I slowly realized, as I listened to my various friends’ responses to the previous post on women and friendship, that we were all pretending that the word “friendship” meant the same to each of us.
Now I see that friendship has many different meanings depending on our background and life circumstances.
If we were raised in an extended family with lots of positive connections with aunts and uncles and cousins, etc. and then had our own family after that, friendships are more peripheral to the nuclear family experience. We have friends, but our highest priority is our family. If we have been constantly surrounded by people most of our lives, we may crave time alone to experience our Self in all its various dimensions.
If we were raised in a family that did not meet our emotional needs, among people we did not necessarily relate well with, in adulthood, friendships can take on new meaning, especially if we chose not to have our own nuclear family and have therefore spent most of our adult years living alone.
For many, friendships create the family they never had, they teach us the meaning of love, of life long loyalty, and how other people can offer us dependable emotional support. Obviously, in these two different scenarios, relationships beyond the nuclear family are valued differently and take on different meaning in our lives.
My first important friendships were in junior high and high school. This was my first painful experience with the idea that boyfriends are always more important and valued than female friends. When my closest female friend got a boyfriend she immediately vaporized from my life. Poof! I hated that feeling, because I had little interest in boys, but I sure knew I needed the understanding and intimacy of friendship.
I have learned throughout my life that I am someone who needs and values close friendships, but I have found that most friendships don’t last because of life circumstances and because of the various ways we each value friendship. Having spent most of my adult years alone, moving from place to place, my friends have been like family to me, but most of them have had real families which were their highest priority.
I have experienced too many times the “back burner” syndrome discussed at the end of Gail Berkowitz’s article, and often pondered the wisdom of finding so like value in close connections with other women. I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Josselson’s final words:
“We push them [female friends] right to the back burner. That’s really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have the space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they’re with other women. It’s a very healing experience.”
