Posted on: August 18, 2006

Crisis of Friendship?

A healthy dose of friendship is vital to women’s wellbeing, but why do we find it so hard to connect?

By Margraret Littman
CTW Features

It was a devastating blow. The job I was born to have was given to someone else. Crushed, furious and frustrated I turned to the one person who I could rant to – not my spouse, but the woman who’s my best friend.

That female friends have a unique place in a woman’s life is something I knew instinctively.

When you’re hurt, your gal pal knows all the right things to say, according to Shelley Taylor, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Friends are able to listen, share experiences and act in your defense. If you tell a friend something she’s likely to say, ‘that’s awful; how could he do that?’ Your partner [instead] will give you advice,” Taylor says.

The kind of empathetic support women offer was just what I needed in my crisis. And it’s a vital part of any woman’s well-being, Taylor says.

Yet women share an embarrassing secret: Many don’t have the friendships they crave. What’s more, developing close friendships is a lot more difficult when you’re 40 than it was when you were a child.

You can feel like a failure if you don’t have other women in your life, says Marla Paul, a Chicago-area writer.

“You’re ashamed if you’re a woman and don’t have a close circle of friends. We saw our mothers have it and think there’s something wrong with us if we don’t have it,” Paul says.

She faced her own friendship crisis several years ago when she and her family moved back to the Chicago area after a stint in Dallas.

Paul couldn’t break through the after-school moms’ crowd without feeling awkward and out of place. Being a writer, she described the situation in a column for her hometown newspaper.

“I got a huge response locally. Then I wrote about it for Ladies’ Home Journal and got a huge response as well.

“I knew I’d struck a nerve. The primary response was the same, ‘Thank God it’s not just me,’ ” says Paul, author of “The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You’re Not a Kid Anymore” (Rodale Books, $21.95).

Women can blame a number of factors for the friendship squeeze. Paul sees women’s changing roles as a deterrent to closer ties.

“Our lives are constantly shifting. In our mothers’ generation, lives were always on the same path. Ours aren’t. We’re having babies at wildly different ages, we’re in and out of the workforce, we move around,” Paul says.

Women also put their families first, often to the detriment of friendships.

“Women are structured to be nurturing to others. They should also be nurturing to themselves and that includes making friends who are there for us,” says Margaret Gibbs, Ph.D. professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Allowing yourself to hang out with gal pals is the first step to creating adult friendships. But you can take more practical steps, say the experts. Use your interests as an entree to new friends.

“Join a volunteer group, a religious group or special interest, such as scrapbooking,” Paul says. Don’t be shy. Instead, “be bold and take risks to elevate an acquaintance to a friend.”

Also be persistent.

“Keep at it, and cast a wide net. Don’t let rejections get you down,” she says. “If you are rejected, don’t think it’s about you. A woman may be going through something difficult. And sometimes it is about you. Not everyone will love you. Keep trying,” Paul says.

And if this sounds like dating, it is similar.

When you’re shopping for friends you’re going to be attracted to women who have something you desire for yourself, whether it’s confidence, a healthy habit or a sense of humor.

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