single

It is always interesting to discover the universality of female friendships. That’s why (with her permission) I wanted to post this Facebook message that I received from Carolina Asuquo-Brown.

By way of introduction, Carolina studied American literature and psychology in Germany and in London and now practices psychotherapy in Frankfurt, Germany. She is especially interested in communication and its breakdowns, and how this affects human relationships—especially female friendships.

She has a blog on friendship and relationship issues (although it’s in German).

Hi Irene,

After speaking to my girlfriends, what emerged from these conversations is my theory on friendship circles. Apart from the introversion/extroversion aspect that dictates whether women gravitate to dyads or circles, it could be age that determines whether you feel more or less drawn towards groups.

I am an introvert myself, but as a teenager and student I still enjoyed friendship circles more than I do now. The women I spoke to and I enjoyed the group thing but always had one or two significant friendships within the larger circle.

Once we hit our late 20s though, almost everyone has experienced the return of the dyad, including me. I now prefer having one-on-one friendships where my friends have little or no connection with each other (I was thrilled to read your stuff on friend poaching; that’s actually the phenomenon that made me go off the circles!).

Maybe as we age, we move in different directions and the initial homogeneity we find in say, groups of high school friends, is no longer existent. I think that that contributes to what women characterize as  “talking behind others backs, cattiness, jealousy“ etc.,” as another lady writing on your Facebook wall put it.

Rivalry might also come into play since many women still find themselves in “either or“ situation when it comes to important life choices. (At least here in Germany –maybe it’s a cultural thing, and sometimes I do feel we are a bit behind.) As a woman you often get the impression that you can only be one OR the other and that the choice you make is the most important determinant of who you essentially are:  a mum or a professional, single or in a relationship. Some women tend to fight pretty hard against the “other” concept, maybe because it signifies the path not taken.

A far as I can tell from my experience and that of my friends, that is one reason why circles tend to be less harmonious the older we get and more issues like jealousy and putting down the other's choices creep in. I just had to write, as this is so much on my mind at the moment and I am still thrilled that and how you deal with female friendship issues.:-) Love your work and am looking forward to the book coming out!

Carolina

They were women, of different ages and stages of life, who formed an amazing but unlikely sisterhood. The diverse group—that numbered only six—included women who were single, married, divorced, and widowed; unemployed, working at home, working away from home, and retired; with and without children. They came together on Friday nights drawn to the pleasures and promises of female friendship.

In Joanna Trollope’s latest novel Friday Nights (Bloomsbury, 2008), Eleanor, a retiree who lives alone, spots two younger women from her bay window: one a newly widowed mother and the other, a single mom by virtue of her love affair with a married man. As an antidote to the loneliness she senses in them and to her own life of solitude, she invites them to her parlor. Before long, the warm get-togethers, lubricated with wine, become a cherished constant in their busy and dynamic lives.

Through her characters, Trollope explores some of the universal emotions experienced by female friends including love, loyalty, passion, and jealousy as well as the difficulties in mastering the challenges of the work-life balance, aging, and balancing time between female friends and the men in our lives.

I was so drawn to these women on the other side of the pond that I felt like sharing Friday nights with them. This book joins a genre of novels published in 2008 that explore female friendships in groups. Others include: The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton, The Professors’ Wives Club by Joanne Rendell, and The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs.

 

QUESTION:

 

Dear Irene:

 

I have several girlfriends who seem needy to me. While we all go through difficult times, it seems they always have problems. I am unmarried, with a boyfriend who lives an hour away, I am running a business and my household and they have all of the support - husbands, children, family - which is great. But for some reason even with all this support they do not seem to have anyone to go to. I am essentially alone - which is fine and I get up everyday and do what I have to do.

 

Every single time I talk to any of them they are always asking me to come visit or to go out---one hour away driving from my home after I've worked all day. I don't get it. It is really annoying and upsetting to me. I want these friends to be a part of my life not my whole life.

 

One seems to think that I should hang out at her place while she complains about her husband and yells at her two kids. The other wants me to sit with her while she - using her words "wallows" - she has nothing to wallow about - nothing bad has happened to her. I feel like these people have no problem always asking for something from me. I am tired of it.

 

Signed,
Anonymous Single Person

 

ANSWER:

 

Dear Anonymous Single Person:

 

I guess your friends assume that because you don't have a husband or kids, you have no responsibilities to yourself, your business, or to other people. NOT. If this is their thinking, it makes me wonder how you ever managed to surround yourself with "several" of these self-centered people.

 

I am so happy that you are able to say that you are tired of these lopsided relationships. Identifying the problem, even to yourself, means that you realize you deserve much more. These people are going to continue to act the way they habitually do unless you give them a reason to change their behavior.

 

As a first step, set some firm boundaries (to them and to yourself) about how often you see them, where you see them, and what you do when you are together. Can you suggest that you get together and see a movie? Go to dinner? Go to a gym? Any of these would offer a more neutral turf and might also offer a much needed respite for your family-beleaguered friends.

 

If you're tired after a long day, you're entitled to say you that you are---why not ask them to get a babysitter or relative to watch the kids and come see you? Can you tell them that it doesn't help to "wallow" in pity and suggest that you do something else when you are together?

 

These are a few suggestions but I think you will need to evaluate each of these relationships that you lump together as ‘needy friendships' and figure out what you are receiving from each one. For relationships to be rewarding, they need to offer a sense of intimacy (feeling like you understand her and are understood) and a sense of reciprocity (like you are getting as much from her as you are giving). I'm not sure that these "friendships" you have described offer either.

 

Best,
Irene

In a recent post on her Psychology Today blog, research psychologist Dr. Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out, raises the issue of what it means to be “just friends.”

Unlike marriage (and same-sex unions in some States), friends have no legal ties to one another. Unlike siblings, they have no blood ties. Yet one of the most unique and defining characteristics of a friendship is that it is a totally voluntary relationship that exists simply because two people “just” want to be friends.

Ironically: “Friends are marginalized as ‘just’ friends,” writes DePaulo. “Now that Americans spend more years of their adult lives single than married, friendship is more important than it used to be,” she adds. “As family size decreases, so, too, do options for family care in old age or any other age - fewer people have siblings or adult children to care for them (or if they do, those family members may live many miles away). Again, it is friends who come to the rescue.”

Whether single or married, it is often difficult for women to strike the right balance between their friendships, family ties, careers, and needs for time alone. Yet DePaulo’s remarks remind us that---in sickness and in health, for better or for worse---it’s always a treasure to be surrounded by strong, caring female friendships.

I hereby proclaim February 29th, 2008 as the first Make Time for Friends Day. There are no commercial aspects to the day that you need to worry about. You don’t have to buy cards, send gifts or spend money. You have received the gift of extra time and are free to use it wisely. Let me suggest how:

At various times in our lives, we have more or less time and need for our female friends. Women who are single, divorced, widowed, or retired tend to have more discretionary time than women who are involved in marriage, child-rearing or heavily invested in their careers. Of course, most research looks at groups and talks about averages rather than individuals so these trends certainly don’t apply to every woman. There are many women who are married, raising their brood, or working---who are wise enough to make female friendships a priority in their lives.

However, looking at the trends, you might easily ask: How will women have any friends when they get divorced, become widowed, or decide to retire, if they don’t make efforts to maintain those friendships beforehand? You are absolutely correct in posing that question because research suggests that single women who forgo marriage are more likely to retain their close friendships over the long haul. In a recent post on her blog on the The Huffington Post, social psychologist Bella DePaulo and author of Singled Out states that based on scientific research on loneliness in later life, “…No group is likely to be less lonely in their senior years than women who have always been single.”

I think I have one answer to reconcile the gap for those at-risk: This year, 2008, is a leap or intercalary year. That means that an extra day has been added to the calendar, Friday the 29th, to synchronize the calendar year with the solar year.

This extra day is a perfect time for Make Time for Friends Day. All you very busy multi-tasking women (me among them), take out your Blackberry, Palm, or conventional paper daybook or calendar and give yourself that extra day, February 29th, to catch up with one or more female friends---old or new--- who you’ve not had time to be with.

Take the leap and do it now! Think about the significance of friendships to your well-being, physical, emotional, and spiritual---and give yourself the gift of time with friends. My suspicion is that you may decide that one day every four years isn’t enough---and that it may become a habit.

Perhaps no event is as life-changing as the death of a spouse. After my friend and colleague journalist Mickey Goodman of Marietta, Georgia lost her husband Phil, she never realized that the loss would have such an enormous impact on her female friendships. It simply threw many of them into a tailspin.

Mickey graciously shared her reflections which are abstracted from a longer essay and printed below:

There are books, pamphlets and web sites devoted to practical matters that must be dealt with following the death of a spouse: advice on attorneys, wills, insurance policies, retirement, social security, bank accounts, ad nauseum. There is no advice on dealing with people who crush your spirit.

When a friend from my teaching days who had also lost her husband approached me after my husband's funeral, I expected a life preserver. Instead, she threw me an anchor. You have to join my group, she said. We call ourselves the Merry Widows.

Who knew that once close couple-friends would suddenly stop calling or that another would advise me not to continue in the couple’s book club because I would be more ‘comfortable’ among women? I never dreamed that the husband of an acquaintance would sidle up to me, wink and say, “If you ever get lonesome all alone at night, just call me on my cell phone, any time.”

In contrast, so many friends soared with the angels. The neighborhood dinner club brought mountains of food, (wo)manned the house while we were at the funeral and cleaned up afterward and left enough meals in the freezer to last for weeks. My next-door neighbor still calls frequently to check on me. Phil’s buddies have initiated me into the Monday lunch bunch.

Though I'll never become truly accustomed to the single life, I'm thankful for many wonderful new friends and a closer relationship with others. My children were (and are) my sustenance, my seven young grandchildren, dessert. And my life marches on to a different beat.

To read more of Mickey’s work, go to: www.mickeygoodman.com