"Secret Life of Girlfriends" | When Friendships End.
By Lenore Skomal
The "Secret Life of Girlfriends" started as the brainchild of a man, my publisher, with all his preconceived notions of what that might entail. The challenge: To write this book without sounding like a feeble rip-off of Hallmark.
To do justice to the topic of the intricacy of female friendships took a lot of soul searching. One thing I knew to be true: It had to ring sincere for all of us women. To feel valid, it had to discuss the delights as well as the pains of being friends. And then not being friends.
In my book, I led into the chapter on breakups with a bit of an overview:
"Friendships end for a variety of reasons -- all of them are universal but still as unique as the two women involved. These are not the friendships that just dwindle over time, whether it be because of maturity, geography, negligence, or lack of interest. These are friendships that are active, ongoing, living, breathing things; relationships that for some reason have reached a point where you feel compelled to make a decision. The truth is -- either you make it or someone else will."
According to Liz Pryor, self-proclaimed lay expert on when female relationships break up, I am not too far off the mark.
"I love it that we think these relationships are impervious," said the 44-year old Los Angeles-based author in a recent telephone interview. "If you ask someone, 'how long will we be friends?' the most common answer is forever. But it is highly likely that that is not the case. And when it does end, it hurts so much. And when it happens to you, you not only feel betrayed, you feel loss and mourning, on top of that, and many people don't understand."
Pryor wrote her book and set up her interactive Web site, www.lizpryor.com, based on a breakup with a longtime girlfriend that was not initiated by her. The pain of losing that friend forced her to look carefully at her own friendship patterns throughout her life. "This catapulted my thoughts back over my life," she said. "I found out much to my shock that I was a serial dumper and had never paid attention to it."
Now that she was the dumpee, it was a different story.
Final straw/Out of Nowhere
There are two sides to every story, Pryor found in researching her book, "What Did I Do Wrong?" (Simon & Schuster, 2006). And when interviewed, she found both parties viewed the breakup differently. Yet the dynamic in all breakups was eerily familiar, case after case.
"The initiator, or the one doing the dumping, always says that the breakup is the final straw, following a long list of small irritating things that just seemed to pile up," she said. "The receiver, or the dumpee, on the other hand says the breakup was sudden -- that it came out of nowhere."
This dichotomy points to perception and therein lies the solution to helping friendships stay together. "Here is the real key: If you don't tell your friends when the little things happen that bug you, they will accumulate and possibly lead to the point of no return -- the breakup."
What to do?
If you want to end a friendship, Pryor suggests doing it directly. "Once you reach the point that you are done with a friend, it becomes a subconscious, knee-jerk reaction. We say internally, 'I don't want to be friends with her anymore. I won't return her calls, and frankly I don't have to,'" she said. While this is common, Pryor said, it doesn't honor the friendship and what it once meant.
"There was a time when the friendship was good. By acknowledging the ending, you honor that," she said. But if you're too chicken to sit down and end it in person, a letter will do.
"I think a lot of women try to fade out of each other's lives, but it's so much healthier to point out that while the friendship was good, it no longer works for you. Don't get into finger pointing or listing flaws, because that will just elicit a response or put the person on the defensive. You just want to say that it's time for you to move on," Pryor said.
Go on the defensive
But what if you're on the receiving end? If your gut is telling you that a friend is trying to dump you, trust it, said Pryor. "Some of the clues are unreturned phone calls, lack of invitations, begging off of socializing, being too busy. You know when you are being blown off."
What do you do, then?
"You write the letter and state the obvious. It looks like the friendship is over," she said. "The receiver can take the ball herself and finish what the initiator has started, saying to herself that I will be the person who acknowledges the ending of this thing. Then, like a smoker trying to quit, pick a date and send it."
Then what?
Then, you move on. "Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and put it behind you," she said. "But as women, we always leave a little window cracked, because part of us believes that in 20 years, we might hear from this woman again, and maybe it might work the next time."
Lenore Skomal can be contacted through Her Times Magazine!
Recommended by our readers.....
The 21 Basic Laws Of Successful Relationships!
Restore the Flame.com
Keep Your Long Distance Sweetheart Happy and Faithful!
____________________________________________
Editor's Note: If you write articles like this one, they can be seen by thousands of people in over 350 Free Article Directories! I use a great tool to submit all my articles in less than one minute each!
Go here for information!
Read More & Leave Comment>>>
The "Secret Life of Girlfriends" started as the brainchild of a man, my publisher, with all his preconceived notions of what that might entail. The challenge: To write this book without sounding like a feeble rip-off of Hallmark.
To do justice to the topic of the intricacy of female friendships took a lot of soul searching. One thing I knew to be true: It had to ring sincere for all of us women. To feel valid, it had to discuss the delights as well as the pains of being friends. And then not being friends.
In my book, I led into the chapter on breakups with a bit of an overview:
"Friendships end for a variety of reasons -- all of them are universal but still as unique as the two women involved. These are not the friendships that just dwindle over time, whether it be because of maturity, geography, negligence, or lack of interest. These are friendships that are active, ongoing, living, breathing things; relationships that for some reason have reached a point where you feel compelled to make a decision. The truth is -- either you make it or someone else will."
According to Liz Pryor, self-proclaimed lay expert on when female relationships break up, I am not too far off the mark.
"I love it that we think these relationships are impervious," said the 44-year old Los Angeles-based author in a recent telephone interview. "If you ask someone, 'how long will we be friends?' the most common answer is forever. But it is highly likely that that is not the case. And when it does end, it hurts so much. And when it happens to you, you not only feel betrayed, you feel loss and mourning, on top of that, and many people don't understand."
Pryor wrote her book and set up her interactive Web site, www.lizpryor.com, based on a breakup with a longtime girlfriend that was not initiated by her. The pain of losing that friend forced her to look carefully at her own friendship patterns throughout her life. "This catapulted my thoughts back over my life," she said. "I found out much to my shock that I was a serial dumper and had never paid attention to it."
Now that she was the dumpee, it was a different story.
There are two sides to every story, Pryor found in researching her book, "What Did I Do Wrong?" (Simon & Schuster, 2006). And when interviewed, she found both parties viewed the breakup differently. Yet the dynamic in all breakups was eerily familiar, case after case.
"The initiator, or the one doing the dumping, always says that the breakup is the final straw, following a long list of small irritating things that just seemed to pile up," she said. "The receiver, or the dumpee, on the other hand says the breakup was sudden -- that it came out of nowhere."
This dichotomy points to perception and therein lies the solution to helping friendships stay together. "Here is the real key: If you don't tell your friends when the little things happen that bug you, they will accumulate and possibly lead to the point of no return -- the breakup."
If you want to end a friendship, Pryor suggests doing it directly. "Once you reach the point that you are done with a friend, it becomes a subconscious, knee-jerk reaction. We say internally, 'I don't want to be friends with her anymore. I won't return her calls, and frankly I don't have to,'" she said. While this is common, Pryor said, it doesn't honor the friendship and what it once meant.
"There was a time when the friendship was good. By acknowledging the ending, you honor that," she said. But if you're too chicken to sit down and end it in person, a letter will do.
"I think a lot of women try to fade out of each other's lives, but it's so much healthier to point out that while the friendship was good, it no longer works for you. Don't get into finger pointing or listing flaws, because that will just elicit a response or put the person on the defensive. You just want to say that it's time for you to move on," Pryor said.
But what if you're on the receiving end? If your gut is telling you that a friend is trying to dump you, trust it, said Pryor. "Some of the clues are unreturned phone calls, lack of invitations, begging off of socializing, being too busy. You know when you are being blown off."
"You write the letter and state the obvious. It looks like the friendship is over," she said. "The receiver can take the ball herself and finish what the initiator has started, saying to herself that I will be the person who acknowledges the ending of this thing. Then, like a smoker trying to quit, pick a date and send it."
Then, you move on. "Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and put it behind you," she said. "But as women, we always leave a little window cracked, because part of us believes that in 20 years, we might hear from this woman again, and maybe it might work the next time."
Lenore Skomal can be contacted through Her Times Magazine!
Recommended by our readers.....
____________________________________________
Editor's Note: If you write articles like this one, they can be seen by thousands of people in over 350 Free Article Directories! I use a great tool to submit all my articles in less than one minute each!
Read More & Leave Comment>>>
Jim DeSantis at 8:37 PM
Current Articles |
Other Hot Topics |
Top
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
Home