best friends

Might it be time to call it quits?

QUESTION:

My best friend is finally dumping her jerk husband of more than a decade and I'm glad about that but it's all wearing me to a nub.

Her frenzied dating is making me nuts. She talks about her boyfriends constantly, and about how many men are chasing her. She is convinced her life will be right back on track when she has a boyfriend, even though the divorce isn't even final yet.

She's really into psychotherapy which I hope might help her. I think she needs to stabilize before she gets involved with anyone but who am I to say? I don't know how to be supportive, honest, and not make my tongue bleed by biting it all at the same time.

I used to think that when she finally got away from her husband, who was emotionally abusive, she would grow into the woman she could be and our friendship would deepen. Now I just don't know. I'm feeling distant from her and irritated.

Please help!
Anonymous

 

ANSWER:

Dear Anonymous:

Sounds like you’ve had a hard time supporting your BFF’s choices almost as long as you’ve known her but you deluded yourself into thinking her rotten choice of mate was circumstantial: that she simply picked the wrong guy and had a hard time getting out of it.

In large part, people choose their circumstances, and if they don’t because they’ve fallen into them by mistake, they do have the free will to change them. Eighteen years of abuse must have eroded your friend’s self-esteem completely. What half-normal person would put up with all that stuff for that long?
Admittedly, this is probably a very difficult time for your BFF. She must worry about whether she will eventually land on the ground with both feet standing---and you may be wondering the same thing about her too!

Being indiscriminately “boy-crazy” diverts a woman from thinking about their own life (How do I know? Been there, done thatJ). Her interest in psychotherapy suggests that on some level, she would like to find her true self.

But let’s get back to you. It’s impossible to support a friend when you consistently don’t support her choices, unless she has other qualities that outweigh the negative ones. The value of every female friendship is determined by how well it meets our needs---I like to call this the concept of reciprocity. Friendships usually work when two friends feel like they are giving each other more---or at least as much---as they are getting. Sounds like this one isn’t working for you.

In this circumstance, what are your choices? You can leave things as they are and bite your tongue (but I think you are having a problem doing that or you wouldn’t have written to me). You can tell her things she isn’t ready to hear. Or there is one more approach that I think is the most prudent. I suggest that you take a friendship sabbatical.

You need to step back and give your friend time to work things out---and you need to give yourself time to think about whether the friendship is worth the angst. You can tell your friend that you need some time and space for yourself but you really care about her and what she is going through. In the meantime, spend more time with other friends and see if they can fill the deficit. Let me know what you decide and how it goes.

 

Best, Irene

 

It’s wonderful to begin teaching young people about the joys of friendship. In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Perrot Memorial Library (Old Greenwich, Connecticut) just published a list of its Youth Services Staff's favorite books about love and friendship. Click here to view the full list.

One particularly lovely book on the list---and one of my favorites---is Leo Lionni’s Little Blue and Little Yellow, a simple but eloquent tale of two best friends who hug each other and become green. This picture book has entertained young children and their parents for nearly 50 years.

If you ask two friends to describe how they became Besties, they usually say “we just clicked.”

That certainly is the case for Sal Henley Kibler and Mari Maseng Will, now both 53 years old, who first met at freshman orientation at the University of South Carolina. They pledged the same sorority and roomed together from their sophomore year on. “Maybe we were drawn to each other because we were the tallest women we had ever met,” jokes Mari. (At 6 feet she is just two inches taller than Sal.)

Turning an instant friendship into a lasting one requires time and effort but Sal and Mari have been able to maintain their relationship over the years by playing the game: golf. “We are God parents for each other’s children and seem to go through life’s twists and turns pretty much at the same time,” says Sal. Despite living states apart, their shared love of golf has helped them stay connected and remain close to one another.

“Our playing ebbs and flows with the time available since we are both trying to work, raise children and spend time with our husbands,” says Mari, who lives in Washington, D.C.

“We started playing golf about five years ago, once our kids got to be tweens and our careers were a little more established,” says Sal. Now the women try to play together at least once every six weeks, although it doesn’t always work out that way.

Like most women, they find it hard to justify time away for themselves. “We are getting better at that, though,” says Mari. “Our common interest erases the miles, and the years,” she says. “We laugh all the way across the course and it feels good. Women need their community of women friends to lean on. Golf provides opportunities to be together and hours of time to talk and laugh – in the outdoors and at beautiful settings. The game is all about the golfer and the course--- at that moment. There’s no room in your head for work pressures, science projects and what you’re going to do about dinner.”

Both women place a high priority on their friendship. They realize that no matter how hard they try---their work, children and families are never going to be perfect---so they might as well have fun. “Our colleagues, our children and our husbands seem to be happier when we are,” says Mari.

Sal Henley Kibler is publisher of momseasychair.com, an online magazine and community for women who also happen to be moms. She has held executive positions at several leading advertising agencies in Atlanta, and ran her own marketing consulting firm. Mari Maseng Will was a speech writer for President Reagan and served as his last communications director. She ran corporate relations for a worldwide consumer products company, and served as press secretary and then communications director in Bob Dole’s Presidential campaigns. Today she runs her own business consulting with major corporations, industry groups and non-profit organizations.

What a wonderful milestone it is to reach a 95th birthday---but imagine the added pleasure of being able to share your cake with someone you’ve known for 90 years!

Edith Brook and Una Kilner were born two days apart in 1917, met on their first day of school at Longley Hall five years later, and have stayed connected ever since. Well, almost. There was a brief period when they lost touch with one another as they raised their respective families.

According to an article in today’s UK Telegraph, the two women have vowed never to let that happen again. The article quotes Mrs. Kilner: "We meet every fortnight to catch up. We always phone each other and we'll stick together through thick and thin."

Some say that the pair’s friendship is the oldest one across the pond.

One of my oldest and dearest friends, Diana, has a memory like an elephant. I’m always amazed (and sometimes embarrassed) that she can recount vivid details of things that happened to the two of us several decades ago. She even remembers events I told her about that never directly involved her!

As we age, friendships become more dear---especially old ones. Knowing someone who knew you then is almost like taking a journey back to your youth. Friends can help us retrieve old memories and understand the characters and context of our lives better than anyone else.

If you ask me, 2007 was the year that the term Best Friends Forever (BFF) was so over-used and inappropriately-used by the media that its meaning became trivialized and misunderstood.

A few memorable examples:

Hillary Clinton and Katie Couric were labeled BFFs on the basis of posing for a photograph together at a fundraiser for children’s mental health. (See my earlier blog entry)

Onstar and General Motors were declared former BFFs because GM introduced Bluetooth to its line of cars

Parents who bought their children tickets to the Hannah Montana concert in Cincinnatti were called BFFs

A column headline by NY Times opinion columnist Gail Collins called presidential-candidate Rudy and his infamous friend Bernie BFFs

An unforgettable and over-played commercial for Cingular cell phones mocked the iconic term, showed a granny named Rose texting her BFF.

A Spongebob episode showed Spongebob and Patrick pledging to be BFFs

A quick peek on Amazon lists board books, craft books, and Holly Hobbie paperbacks--all named BFF---aimed at little girls as young as four-years-old!

Here are my suggestions for bringing restored meaning and legitimacy to the term in 2008:

• Don’t use BFF when you speak about inanimate objects or corporations [unless you are using proper acronyms for the Bhubaneswar Film Festival (BFF) or the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF)]

• Don’t inappropriately use the term BFF to convey exclusivity. You can actually have more than one BFF and many women do.

• Be careful using BFF with little girls. Little girls are more likely to have a best friend of the moment. As women age, their commitment to their BFFs becomes stronger.

• Little girls and big ones need to realize that most friendships aren’t always forever. Even a close friendship that feels like a BFF today is likely to be fleeting more often than not.

Everyone has a best friend during each stage of life but only a precious few have the same one. – Author unknown

May you find and nurture warm and close female friendships in 2008 and may some of them turn into long-lasting ones!

Use of the term BFF (Best Friends Forever) is becoming ubiquitous. The new online gossip page of the New York Post recently captured a picture of Hillary and Katie (no last names required) when both of them attended a children’s mental health benefit for the NYU Child Study Center held in New York City earlier this week. The Post headline read: Hillary + Katie = BFF.

I have no knowledge about their relationship but I can virtually guarantee that these two bright, accomplished women aren’t best friends---nor are they BFFs. People, not only the media, use the term so loosely that it has become meaningless. Generally, the term BFF implies a special type of connection between two or more women that is enduring. Does that even exist? Not often.

While there isn't a universally agreed upon definition of a bestie, sociologist and friendship expert Dr. Lillian Rubin (author of Just Friends: The Role of Friendship in Our Lives (Harper & Row, 1985) explains that a best friend is someone who embodies “the best of all the important relationships in our lives---kin, mate, and friend.” It is someone whom we trust, on whom we can depend, and with whom we can share our innermost fears and foibles. Do Hillary and Katie share that emotional connection? Give me a station break.

In terms of longevity, a snapshot of a news anchor and Presidential candidate smiling together captures a point in time and doesn’t necessarily speak volumes for the future of their relationship. I really would have liked the headline to read---Hillary and Katie: Two Great Friends of Children’s Mental Health!

No surprise. People on Facebook are consumed with friendship, BFFs, besties, and like to rank their friends. Hmmm….wonder how I got there?

An article in this week’s Australian PC World ranks Top Friends (developed by Slide) as the top Facebook application. Among 46 million active users on the site, more than 3 million have signed on to Top Friends as daily users. (That’s about 15% of the total Facebook user base)...

Another reason why the fantasy, Best Friends Forever (BFF), isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: When the all-consuming, all-fulfilling, one-and-only female friendship in your life fizzles out or blows up, you’re left in excruciating pain. And there’s no one to talk to or share your misery with. Generally, you would call your Bestie---but she’s the problem!

If you ever have unexpectedly lost a friendship that you were sure would last forever, you must realize that it is always a good idea to encircle yourself with more than just one best friend...

Social psychologist Susan Newman, PhD, a colleague of mine from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, is author of The Book of NO: 250 Ways to Say It—and Mean It and Stop People-Pleasing Forever (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and a dozen other relationship and parenting books.

Susan graciously agreed to participate in an interview for this blog about the relevance of her book to female friendships...

Yesterday’s question on the Facebook daily poll asked respondents, How many best friends do you have? The most frequent response given by 1000 Facebook members of both sexes was 2-3 friends.

Women were about half as likely as men to have no friends;

More likely than men to have just one friend; and

Almost half as likely as men to have 10 or more friends

The quick and dirty findings may support the notion that women favor a more intimate circle of friends. How many best friends do you have?