maintaining friends

For me, carving out time to meet a friend for a leisurely lunch feels like a guilty indulgence even before I look at the menu. To tell the truth, I'm so pressured by the unfinished tasks on my to-do list that I even hesitate to take the time to catch up with friends by phone. Feelings like this are eerily reminiscent of the days when I was a student weighed down by homework assignments. Now, I'm still driven by deadlines and responsibility. I know what you're thinking: A "friendship doctor" who doesn't have time to nurture her own friendships? Mea culpa. It's easy to get caught up in the stuff of life and forget what's important.

Even Sarah Jessica Parker isn't the same person as the character she plays in the series either. In a recent interview in USA Weekend, the busy wife, mother, actor and producer admits that she, too, is envious of Carrie. "One of the many differences between myself and Carrie Bradshaw is that it's as if she has 48 hours in the day," she says. "She can really luxuriate in her friendships and nurture them by virtue of the choices she had made in terms of career and family."

Certainly, the friendship patterns of the last two generations of women are infinitely more complex and dynamic than the ones that preceded them. Our lives are filled with more possibilities. When I surveyed more than 1500 women for my book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, women repeatedly echoed the sentiment that having one best friend isn't enough---particularly if that best friend moves away, gets married, changes careers, gets divorced, has children, becomes widowed, retires or her life circumstances change significantly. The dynamic lives of two close friends rarely follow parallel paths.

There is abundant research that suggests that close friendships are essential to a woman's health and emotional well-being; these vital ties enable them to become better wives, mothers, daughters, and workers. To maintain these relationships, though, women need to create and maintain face-to-face rituals with their female friends. This can take the form of a book club, cooking club; planning regular get-togethers; joining a civic, political or religious group; having a weekly game night (bridge, Scrabble, Bunco, or mah-jongg); or planning periodic girlfriend getaways (if your friends are out-of-towners). One woman told me that she and her best friend have a regular "date night," penciled in on their calendars each week.

The choices we make depend on our personalities, interests and life situations. But to make life-affirming and joyful friendships that stick, there's no substitute for putting in the time. We all need to develop routines to incorporate friendships into the ordinary fabric of our lives and make them a priority--just like Carrie and the girls.

This is the second part of my interview with social psychologist Bella DePaulo, PhD, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After.

Do single women have more or less problems making and maintaining friendships? Explain.

From a scientific perspective, the answer is unknown. That’s something that is very frustrating to me as a social scientist. There is a very lively field of study about personal relationships, but the vast majority of studies are about romantic relationships. Yet, there are many more adults who have no spouse in their lives than who have no friends. And, the relationship that is likely to last the longest is not the relationship with a spouse, but with a sibling.

Although there is no systematic research that answers this question, there are several qualitative studies of the lives of single women. These suggest that single women can be very adept at making and maintaining friendships. One of my favorites was based on interviews of 50 women, ages 65 to 105, who had always been single. Of those women, exactly one was socially isolated. The other 49 had a total of 47 friends with whom they were in contact every day. In 16 instances, those friendships had lasted more than 40 years!

There are other indications, too, that single people are hardly flying solo. Kay Trimberger and I wrote about this for the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about single women and friendship?

Yes. After doing the research for my book, Singled Out, I was struck by just how important friendships are in our lives, and how undervalued friendships often are in our culture. Think of the phrase, “just friends.” I think that for our closest friendships, that sentiment is exactly wrong.

And on this point, there is scientific evidence. A few years ago, two scholars reviewed every study ever published on what contributes to people’s well-being in later life. They found that one of the best predictors of good feelings was time spent with friends.

One other thing. Because friendships are not valued in our society the way that some other relationships are, people often do not find the support or concern they would like when things are going badly in their friendships. I remember one person commenting to me that when she had boyfriend problems, sympathy arrived promptly at her doorstep. But when she tried to tell some of the same confidants about her problems in a close friendship, they would give her this funny look, as if to say, “So?”

That’s one of the reasons I so appreciate this blog. When it comes to friendships, with all of their intense ups and downs, there is no dismissiveness here.