Why Female Friendships are so HARD; my Only True Blue Girlfriends

So this is a love note of sorts. Been feeling very grateful lately for the really amazing girlfriends I'm so lucky to have. This handful of super-special women is a mixed bag of very different personalities; a kindergarten-teaching Utah MILF; a gorgeous, whip-smart, RU marketing undergrad; a wanderlusty struggling artist-turned Oregon housewife; a sweet-hearted veteran NYC actress with a knack for great chats; a bike-riding hippie math tutor; a wacky musical theater gal with a terrifying Britney Spears impression; an ambitious Chilean-born L.A. hottie; an adorably pint-sized world traveler who always knows where the party is, a *Snatched Alabama boy transplanted in all his fabulocity to the big city (Note: gay besties count as girlfriends). They are my True Blue girlfriends, the shiny stars of my universe, and every day I love and learn from them, even when we're apart.

You see, I've always been friends with boys, but I can count on two hands the number of real girl friends I've had. It was never a deliberate choice, it just seemed to end up that way; me and a bunch of boys. Boys were easier. You get along ok, share an interest, and so you're friends. You hang out when you can, and when you don't, nobody worries about it. You talk when you talk, you see each other when you see each other, and that's enough to maintain a lasting, “brother-from-another-mother”-strength friendship. Its incredibly low on drama; nobody gets their panties in a bunch about anything, unless its very extreme, in which case somebody gets socked in the mouth, which is considered fair by both parties, and after a couple of days of radio silence, you're back at the bar having a beer together and bygones are bygones. Its legitimately, genuinely over.

Women (excepting the True Blues) are different. Let me rephrase: women are DIFFICULT. In looking at the relationships with my female friends that have lasted, and those that have fizzled/faded/exploded in mind-numbing spectacle, I feel like there must be a common thread. I've spent the last 3 hours wading through the murky swamp of girlfriendship and boiled it down to two lists: 3 Things That Make Girlfriends Work and 4 Surefire Signs Someone Isn't A True Blue.

Things That Make Girlfriends Work:

1. Take the pressure off. Seriously, this is the big one. This is where we need to learn from the boys. The women I'm friends with are going places, doing things, living full, crazy, busy lives, just like I am. We want desperately to be an active part of each others days, but when we can't, its no shirt, no shoes, no problem. Friendship (when not dealing with a crisis) should feel like a tropical vacation, not like a root canal or filing your taxes. My girlfriends know that if we're not hanging out, its due to physically impossible scheduling, and that we've both already tried everything in our power to make it work. Raincheck? Ya, mon, no problem.
   
   
2. Tell me what you need. There are times when you need to vent, and you just need someone to listen. There are times when you genuinely need advice and help. There are times when you need a pal to help you empty a bottle of Malbec (or three). And even your closest girlfriends don't always know what you'll need. Talk is not cheap after all: I tell a True Blue straight up what I need, I get it. Its called being a responsible adult: no passive aggressive bullshit, simply identifying my needs and getting them met by someone I love and trust.
   
   
3. If you don't know, ASK. I will be there if I know its important. And when I'm not sure how high on the Richter scale something ranks, I ask. You don't always know how bad it is. “So turns out Ted does this spitting thing when we're kissing. Tell me I'm not a psychopath for still wanting to date him?” could be just as serious as “My wedding is the 24th and the rehearsal dinner is the 23rd” or as “Stupid, stupid, stupid audition! I should've gone to school for Business like my mother said.” The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. Not one of my True Blues expects me to be a mind reader, and vice versa.
   
   

4 Surefire Signs Someone Isn't A True Blue:

1. I'm your pillow, not your punching bag. PMS has ruled us all from time to time. Life gets crappy, and its a sick and twisted inevitability that we take it out on the ones we love. That being said, I've been shocked by some behavior and words that came from people I considered close. Mutual respect is a given in any relationship, and there's a very clear division between a bad day making someone snippy, and blatant disregard for my value as a human being. And if it happens more than once, especially after we've talked about it, I'm out.
   
   
2. Nothing ever comes easy. I had a friend, for the sake of relative anonymity lets call her Delia. In the beginning, the friendship was great, but as time wore on, it seemed that everything upset her, everything I did was an affront. This coincided with some major life changes for her, an acknowledgment that her life goals/dreams had to change. I found myself facing 3 weeks of the silent treatment for rescheduling a lunch date, on the receiving end of nasty phone calls for not being able to get out of work for last minute social functions, countless text messages about ridiculous things she was hurt over, some entirely fabricated. Petty, gossipy nonsense that exhausts me to even recall, until finally after months of pleading for forgiveness I suddenly realized the truth: that it had nothing to do with me at all. Delia was so miserable, that she literally made herself into a victim in almost every interaction we had. I looked back on other friends she had “lost” and her behavior had been identical. She became divorced from reality, clinging instead to invented contention to validate her emptiness. After almost a year of struggling to communicate, I finally accepted that it was no longer a viable relationship. The bottom line? Its not supposed to be that hard.
   
   
3. Keeping a criminal record. If you've got a ledger book of every wrong that's been committed against you, you've lost your way. People are bound to disagree from time to time, that's normal, but how you handle yourself during and especially after a conflict is paramount to the health of a relationship. If we've talked it out, and come to a real resolution, an understanding of where we went wrong by each other, we've had a huge victory! This is an opportunity, and not a problem. Its a chance we otherwise wouldn't have had to strengthen our bond. Nothing takes that victory and twists it into a curse like holding a grudge. Bringing up old shit that we've already talked out and worked over is pure poison, and ain't nobody got time for that.
   
   
4. Talking to other friends about our private shit. This may be the worst thing that women do that men don't partake in. If I was going to narrow it down to one reason why being friends with boys is easier, THIS is it. While we may be a part of a group of friends who all hang out together, you and I have our own friendship which is individual from that group. So if you need to talk to me about something that's about our individual friendship, dear sweet Jesus, please don't talk about it with other people first. Its so very childish, and sows mistrust deep into the soil. Anyone that makes a habit of this is operating on a seventh grade level, and I don't play that way. I never have. Not even when I was IN the seventh grade.