phew! the central element of this book is the golden rule of friendship (If you want people to like you, make them feel good about themselves), which is repeated to exhaustion throughout, along with some interesting anecdotes. there are "techniques" and writing choices i just completely disagree with, not to mention every criminal mentioned sounded like an idiot, which felt equally realistic and dismissive 

it was interesting to put a name to interactions that tend to happen naturally (like isopraxism, conversational bridgebacks, word mines, truth bias or the ben franklin effect), although there is a chunk of questionable terminology (the bitch hair flip... really?) that just doesn't fly for me

the best compliment i can give is that i would hand over this book for aliens to decipher the basic elements of how we as human beings CAN connect, and also that i hope the chapter on internet safety is taught in every school for the sake of kids' media literacy (lots of boomers might need it too)