Girlfriends, In Particular
By Anita Diamant
From
“Pitching My Tent
on Marriage, Motherhood, Friendship, and Other Leaps of Faith”
Women’s friendships are, I think, one of the great secrets of the social universe. When you see pairs of women, sometimes threesomes or foursomes, from the outside, it might seem they are “just” having lunch, or drinking coffee, or walking around the neighbourhood, or even shopping. But all this activity is, in fact, the methodology of friendship, the ways women connect and keep each other sane. It goes on by phone and email and Hallmark, too.
This is not trivial activity. From the outside, it might appear casual, but these relationships are, in fact, the bedrock of contentment. We witness and we cheer, we commiserate and we prod. We lean on each other and we prop each other up. We tell each other the truth. We sustain one another.
My woman friends – some of whom I’ve known for 30 years, some of whom I’ve known for 3 months – sustain me in ways I couldn’t begin to enumerate. At least not publicly.
We all love our families, but the truth is, they drive us nuts. Without friends, a lot of us would run screaming out of our homes at all hours of the day and night, ready to hand our children over to passing motorists, to flee spouses who snore or are laundry-challenged, to avoid the well-meaning “corrections” of siblings and parents.
Our friends listen to us complain about our families. They validate and sympathise with the problems that are genuine, and help us see when we’re overreacting. Friends don’t nag. I think that may be the definition of a friend.
You can’t pick your parents or your kids. Marriage, though not quite as irrevocable, suffers similar pitfalls of too much familiarity.
So what is it about friendship that avoids that kind of craziness? Maybe it’s just the different perspective. Maybe it’s the voluntary nature of friendship. Which is so clearly a gift, bestowed. The time we share with friends is, almost by definition, time carved out of family obligations, work, housekeeping, reading, gardening, even sleep. We’re grateful to each other for making this choice – this gift – of our time.
Friends meet each other’s expectations on a need-to-speak basis. Friends show up when it matters, and when it doesn’t, we trust the foundation will remain firm.
Of course, not all friendships last forever. Friends move and the commitment fades. Friends marry badly, or change too much, though I am still friends with a high school pal who votes Republican.
When friends die, we are heartbroken and bereft. The world goes dark but the phone doesn’t ring with condolence. No one gives us time off from work to grieve the loss of this particular, precious, mostly unspoken love.
