Since the first time I saw the Apple Music commercial featuring Kerry Washington, Taraji P. Henson, and Mary J. Blige, I’ve not stopped thinking about the power and magic of female friendships. I’ve also been reflecting on the wonderful girlfriends I let get away.
Rosalind and I were inseparable from children’s orchestra through high school where we grew comfortable being “the only” Black girls. Together we made our way to Howard University, the prestigious historically black university, which produced the writers Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I like to think I could’ve made the 1,000 mile journey from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Washington, D.C., alone, but at 17, aside from visiting my father in California and taking a few church bus trips, I’d only traveled to neighboring Texas. My father was a high school dropout; my mom a community college one. With my “pedigree,” I had no business at Howard, which has the reputation of being able to produce anything but a winning sports program.
After being college roommates, our paths diverged. Rosalind married and moved to the suburbs. I started law school and took custody of my teenage brother. The changes and stress strained our relationship. There were arguments and snipes. Eventually, I reacted in what turns out to be a very male way: I fled, telling Rosalind I no longer wanted to be her friend. We haven’t spoken in nearly 20 years. It is my greatest regret.
I knew Rosalind’s friendship enriched my life, but a study led by Penn State University professor Laura Cousin Klein details how essential female friendships are to our well-being. The research suggests that when a woman experiences stress, rather than exhibiting the male fight or flight response, estrogen-enhanced oxytocin is released, which encourages her to gather with other women.
The more a woman engages in this befriending, the more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. The opposite occurs in men because the extra testosterone they produce under stress seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Researchers theorize that this may be why women consistently outlive men.
That a best friend is a boon and no friends are a detriment, isn’t surprising, but it turns out the quantity of friends may increase life expectancy: a study found that those who had the most friends over a nine-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60 percent.
Understanding I have no friends to spare, my heart falls on “Cathy” and “Denise.” While these friendships didn’t have the length or depth of my relationship with Rosalind, they were incredibly meaningful.
Cathy and I were fast friends from the moment we met in the late ’90s. Both blunt and driven, we shared secrets, worries, and ambitions. In our decade-long friendship, I don’t recall a single disagreement before the end. The unraveling started when I asked Cathy for a favor. It was a big ask of the sort I never made, but because it was important to someone who had been like a second mom to me, I not only asked, I pushed. It was the worst possible time for Cathy, who in addition to having a demanding career, was days away from giving birth. Exacerbating matters, the exchange happened over email where I suspect things were misinterpreted.
I’ve missed our friendship. Cathy could be abrasive, but if you were her friend, she was loyal, generous, vulnerable, and when you needed her, there. Hers was the kind of friendship I had been committed to preserving in the wake of the dissolution of my relationship with Rosalind.
So why hadn’t I fallen on the sword to save our friendship? Pride. Cathy’s career had been meteoric while mine was a very dim star. I felt, rightly or not, she sometimes used her status to bully, so I refused to capitulate even though I could see my wrong in it.
Studies show that as we age, we are more likely to let relationships fall by the wayside, even as evidence suggests friendships become more important as we grow older. Vigilance is necessary not only in the maintaining of friendships, but also the sowing of new ones.
Though my friendship with Denise was a flash in the pan, I had great fun with her, and wish we had remained friends. I loved that she was always up for anything (until it included her pursuit of a guy that I had dated). Sometime later when Denise apologized, I professed to accept. In my heart, I hadn’t. Denise was pretty and possessed an energy and confidence I lacked. I could see why the guy would like her (though it turned out he didn’t like either of us that much), and my self-doubt manifested itself in my being a bit of a mean girl. This was the most humbling of all my lost friendships because it revealed something I didn’t know about myself — I was capable of being petty and insecure.
Reconsidering these friendships was necessary and cathartic. Women can spend an inordinate amount of time musing on former lovers, analyzing every mild slight and misunderstanding in an effort for closure, and more importantly, clues on how to get it right the next time. Our friendships deserve the same care and review.
