Female Friendship (Aimed at the gals here, but for anyone interested ;))

[gratitude28]

In Stormy's thread I note the offshoot dealing with befriending females. For years I never wanted to be friends with females as I felt they were untrustworthy. I am positive this came from my mother. This last duty station was the first time I had great female friends and appreciated what it was to both be and have a friend of the same sex. Although earlier I would have said I liked men better, the truth is, I wanted the men to like me. That is what I had been taught.
What do you all think about this topic????
Love, Beth

[Ami]

Dear Beth,
  Great topic. I want to think about it and get back later                     Love  Ami

[bigalspal]

Hi Beth,
Being a female with an NMother, I would say I AVOID females to an extent. I do have lots of female acquaintances, but only one close friend. But...she's kind of an N, so I guess I attract women like my mother. I have always been a female that feels more at home with men than women. That used to get me in alot of trouble! 
Having an NMother, I never learned how to be a FEMALE, hence I know almost NOTHING about being in a social circle with women.
Hope that helps!
Love,
Bigalspal

[isittoolate]

Hi Beth,

My first experience with female friends was just after my daughter was born. She was 3 weeks old and I needed someone to stay with her while I ran in the rain up to the bank to deposit the rent money. May31, 1964. I knew no one that would come for 20-25 minutes and just sit while the baby slept. I had no carriage yet and this was her nap time.

I knocked on the door across the hall in the apartment building and 'Gerta' answered. She was "out to here" preganant, drinking orange juice and watching General Hospital.

The end result was she brought her juice with her and I put GH on my TV and she sat while I ran to the bank. We talked after I returned. I recall telling how easy childbirth was. That made her so happy.

Her baby was born early July and she told me "she hated me"---I didn't know that some people have as much trouble as she did---but she was teasing. We shared 'sitting for each other'.

A ll in all there were about 6 new mothers that year in the buildking and we would take turns opening our homes for one afternoon a week for everyone and the babies to get together. We all became good friends.

I loved that. I am all for having a female friend--but there must be something in common.

xx
xxy

[pennyplant]

That's the thing, Izzy, in my experience, I don't usually have all that much in common with other women.  Sort of like if a man likes sports, he can have something to talk about with any man he meets no matter what else they may or may not have in common.

I'm not particularly fashionable, I'm not overweight, I've been married to the same man for 24 years, my kids are all grown up, not all that interested in drinking or gambling, I work odd hours.....  I've noticed that lots of woman mostly talk about themselves.  I can listen to a certain extent.  But when it's my turn to talk, if I get a turn, well, I don't talk about myself a lot.

Most of my trouble in life has come from girls and/or women--mother, sister, betrayals of former best friends.

Guys have made me pretty mad too, though. 

They say it is pretty rare to have very many true, close friends in a life time.  I guess that is how it is with me.  If it's not a true, close friend, then it is more of an acquaintance to me.  And you really can't call on acquaintances to "be there" for you.  There is not that ease and comfort with an acquaintance like with a true, close friend.

I'm getting to where I'm not all that frantic about it anymore, though.

Pennyplant

[teartracks]

Beth,

For the life of me, I can't explain how it happened, but I have about five girlfriends who are the absolute best.   One could be my mother, some are my age, some are the age of my daughter.  

There is no trait that is not common to both genders.  None.  I think it is especially important not to put down our own kind.  And I'm not saying that you are.  I'm just expressing a few random thoughts.

Hugs to you as you get situated.

tt

[isittoolate]

Toatally understood, PP

It is said that one is lucky to have one good friend in a lifetime. Think about it everyone. Who would lay down a life for you?

Very often the relationship is one of being a good acquaintance---but if she doesn't understand N-ism, youi can bet she'll run if we begin on this unbelievable story of our lives.

I had a woman once sayt, "Oh I am so glad you moied in here. I need a friend with a car!" We were never friends and I charged her for gas!

\Ah well!
Izzy

[Ami]

i found with Maria that she just "came to me .effortlessly. I realize that this is probably how a friendship that is meant to be-- comes.
 I did not have to push anything at all.
  I have not had a best friend since college. I want to say that I don't  trust people. However, who I don't trust is me..
   I think that you could say that the 'not trusting" is not trusting yourself to do what is in your own best interest.I really need to face the lesson about trust.
   When I had my last best childhood friend at 14-- I remember that I trusted myself. I knew where I ended and where I began. I had a security with her b/c I had a security with me. I remember ,also, that if she "left me: for whatever reason, I could deal with it. My internal  self was not based on her or anyone else's friendship.. I think that this is a big key in trusting others..You have to be willing to let them go  and not blame yourself. Your self has to be intact enough
   If your worth is based on someone else--- you will be stressed and not trusting b/c you will be afraid of 'losing yourself".                                           Love    Ami

[lighter]

For the most part, I always felt the same way.  Women were really mean to me.  Girls were really mean to me at school.  I didn't have much reason to trust them.  USA women do tend to be each others own worst enemies and don't even get me started on how we've stabbed ouselves in the back with sexualizing natural acts like breastfeeding our young.

We aren't very nice, as a society.  Generally, women can't be trusted but.... that doesn't mean ALL women can't be trusted, though I must say that I'm in the middle of a couple of dramas that may or may not be paranoia on my part, lol.  

It may be that the only women I can trust in the world are here...  and one ONLY IRL for me.  

I'm over 40 and that's just sad.  ::shaking head::

I'm saying, I can't trust anyone who was in my family or a friend before 5 years ago and the one lady I think I can trust is a newcomer.  

Is it me?  Is it my dysfunctional family?  Is it society?  Is it unfortunate circumstances?  Do I have too much to be allowed friendship and trust too?  We don't approve of women/girls having too many good things.  If you're very pretty you aren't expected to be a wonderful athlete and student too.  If your a great student you aren't expected to be dating the captain of the football team.  The pretty girls get those guys and so on, lol.  

Eh.... I'm just confused and still in need of some good friends and supports in my life.  I wish it was easy.

[sea storm]

I think it is really sad that women are set up to compete with each other in this patriarchal society. We have so little power that we tend to haggle over what is thrown to us.

Women need to stand together. It is not each other that we need to fear, rather the ROLE that we are cast in by society. We internalize the bullshit by competing with each other to gain a little status. Not a pretty picture.

Sea storm

[Stormchild]

wow, lighter, did we get the same life script or what?

one of the things I have found most healing here is that I get some opportunity to interact with some women, some of the time, without all that crap going on.

shout out to beth - thanks for starting this thread!!!

[pennyplant]

Competition--the powerless fight against each other--women tend to be powerless--we are fighting over scraps sometimes--I see that at work all the time.  And it is true that you aren't allowed to have "too much".  No one really cares about my "little" problems because I'm married to a good guy.  Apparently that is the only good thing I'm allowed to have.  Some of my co-workers probably wouldn't care if I worked myself to death doing all their work for them, because at least I have a good husband.  All kinds of ways to envy and hate each other.

Effortlessly our real friends come to us--yes, it seems like those are the friends that are meant to be--gifts from God perhaps.  When I was 14 I lost the best friend I ever had when she moved to Virginia.  I will never forget sitting in my room the last night before she moved and feeling my heart tear in two.  I had never felt pain like that before.  It was agony.  I have never had a friend like her again.  Not even her!  We kept up for awhile and I went to see her after a year of the two of us saving all our money to buy me a plane ticket.  I spent two weeks with her and the first night I cried a little because I knew she had changed.  Me too, though.  She had somehow figured out social skills and niceties and got into a popular crowd in her new school.  I had just come off the year of being stalked.  I was just trying to pull myself up off the ground.  We never got back our former closeness.

Trust--I don't trust very many people at all, men or women.  But probably, especially, I don't trust myself.  I used to be able to tough it out and make myself do the hard things and get through it.  I used to have standards.  I thought so anyway.  Now my reserves seem to be depleted.  I can't count on myself.  I can't rely on myself to do what I need to do.  I let myself down all the time now.  And I don't know if it is just because I am able to see it now or if I'm really letting myself down more often.  I disappoint myself more now.  There are things I now know I'm capable of that I never, ever believed I was the "type" of person who would do such things.  I think before life just hadn't tested me in certain ways.  I was certainly tested in ways that most people I know have not been tested.  Yet, even that wasn't enough.  There had to be more.  Good old Ns.

I think I'm going to keep working on my insides and let the friend thing take care of  itself.  It's hard not to envy the "normal" people with their normal activities and phone calls and lunches and all that jazz.  But you can't force these things.  You just can't.

PP

[pennyplant]

Yes, that is very comforting.  I hadn't thought of the board that way before.

I had friends in my 20s that I made while we were a Navy family.  It was similar to what you have described with your circle of young friends.  I have kept in touch with a couple of them and when we have the chance to meet, it is like no time at all has passed as far as the bond.  Much has changed for each of us, but the bond has not.

I guess I thought I would be able to create that again for myself in the years since.  After all, those early friends are far flung.  It is lonely without them.  But the circumstances of life are quite different from those years in the Navy.  It seems to me like there are times in life when that is possible.  And times, like now, when it is far less possible.

I keep trying to fit these new times into that old model.  It doesn't work the same.

I think I'm going to just stop trying to make things work and see what develops on its own.  There are a couple people now who mean a lot to me.  I will just take it as it comes with them and see what happens.  It will become what it becomes.

There are people here who mean a lot to me and I will just have to learn to work within the cyber-constraints of those relationships.

Good ideas, CB.

Pennyplant

[gratitude28]

(((((((((((((((((((((((((PP))))))))))))))))))))))

It sounds like you ahve hit a tough time... I haven't heard you sound low for a while. Just wanted to give you a hug and some love to make it through to a happier time.

(((((((((((((((((All)))))))))))))))))

Wow, some deep points here... I thnk CB is right that we can't look for friends to fit in molds or be replacements of others. It is easy to do that when you miss a characteristic of a person, I think.

I don't think I have any more feelings toward the sex of a person as far as friendship is concerned. And I think in being more confident with myself, I have attracted a more stable group... but it also may have been circumstance. I always wonder about that since we have lived in certain places and had NO friends, no bonds made, zilch.

Also, I really do consider all of you to be my friends. In spite of the fact that we don't physically get to have coffee together, we have a deep and caring understanding of each other.

Love, Beth

[pennyplant]

Thanks ((((((((((Beth)))))))))))

PP