Women and Friendships

RIGHT through our lives, may you be a man or a woman, friendship undeniably plays a vital role for most of us. But for women, the presence of friends in their lives is as important as the presence of a significant other. The latter may be dispensed with, the former, never.

Friendship for women is a fiber that remains invariable, alongside the instability of the rest of our lives. As kids, we form friendships loosely, depends upon who has the newest toys, or has more food to offer or newest dresses. So in a way, children develop friendships like they develop pimples.

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But later as we move into adolescence, our friendships become more intense; but one or more of these friendships may survive into adulthood. Because when we were young, our friendships tie in with the routine things in our daily lives, like going to school daily, going out and having some fun. And taking today’s technology, a teen’s friendships are also measurable in how often they connect on line.

But you know what? I think, a teenage female friendship seems to be a trial run for close or intimate relationships in later life, and that it is the beginning of a long-running tale of a woman’s parade of friends through her lives, including male friends. The more a woman survives any break ups of friends, may they be with a female or male, the more she is more adaptable to the numerous trials of her adult relationships. Haven*t you noticed that the classmates we had when we were in high school that seems to have no friends around them eventually have difficulty maintaining long term relationships in adulthood?

As adults, we go on having friends, and this is basically constant. For women, this holds true, even aside from taking on new roles such as domestic functions as wife, mother, even as an aunt; as well as new roles in the public arena, whether they are paid or not. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that when it comes to the subject of friends, women take them seriously.

Sometimes, women’s lives synchronize together, when major events of each other’s life occur in parallel time, like having children at the same time or pass a board exam together or got hired on a job, such events shapes friendships. But in a woman’s lifetime, we have to work hard to keep our friendships going, and the fact that we are prepared to do the work tells a lot about the value women place on friendships.

You see, women’s friendships are durable. Seldom do we see a woman without friends or if she has, seldom would it last only for three weeks, unless it is with a man. Such durability is not easy, given the fact that a woman’s life is full of varied things happening at the same time, like transfer residence, have children, getting a job or even going to college to pursue a higher education. But factors like these means that for women, it is not required for friends to live close to each other for long periods of time. Real good close friendships does not depend on frequent contact, a text message or two or a line in the e-mail or even forwarded ones, will suffice.

But to arrive at a point that frequency of meetings is already unimportant, there is actually a period when interaction between two women friends is fairly frequent. It may be because your place of job is just a wall apart, or you really make time like seeing to it that Friday nights is preserved to getting out and having fun together, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is money to paint the town red.

Friendship to women is more than having something in common, but a solid interpersonal link, an intimacy of knowing someone, that someone who has touched a key or several key events in each other’s lives. That person, who knows and accepts you, understands you to the core, whose trust and loyalty you can count on, that someone who makes you feel having someone on your side, and someone to share worries and secrets as well as the good stuff of life, and that someone who needs you in return. This piece is dedicated to all the friends I have, specially the one that I have since 1981. (Want to react? Email me at justsaying416@gmail.com)