Month of June , 2007

A recent ad on Craig’s list read:

Female Friends -40's (santa clara)
Reply to: comm-356333757@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-06-20, 10:18AM PDT

Looking for active, dependable, female friends (40's) for occasional walks (about 5 miles) at a local park in Santa Clara.

Given the time constraints women face and the power of the internet, this advertisement sounded like a very clever and direct way to look for new friends...

My niece, Amy, emailed me on her lunch hour earlier this afternoon to tell me that she had caught Tyra’s Bank’s TV show that focused on the topic, When Good Friends Go Bad. Thanks, Amy!

If you, like me, missed the show, you may want to take a peek at the recap on Tyra's website tomorrow.

By 5PM EST, there were already more than 50 posts on her blog from viewers who resonated to the topic and expressed their personal hurt about a fractured friendship of their own. There's still time to tell your own story of failed female friendships by filling out the Fractured Friendship Survey. You are also welcome to post your stories here...

When it comes to social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace, things are largely black or white, says blogger Nancy Baym.

On her blog, Online fandom, Baym remarks: “One of the great shortcomings of social network sites as they currently exist is that almost all of them offer you only one kind of friend. It’s binary — you’re a friend or you aren’t...

A report of the Pew Internet & American Life Project looked at online friendships among American youth between the ages of 12 and 17. One of many interesting findings: There were gender differences in the ways the sites were used. Girls used them to reinforce existing friendships; boys used them to flirt and make new friendships.

The researchers found that more than half (55 percent) of the 935 youth they interviewed visit such popular social networking sites as Facebook and MySpace.

Outlandish Notions is an interesting blog that touches upon many of the emotional landmines women encounter as they struggle and cope with infertility. A recent post, called Continuing the Conversation on Friendship, expresses the author’s fears about revealing such an intimate problem even to close friends.

Sharah writes: “Infertility is like a litmus test for friendships. Is this person a Class One friend, someone who will be there through thick and thin? Or are they a Class Two, someone who can be a friend during the good times of life only?”

Preliminary findings of a British study suggest that today’s teens are far less likely to have a best friend than teens of twenty years ago. In 1986, one in eight 16-year-olds said they had NO best friend whom they trusted; in 2006, that proportion rose to one in five...

I asked Jane Louise Boursaw, a freelance journalist who specializes in movies and television, to recommend her favorite flicks portraying female friendships. She has created a wonderful list of movies that reveal the depth and richness of these bonds.

 

If you haven’t seen one or more of them, rent one with a friend, sit back with some popcorn, and use these movies as a springboard for thought and discussion. Read Jane's list:

A writer colleague, Victoria Clayton Alexander, sent me this picture. The tote bag was given to her friend on the occasion of the recent opening of a new Yoga studio in her neighborhood.

 

Serendipitously, an intriguing new study, forthcoming in the Journal of Socio-Economics, provides evidence that friends ARE more important than money when it comes to achieving happiness...

The More Social Sex, an article in Newsweek written by Anna Kuchment, suggests that our female friendships are evolutionary. In times of famine and war---while men were hunting and defending---women stayed back, providing each other with material and emotional support.

It made me wonder: As more women have entered the workplace, have some of us lost touch with our inner selves? Have we become more acquisitive and competitive at the expense of fulfilling instinctive social needs?...

An interview with Valerie Krause

June weddings are legend. A better-kept secret is that this is also a month of hurt feelings--- a month when many brides and brides-to-be cut off their female friends. Yes, they ignore and alienate the very same women who made their showers, wore the hideous bridesmaid gowns they selected, and broke the bank to buy them wedding gifts.

Valerie Krause and Erin Torneo wrote The Bridal Wave as a prescription for all the women who strive to “stay sane in a marriage-crazy world.” It’s filled with wisdom and wit for the woman who feels like she is always a bridesmaid.

In this brief interview, Valerie offers her no-nonsense advice for a close friend of the bride who feels betrayed on some level, but wants to stay attached to her friend before and after the wedding.