Friendships Don't Just Happen!: The Guide to Creating a Meaningful Circle of GirlFriends

by Shasta Nelson

It may or may not be a coincidence that most movies and TV shows highlight foursomes.

so ten is the optimum number.

" So, on average, most of us have zero to two confidantes in our Committed Circle. And, on average, most of us would be happiest with three to five. (Those other five—of the ten friends that the Lottery study claims is the "optimum number"—would be in my Community Circle.)

Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist, has determined that with our brain size, we can maintain 148.4 relationships "that depend on extensive personal knowledge based on face-to-face interaction for their stability." The term "Dunbar Number" was coined, and rounded up to 150.

WE NEED MORE THAN ONE BFF

Brandi, one of my neighbor friends from childhood, saw my Facebook post about a recent TV interview I'd done on women's friendships. Watching it reminded her of a time when we were kids and she had been brought to tears by something I did.

I Want to Feel Chosen

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, lists the losses associated with marriage for women: married women are more likely to suffer from depression, die younger, accumulate less wealth, earn reduced pay, experience more health problems, and thrive less in their careers than those who are unmarried. She then points to the fifty percent divorce rates and asks the question: why is it that we get so consumed with marriage when it doesn't appear to be all that good for us?

But Being Chosen Doesn't Have to Be Exclusive

That security allows my BFF's to have other BFF's without me feeling jealous, knowing their other friendships don't make what we share any less valuable. In fact, I know that our friendship will be healthier and stronger if she's getting some needs met by others, because I can't be all things to her. And I definitely don't want her to feel lonely. I want her to be loved by as many people as possible!

Because I can't do all those things. Even if I could, she's still better off with a circle of support, with more than just me waving my pom-poms for her.

ASSESSING OUR CIRCLES: FOUR DIFFERENT "NEW" FRIENDS

Right-Side Low: Need Deeper Friends

This imbalance means you haven't yet invested in the few that you want to transform into deeper friends.

The downside of this inflated Left Side can be that we are at greater risk of not ever feeling really known.

We recognize that simply knowing people and labeling them friends doesn't create intimacy.

It may be that you feel popular, but unsure which friends to call to just come hang out with you when you want to be vulnerable or low-key.

It may look like you have lots of people to invite out for brunch, but you don't feel safe asking any one of them to loan you their car fo...

The desire to have a relationship that isn't always based on an activity or an eve...

This was the situation that Dannah and Vania found themselves in several years ago. They were both popular and had tons of friends, but ...

Either Side Low: Need More Friends

The tricky part, of course, is in not comparing every new friend with our closest friends in this Circle.

Middle Circle Imbalance: Need Current Friends

The problem is that even though I know she'd be on the next flight if, say, I had to have an emergency appendectomy, I'd feel silly asking her to fly out for an afternoon of shopping.

Eventually, I reached a point where I wanted to make new memories with friends, rather than simply reporting my life events or reliving the past with those I used to be close to.

Sometimes the greatest intimacy isn't knowing who you could call, it's actually having someone you do call.

And while starting over can feel justified, it can leave a hole that all the current fabulous friends in the world can't fill. For everything you can tell them, they didn't live through it with you. They can't validate how far you've come, laugh with you at who you used to be, or remind you that there was another way of seeing that experience. There is an intimacy that comes from history. Even awkward history. Even painful history.

Better than having a friend who thinks I walk on water is having a friend who knows I don't, and loves me anyway.

Right-Side Full: Need Specific Friends

Without meaning to, we can start feeling a bit resentful. It's our heart's way of saying that we want to be understood. The mistake is when we project it onto them as though it's their fault for being in a different place, at a different time. Then we feel guilty for expecting so much.

no matter how many friends you have right now, you need some specific ones that totally understand what you're going through. And you'll be healthier and happier for recognizing that need and opening yourself up to new friends.

If the need to have friends who share a specific commonality resonates with you, you need to foster Common Friends.

COLLECTING MY CIRCLES

In the book Consequential Strangers, co-written by a journalist and an academic, the authors highlight that one of the marked changes between our world today and that of a couple of decades ago is that while "we were once conn...

In fact, there's now only a fifty percent probability that any two of our friends knows each other. We are no longer all one tribe.

we all need Frientimacy.

When a group of close girlfriends and I all lived within driving distance of each other in Southern California, we met weekly at my house for over a year. We all live in different cities now, but every spring we still fly to a chosen destination for our Annual Girlfriend Get-Together.

I will institute this

The gift of intimacy between platonic friends is that we have a comfort level that lets us be immediately honest and pick up where we left off.

" Frientimacy is defined as the state and expression of being close, familiar, and affectionate in a non-romantic relationship, as it is when I am with these women.

FRIENTIMACY DEFINED

After we're married we talk about how hard we have to work at it. We know that the person we love the most can also be the one who annoys us the most. The same person who gives us roses one day can leave his dirty clothes on the floor the next. An entire industry exists around marriage counseling, ways to deal with disagreements, and personal growth resources for helping us become better partners.

With commitment comes responsibility, decisions, schedules, bills, and chores. In the same way, Frientimacy invites us into real-ness.

Easy isn't the goal. Having strong, healthy, meaningful friendships is—even if that means there are awkward and difficult moments along the way.

FRIENTIMACY DEVELOPED

A decade ago my friends and I were mostly strangers to each other. I invited a few women I had only recently met to commit to a weekly group in my apartment. Some invited someone else. And over time, with one leaving here and another joining there, we had a group that was consistent.

What we celebrate now has taken effort. It has taken commitment—far more than most women are willing to put in. Most

Once a week for one year gave us a gift we can enjoy the rest of our lives, if we keep fostering it.

Very important

We did not "discover" our friendship; none of us could have predicted that we'd end up with this level of commitment. Rather, we chose to develop the potential.

THE FIVE STAGES OF FR...

But with female friendship we lack non-romantic language to articulate those stages.