Friend or Foe: How Do I Keep a Kindred Spirit?

Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular Double X advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships. Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy For You [2], a novel about best friends, is now taking questions at lucinda@imsohappyforyou.com [3].

Friend or Foe typically devotes itself to the endlessly fascinating subject of BF-FALTs: Best Friends for a Limited Time. FoF has grappled with their rudeness and narcissism, their transgressions and slights. So when I received the following letter—from a young woman lamenting her lack of BFs altogether—I started to wonder: What, exactly, constitutes a good friend?

Dear Friend or Foe,
I’m a 24-year-old recent college graduate, and I’m saddened by my seeming inability to maintain friendships with other young women. I’ve been unceremoniously dumped by female friends at ages 10, 13, and now 24. At other times, my closest female friends have simply moved away and lost touch. I’m starting to develop a complex! My best friend of three years recently dropped out of my life entirely, bailing out of our plans to move in together and neglecting to reply to my friendly (but concerned) e-mails and phone calls.

A few months ago, I saw an article that invited people to determine whether or not they were a difficult person whom everyone wanted to avoid. I looked down the list of traits, and that’s not me. I’m sure of it. I don’t nag or brag or gripe or whine or manipulate or judge. I don’t gossip, either. I’m a good listener. I’m not needy. I’m open to new experiences, and I really try not to cancel on anybody with whom I’ve made plans. I bake batches of cookies for friends who are having tough weeks. I’m not good at making phone calls because I worry about interrupting people’s lives, but I send e-mails. I make friends fairly easily, but I’m clearly missing the whatever-it-is that makes people say, “Gee, I wonder what she’s up to? I should call her and find out—and we should go do this or that.”

I’m really torturing myself wondering what I’ve done wrong. How do I guard against future losses when I don’t understand what happened?

Sincerely,
Don’t Get It Anymore

Dear DGIA,
For help in answering this one, I decided to turn to Irene S. Levine, Ph.D., author of the just-published self-help title, Best Friends Forever [4] (not to be confused with the lively, just-published Jennifer Weiner novel [5] of the same name). What differentiates the two tomes? Levine’s subtitle says it all: Surviving a breakup with your best friend. Indeed, the author leaves no angle unexplored—with the possible exception of BFs who murder each other with pick-axes in broad daylight—in this exhaustive dissection of bosom buddies gone awry.

But what does Levine have to say about female friendships that actually go right?

In a chapter toward the end of the book entitled “Moving Forward,” Levine lays out a list called “How To Make Yourself a Keeper” (page 234) in which she suggests ways to be a better friend:

1) Be yourself. If a friend can’t take it or doesn’t like you for being yourself, then she isn’t a true friend anyway.

2) Be human. Smile whenever you are moved. Try not to moan too much.

3) If you make a promise, live up to that promise.

4) Be punctual, dependable, and reliable.

5) Show up. If she’s having an event or a party, be a body for her—she’ll appreciate you for it.

6) Learn as much as you can about a friend before telling your entire life story.

7) Make yourself a better listener and try not to interrupt. Pay attention and tune in to what your friend is saying or not saying before you chime in and talk about yourself.

8) Let your friend know that you are interested in her feelings and opinions. All of us want friends who allow us to feel understood.

9) Express your needs. Even close friends aren’t mind-readers.

10) Be there with your fire extinguisher when they crash and burn.

11) Give each other space. Don’t box each other in.

12) Be a comfort blanket but don’t smother her.

13) Remember that she detests olives in her salad.

14) Abandon judgment and resist saying “I told you so.”

15) Be willing to make sacrifices and compromise; if everything always has to be your way, you will be one lonely person.

16) When she has three kids and they’re sick, go clean their bathtub or something.

17) Don’t sleep with your best friend’s boyfriend.

18) Assess the friendship periodically to see if it needs adjustments on either side.

Levine makes many sage points. I was nodding in my head in agreement at No. 7 in particular—about being good listener. How many friends do we all have who go on and on about their kitchen renovations while managing to convey the impression that they’ll die of boredom if they hear one more thing about your passionate affair with your tennis pro? Ditto for No. 5 (showing up at her events), No. 9 (about friends not being mind-readers), and No. 11 (giving each other space). There were also a few “duh’s” in here: See No. 17, about sleeping with your friend’s boyfriend.

However, I took issue with No. 2, No. 13, and No. 16.

Regarding moaning, is this not the great, guilty pleasure of women everywhere? Especially working mothers with only semihelpful helpful husbands/boyfriends/partners whom they long to divorce at least once a day? Looking at my own life, I’d have to say that my entire relationship with my friend J. is constructed out of mutual kvetching about our families—and we couldn’t be closer.

As for her “distaste for olives”: I always feel slightly taken back when a friend points out some weird quirk of mine, culinary or otherwise. It always strikes me as a little stalkery—as if she’s watching me too closely (and makes me want to run for the hills). But maybe that’s just me.

With regard to cleaning out your friend’s bathtub when her three kids are sick—yikes and jeez. Maybe I’m a terrible, selfish person, but this really seems beyond the call. Isn’t a sympathetic phone call sometimes enough?

I would also suggest that Dr. Levine leaves out a few points, some of which may be relevant for our lonely letter writer.

It’s admirable, I suppose, that DGIA don’t consider herself to be a gossip. But here’s a little secret about female friends: They love to gossip! I’d even posit that they seek out other women who have some to share. And by gossip, I don’t exclusively mean the malicious kind (though that has its place, too) but, rather, the full range of tidbits and updates about slimy ex-boyfriends, superior-acting bosses, Hollywood celebrities, and close friends alike. What’s so great about the G-word? It makes us feel connected in the universe—as if we’re part of a larger community. It’s also entertaining in the same way that novels and movies are entertaining. (Hello, story lines!) And those story lines, in turn, shed light on our own predicaments—“If Lindsay Lohan can have a lesbian period, maybe I shouldn’t feel so weird about being attracted to my sister-in-law.” Et cetera. Another old friend, V., and I are such unapologetic fans of the gossiping that, whenever we go out to dinner, we have a little ritual in which, toward the end of the meal, one of us says, “So who haven’t we covered yet?” Shameful? Maybe. But, darn, those dinners are always so much fun.

DGIA might also want to try calling more often and proposing actual plans with her pals. The phone may have fallen out of fashion in favor of IM, Facebook, and other communication of the digital variety, but nothing beats the human voice for fostering intimacy—and securing a matinee date for Sunday afternoon.

Finally, I would add that while it’s important to state your needs (see No. 9), neediness is also the No. 1 friendship killer. (If you don’t believe me, go see Jennifer’s Body, in which Jennifer/Megan Fox’s nice girl BF, “Needy,” played by Amanda Seyfried, barely makes it out of the movie alive.) If you’re a mess and need a therapist, hire one. Don’t expect your BF to offer similar services at a discount rate. You’ll end up discounted yourself.

All this said, FoF admits that she’s only one aspiring BFF among many—and therefore not the “last word” on the Levine list. So please post your own thoughts in the comments about what it does and doesn’t take.

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe