the

relationships that we're keeping, even if you're not

going to cut ties with these people, and often it's just not

possible. I think it's better to keep them at a distance. But I

think what I learned most from this book is that actually one

of the reasons I think that I had kept hold of some of those

friendships for too long was because I was always really

scared of being lonely. Thought like, if I start letting go of

some of my friendships, what if, like, eventually none of them

remain. Thing that goes back to my childhood and being a teen

who was so shy, like I just didn't have the confidence that

I would keep really solid friendships. And so actually

writing this book about all the ways to build new friendships

and maintain them, I think just gave me the confidence to not be

so Craven, maybe with the people who were treating me badly, to

those frenemies, I haven't actually fallen out with any of

them like we're still in touch. I don't mind so much when

they're they're not providing the kind of friendship that I

want I'm happier to kind of let them drift and, you know, maybe

just have, like, limited contact, but when you have a

more thriving social network in general, those ambivalent

relationships just don't matter so much to you. Just don't feel

as stressed by them.

This is the challenge with the book. It is

actually quite a light read. I don't think it's heavy going,

although when I do look at your references, I'm like, Oh my

gosh, bearing that in mind, and clearly, science is something

that's super important. It underpins everything. Why is it

that science can sometimes seem quite exclusive? You have gone

out of your way to make your writing, not just the book, but,

you know, you've written a hefty canon of work as accessible as

possible.

I mean, I don't think science should be elitist

or limited to, you know, any people with a certain education,

because a lot of these ideas, they're describing universal

human experiences. And so I do think it's part of the

responsibility of scientists who are receiving public money, and

then science communicators like myself to try to make it as

accessible as possible. I think some people hide behind jargon a

little too much, and what I strive for is to be as accurate

and precise as possible in the language that I use, but also to

make sure that I do so using the kinds of words that people can

apply in everyday conversation so they're not having to learn

this kind of lengthy vocabulary list. I think people have had

bad experiences of science at school, perhaps, and then I

think that can make them a bit wary of reading about science as

an adult for pleasure. I'm really trying to avoid that. I

hope people who hated science at school can still enjoy my books,

and they'll still see the value of the scientific method for

understanding things like human psychology, relationships, how

to date, how to get on bed with their family members. That's

really my aim, and I think it all comes down to the language

that you use, and you know, how you illustrate the points that

you're making. You know, that's why I do try to include my own

personal experiences to show why it's relevant. I really see that

as my big kind of role in my work is to make the science

that's occurring in academia as accessible to people as possible

without losing any of the accuracy.

You know, I mentioned that you have two

other books already out the intelligence trap and the

expectation effect, and then you've got the laws of

connection. Why are you attracted to such hefty topics?

I see what you mean. It's because I think they

are hefty topics. But what I love is that they whatever I'm

writing. You know? Want it to connect with people, and I want

it to change their understanding of themselves or the world in

some way. And I think actually, that's, you know, by definition,

it has to be quite hefty and profound if it is going to

change, like, turn your perception upside down. So I

think that's why it's always appealed to me. And scientists

talk about like research is me search like we always look for

something that's, you know, personally relevant for

ourselves to spend three years researching in my case, or you

know, or a lifetime in some scientists cases. And that's why

they're all of them have been grounded in a kind of impersonal

experience. There is answering questions that I wanted to know

by doing so, I hope it will help other people who are facing

similar dilemmas.

Writing can be quite a lonely process, and

you've written this book all about connection. I'm actually

interested to know a little bit more about your craft. How do

you write? Like, do you have a ritual? Do you sit down? Do you

go out and then sit there, like, what is your actual process to

get a book like this and your other works into fruition

with my first book, The intelligence trap? I,

like, I struggled the pressure of writing the book after I got

my deal, you know, made me pretty unhappy. Actually, the

whole process, I just felt like, you know, had a lot of imposter

syndrome. I feel, in hindsight, I feel like I wasted a lot of

time in the ways that I was researching and writing it, but

then I have got into a good routine. I think in the second

and third book, I try to go for a half hour walk first thing to

kind of get a bit of exercise and get the blood flow into my

brain. So I'll do that work in a cafe nearby in East London for

about an hour or two. Then I'll come back, do another hour or

two's work, have some lunch, and then me and my partner go for

hour long walk in the early afternoon. Then I'll come back.

I'll work for the rest of the day, up until about five or six

o'clock, and then I'll probably go and do an hour's workout as

well. So actually, combining physical exercise with the brain

work has been really important for me to stabilize my mood. I

just think having those kind of constructive breaks is really

important the writing process. I don't think I could just be

chained to my desk all day and still write productively. I

think I'd just be wasting my time on Twitter or Facebook if I

did that. So actually, you know, even though I'm taking a lot of

time out for exercises, I think, is only replacing one

distraction with another, healthier distraction that

definitely has just helped me. You know, I feel like I write

more efficiently that way, and in terms of like researching and

writing, I'd say I try to get a really good idea through the

academic research of what the chapter is going to cover, but I

try not to over research before I start writing, because that's

what I really learned between the first and the second book,

is that actually is only once you start putting words on the

page that you realize exactly what gaps still need to be

filled. And then I can do additional research as I'm

writing to try to answer those questions or find those

anecdotes that I didn't have beforehand. I just over

researched with the first book, with each chapter, it's been

quite transformative. Actually, for me, I feel a lot more

relaxed now and more productive.

Have you ever had a blank page moment like, what do

you do to bypass that hurdle? Definitely

have had that, especially with the first

chapters, the first not just the first chapter, but actually, I

think the first half of the book is always tougher to get

started, and then you do hit your stride, and the later

chapters often flow more easily. Each book has a different tone,

which it takes a few chapters for you to kind of work out. You

know, what you doing here. How is it different from the last

book in in the style of writing the approach. And again, I think

actually my biggest tip is just to not agonize over that. I

think if you can tell that you've done pretty much enough

research that you would be able to describe the content of the

chapter to a friend, then it's time to write something, and you

can edit. You can rewrite afterwards, but it's much better

to just have something on the page than nothing at all. I've

heard, like other writers say, they often write their their

articles or chapters, almost like an email to a friend. They

try to make it as casual as possible. And then, only once

that big draft has has and very rough draft has been done, did

they start to try to really craft it into something that

they can feel proud of I don't kind of actually write in an

email client, but I do take that approach. I I kind of feel like

anything can go in the first draft, but what I do just want

to do is kind of feel my way through the material, and then

afterwards, I'll think more carefully about structuring

again and refining the language, doing the thorough fact check,

all of that, but that comes later.

At the moment, a lot of scientists are coming

under attack. It's a world where disinformation and

misinformation is punted all over the shot. So with you, is

there something you have to factor in now, as a science

writer,

yes. I mean, I'm always careful to not overstate

the facts and also to. Express the I don't know how to put

this. It's like the I have, you know, literally fact checked

every statement in the books. I'm sure that it's accurate, and

I'm very happy with the way I've phrased it. I am worried

sometimes in interviews that is, is difficult talking casually

about something that, you know, I'm worried about overstating

things. But I I really try hard not to do that, and as far as

I'm aware, I haven't done it so far. But yeah, that is a worry

for me. I think also what I try to emphasize is that these 13

laws like we need to see them as guidelines, but we need to apply

them with sensitivity and flexibility and always thinking

about the other person and their kind of needs and wants. And

what I mean by that is that say, you know, there's a chapter on

how to show appreciation for people, and in general, we don't

praise people enough, like we think a lot of positive things

about the people around us, but we just don't actually express

it, because we assume they already know how great they are,

or we think we're going to seem clumsy. So one of the easiest

things we can do to create more connection is just to verbalize

what we're thinking. I'm not saying that gives you a license

to like, you know, for men to wolf whistle at women down the

street, or for a boss to objectify his assistant, because

that's not actually conveying respect. That's just

objectifying someone. You know, I was conscious throughout

writing the book that people could misread and misinterpret

the laws that I'm suggesting. And I've tried to make it very

clear that, you know, you have to think very careful, like, are

you actually doing this in the spirit in which it's intended,

and are you actually trying to make the other person feel good

about themselves? Are you actually trying to create a deep

connection, or are you trying to, just like, manipulate people

and use these laws to get what you want? I really advise

against that they shouldn't be used in this kind of

Machiavellian way, because friendship, or any productive

relationship, is built on trust and respect for one another. You

know could work in the short term, maybe to try to apply

these rules in a very instrumental way to just get

what you want, but people are very, very quickly going to

realize what you're doing, and that's just going to leave you

with a very impoverished social network in the long term.

What are you going to do if people start calling

you the friendship guru?

Well, I just don't, I mean, I just really

object to the very idea of being of gurus in general. So, yeah, I

don't want, I don't want to have, like, this kind of title

or anything like that. And actually, I'm quite happy for my

personality and myself to kind of take a back seat. What I

really want people to do is to engage with the material, to

engage with the studies, to understand, you know, how they

can apply this to their lives. I'm, you know, I have no

ambition to be a celebrity. What

are you gonna do now? Like, are you already

working on book number four, or is it time, time to take a

break? And in which case, what would you do? Like, your brain

constantly seems to be on the move. So how are you gonna

settle down?

I mean, I love writing, so I couldn't see a

future for myself. But I don't write in some form. You know,

even if I won the lottery, won the Euro millions and like never

had to work again, I would still be writing, even if it was only

for my own pleasure. And you know, I really feel very lucky

that I'm constantly coming up with ideas for, you know, new

articles, new books. You know, it's part of being immersed in

the psychological research is I'm feeling so curious about it

is that I'm always collecting, you know, potential ideas for

future projects. But I think I do need a period of incubation

to kind of mull over these ideas, to work out which ones to

pursue, and how to pursue them. And

anything fiction is that also going to be one of

those genres that you you tap into because at the moment,

everything has been non fiction and science, but there's a lot

around. Well, science fiction is its own genre. So So are we

going to see a David Robson science fiction speciality one

day?

So I mean, I have to confess this, and I don't

want to offend a lot of my colleagues or readers, but I

just don't really read science fiction. I'm afraid. I know I

should do, but I just, I guess, just into like, into our various

genres. I think more, you know, my favorite authors are people

like Virginia Woolf, Alice Monroe, Natalia Ginsburg, people

like that, who are writing about everyday life that are very much

grounded in other people and the world and society around us,

whether I would write fiction. I do have a few ideas for fiction,

actually, but I feel very shy about writing them, so shy that

I'm not sure. So I have written short stories that I've never

shown anyone. I'm not sure even if I did really devote myself to

theater, I'd even have the guts to show my agent what I'd

written, which I think, I feel like it goes against some of my

lessons from, you know, from my non fiction, where I'm telling

people to kind of push themselves out of their comfort

zone, to to trust that other people will have more respect

for them than they think. All of this, you know, you. I, I worry

that I'll get to retirement and I'll regret never having really

pursued this, because I'm always thinking of the fiction ideas.

But we'll just have to see if I, if I ever write something that I

feel proud enough of that I can actually show it to other

people, yeah, but it's definitely something I, I think

about and care about a lot. The

books that you have, would you ever or they

might not even need it? Consider reversioning for a younger

audience. Yeah,

I thought about that too, because, you know,

especially maybe not the first one, but I think the second one

about mindset and how our beliefs can often create these

self fulfilling prophecies. You know, when dealing with things

like stress and anxiety, with our fitness, you know, all of

these things, I think that's a really important message to be

teaching people from a young age. And actually, the

scientific research shows that you can give young children

picture books that teach them how to change their mindset

about willpower, for example, and then it really helps them to

show more self control in the classroom and to show more

discipline with their studies, and the same with shyness, and,

you know, social relationships and the liking gap that I

mentioned earlier. There's research showing that that

develops at about the age of five or six, just as children

are developing their theory of mind. Essentially, once they

start to recognize that other people might be hiding their

feelings and being polite, they start to get really worried that

when someone seems to be nice to them, that they don't actually

mean what they say. And I kind of find that quite

heartbreaking. You know, as I've described, those expectations

are often unfounded. We could have more confidence right from

a young age that other people will like us as much as we like

them. And I'd really love to find some way to communicate

that to a younger audience. Because if I think about myself

as a teen, you know, I think I would have really benefited from

that. And

that was the amazing David Robinson, science

writer and author. Do you have an interdisciplinary life?

Because I would love to hear from you, and perhaps we can

chat on this podcast that goes with my newsletter, which is

called Have You Thought About It can be found via

www.dhrutishah.com, please join me next time for a fun

conversation with another guest who likes to mix up lots of

things in their life. Do listen to past episodes and rate and

review the podcast if you've enjoyed it. Thank you to Rian

Shah for the music