In honor of today being Galentine's Day, I wanted to take some time to reflect on friendships...
Friendships are hard.
Female friendships are hard.
Adult friendships are hard.
Adult female friendships are really hard.
We hear so much about how making (and keeping) friends as an adult is hard. We have so much going on in our lives that sometimes we truly don't have the time or energy to constantly nurture our friendships. We get busy and forget to text back or we play phone tag for days because our schedules don't mesh. It can also be hard to put time and effort into relationships that don't match up to your current life. It is sometimes hard for me as a childless wife in my 30s to understand the pressure that comes with my friends who have kids having to juggle work, being a mom and life in general. It's also sometimes hard to get my single friends to understand what it means to be married and that my husband is my main priority.
But it's not just those complexities that make female friendships hard. It's also a bit of a biological disaster. What I say here is not meant as sexist - it is actual facts - it's science. Women are hormonal. Our hormones influence our emotions and our emotions can change in the blink of an eye. When women spend a lot of time together, their hormones actually change and respond to one another's. That's a lot of changing emotions and since women are often emotionally-driven, our emotions influence our attitudes, our thoughts, and our actions. If you put even two women together, it can go south very quickly if (or more likely when) someone's feelings get hurt.
I can't say I've heard many guys in my life come out of a conversation with another man and say "he hurt my feelings" but I hear it so much from both myself and my female friends. Guys seem to have an easier time brushing things off and not taking things personally. But for women, that's a pretty common occurrence. And if (like me) you're more emotional than the average woman, it happens even more often. Women never say to themselves "Oh, I'm sure she's just busy..." when our friend takes too long to text us back. We automatically jump to the worst assumptions - "She must be mad at me..." even when we have no reason to believe that we did anything wrong. We will spiral down a long list of things we could have said or done that upset our friend, until they finally text us back and we get that burst of "PHEW!" and the comedown is so sweet. We laugh it off, knowing its silly, even though we had worked ourselves into a legitimate emotional mess.
Most women are also social creatures. We are taught to socialize from the time we start school, if not before. We've spent our entire lives being friends with people, so why is it so damn hard? I think one reason is that we want our friends to be everything for us - if we're sad, we want them to talk with us, cry with us, and make us feel like we're not alone. When we're happy, we want our friends to share in the excitement and help hype us up. So not only do we biologically change our emotions around other women, it's also part of what we automatically do in a friendship. We instantly, without prompted, match our energies.
It seems that when you add in more females, the odds go up that someone's feelings will get hurt. And I don't think it has anything to do with "drama"... Generally, the friends I have at this stage of life don't have a lot of drama - we're adults and we're too old for that nonsense. But throw any number of girls together, and it's almost a guarantee that someone will get upset. It can be really scary to hang out in groups of women because there always seems to be cliques - two or more people who choose favorites in the group. It's also really scary to introduce a friend to other friends. Again, a difference between men and women in this case is that women tend to focus more on making sure everyone is getting along - "are we all talking? are we all laughing and smiling? is everyone being nice?". It's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves and on everyone else involved and what winds up happening is that everyone feels the pressure and is uncomfortable. It's a big, hormonal mess.
I had this very thing happen recently - new friends were meeting old friends, and when we walked away from it, I don't think anyone was satisfied by how it went. Looking back, I knew I had put a lot of unwarranted pressure on the situation. I shouldn't have expected my old friends to instantly hit it off with my new friends just because I did. I also hadn't taken into account that the old friends that I was seeing all needed to play catch up with each other, and it can be really hard to throw a new person into that mix because they're so behind, and it can make them feel left out of the conversation. There really are so many factors when it comes to friendships, and as a woman, I think I often put so much thought and worry into things that I don't let things happen organically. At this dinner with friends, I wound up not having fun because I was so focused on whether or not everyone else was having fun. I was acting weird and looking back, I can see that everyone responded to that by also acting weird.
A day or so afterwards, I grew some lady balls and I said something to my friends. I brought up the elephant in the room so to speak, and initially, everyone was reluctant to agree that the dinner was uncomfortable... but after reflection, we were all able to pinpoint a reason that we thought was the cause - and basically all of it was fictitious. "I thought that you were mad about...." or "I felt like you were upset with me because..." and it was all things that we assumed and then projected onto the group when in reality, we were all just trying to wade through the awkwardness that we ourselves had created.
Navigating friendships is hard. People get emotional, and one of those emotions is jealousy. Sometimes you just know that your two friends will hit it off. You're so sure of it - you just know they're going to have a great friendship. But as soon as you see that come to fruition, you regret it because you worry they will become better friends and you'll then be the one left out. But I think part of growing up and getting wiser is accepting that it's okay to have different friends... Not all of your friends have to like one another... and that you should absolutely encourage your friends to have other successful, supportive, and loving friendships. Especially with your long distance friends. We should want them to have people that are there with them in the flesh, who can provide love and laughter close up, at a moment's notice. I wish I could be that for all of my friends, so them having the next best thing should be my biggest wish for them. It's not about replacement... it's not about comparison... it's about wanting the people in your life to have all of the friendship and fulfillment that their heart desires - and that comes from an emotional place and I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, I think it makes for a better friend.