One Friend Is All You Need
It takes a lot for women to make friends. It does for me, at least. Always has.
In third grade, the girl I always thought was my best friend paid “the new girl” two whole dollars to play with me. Her name was Susan.
I overheard the whole thing. The transaction between my friend and Susan in the bathroom. They didn’t know I was in there, in stall #3 peeing with my feet up, so no one would notice my white Keds and pink socks with the pom-poms on the heel. So no one would laugh at the tinkle sound I made when I peed. I was so afraid of being ridiculed. Because in those days I was ridiculed for everything.
I pretended that I didn’t know anything about what happened. I played with Susan on the playground. We did laps around the grass area and talked about her old school and I waited until I got home to cry.
Knowing that my friendship was worth the sum of a shitty hot lunch from
the cafeteria was something I never really got over. Even when I became
popular in High School there was always a looming feeling of outcast.
There was always a chance I could be sold again to the hypothetical
new girl. I was always skeptical of friendships. Defensive. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After all, friendships made between teenagers and children have more to do with geography than anything else. I have a couple of friends I still speak to but most of them disappeared after graduation. That’s kind of what happens– The ebb and flow of convenience.
Friendships made between new mothers are very much the same. They are not friendships built on connection but rather, geography and age of children. Play dates seldom happen between three-month and three-year olds who live hours away. Not usually.
I have met dozens of amazing friends (who are also parents) online. I
presume, many of you who are reading now. But it isn’t so easy in the
real world. The Internet is a great place to meet, but it’s a
relationship unfulfilled. There are no virtual playdates. No double-kisses. No whispering.
For almost two years I tried to meet mothers I liked. Women I liked, separate from the fact they were mothers. I’ve gone to the classes. And sing-a-longs. And the park. Mommy-and-Me and Baby Disco and storytime at the library but I was never able to meet anyone with anything I had real things in common with besides being a mother. And for me that just wasn’t enough.
I met Charlotte last Fall. Her son, Jackson is Archer’s age and we started making frequent play dates when she moved to my neighborhood several months ago. She was local. And her son was the same age. And she was cool. Someone I felt comfortable with. She soon became my closest mommyfriend, and we met several times a week for play dates and Pinkberry runs and evening strolls around the sprinkler-saturated residential blocks of Hancock Park.
Yesterday, while we were texting each other back and forth about fishnet stockings and patent leather Mary-Janes, it occured to me that I didn’t just make a mommyfriend, I made a friend and that indeed, there is a difference. I realized that there was a lot more to being with her than giving Archer a playmate. That she was someone I really felt comfortable with. Someone I confided in. Confessed to. Wanted to meet up with on the weekends with or without our sons. Someone I talked with about everything, from dark secrets to fashion advice. Someone who I had something in common with besides the fact we both had toddler sons and lived within walking distance.
It’s rough out there. For city mothers and suburban mothers and country mothers I’m sure. No matter where you are and how popular you were in high school or college or at work, it is difficult to make new friends. It’s tough to cross the line between mommyfriend and “friend.” To trust someone you met on a message board or in a mommy-and-me class enough to put your feet down in stall #3, to risk being sold to Susan for $2.00 or whatever.
But when you finally break through that barrier? It’s pretty cool.
Because although I haven’t made many mommyfriends, since having Archer, I feel very lucky to have found a friend.
Finally.
***
i hear ya.
me too
Awwwww…I hear the theme song to Wonder Years playing right now!
Bit o’ jealousy from this side of the country. No friends: Mommyfriends, regular friends, ect ect…
and I was popular in high school/college too. Got a couple of fella friends that I hang with sans the baby…
Good luck to you and your friendship.
Making a good, loyal friend is something to be revered. Lucky you…and her..and Archer…and other kid…
They say kids are cruel. Girls take that cruelty to a whole new level. Hence the distrust of our own species into adulthood.
This article struck a chord, maybe because I am 3500 kms away from my family and (few) friends with a baby on the way?
Hopefully, I’ll have the same luck as you in finding someone I can “text about fishnets and mary janes”.
I’ve never been popular. In elementary school they stole my shoes and called me names. I didn’t have friends. I remember a girl I used to hang out with a bit paid another to tell me that “she was tired of me following her all the time”.
In high school I was all alone. I had a couple of friends, but our “friendship” was more a joke than anything. They all disappeared and I never talked to them again.
Then I got in college. I had a couple accointances. And I met my boyfriend of 3 years and a half.
Now I’m getting a degree. And I don’t have a single friend. I always thought university was “work hard, play hard”, but all I get after being done with schoolwork is silence. No one to talk to, not even on the internet. Heh, I couldn’t even have a fight with my boyfriend if I wanted to: no girl friend to hang out with after I bang the door!
I’m tall, slim, not half-bad looking, funny and smart; I know I’m fun to hang out with. But I never feel I have anything in common with anyone… Years passed and I had so little contact with people that I have next to no social skills. It feels so empty…
One friend is all you need, yeah, and I don’t even have that.
I’m sorry, I feel so down tonight because of this, and this post got straight to my heart. Keep this friend as close as you can…
Wow, Cath. Your comment broke my heart. Hang in there, lady. You sound like an AMAZING woman with a kind and gentle heart. Sending you whispers and hugs through the www. x.
It’s amazing how parenthood can thrust you together with a lot of people that you just do your best to get along with. You end up wanting to NOT know anything about their politics, attitudes, because you know that it will be a major deal breaker.
But then every once in a while you meet someone that maybe you would never have initially been attracted to, but things just click ad make sense. I’m so glad you have that, esp. as a mother of young child–those can be years of isolation, I know I’ve written that here before. So, glad you have a nice companion!
I don’t know how you do it, but too often what you write make sense of my scrambled thoughts about my life.
I also find that making friends, REAL friends is so hard, while some people seem to do that casually.
I like my mommyfriends, but I have yet to find among them a real friend. You’re so lucky.
I found a real friend who started as a mommyfriend. We met online when our kids were under 2, so most of our playdates for the first few months were very kid-centric. But as the kids got a little older and didn’t require us to watch them quite so intently, we got to talk about topics more interesting than potty training and got to be real friends.
I was reading something the other day about having your three best girlfriends scope out a guy for you, so that got me to thinking about who I’d ask to do something like that. This friend’s name popped into my head, until it occurred to me that if I didn’t already have a guy (resulting in the children) I wouldn’t know her at all!
It’s amazing to me how a woman so dynamic and brilliant and eloquent doesn’t have women knocking down her door to shoot the sh*t with and talk books, politics, writing, kids, clothes
shoes etc…etc…
The www really is an amazing place because I see so many stunning spirits gathering and communing and sharing. I am struck by your warm and thoughtful responses to comments and emails and send you all of my good energy for amazing friend-karma to come your way. You MORE than deserve it, as do so many of the others writing in to you.
My good Mama friends who I have also been so happy to become friend-friends with have brought so much to my life these last 7 months of Mama-hood. We say almost every day when we see each other, “what would I have done without you??”…
And I say to you, Rebecca, “What would we do without you??”………
This was like reading a page from my own diary (though better written
)
I’ve ALWAYS had trouble finding female friends and I long for that relationship. It’s always been that just when I get close to someone, they either pull away or they move or something happens to prevent me from FINALLY finding a friend.
It pains me to know that when I get married I will not have any bridesmaids. I want that connection with someone, but it just doesn’t happen…
It makes me happy to hear that you’ve found that, and since you sound so much like me, maybe it will happen for me too?
Are you moving to Canada anytime soon?
What a beautiful post to share! I have always had trouble making female friends but I really force myself out there. I try to do things where I might have something in common with the other women there (like a volunteer organization). Mostly I just end up with more acquaintances with a surface connection but sometimes I find that one person whose company I genuinely enjoy.
Unfortunately I am moving again. I will be closer to college friends and family than I have been in a long time, but not close enough for a casual visit.
So, the process will start all over again, this time with a baby in tow!
Thank you for the reminder that it only takes one connection to really work for the effort to be worthwhile.
Does Charlotte have a sister in Connecticut? If so, please hook me up
my baby’smomma friends have gotten me through and helped me be a better mom and they came like a blessing from heaven in one singular play group
“the ebb and flow of convenience” – you said it.
Thank you for reminding me how lucky I am to have friends – real ones, not just mommyfriends.
I hear you…it’s one of the reasons I am moving away from Boston, back to my Exurban hometown… my best friend just had a baby, and I am desperate to have someone who knows ME, and knows what it’s like to be a mom.
I need a friend. It’s been years, I had a falling out with my mommy friends group. Women in a group setting doesn’t seem to work well, it turns all high school. Ever since, being a little scared, I haven’t met my match. I don’t think it would be cool to have my mom sit on the corner with me to try and make friends like she used to when I was a kid. I’m on my own and it is so hard. This is when the husband comes in handy and I don’t feel so looserish. I actually have someone to go to the moview with.
I have a really dumb question to ask you. What type of camera do you have because it takes amazing photos!!! Email me at
samira_outler@yahoo.com
Psst Samira! It’s the photographer not the camera that takes amazing photos!
If I say that you can cook a good meal, I don’t ask what oven you use!
I went a few years in college missing my close girlfriends. I don’t make girlfriends easily either, and commuting to school didn’t help. These past few years we have all moved back to ct, though not close. I’m getting married this fall and I can’t tell you how hard I work to hold onto them. They are amazing and it hurts how much I miss them so much all the time and hate that they’re all close while I’m over an hour away.
Most of all it’s definately work to keep it going…and to let all the little stuff slide and appreciate the history you all have together. I worry about things like when I have kids they will be too far away and that I’ll be lonely. But I suppose we have to just keep making that effort and keep making the time to see one another.
Great post GGC.
I’m always shocked to see how many women are in the same situation when it comes to making friends. I wonder, then, if we could be more honest with one another in the flesh, if we would have an easier time? I feel like with so many like-minded women out there, we should be able to make friends easilly. I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard!
Is it easy for anyone out there to make mommyfriends? I’d love to hear from you if so….
…..
A la the camera, I shoot with a Canon powershot sd600 Elph and then I usually add contrast or black and white w/ iPhoto. I also worked several years as a professional photographer (headshots, street fashion for web mags, travel, etc) so that helps…
)
I’m so glad you enjoy them!
I agree on how hard it is for women to find “real” friends. Add being a military wife to the mix, and you get a cake of short, unreal “friendships” and a side of acquaintances that you might remember next year (and vice versa).
I have had the privilege to “meet” a few great people online (though never in person) whom I can count among real friends, but I still hunger for flesh and blood-in the local area friends.
it’s nice to find someone “new” that you’d hang out with even if you both didn’t have kids.
those people are really hard to find. i’m fortunate that i have two cool friends and they both have kids.
I had no idea that other people went through the bathroom ridicule thing. I was teased mercilessly because I had panties with the day of the week printed on them(my mom thought they were cute), and, of course, the tinkle sound. Although really, I was ridiculed for everything, too.
Why do kids do this sort of thing?
I was the outcast all the way through high school, although I did make some friends(finally) in middle school that I still keep in touch with, and college was great. Understandably, I’m still a little gun shy and I automatically assume that any new people I meet aren’t going to like me. Makes making real friends a little tough.
I’m jealous of how easy guys are able to make and keep friends. My dad still hangs out with guys he knew in first grade, and my husband has no problem finding guy friends no matter where he is.
As usual, Rebecca, touching beautifully written and right the FUCK on!
-Rachael
you know here’s another way to look at your childhood experience: maybe your friend didn’t want to play with you that day, but she also didn’t want to leave you alone. so she thought she’d buy someone lunch so that you would be okay. i don’t know, kids just don’t know how to behave, they don’t know how to confront things, and it seems like even though what your friend did was hurtful, in a way she was still looking out for you. you shouldn’t let a third grader influence your relationships now.
I’m 32, I have a 15 year old son and 8 year old daughter, and ufortunately I don’t have any female friends. I used to in high school, and before, but it seems like life got in the way. Not necessarily cuz I had a child at such a young age, for some reason my whole graduating class, and the younger classes seemed to all have children at extremely young ages. Friends got married, moved away, changed, etc.
My closest friends right now are guys I met through my fiance! And thank god for him, or I’d have no adults to talk to!!
Why is it so hard for us girls to make friends with each other? We really need each other!!!!
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only lonely mom out there that feels more nervous meeting and connecting with other women than I ever did with any men. I am so in love with my husband and kids, but if I could add one more thing to the mix, it would be a trusting and deep relationship with a real girl-friend.
I’ve had many ‘friends’ and acquaintances and I was ‘popular’ in highschool, but I’ve never experienced that friend who you can say anything to, without any filter that protects the most real and most vulnerable part of you from gossip, backstabbing, and sacharin smiles. Good and bad. Too annoying, too frustrating, too happy, too sad, too beautiful, too ugly, too ornery, too friendly….it doesn’t matter, because you are respected, regarded and loved for just being ‘you’
I want a friend who can come into my house when it looks like a tornado has hit (and truly, my 2 yr old is like a blender without a lid), and only think how happy she is to be in good company as she pushes the potato head and stack of board books off of the sofa so that she can make herself comfortable and stay awhile. And then she stops looking at her watch every 2 minutes like she has a million other things to be doing…is the world really going to fall down around you if you stop running for a minute?…
I want a friend who will tell me anything and know that she can trust each and every word to remain respected and regarded by me.
I want a friend who can call or show up at my door at 3:00 in the morning because she just needs someone to talk to, or somewhere safe to cry.
I want a friend who actually listens to the reply when she asks “how are you doing?” and someone who doesn’t only reply with an enthusiastic “great!” or “fabulous!” when the question is asked of them.
Thank you for sharing your story so eloquently. It’s good to know there are people like all of you out there. And Kim is right, we really do need each other!
Wow, reading this made me realize that I need to cherish the several true friends that I have. In fact, I’m going to a birth tomorrow — it doesn’t get any closer than that. I’m making it a mission to tell my buddies how much I cherish them!
wish this were me!! I am so very critical and always on my gaurd where woman are concerned. I don’t think I will ever have a “friend” because I am so convinced that they will let me down. I am a disbeliever in real friends. I have never found a woman who can be the friend that I am to them. They don’t exist!!
wish this were me!! I am so very critical and always on my gaurd where woman are concerned. I don’t think I will ever have a “friend” because I am so convinced that they will let me down. I am a disbeliever in real friends. I have never found a woman who can be the friend that I am to them. They don’t exist!!