Friendship deficit

Remember me? I introduced myself and welcomed you to Chappaqua in a letter that appeared in The Washington Post in 1999. You even took the time to acknowledge it, writing me a personal note afterwards. Like other neighbors in our small leafy hamlet (the way it’s referred to disparagingly in the press), we never really got to know each other.

 

Actually, we did speak briefly on three occasions that I am more likely to remember than you---at your book-signing for Living History at the Chappaqua Library sponsored by Second Story Bookshop (our independent bookseller); at a talk you gave for the Wise Wonderful Women of Westchester (held at Temple Beth El); and at a presentation you made at the Crabtree’s Kittle House restaurant sponsored by Second Shift (an organization of career-moms in Chappaqua struggling with work/life balance issues).

 

Admittedly, you’ve accumulated quite a few frequent flyer miles and haven’t had the chance to be here as often as you or I would have liked. As often happens in small leafy hamlets like Chappaqua (and enormous virtual social networking sites like LinkedIn), you only recognize many neighbors by sight and know people who know them (If it helps with the introduction, you’re a friend of my some of my friends).

 

As an aside, I might add that from the time you first moved to Westchester County and were immediately bestowed with a welcoming carpetbagger label, both you and the President have been wonderful citizens and neighbors. My now 20-year-old son, Andrew, heard you speak about citizenship at the Robert E. Bell Middle School and couldn't wait until he was old enough to vote (Unfortunately, the outcome of his first presidential election turned out to be hugely disappointing).

 

By the time he got to high school, you were splitting your time between here and Washington, DC as our U.S. Senator and he had the privilege of being in the audience as your husband addressed the entire school body in the gymnasium at Horace Greeley High School. You’ve consistently marched down King Street in our Memorial Day parades, appeared at local benefits for various health and social causes (without any fanfare or efforts to turn it into a media event), and have made other quiet but significant, non-public contributions as a townie.

 

I think you got shafted in the primaries from every side. But then you’ve been a lightening rod for critics and naysayers ever since I first knew you (once removed) and you’ve been strong and committed enough to take it. I’m writing to remind you that there are many women in town like me who have profound respect for the road you’ve paved for your daughter and other women’s daughters. We appreciate your intellect, tenacity, and your love for your family, community and country.

 

I’m writing now because everyone knows that losing isn’t easy, particularly when you’ve worked so hard and the loss is so public. It has to take the wind out of your sails, at least for the summer. You need a friend’s shoulder.

 

Ironically, I’m completing a book about female friendships and I have never been so lonely---you and I both know what it’s like putting off friendships to focus on work. I recognize through my research and personal experience that you are a prime candidate for a condition that I call female friendship deficit disorder.

 

Women with this disorder simply don’t have enough time for female friendships---even though we recognize how vital these relationships are to our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. At this point you might be saying, “It’s kind of like sleep. We know we should get more of it, but there simply isn’t enough time!”

 

But when you do have more time, all of a sudden that hole in your life hits you hard. You’re in your house alone and feel awkward picking up the phone to call a friend whom you haven’t talked to in months or years. In short, I’d love you to come over to my house to chat over soft-scrambled eggs (which you say is a favorite of yours on your MySpace page) and a cup of cappuccino---or a glass of red wine with cheese and chocolate if it’s later in the day.

 

Leave your pantsuit home and come casually-dressed. We’ll share feelings, laugh and enjoy the beauty of spring in the Hudson Valley. We might talk about the challenges of taking care of aging moms or raising only-children, but I promise we won’t talk about politics, husbands or the state of healthcare in America. Do you need a female friend?

With warm wishes,

Irene

 

If you haven’t yet realized it, graduation from high school or college can be a friendship-killer. When you are no longer living side-by-side or seeing each other every day, it will never be quite as easy to keep up once-close female friendships or to make new ones.

With more than $55 million in domestic box office sales, Sex and the City made its mark as the highest-grossing chick flick in history on its opening weekend. Why did working women and working-at-home women leave their boyfriends, husbands, and kids behind, flocking in droves to see a movie that will likely be available on Netflix and pay-per-view in the blink of an eye? They wanted to see each other.

Sex is the ultimate excuse for a girl’s night out---something that women are desperately craving as our multi-tasking lifestyles leave less discretionary time for female friendships. The march of Stilettos to movie houses across the country was nothing short of a surge. Women clicked on Fandango and lined up for tickets because they were eager to redress their friendship deficit. Regardless of our age or stage in life, many women simply don’t have enough friends to meet their needs for understanding and being understood.

Sex, both movie and the series, hit the nail on the head when it comes to female friendships. We all covet the close friendships like the ones mirrored by Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte. Women went to see Sex but they were more excited about the before and after cocktails, dinners and parties they had planned with each other. They wanted to walk in the footsteps of the foursome.

Getting back to my commencement remarks---Graduation often means going home or moving away, leaving the familiar and making new starts. As a result, it is a time when many of us lose touch with women whom we see every day and call and text in-between---both besties and entire friendship circles that are meaningful parts of our lives.

Make yourself a promise to keep up with your school chums---especially the ones with whom you have been able to share both happiness and heartbreaks. As you age and life becomes more complex and demanding, you’ll realize that you have given yourself the most wonderful treasure. A few of the basics:

1) Always make friendship a priority (right up there after family). If you need a rationale to convince you, here it is: Research shows that social support and close friendships are linked to improved health and emotional well-being.

2) Get rid of toxic friendships that are consistently negative and emotionally draining. We all have one or two gal pals that are annoying to be with, people we feel ambivalent about and who probably feel ambivalent about us. Just let go of them.

3) Find any excuse to create rituals to stay in touch with the good friends. It shouldn’t be a one-time affair. Make a plan to get together every month or at least several times a year. It can be on milestone birthdays or periodic girlfriend getaway jaunts. Or even the opening of a long-awaited chick flick!

4) In-between, use every way possible to stay connected---via cell phones, Blackberries, and old-fashioned letters until the next time your see each other.

Female graduates: Congratulations---Go forth with your friends!

 

This post also appears on The Huffington Post. Sign up to become by fan at www.huffingtonpost.com/living and receive my posts directly in your in-box. 

QUESTION:

Dear Irene:

I love your blog (well, love it AND hate it, because I see myself in too many of these posts!). You concentrate on "fractured friendships" and right now I'm feeling low because the Sex and the City movie is about to appear in theaters...my favorite series, and I have no gal pal to go with.

While others are organizing SATC movie parties, my two best girl friends long ago "fractured" (well, they were complete breaks) our friendships. One was my girlfriend since high school days who was my maid-of-honor, and lives far away from me; the second, a more local gal who took her place, and then gave up on me over a year ago. Inboth instances, they ended the longtime friendship because they disapproved of my having an affair (an affair that's lasted longer than either of these friendships, I might add...over 20 years). I never put any limits on my friendships with women OR with men; I love them for who they are, both the good and the bad traits. I don't judge.

But now with the SATC movie out, I guess I'll just have to go alone to a matinee andgrin and bear it. I even asked my (woman) hairdresser yesterday when I was getting a haircut/color if she wanted to go with me (she's half my age, and we are friendly but not quite "friends") and she replied she "hates going to movie theaters." [Darn those Gen Xers!]

Just wanted to bring this to your attention. This can be tough for women sufferingfrom "fractured friendship syndrome.” I have plenty of male friends -- much to my husband's chagrin -- none of whom would be caught dead in that movie theater with me next Friday! Keep up the good work.

Signed, Anonymous

ANSWER:

Hi Anonymous,

Thanks so much for reading my blog and sending your note.

Sounds like you are experiencing a friendship deficit, something that many women experience from time to time. It's been there but reading my post about Sex and the City probably made you more aware of it. That's good! Now you know you want to make more new friends. And just like relationships with men, you have to kiss a lot of frogs until you meet a prince.

Not wanting to see the movie with you doesn't mean your hairdresser rejected you. Instead, it may suggest that the person you selected may be a poor fit for you. I find that I have a hard time being friends with people who don't laugh at Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld, two of my favorite TV shows. It's not a fatal flaw but often is suggestive that there may be too many differences between me and someone else to be really close to one another. I do think that you can tell a lot about a friend by the entertainment she likes.

My suggestion would be to go see the movie alone. I'm sure you won't be the only "single" there. Sit next to someone else who is alone and start up a conversation. If you can't find an empty seat that fits the bill, having seen the movie will still serve as fodder for conversation with another potential female friend.

You seem to have no problem making male friends so you certainly have the relationship skills you need. Just put yourself in more situations with other women and give your relationships time to grow.

My best,
Irene

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

 

Mother's Day celebrates motherhood---as well as children, flowers, candy, and greeting cards. But there's a seedy side to everything---and motherhood is a known friendship-killer. Motherhood challenges female friendships for a variety of reasons:

• You are a mother, and your BFF isn't one and wants to be one. Her fertility problems are making her extremely frustrated, depressed, and angry at you.

• Your BFF is a merry mother of six and you have no desire to even be a mother of one. When you're together, she never stops talking about her brood.

• You and your BFF both have children but they are at different ages or stages (And one of hers is a biter).

• You and your BFF have vastly different views on child-rearing. You're permissive and believe in letting kids be kids. She believes in turning children into little adults.

• Your children and/or spouse don't get along with your BFF's children and/or spouse. When her son punched yours in the nose, her husband said your son provoked him.

• On a practical level, all other things being equal, you have less discretionary time for friendships than high-school or college-age women, married women without children, and older women. With all your responsibilities, you barely have time to shower.

• You are a mother-martyr who places the needs of your children and family above your own social needs.

• You have fewer opportunities to meet new friends than you did when you were younger and more care-free---you only go to noisy, active places with children where it's hard to have heart-to-heart conversations.

At different times of our lives, there are real shifts in the number and nature of our female friendships. Living in a dorm, you may have been surrounded by a circle of close female friends. For one or more of the reasons mentioned above, motherhood is one of those times when you might have more than your share of problems making or maintaining female friendships.

Many of us spend so much time juggling our roles as daughters, wives, workers, caregivers, and mothers that we wake up one morning and suddenly realize we have a serious friendship deficit! We think: If only there was someone we could call---or have coffee with---who could understand the gaping hole it has left.

This Mother's Day, give yourself a little gift that no one else would ever think of. Jot down an appointment on your calendar to have lunch with a friend, or to have a girl's night out. It's the equivalent of putting on your own oxygen mask first.

Taking small steps to build female friendships enhances our own physical and emotional well-being, and makes us better mothers in the long-run.

What do lonely people do when they need friends but have none? According to new research, they tend to anthropomorphize: They attribute human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

“When people lack a sense of connection with other people, they are more likely to see their pets, gadgets or gods as human-like,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, in a press release.

The loneliness of having too few friends or being totally bereft of friends can be excruciatingly painful. In fact, Epley suggests that it can even be deadly. “It’s actually a greater risk for morbidity or mortality than cigarette smoking is. Being lonely is a bad thing for you,” he says.

The researchers suggest that humanizing the inhuman may confer some of the same benefits that people derive from friends and other social relationships. The bottom Line: If you find yourself talking to your cat, you may want to think about whether you have a friendship deficit that needs to be addressed.

 

The study will appear in the February issue of Psychological Science. Also contributing to the research were Scott Akalis of Harvard University and the University of Chicago’s Adam Waytz and John Cacioppo.