Before I answer the question of what I value most in friendship let me make a few points about the nature of female based friendships that I have noticed.
Madonna wasn’t wrong to say women hate other women. She wasn’t wrong to say the greatest pain in her life has been betrayal by her own gender, or that Hillary Clinton’s defeat (I wouldn’t have wished her to win anymore than the man who did) was in part owing to women hating other women. She also said that as a woman if you make a mistake you pay a higher price, and other women are the first to turn on you.
Madonna said the way she survived was to believe in herself, without this she would have not been able to. My entire life I have struggled with self-belief and confidence, mostly for the obvious reasons (highly critical family, no emotional support, lots of negatives blah blah) and much as I’m of an age where childhood things should NOT still influence me today, they do.
I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with some wonderful friendships throughout my life. Equally male and female though most of my closest have been with women. Yes I’m a feminist but no man hater, and yes I find it hard being a feminist when so much of the bad things that happen to women are sanctioned or caused by other women. Have I envied men and their simpler lives? Hell yeah. They seem to be more trustworthy as friends, more stable emotionally and more loyal (in friendships) and they play fewer games. That’s my take on things thus far.
Whether you hate or love Madonna she has a point. We screw ourselves.
Many women I talk to say the same thing, “I don’t have many female friends” and when explaining why they point to games, bad experiences and competition as leading causes.
As a woman who believes in championing other women for no other reason than because I believe it helps them, I am dismayed that there is truth to this trait of not being able to lean upon other women as much as we should be able to.
The friend who told me to go to hell the other week, she wasn’t a real friend, more of an acquaintance, but one whom foolishly I had told a few of my vulnerabilities to. Thinking that she would never use them against me as I would never dream of doing this to someone else. She did use them against me, stating “the reason you have lost so many friends is your fault it’s something in YOU” This was said deliberately to undermine my faith in my ability to have good friendships. Briefly it worked. Then I realized that all of what she said came from her own sadness and insecurity and jealousy. Despite knowing this I felt sad that anyone would attempt to treat another person this way.
Call me naive but I believe in treating people well. It is true I have had a few lost and broken friendships along the way like most of us. The woman in question implied my quota was beyond ‘normal’ and it is this stigmatizing and finger-pointing that erodes female’s faith in themselves (this can apply to all genders actually and does). I know she didn’t even mean what she said as days before she was showering me with over-the-top praise, so this was more a mercurial lashing-out as much about her as about anything else.
Despite this the harm was done and whilst I can rationalize it, feel sorry for her and move on perhaps happier to know someone capable of that is no longer in my life, it lingers like a hang-nail in my subconscious. Just as she hoped it would.
That level of deliberate infliction of hurt, is something I have noticed women do especially well, hence the term ‘a woman scorned’ is the most fierce. In the instance of this situation, the girl may have had emotional reasons for her over-reaction, and as I look at all my ‘lost’ friendships they have that in common.
A friend told me shortly after it happened, that I needed to trust my gut more. I couldn’t agree more strongly on this. I had a gut instinct this person was messed up emotionally and being someone who believes in giving second-chances and caring about those who are not always neatly well and normal, I ignored that and the possibility she’d eventually turn it on me. Unfortunately as with the other two women who did similar things, mental problems can turn on those who are caring. It is the price an empathic person pays for not putting up guards or protecting themselves.
That said, I would not wish to stop caring about those people because at times I need help and am not always in perfect shape and I would hate to think someone would side-step me on that basis. So how to care for someone without being burned? Listening to your gut is crucial. I felt in my gut she was playing games and I dismissed that. In hindsight I should have walked away. Cold? Maybe? Self-preserving? You betcha.
I have learned from this. I feel glad to have learned from this. I have turned it into a positive and I feel a relief for the toxic removal of someone who wishes to hurt others. But how as women can we stop being this way? I would say that we need to stop competing with each other. Stop treating every other woman as a possible rival, stop thinking someone who is prettier, richer, more intelligent, etc, is someone we should resent and hate.
In my last job two women joined who were really beautiful. Immediately they were ignored and hated by the other women in the job. I see people as people, I liked them because they were nice people. Shortly afterward I heard rumors circulated that ‘Candy probably fancies them’ which was a pathetic way the haters explained why I was not intimidated or hateful to the new girls. I didn’t fancy them, any more than you fancy every single person you come into contact with, life doesn’t work that way, and it saddened me that this was the extent of their comprehension.
I don’t hate another woman for ANY reason. I dislike a woman if she is cruel or malicious. Other than that, I admire, appreciate and respect women. I truly believe if we all tried harder not to resent other women as females, we’d have a MUCH better world and some really terrific friendships. That does not obviate the value of men by any means, but we’re stronger TOGETHER and hate? Hate is always going to poison the hater the most. We ought to stop treating men as being ‘better’ than we are, or a valuable commodity and treat everyone equally. That means, if a woman you meet wants to be friends and you are suspicious, ask yourself why, rather than wondering why she would wish to be your friend.
So what do I value most in a friendship?
Honesty.
Integrity.
Loyalty.
Soap-box, over and out 😉
Rust.in.the.Soul 