MWF Seeking BFF

A lot is made these days of whether or not technology is helping or hurting our social lives. There’s the side that argues we’re more connected than ever and thus more social, meeting friends we never would or keeping in touch with those we would have lost long ago if it weren’t for Facebook or Twitter. Then there’s the argument that we’re all so plugged into technology that we forget the importance of real-life interaction.

I see both sides, as I’ve said here before. I’ve definitely found new friends online (I met one of my newest best pals on a message board! Which sounds so much more  middle-school-AOL-chat-room creepy than it was), so I sing the praises of embracing technology for good not for evil.

But it has occurred to me that there is one very specific element of modern technology that is significantly detracting from my sociability: the ignore button.

Remember when you were in high school and the phone rang and you’d scream “I’ll get it!” and race to the wall where the phone was mounted? OMG, that’s the most archaic image. I can’t wait to tell my grand-kids that we once hung our phones on walls. How very 20th century. And I haven’t heard someone say “I’ll get it” since Dawson’s Creek was still in its original run. But that’s how it used to be. We didn’t have caller ID to screen, or an ignore button to silence the ringer and get back to someone when it was more convenient. We picked up, asked “who is it?” and went from there.

Today it’s just so easy to not pick up the phone. I hit ignore when: I’m working, I’m watching TV, I’m about to leave the house/office/gym, I’m tired, I’m reading, I don’t feel like talking. The list goes on. Back in the day, in any of those scenarios, I would have picked up the phone and said “I can’t talk now, can I call you back?” Now I just send it to voicemail.

Here’s why hitting ignore and ushering the call to voicemail is the lesser option: Telling someone that you will call them back is a promise. It’s rude not to do something you say you will, and you feel more responsibility to follow through with that. Hitting ignore is simply putting the call out of your head. The ignore button almost erases the fact that the call ever happened, and then I forget to check the voicemail and forget to call back. It occurred to me this morning that I have a ton of friends I need to catch up with, and then I remembered I probably owe each one of them a call, because they phoned me during a super-intense scene of Grey‘s or something.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before but I’m–again!–making the public resolution to pick up the phone. And if I can’t talk, I’ll say so.

This might be a socialization game-changer. You heard it here first.

Are you a slave to sending calls to voicemail? Do you ever pick up just to say “I’ll call you back?” And who even remembers when kitchen phones hung on walls????

It’s Research Wednesday! Where I share the latest, or most fascinating, in the science of friendship.

“No matter the cause, no matter how well-managed the reaction, the disagreements arising over parenting practices can hit hard and cut deep. Because what’s at stake is much more than different ideas about Ferber versus Sears, or organic versus conventional, or the use of timeouts, or the limits to be put on TV time. What is often triggered, in the divide between what mothers and fathers do or don’t do — whether or not those differences escalate into out-and-out confrontations — are convictions that push all the most basic parent-buttons.” (“Friends For Life? Wait Till Kids Enter the Picture”; New York Times, 4/20/2012)

Of all the things that could cause a friendship to break, it never occurred to me that differences in parenting styles would be one of them. Perhaps that’s because I don’t have kids.

Here’s how I see it, er, saw it: The way you parent is behind closed doors and really has no bearing on friendship. It seemed, to me, similar to saying “she runs funny, we can’t be friends.” (Nod to Rachel and Phoebe.) What does running have to do with friendship? How does one affect the other? That’s how I felt about parenting, until I read this article.

It seems I was wrong. In some cases, how you handle your kids can come in direct conflict with your friendships. Especially if how you treat your kids is to never leave them, forcing them on girls nights and asking pals to adjust their environments to fit your needs. I was struck by this story in the article:

One woman, a professor from New York, remembers clearly when she reached the breaking point with close friends. The trouble had started when the friends instituted a 6 p.m. bedtime for their preschool-age son. Then there was the banishing of all creativity-squashing, bright-colored plastic toys. Then there was the diet — raw parsnips, duck eggs, sunflower butter — all ordered up by a naturopathic doctor, who had diagnosed multiple food intolerances in the boy. … In the end, it was a birthday cake that did her in. The dad baked it — “some kind of spelt hoecake,” she recalled. As a memory formed of the little boy, once joyfully eating chocolate cake and ice cream, she lost it. “I said: ‘This is insane. This is bordering on abuse. I can’t take it anymore! I love him, and I think he deserves a birthday cake!’ ”

I’ve always known that how people parent is a really personal thing. The couples I know who have kids all do their care taking differently. I even know that people judge how other people parent. What I didn’t know is that it can have a direct on the relationship  between two adults. But clearly I don’t know much, because, apparently the “clash of [parenting] visions can be explosive.” Yikes.

Have you ever butt heads with a friend over your different approaches to parenting? Can’t we all just get along?

This past Saturday was my birthday. The big 3-0! I was so excited about it that I completely forgot to write a blog post on Friday. I don’t know what happened! I’ve never ever totally spaced like that before. It was extra annoying since I missed the opportunity for my annual bday plea–but just FYI, it would have been: Grab your copy of MWF Seeking BFF. Or buy one for your best friend! 

As you can probably tell, I love birthdays. Thirty feels like a big one. Adult.

Glamour magazine recently came out with the book Thirty Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know By The Times She’s 30. Some of them I feel good about (“A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family”) others I’m still working on (a cordless drill? really?). That such a list even exists gives me a bit of anxiety that I should have it all more together by now.

The most interesting aspects of the list, not surprisingly, are the recommendations of the friends you should have.

By the time 30 rolls around, you should have a good sense of your social network. At least according to Glamour.  Says this book, by the time you turn 30, you should…

- have one friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry

- know how to confront a friend without ruining the friendship

- know where to go — be it your best friend’s kitchen table or a yoga mat — when your soul needs soothing

- know who you can trust, who you can’t, and why you shouldn’t take it personally

I think, more or less, that I know these things. I have friends that make me laugh, friends that let me cry, and plenty that do both. I’ll admit that the second of these items, the whole confrontation bit, gives me some anxiety. Turning 30 did not magically make me more comfortable with confrontation, though I’m starting to believe in its possibilities more than I have in the past.

There are plenty of other friendship lists, mostly of the “friends every woman should have” variety. Oprah Magazine published one, so did Prevention, Divine Caroline and iVillage.

Tell me, which friends should every woman have by the time she’s 30? And what friendship lessons should a 30-year-old already have learned?

It’s Research Wednesday! Where I share the latest, or most fascinating, in the science of friendship.

“Friendship became a kind of parenting strategy: By treating Child as Adult, parents hoped that the kid would actually become an adult, and a good one. The happy outcome for some: mothers and daughters who didn’t have to wait until middle or old age to actually enjoy each other’s company. To maintain peer-ness, there came a coinciding pressure to stay young, technologically supported by the capacity to stay young. Moms have never had at their disposal so many resources—so much paraphernalia—allowing them to shrink the generation gap. If they want, they can practically turn themselves back into teenagers.” (“My Mom is My BFF” ; New York Magazine 4/30/2012)

There must be something in the air, because there has been an influx of interesting BFF-related articles out there lately. And this one is fascinating. Really. Read it.

The gist of it is that while the mother-daughter relationship used to be one of guidance—leader and follower, for better or worse (“There was a time in the not-too-­distant past when mothers saw themselves as separate, as the standard-bearers of tradition and etiquette, and daughters saw their mothers as the people they dreaded becoming”), now it’s about being pals. Writes journalist Paige Williams, “Now mother-daughter BFFdom is a thing, having morphed its way onto the radar of sociologists, psychologists, ­authors, designers, marketers, and reality-show creators. The willingness to ­exploit one’s pubescent daughter for adult dating and fashion advice must be a Real ­Housewives casting prerequisite, and there’s no telling what the upcoming VH1 reality show Mama Drama will bring as it focuses on the turbo version of bestie mothers: ‘the partying parent who shares drinks, wardrobe, and social life with her daughter, and occasionally needs to be reminded that she’s the parent.’”

The story features the bestfriendship of one mother-daughter pair, Julie (mother) and Samantha (daughter). A relationship that, the daughter says, is not “that superficial stuff like it is with my friends. It’s more of a deep friendship.” Which is great. Until the lines get blurred.

“The tricky thing about being a legitimate BFF mother isn’t that the boundaries between mothers and daughters have shifted, it’s that they’re shifting all the time. Working in both friend and mother modes can get confusing on both sides. Samantha and Julie still bicker, sometimes over the fact that Julie keeps in touch via text with Samantha’s ex-boyfriends. ‘There are times when she wants to be a part of my life a little too much,’ Samantha says. And when her mother reprimands her, ‘sometimes I don’t know how to handle that, because I’m used to her treating me more like an equal.’”

My mother and I are extremely close. We talk on the phone pretty much every day, sometimes more than once. But I don’t consider her my best friend. I consider her my mother. Just as I think a husband is different from a bestie, so too is family. Moms are moms, husbands are husbands, BFFs are BFFs. That doesn’t mean I don’t confide in my mother, I do. But I also get frustrated with her, for things I probably wouldn’t mind in a friend. I expect unconditional love from her, something that can’t be taken for granted from a BFF. While  it’s wonderful to have a close, friend-like relationship between mother and daughter, I’d argue it’s vital to not consider your mother your bestie, because you don’t want to think that’s enough. That since you have mom, you don’t need friends.

You do need friends. I promise. You do.

Is your mom/daughter your best friend? Do you think it’s possible, or healthy, for mothers and daughters to be BFFs? Or is it just plain crazy?

Last week I was lucky enough to do a reading for a group of employees at the Miller Coors headquarters in Chicago. It was really fun. Not just to meet the employees, but to get to see what the office of a beer company looks like. There’s a bar! In the office!

The experience got me thinking about the relationship between drinks and friendship. As I mention throughout the chapters of MWF Seeking BFF, my girl dates largely revolved around sushi and white wine. It seemed to be the go-to drink: light, crisp, fun. I wasn’t usually looking to get drunk, but simply to relax after a long day at work. Red wine makes me sleepy, martinis are a fancy, weekend option. White wine, for me, is easy and casual, with a bit of a buzz.

Just like a perfect friend-date.

Remember 10 (or more?) years ago, when Cosmos were The Drink when it came to girls nights? Carrie Bradshaw had us all sipping pink sweetness out of martini glasses.

More recently, Bethenny Frankel and her ladies have bonded over SkinnyGirl margaritas–and, in turn, so have millions of happy hour loving gals.

I have to assume that the women of Girls won’t be inspiring an opium tea trend, but who knows.

Cocktails are always a nice addition to ladies night — they get the conversation flowing at the very least.

So, I know it’s a little early in the week to start drinking, but let’s do it anyway.

When you and the girls are gathered, what is the group’s go-to drink? And is ladies night always better with a cocktail?( I mean, isn’t everything better with a cocktail?) Why?

So on Wednesday we discussed female animal friendships—they’re real and they’re deep.

To observe such relationships, anthropologists will travel into the wild to observe animals in their natural habitats.

As the wannabe Jane Goodall of friendship, I too have ventured out to study my subject. And I’ll tell you, there’s no better place to watch friends do their thing than at the nail salon.

I took a solo trip to get a manicure the other day, and, honestly, I could have stayed there forever. It’s a really fascinating place–pairs or groups of BFFs come in, settle into their comfy massage chairs, and talk about their biggest problems and innermost secrets at full volume, as if no one else can hear. Even when the chair next to them is holding someone (namely, me) who is pretty obviously listening in.

Mostly, women gossip. Nails salons are, as far as I can tell, the female version of the barber shop. Sitting quietly, you’ll learn of someone’s dating woes, marital woes, work woes, friend woes. You’ll likely hear her opinion on Kim Kardashian, what she’s doing this weekend, what she did last weekend, and who she did it and is doing it with. The other places where these conversations take place are probably the phone and a restaurant, and in both cases it’s hard for someone else to listen in. Not impossible, but it takes work.

At the nail salon, you have to work to not listen. Perhaps it’s that having someone massage your feet or hands relaxes you just enough. Or maybe it’s the relative quiet of the room. Whatever it  is, something is making women open up and share what’s on their mind. All while someone applies Ballet Slippers to their pinky toe.

If you’re ever wondering what other BFFs dish about on their downtime: go get a mani-pedi. Do what I do, call it research. Then tell me: What about these salons makes women feel as if they’re the only two in the room? Don’t get me wrong – I love it. But I’m definitely curious why BFFs will say anything they want in when getting their nails did, but suddenly on a plane, or at a larger gathering, not so much.

Thoughts?

I had a great time reading from MWF Seeking BFF at Miller-Coors today as part of their Building Relationships and Empowering Women Initiative! It’s so wonderful to talk with groups of women about the importantance of making time for friends. 

It’s Research Wednesday! Where I share the latest, or most fascinating, in the science of friendship.

“In animals as diverse as African elephants and barnyard mice, blue monkeys of Kenya and feral horses of New Zealand, affiliative, longlasting and mutually beneficial relationships between females turn out to be the basic unit of social life, the force that not only binds existing groups together but explains why the animals’ ancestors bothered going herd in the first place.” (“The Spirit of Sisterhood Is in the Air and on the Air.”;  New York Times 4/23/2012)

You guys, this is so cool! I’m not even much of an animal lover, but this article from this week’s Times science section is pretty fascinating. We already knew that animals need friends—but did you know that female animals need female animal friends?  I didn’t.

For example:

“Female chacma baboons with strong sororal bonds have lower levels of stress hormones, live significantly longer and rear a greater number of offspring to independence than do their less socialized peers.”

“Wild mares with female friends are harassed less often by stallions and have more surviving foals than do mares that lack social ties.”

“Female mice allowed to choose a friend as a nesting partner will bear more pups than females forced to share straw space with a mouse they dislike.”

“Female elephants keep in touch with their chums through frequent exchanges of low-pitched vocalizations called rumbles”… that scientists say they “liken to an elephant cell phone.”

I don’t even know what a chacma baboon is! But still, this is awesome.

The article goes on to explain the necessary number of friends for female animals (three) and how to spot BFFs (suckling each others’ lion cubs, or touching trunks, for example). But I’ll stop summarizing. If you love stories of animals BFFs—remember Tarra and Bella?—you should just read it.

I love friendship research because it reminds me that I’m not just some girl whining about missing her friends. It says that science is on my side. And this goes one step further. It says, “Rachel, you’re just like all the other ladies of the animal kingdom.”

Be warned, I gotta say it: I am woman, hear me roar.

Does this surprise you? Ever actually seen any animal BFFs?