“I’m thinking you and I should catch a mom’s night out at some point…we seem to have a lot in common.”
It was the text I received from the mom of one of my son’s friends. I had known her for a little over a year, and it was true, we did have a lot in common. I had been thinking the same thing about her as well, how we seemed to be a perfect match for friendship. But I didn’t know how to broach the subject. I’m shy when it comes to friendships.
Yes, me – shy.
Truth is, it’s easy to sit behind a computer screen and spill my life secrets for everyone to read and dissect (and, as some of you may have noticed, been at the mercy of a few trolls….). I’m not actually looking at you when I type. And therefore, I can pretend that what I’m writing is merely a long letter to none other than ME. But it’s nerve wracking to be face to face with someone else, offering more of myself than common pleasantries. You will not see me hosting any huge awards night (I’d be much more James Franco than Anne Hathaway). You won’t see me throwing the party of the century. And in social situations, I am more likely to see how the food is holding up than looking someone in the eye and casually gabbing about the latest and greatest in my life. For someone who has a lot to say in typed word, I have nothing to say in person. So obviously, making friends is not my forte.
And making friends with girls, even more intimidating.
I think it stems from my school days. I was not the most popular, but I definitely had friends in elementary. Of course, elementary is easy. In those grades, everyone is friends. If someone gets mad over something, it’s forgotten by the next day. It doesn’t matter if you’re overweight, if you don’t own the most expensive clothing, or how your hair is cut. Your classmates are the very people you grow up with. But it all changes in Jr. High, sometimes a little before. Girls I had been friends with suddenly sectioned off into an elite group, and me and my chubby self were not allowed. Of course it hurt, though I pretended it didn’t. I hung out with a much smaller group of girls and made different friends. But the awkward shame of being outcasted by the very people I loved as my friends hurt me to the core.
In high school I finally had a redeeming moment. At a football game, a girl I had been friends with in our younger days got into conversation with me. She had surpassed the Jr. High social mountain, climbing her way to the top thanks to her beauty and parents’ wealth. And here she was laughing at all my wisecracks, a defense mechanism I had perfected in my nerdiness.
“Why haven’t we been hanging out?” she asked me. And we planned a sleepover that very night in her elaborate castle of a home. We spent the night giggling and gossiping, and the morning making crepes in her huge kitchen. And the Monday after the weekend, I ditched my usual friends and meandered over to the group she hung out with, quietly hanging on the outside of the circle. She waved to me, and I smiled, making my way closer to her. But my presence didn’t go totally unnoticed.
“What is SHE doing here?” one girl hissed, sneering at me through narrowed eyes. And my new friend smiled apologetically as I sheepishly exited the group and went back to where I belonged, wondering what the hell I was thinking in the first place.
Why are girl friendships so hard? My 7th grade daughter is discovering the perils of girl friendships in her first year of Jr. High, suffering at the hands of some mean-spirited cattiness. Veronica, the P360 mommy blogger at “Adventures in Mommyhood” describes her own conflicts with girl friendships, as well as her fears for her own three girls, in a recent blog titled Mean Girls. On the Santa Rosa Mom boards, moms have lamented over friendship loss that occurs when babies are born. And as I sat over lunch with my new friend, she also described the loss that happened when she started having children, noticing that her friends were disappearing one by one, and how making and keeping friendships with girls now seemed harder than ever.
And in this new friend, I suddenly saw a fellow sister – someone who was describing what I have gone through, and what many women were experiencing all over the place. Trust issues, shyness, friendship loss, and the phobias that enter each time a friend abandons us – leaving us to check out the food table rather than meet new people.
I’m happy to say that our Girl Date was fabulously successful. We started out shyly, but warmed up to be true pals by the end. She’s even called my back so we can go out again. I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Have you experienced difficulties in friendships with girls?
Wine Country Mom 
WHAT? You cheated on me? *sob* How could you….go out with another woman, and…in public?? GOD! WHY??
I was thinking of you the whole time. 😛
I absolutely agree…girl friendships are super hard. It is much easier for me to make friends with guys than with girls. On one point, however, I must beg to differ…though junior high is undoubtedly a torture that Torquemada himself would have been horrified to behold, I didn’t find elementary school that much better. Children are cruel. I was chubby and poor, had a hippie mom that liked to dress me in thrift clothes in the aquisitional 80s (she insisted that buying jeans that already had holes in them was ridiculous), and worst of all, I was smart. I was ridiculed for all of these things. I often spent lunch in the library and recess with the teacher on duty. Though my maturity (I know..what happened?) and vocabulary were often praised by my teachers, my report cards always had a ‘NI’ in the ‘works and plays well with others’ box.
I had friends…some of whom I still am close to…some of whom might even frequent this very blog…but boys and girls alike were jerks when I was in 3rd grade and possibly bigger jerks when I was in 7th.
But by high school, contrary to what Hollywood told me to expect, everyone had mostly chilled the heck out.