women

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. 

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.

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.