In Defense of Friendship
Image Credit: nanajacqueline.com
“Let me remind all women that we live longer and better lives when we have sisters we love, not necessarily born in our bloodline or of our race. Sisters.”
- Maya Angelou
A few weeks ago, amidst the sweltering August heat that the south of Italy is known for, I sat in the garden of my husband Alessandro’s, childhood home with an old friend who was visiting us on her way to the Amalfi Coast. She asked me, while batting away at ravenous mosquitoes, “Nony, are you thinking about going back to work? If so, I know of something that could be really interesting for you. It’s based in Zurich too.” She proceeded to tell me about a very lucrative senior leadership position she thought I might be good for. I hadn’t quite thought about returning to corporate life but I was intrigued and later sent her my CV. What happened next is a story for another time but what’s important about this anecdote is the fact that an insanely amazing opportunity dropped in my lap thanks to a former colleague turned friend whom I met more than 15 years ago.
As I laid in bed that night I thought about how lucky I was to have made and maintained that friendship over the years and how many times that friendship had brought me career opportunities and lots of life, love and motherhood lessons. This same friend has flown all over to see me, to know Alessandro, to meet my children. We have laughed and cried together and seen each other through the best and worst moments in our careers. I’m blessed to know her and want other women to make and nurture friendships like this very one. Sadly, I’m not sure how many young women, if given the opportunity to forge such a relationship would even take it.
You see my friend and I are of different generations, different races, different religions. In fact, when I met her she was a recently divorced mother of two and I was very much in my single twenties. Faced with such differences, if a woman like that asked a younger colleage about her weekend today, would the young woman respond light heartedly or would she think she was her opps? Go ahead and look up “opps”. Many young people really think like this.
A quote by Olivia Wilde.
The current rhetoric seems to be one of rabid, hyper-independence. One that is distrustful and vigilantly guarded. It tells women to be wary of female friends because they bring drama, to be wary of work friends, because they will throw you under the bus. It views unavoidable and sometimes necessary conflicts in friendships as toxic and encourages aggressive boundary drawing that allows no space for the imperfections that come with humanity.
It’s an indisputable fact that on average, women live longer than men and get through those older years, thanks to their friends. Women who are disappointed by their romantic partners are helped to pick up the pieces by friends. We learn of job opportunities, potential love matches, child rearing hacks, career tips and so on, through friends. We indulge in our guiltiest pleasures and specific interests, with friends. Friends fill the holes left by family rifts and squabbles. Friends fill the holes left by ex-friends!
No doubt negative past experiences can contribute to one’s skepticism of friendship. Believe me, as someone who has left a string of takers, fakers and energy drainers in the dust, I know a thing or two about disappointing friends. The thing is, I haven’t let those negative experiences spoil the concept of female friendship for me. They don’t get to triumph over my positive experiences.
Study after study has shown the positive effects of having other women friends on our mental and physical well being, our life expectancy rates and our overall happiness. You should be weary of any source that encourages you to go through life without the intense and unique companionship that is brought about by female friendship. Their shallow and inflammatory remarks garner them engagement with no thought given to the effects of such anti-social rhetoric.
Image courtesy of CW network
Why “Friendship” is Under Attack
It can hurt
There is often a lot of tension associated with the discussion of how many friends someone does or doesn’t have. Perhaps it brings up past memories of betrayal, abandonment or not having been “popular.” Or it triggers self-consciousness that arises from never having had a big friend group. For these reasons and more, people recoil from messaging that tells them that they indeed should prioritize making and maintaining friends. “How can I trust another friend?” They wonder. “Who needs all that drama and pain?!”
This way of thinking is sadly in line with this modern movement toward shying away from anything that makes you feel bad or uncomfortable. In reality, nothing good in life comes without risk. Everything worth having comes with the potential for great loss. By shielding yourself from hurt, you are shielding yourself from boundless opportunities that come from a healthy friendship network. Not wanting to open yourself up to new friendships hints at unhealed trauma. The healthy way to navigate previous disappointments isn’t to close up shop but to be more discerning of how much of yourself you give, how much you reveal to others and by correctly placing people where they belong in your life. Not every friend is a best friend. Not everyone belongs in our closest circle and that is okay.
A Time and Energy Drain
Spending the time and effort to make new friends or maintain existing friendships can feel wasteful when there is so much going on in our lives. We have romantic partners, children, families, work, commutes, volunteering, fitness, chores, church, side hustles and if we’re lucky, hobbies. Since we don’t have the ready-made community that we did when we were in school that helped us meet and consistently see like-minded people of a similar age to us, who are in the same place in their lives as we are, and have the time to hang out, we need to manufacture this scenario. This takes energy and time. Modern culture loves to spread the message that if its not paying your bills its not worth your time but this is harmful and not true. Nurturing a good friendship or a potential friendship is one of the best investments a woman can make in her life.
Toxic Independence Culture
Certain social media self-help experts of questionable qualifications are keen to spread the message that you must learn to be happy on your own, that if you crave companionship you are lacking self-love and inner strength.
”You must learn to love your own company!” they shout. Indeed it is important to cultivate self-love and to be comfortable in your own company, but quite frankly, you alone are not enough. It is normal and healthy to need other people that you can count on to make you laugh, to accompany you to a show or an appointment, or to simply sit in silence with you while you scroll your phone.
Too Cool for School
Some people can never allow themselves to be vulnerable or “cringe” enough to admit that they would like more friends. So they pretend to be just fine as they hold on to old friendships that aren’t serving them rather than humbly admit to their loneliness. Don’t fall into this trap. As a result of a move or old friends fading from your life, thinking too highly of yourself to take the chance on someone new can leave you with fewer and fewer people in your life. Don’t allow your image of yourself aid in your inevitable descent into loneliness.
What’s better than good girlfriends? Image by @martalozanop
The first tweet, which has 23K likes, illustrates this attitude of distrust toward colleagues. The young woman’s response below it is a sad example of how young people are internalizing this messaging.
My generation and younger are experiencing record levels of loneliness.
“I love my husband, but [there] is nothing like a conversation with a woman that understands you. I grow so much from those conversations”
-Beyonce Knowles
Spread the love. Share the pain
A few months ago I read a post on Twitter about a woman who was about to celebrate her 50th birthday. She was a huge theater lover and wanted nothing more than to go into New York City for a nice dinner and a show. The problem was that her husband and teenaged children did not care for theater and only be going as a favor to her. Knowing that all the planning and work to organize the night would fall on her she abandoned the whole idea and spent her birthday curled up in her bed, overcome by sadness. This tale was supposed to demonstrate how much mental labor women take on in their families, even for their own celebrations. Interestingly, the story left me thinking: “she needs some friends!” Her theater friends would have known what show to book, what restaurant in the area to reserve and have gladly gone into the city with her. Her husband and children, who no doubt love her, could show her love in their own way. This specific interest of hers would have been better indulged with friends that have that same interest. A win-win for everyone.
This anecdote demonstrates that we can’t rely on our families for everything and forever. Children grow up and have their own interests and lives. Siblings are busy with their own families and their own friends. As for our partners, according to world renowned relationship therapist, Esther Perel, we already ask too much from our significant others. Perel explains that we expect from our partners all the things we used to get from an entire village! We expect them to be our best friend, lover, career counselor, therapist, work-out buddy, life coach, gossip partner, hobby partner and so on. If you could spread out some of these needs across a few friends and acquaintances, how much pressure and expectation would come off your partner? How much better would your relationship be?
Friendship and Your Career
Work is a prime location for forging adult relationships since you could be surrounded by people of similar age, education levels and interests to you. I detest the current demonization of colleagues and suspicion of people at work. We spend a third of our lives at work. Imagine spending all that time guarded and weary of the people around us. Imagine not taking anything away from our work experiences besides money and bullet points for our resume. The research is clear that having even casual acquaintances at work can increase job satisfaction and performance as well as reduce burnout. The fear of being sold-out or thrown under the bus by a colleague is valid, though I would argue only minimally. The benefits of work friends far outweigh the risks.
One the flip side, your friends from outside of the office also play a key part in boosting your career. Those friends can put you on to job opportunities, pass your resume around, make introductions, give tough love and gentle coaching. They listen to your anxieties, help you practice a speech and proofread your writing. A Harvard Business Review study found that women who have a strong group of friends are more likely to earn more!
Your Mental Health Insurance Policy
A few years ago, I wrote about an episode of NPR’s Fresh Air that featured author, Mary Pipher who had just released a book in which she declared older women the happiest demographic in America. One of the skills that brought on late in life happiness was the ability to make and keep friends. The happiest older women have close women friends, whom she refers to as a “mental health insurance policy.”
I have two personal anecdotes to share that illustrate this idea. Alessandro’s mother lives in a small village in the South of Italy. She is seventy-one years old and long divorced. Alessandro is her only child and he lives outside of the country. His mother has three good friends who live in other parts of Italy and who find themselves, for different reasons, also without partners at this stage of their lives. These women are so present in each other’s lives in ways that would warm the coldest of hearts. Her phone is always ringing, they share photos of their grand children and are currently on Holiday in Greece! Upon his mother’s return to Italy, after eighteen months in Zurich helping us with our newborn twins, they arrived a week later to take her to the Amalfi Coast as they knew she would need some cheering up. As I said earlier, we alone are simply not enough.
Finally I will end with the pride I feel at my mother who has maintained several warm friendships throughout her seventy years. When my father passed away in 2017, our home was never empty, our fridge was always full. My mother’s friends came from all over the world to sympathize with her, to sit with her, plan with her, comfort her.
Dearest reader, if you keep new people at arms length, if you don’t work on healing old wounds, if you remain wary of potential new friends, who will do all this for you?
My mother on the far right with some of her girlfriends
Alessandro’s mother, on the far right, with her three best friends on the Amalfi Coast.