On Friendships challenges

Fur Flying Friendship

"My friend’s assertion that dialogue is as simple as chewing gum is dead wrong. Chewing gum is simple; it is both easy to understand and east to do. Dialogue is neither easy to understand, nor easy to do."
Daniel Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue

It’s assumed that women are good at friendships. We are supposed to have a lot of them, like fuzzy rabbits, enjoying each other: happy, hopping, shopping, talking all the time. But women often do not say what is on our minds. We harbor mixed feelings, and sometimes when the hairball comes out, unfortunate things are said. Sometimes we’re too sensitive, believing that friendship had no conflict.

The hairball is here, what I have to get out, is not a warm, cuddly hare. It is a ball of fur flying everywhere in friendship. For me there is always the tug. Do I do what she asks: pick her up at the airport; have her stay overnight; sit with her husband, with whom I have nothing in common? Do I rush to her side when there is pain, divorce, marriage, childbirth, relocation?

So I try to meet my own needs in a busy life and then feel as though I am not being a good friend. Instead, I’m afraid of rejection, afraid that my friend might be mad at me. Will I be labeled the "difficult one, the all-too-confrontational woman," if I bring it up? Then my own inner voice consumes me: "Oh, let it go, lighten up." I feel like a bad friend. I should always be nice and giving rather than thinking of myself. But, between women, nothing is ever forgotten. Thoughts and feelings stay in the gut, turning to judgments.

Mothers have not taught their daughters to talk to each other. The parents never learned it either. Kim Chernin, in The Hungry Self, talks about "generations of women who suffer guilt; women who cannot mother their daughters because their legitimate dreams and ambitions have not been recognized; mothers who know they have failed and cannot forgive themselves for their failure; daughters who blame themselves for needing more than what mother was able to provide, who cannot feel rage at their mother because they know ho much she needs them to forgive her." It’s no wonder I am too scared to say "no," to tell the truth to friends or to be different. I mean, my drive to become whole was stunted. I tried to negotiate my own needs in the face of my mother’s, but it was hard. Neither of us knew how. Deep down there was blame. Each thought it was the other’s fault that love didn’t flow.

Nobody ever taught up that love includes negotiating differences and deep listening to our own needs, as well as caring about others. I wonder if we really believe that we are bad when we care for ourselves: we’re bad friends. Friendship 101 wasn’t taught in school. So tonight I sit alone wondering, where are my friends? Some have gotten re-married, which may mean less contact. Some have moved. Some are hurt because I wasn’t generous enough with my time or I said the wrong thing. Some want to chat more, or want more contact; while others need more space, or seem indifferent about getting together; some are traveling the world. Some are never available an others want more than I can give. I beat myself up wondering: should I do more? Am I less than great at sustaining love and friendship?

Women need to talk effectively about their relationships, like learning to deal with conflict. We are sometimes rejection-sensitive. Maybe we don’t know how to clearly define our friendships, directing our anger toward clear agreements instead of withdrawing. As Chernin explores the ways women separate while trying to hold their connection, she says there is a self-destruction often found in an eating disorder or depression, or self-hate that emerges as we grow: a "sense of loss at separating from the mother and directing these feelings toward her own female flesh, the woman coming of age today involves herself in an intensified act of self-destruction at the very moment she is seeking to evolve a new sense of self."
Tonight I am a hot, swirling hairball, full of flames. I am not a fuzz ball. When I start getting close to women, I fear giving myself up. I feel judged if I am selfish, animated, or neurotic. Al I ever wanted from my mom was that she would become her own person and let me be me. That we might have reveled in each other’s independence and authentic selfhood. I never had that, but grieve the absence of it in every piece of clothing I put on, every creative act, every success, every published article. I wish I could have been honest with my mother. I wish I could have been completely myself.

I need to know that my friends love me and are there for me. It is a teeter-totter: a desire to stand on my own two feet, to feel my power without fearing jealousy or clinging or guilt-tripping from friends. I dance between my own need for freedom and self-expression and my craving to be accepted and understood.

I want to burn my candle brightly, be wild and passionate and real, but I worry that I am "too much," overbearing, bad, or selfish. As Chernin says, "There is a sleeping giant in the female psyche, a potential for great power and potency and self-expression. " As she explains the problem: "At present it is entangled with mother-rage, which so often for a woman ends up directed at the self. "

Women are ashamed of our needs, believing we are insatiable, selfish, or too dependant. At the same time, we are tired of being always strong, armored, and isolated. We tend to feel easily rejected when we simply need to define friendship differently and spit out the ball of hair, like saying, "I feel alienated when you brag about you great life all the time." Or, "I feel judgmental when you always seem depressed." These things we need to sort through, unweaving the hairball like a ball of yarn and then knitting it together to tell each other the truth, working jointly to find some creative ground. Some of us resent giving when we are too tired. Some withdraw out of fear of being a burden or getting drained when we are already exhausted. Many of us are still ashamed of out moods and desires. Women must learn to speak to each other about our differing needs without making each other wrong.

We have learned competition and jealousy. Like a cat, we stick our nails out at each other while stuffing our hairballs. But, in the end, women need each other. We need each other desperately.

Journal hairballs for the reader:

1) Are you able to ask your girlfriends for what you need?
2) Do you ever feel pressured to do things you don’t want to do for the sake of your friendship?
3) What would it be like to tell the truth to your girlfriends?