New York Times

From his hometown and mine---Chappaqua, New York---New York Times columnist Peter Applebome recently chronicled the impact of the Bear Stearns crisis (Metro Section, March 20, 2008) on the local folks. With great sympathy, he described the economic woes of the predominantly male commuters boarding the 6:13AM Metro North train into Manhattan---those affected directly and indirectly by the downtown on Wall Street.

But then his comments turned nasty. He wrote, “At Donna Hair Designs in Chappaqua, the financial meltdown barely registered on the yakometer when compared with the embarrassment of riches from the political world….,” referring to the discussions taking place all over the western world about the Spitzer sex saga.

I don’t know why Applebome’s vision of what women talk about is so skewed and limited. Perhaps, his foils were hanging too low over his ears while he was eavesdropping on our conversations.

Yes, men accuse women of “yakking,” a condescending term (oddly enough, derived from the long-haired ox of Tibet). But when it comes to clinching hard-to-get appointment at a hair salon, it isn’t simply about getting your hair done. Just like old-fashioned barbershops once were for men, contemporary hair shops are vital epicenters of in-person communication for women. Sometimes, the wash, cut, color and highlights are ancillary to other reasons for the visit.

Women truly connect in a hair shop. They form close emotional ties with their stylists, male and female. Like dating, if the personalities don’t click, the relationships break up quickly and the client moves on until she lands “the one.” When stylist and client do connect, the relationship is likely to be meaningful and long-lasting. Clients move out-of-town but they come back to Donna’s to get their hair done. Donna has blow-dried three generations in some families. She’s attended their weddings, christenings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals.

The hair salon is one of the few places (other than a blood bank) where multi-tasking women finally get to sit-down, think about the important issues on their minds, and talk about them to someone who is ready to listen. The stylist hovering over a head is in a perfect position (except for the din of the dryers) ---to question, counsel, and provide advice and information.

What do talking heads---reds, blonds, brunettes, and grays---talk about? They discuss marital and sexual problems (not only Spitzer’s, but also their own). They talk about their health problems, some of which are too embarrassing to talk about to their boyfriends or doctors. They ask where their friend undergoing chemotherapy can get a natural-looking wig and where they can find a financial advisor or lawyer.

They complain about unfair teachers in the elementary schools, bullies in the middle schools, and high school kids gone wild. They solicit recommendations for finding a responsive pediatrician for their children, a therapist for their kid sister, or a compassionate geriatrician for their parents. They whisper about husbands who have been laid off or who work incessantly, and network with other successful career women---often finding serendipitous ways to enhance each other’s careers. They confess when they haven’t been a good friend or when a friend has dumped on them.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in Paris, many sophisticated women gathered regularly at a “salon” in the home of a gifted hostess to learn from one other and refine their tastes. The same traditions of the “salon” of yesteryear bring women together at hair salons today. It’s place where women can let their hair down, talk, and share accumulated wisdom on a range of topics affecting them and their families.

Some balding men just don’t get it.

The long-hyped premiere of Lipstick Jungle is scheduled for 10PM EST tonight on NBC. Following on the heels of Sex and the City by the same writer (Candace Bushnell), the show is described as a tale of three female friends in NYC who are a little older, wiser, wealthier and successful than the Sex and the City babes---but who are still juggling their personal and high-powered professional lives.

I’ll be watching this evening to see what I can learn about female friendships. Are the Tres Amigas good friends, close friends, best friends? Are any of their relationships toxic? How do they balance friendship and work? Friendship and romance? How intimate are their relationships? Here are excerpts from some of the critic’s reviews (which have been mixed), which I've selected because they focus on the show’s take on female friendships.

Shoe-Savvy Friends Against the City
New York Times Review by Allessandra Stanley

The women are one another’s confidantes and best friends in a nasty world teeming with younger, envious rivals and vengeful enemies.

Lipstick Jungle
Los Angeles Times Review by Mary McNamara

Here's Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields), the nicest movie executive you'll ever meet (she doesn't even swear), dutifully struggling to fill her roles as deal maker, mommy, wife and BFF. Needless to say, she's on the phone a lot.

The creators seem to think their show is saying something new, only it's not really clear what that is. That women can be just as power hungry or libidinous as men? Or female friendship trumps every other relationship save motherhood? Or it's tough to be a working mother? If this show had run 10 years ago, maybe. But now?

Lipstick Jungle: NBC's Thick Application of Gloss
Washington Post Review by Tom Shales

Now and then, the three dear friends meet -- on a rooftop, say, or for lunch at the inevitable trendy eatery, or to take a walk in Toronto (which appears to be playing New York City again). Their get-togethers might include deep thoughts on a woman's plight in the modern world…

Please comment. What did you think about the show? Are these real friendships or ideal ones?

An article by Stephanie Rosenbloom in yesterday’s New York Times, On Facebook, Scholars Link Up with Data, explains how the popular social networking site is increasingly being used by academic researchers to study friendships.

Rosenbloom quotes Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard sociology professor: “Our predecessors could only dream of the kind of data we now have.” While there are legitimate concerns that some of the 58 million Facebook may not know their habits and preferences are being tracked, never before have social scientists had such a fertile source of information to mine on the nature of our friendships.

As one example, the article mentions that researchers at Harvard and UCLA are using Facebook to examine the concept of triadic closure: whether your friends are friends of one another. Although the phenomenon was first described by a sociologist named Georg Simmel as long as a century ago, there were few empirical studies. Using Facebook as a laboratory, social scientists are studying triadic closure---which one day may shed light on the exclusionary social cliques that draw circles keeping some people in and others out.

Given the importance of friendship in our lives, used well, Facebook and other such social networking sites could potentially yield important information on how to build and sustain healthy relationships.

Nothing sells like youth, beauty, sex---and female friendships?

Pepperidge Farm is investing between 2 to 3 million dollars in a friendship-focused ad campaign designed to help sell its cookies, according to an article in today’s New York Times by advertising guru and journalist Stuart Elliott. This comes on the coattails of the recent Tupperware campaign that uses female friendships to sell its line of plastic leftover containers (see my blog entry on May 13th).

The new website for the campaign, artofthecookie.com, is intended to encourage women to connect with one another (and with Pepperidge Farm) over a cup of tea and naturally, cookies. Sally Horchow, co-author with Roger Horchow of The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections (St. Martin, 2006) serves as the campaign spokesperson, just as Brooke Shields carries the banner for Tupperware.

Print ads are expected to follow in popular women’s magazines like Country Living, Good Housekeeping, and Redbook with the tag line: “Friendship: Is yours an art form or a lost art?” The ads tap into our needs for social connectedness and should elicit positive feelings unless you are lonely or in the midst of a fight with a friend. Then you can go off into a corner and eat cookies, I guess.

On the new site are ten tips for connecting, advice on how to maintain friends from afar, and suggested excuses for hanging out and celebrating with friends. One tip for connecting (called Taking the Road Less Traveled) includes taking a new walking route, eating a different cookie than usual, choosing a different café, or meeting at a different time. A tip for maintaining long-distance friendships is to send a spontaneous gift like guess what?---a box of Pepperidge Farm cookies.

Other than the crass commercialism of the campaign, admittedly, most of the friendship messages are as sweet as maple syrup. But obviously absent is the perspective that some friendships are toxic, painful to maintain, and not worth saving. Now if this is sounding like sour grapes instead of sugar cookies, it’s merely because I believe that we need to dispel the myth that every female friendship has to last forever.

Guilty as charged: The term BFF has morphed into a meaningless platitude due to extreme overuse. Now, the term is even being used to hurl an insult.

The evidence: The headline of a recent op-ed in the New York Times read, Rudy and Bernie: B.F.F.’s? The popular acronym “best friends forever” (typically used with gushing insincerity) was being used to criticize the blind loyalty that presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani displays towards his friend, Bernie Kerik. A former NYC police commissioner under the Mayor, Kerik was indicted last week on counts of tax fraud, corruption and conspiracy. Many critics believe that in their relationship, loyalty and friendship have trumped integrity.

What caught my eye---as a friendship blogger---is that the acronym wasn’t being used, as it typically is, as a term of endearment. The headline writer was using it pejoratively to describe a relationship that logically should have long since ended.

And the big news: Its appearance in the venerable Gray Lady suggests that the term BFF has moved from an IM shortcut to the accepted lexicon of language and print.

“Whenever you read that a candidate ‘values loyalty above all else’ — run for the hills,” wrote Times columnist Gail Collins. “Loyalty is a terribly important consideration if you’re choosing a pet, but not a cabinet member.”

Which again raises the question, should we maintain friendships and keep friends whatever the cost?

What’s a little sex between friends? A more common scenario than you might think. Two researchers, Melissa A. Bisson of Wayne State and Timothy R. Levine of Michigan State University (MSU), studied Friends with Benefits (FWBs)---couples who have sexual relations within the context of a casual friendship...

I couldn’t let the day go by without a post since this is Friendship Day (see Celebrating Friendship Day). When you are immersed in writing a book about female friendships, this day---that I might not have thought about or even known about before---feels like a personal holiday. Ironically, writing the book has left me less time for friends than ever before!

And even though it fell on a Sunday, it was another busy day juggling home, family and career. There was precious little ME time but I did pause to reflect on the female friendships past and present that continue to enrich my life, and I recognized that my cell phone has been a staunch ally in my efforts to keep in touch with female friends when I don’t have time for face-to-face visits...

One reason why television shows as diverse as Friends and The Golden Girls, have become classics is because they so aptly portray the essence and energy of friendships at different ages and stages of women’s lives. Based on both the subject matter and the hype, I can’t wait to watch tonight’s first episode of the mini-series, The Starter Wife---an ode to the wife who gets left—and another take on the role of female friends...