Sometimes, when I’ve spent too many days more or less alone, banging away at a keyboard, the world begins to look unaccountably bleak. I’ve learned from experience what I need to do at times like that: go talk to a friend. Just a conversation—a laugh or two, maybe some commiseration, a little encouragement or moral support—lifts me out of myself and reminds me of my connection to humanity. Or at least to one other person—more often than not another woman—who’s on my wavelength.
But friendships with other women can be laced with tension as well. No matter how much we click with a friend, no matter how much we feel we share a sense of humor or a worldview, there are bound to be differences. You think you’ve found a soul-mate, and then she says or does something that leaves you baffled or angry. It can be hard to let go of that precious illusion that the two of you, down deep, were really twins.
When a reader of an early draft of my novel The Mother Daughter Show suggested that I make two of my three female characters friends, my first reaction was “no way.” I’d constructed a story in which three women, all mothers of teenage daughters in the same high school senior class, are locked in conflict over a show they’re working on together. Two of them end up despising each other. They’re polar opposites in many ways. How could they possibly start out as friends?
But my second reaction was, “Hey, wait a minute …” Opposites sometimes attract, in friendship as in romance. Amanda could find her doubts and insecurities balanced by Susan’s confidence and optimism. And Susan could feel that Amanda’s quickness and sense of humor tease out similar, usually dormant, qualities in herself. They could feel bound by shared history and experiences, especially if their daughters have been best friends for years.
And when a falling-out arises between friends, it’s far more interesting, psychologically, than a falling-out between strangers. Disagreements over the show could merely be the catalyst for an eruption of long-standing tensions within the friendship.
I already had one ready-made source of tension: Susan was chronically, and somewhat unsuccessfully, watching her weight, while Amanda was effortlessly thin. I’ve been on both sides of that divide. I was a chubby kid, and throughout my adolescence and into my twenties I was constantly counting calories and trying to shake off five or ten pounds. Then—atypically—after I had children my metabolism seemed to change. I don’t pay too much attention to what I eat—although I’m conscious of what’s healthy—and my weight never seems to vary by more than a pound or two. So I’ve been the one greedily eyeing, while simultaneously trying to ignore, the rich dessert my companion is wolfing down. And I’ve also been the one ordering that dessert, while a friend protests, “Nothing for me, but please, you go right ahead!”
There was one other obvious opportunity for friction: one of my characters was a stay-at-home mom, and the other had a high-powered career. I’ve worked part-time since my first child was born, so again, I’ve had one foot in each camp. And it seems to me that the so-called “Mommy Wars” are largely internal. It’s not so much that mothers with careers condemn stay-at-home moms, or vice versa. It’s more that some mothers with careers feel guilty they’re not spending more time with their kids, while stay-at-home ones may feel they’ve squandered their opportunities and education. Those of us who work part-time may feel we’re not doing either job—the one at home and the one at the office—particularly well.
And all of these internal doubts and tensions can spill over into our friendships. Perhaps, like Susan, a woman with a career will envy the freedom she thinks women who stay home with their kids enjoy. And a stay-at-home mother like Amanda may secretly resent the assumption that she’s always available to pick up the childcare slack for her friend with the demanding work schedule.
Other differences can jeopardize a friendship as well. Years ago, my closest friend told me that she felt our lives had diverged too much for us to stay friends. At the time, I was married and had just given birth to my second child. My friend was childless, recently divorced, and suffering from depression. In her eyes, I suppose, I had it all, and it was just too painful to watch.
On an intellectual level, I understood. It had become hard for me to interact with her. I couldn’t tell her about the joy my children were bringing me because I didn’t want to flaunt my happiness. Nor could I complain about my sleepless nights when her problems were so much more serious.
Still, it felt like a kick in the stomach when I read her letter telling me she was cutting me off. We’d been best friends since adolescence, and losing her was like losing a part of myself. The ways in which she’d been different from me–her raunchy sense of humor, her skeptical way of looking at the world–had seeped into my consciousness. Sometimes I would hear an echo of her voice in my own, and it would only remind me of her absence.
Then one day the phone rang and it was her. Her father had died recently, she said, and it had made her realize she didn’t want to lose anyone else important to her. Could we be friends again? I hesitated only a moment. All my pent-up anger and pain dissolved, and we picked up our friendship as though only a week had passed instead of several years. In a way, the separation made our friendship stronger, because we realized how much we’d almost lost.
So it is with my characters Amanda and Susan. Eventually they come to see that their differences, and the resulting tensions, are far less important than the things that bind them. In fact, sometimes it’s those differences that make a friendship so precious. We may never be able to find our exact double, but if we’re lucky we can find something else that’s a lot more valuable: a friend.