[img]139|left|||no_popup[/img] I have a friend who recently moved to Northern California. Instead of sadness, all I felt was relief. My future obligations will be limited to sending a couple of emails decrying my inability to travel with a toddler, and a holiday card or two. With that, I should be good to go: friendship over. My relocated friend was more acquaintance than friend anyway. One I couldn’t quite shake. Every breakfast, brunch or birthday party was just another event I felt obligated to attend. After all, isn’t that the least we can do for our so-called friends? By virtue of the terrible employment situation in Los Angeles, I have been saved.
After nearly three decades of relationships with girls — and women — I think I’m learning more about friendship than I’d ever understood. The first lesson: Everyone is not your best buddy. As men always seem to inherently understand, I’m learning there are very different types of friends; many situational. There are the friends who would give you the shirt off their back, even if it left them naked. Then there are the friends who are discreet enough to trust with your innermost thoughts. There are also friends with whom you can discuss religion and politics without coming to blows, and from whom you always learn something. There are even friends who are good for hiking, shopping or eating out, nothing more. Finally, there are the friends you probably shouldn’t have anymore. It’s that last category that is the most vexing.
Different Kinds of Friends
Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends. On the surface, none has much in common with each other. They are different ages, races and all over the socioeconomic spectrum. But one day, while sitting in some interminable L.A. traffic, I tried to figure out why I have chosen to spend time with the people I do. It was then that I realized they do have some things in common. It’s not the superficial, like backgrounds, other friends or shared activities. What I value in people is honesty, trustworthiness, consideration, and truth-telling. I like people in my life I know I can count on in a pinch. I like knowing in the back of my mind most of them would give me the shirt off their back – even if it meant them going naked. But I do have other friends whom I shouldn’t have. I’m writing this essay while avoiding responding to one of those people whom I should have excised from my life long ago.
Women are terrible at friendship. No, maybe that’s not fair. We’re great at striking up friendships and nurturing friendships. What we’re not good at is ending friendships that no longer are good for us. Sometimes my husband looks at me utterly baffled when I spend time emailing, calling, texting or having brunch with someone he knows I don’t like. I have no idea why it is so hard for women to navigate the relationships in our lives and bring to an end those we shouldn’t have anymore.
Wish I Were Like Rachel
I truly admire one friend of mine, I’ll call her Rachel, who chose so sever a relationship with a recent acquaintance. I’d made the huge faux pas of asking the new acquaintance if she was invited to Rachel’s party (c’mon, I should have known better). To my chagrin, she wasn’t. Fortunately, my friend had already decided the adult thing to do was to explain, then and there, why she didn’t need this new woman in her life — and it was a good reason. But I won’t delve into that now. I admired that decision. Unfortunately, I didn’t (and probably still don’t) have the guts to do that myself.
Like most women, I hope and wait for the friendship to peter out, hoping the other woman gets the message and eventually disappears. I should be more pro-active. There are people who just shouldn’t be your friend, or at least shouldn’t be my friend.
First there are those who see themselves as superior to you and don’t skip a chance to exploit that. There’s nothing more fun than a breakfast with a friend who oh-so-lovingly tells you why you’re too fat, underemployed or just not plain up to snuff. There are those who nitpick at your life over lunch. Should you have bought that house, that car, picked that husband or had that baby at that point in your life? There are those who wouldn’t give you a shirt even though you’re naked and their own wardrobe is filled to overflowing. They claim to want to help you (lose weight or get a better job), but hoard information and access like a CIA agent. Then there are the friends who claim to love spending time with you, but perennially show up late, especially if it’s raining and cold. There are the friends who refuse to meet you halfway. You know, the people who will only see you on their terms, within five miles of their house. While the Pacific Palisades and Pasadena are cute, it’s a long drive to make every time just to go to the same chain restaurants I already have in my own neighborhood. A little back and forth would be be nice.
Then there is the friend who wants to be the “only” friend you have. You want to invite others along? The answer always is no because somehow your other friends are never cool enough or smart enough or hip enough for her.
I used to put up with it all, but as I officially approach middle age, I think my remaining time on earth is important. I can’t spend time with those who don’t get with the program. Rather than avoiding the ‘phone (no, really it’s permanently on “do not disturb” because of the baby), or cringing at my email waiting for her name to drop off the computer screen (and taking my non-responder guilt with it), maybe my gift to myself for my fortieth birthday should be to pare down my list of friends to those whom I want to see, who believe in back-and-forth, and who are truly fun to be around. That should give me about three months to work up the courage to get on that. But between you and me, I don’t think it’s likely to happen.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
