What Is A Friend?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? For me, the answer has changed over the years as I've grown. When I was little, a friend was someone who liked the same things that I liked, who liked me, and who I enjoyed being around. Then it began to morph around grade school, then high school: a friend is someone who agrees with me; who won't hurt my feelings; who I feel safe with; who will protect my badge of honor; who won't grow, change and leave me. During and after college it manifested as someone who wouldn't tell me that I should dump the idiot I was dating; someone who wouldn't call me out on my 'issues.'

As I've grown and gotten healthier, made and lost some friends, it's morphing again. Now, in addition to my friends being people I enjoy being around, my friends have started to be people who love me, but don't indulge my staying small. They disagree with me, at times. They call me on my issues. They do it compassionately, but they don't coddle me unless I ask them to, and we're both fully aware that that's what they're doing. I've chosen people who have a similar desire to grow, to have better, more productive lives and relationships, and who are willing to look at themselves and improve in that direction.

I hadn't realized my relationships were changing until the other night. I had a surprising experience while out to dinner with a friend. Our friendship is fairly new so there are a lot of areas where we're still finding out about one another: how we will act and react, and so fourth. I had injured my back a few months ago and was telling my friend about the assignments my physical therapist had given me, one of which was to sit up straight (he's helping me correct years of bad posture). I had asked my friend's assistance in reminding me to sit up straight and to bear with me while I figured out how to do it, and while I felt vulnerable and silly (chest out to the world is very scary when one has been slouched over protectively for 30 years!).

Coincidentally, she had hurt her arm and had been told by the doctor not to lean on it, the way she was accustomed to and she asked me to remind her to sit back in her chair instead of lean on it. Midway through dinner, I was tired and unconsciously started slouching. It felt homey and comfortable. She was leaning on the table as she always did, and because it all felt so normal, I didn't notice we were both doing something we didn't want to be doing. As I picked up a sweet potato fry and was about to eat it, my friend said, "Hey! Sit up!"

Startled, I wasn't even sure what she was talking about, and her tone was one I wasn't used to hearing coming out of a friend's mouth. But she pulled her arms off of the table and sat back and I sat up, shoulders back, chest out, the way I'd been taught by my physical therapist. I was surprised at my internal reaction to what she had said. My initial thought was, "I was comfortable! Isn't she my friend? Can't we skip it? I've been sitting up straight for so much of this meal and it's more than I would have done at home!"

And then I realized it. She was telling me to sit up because she wants me to have good posture too. She wants what I want for myself: for me to use my body in the best way possible, to be able to sit and stand comfortably, to be the person I have the potential to be. And she won't sit around and indulge my laziness about it (and here's the kicker) because she loves me.
Because she loves me? But I'd thought love and friendship was supposed to feel like a warm chocolate chip cookie when you're on a diet! I'd thought friends let me slouch when I'm tired and not risk when I'm scared! Being a friend could mean she'd say something on purpose that would make me uncomfortable, that would call me on my stuff? Ouch!

Moments after I felt the sting of offense that she would tell me to sit up straight (after I'd asked her to!), I had the most tremendous revelation: She wants for me what I want for me? And she's willing to stand up for it when I'm too busy feeling my feelings and not wanting to do it? She's willing to risk offending me and my comfort zone by reminding me what I really want? I was tremendously touched. She'd risk offending me because she loved me? I'd seriously never looked at it quite that way before.

I hadn't realized until that moment that my definition of friend had changed. As uncomfortable as it was to be called on my 'stuff,' when I looked at it from the perspective that she was just helping me do what I actually wanted, because she was on my side, and seeing that "on my side" could actually mean helping me when I was too in my feelings to help myself, I realized I'd truly made a wonderful friend. And I realized I must have grown a lot to be able to receive that kind of friendship without turning away from it.

What are your relationships like? What does being a friend mean to you? What does being loving mean to you? What does support look like for you? Do your friends let you off the hook after you let yourself off of it? Do you let them off the hook? Do you let them slouch, complain, avoid things you know would bring them what they have told you they want? Do they let you do that? Are your relationships set up so that you will always feel good around one another no matter what, even if it means neither of you grow, yet you say you want to grow.

If so, is that what you really want? I challenge you to redefine what friendship, love, and support mean to you and see how your relationships stack up to your definitions. Some of your relationships may surprise you. Some people may be the kind of friend you want already and you may have brushed them off because it didn't feel good when they told you to quit your job after listening to you complain about it for 4 years straight. Or you might notice that some of your best friends never challenge you or they expect you to help them stay small and vice-versa. What kind of friendships do you want? What kind would support you? Where could you use some improvement.

I am so grateful to have my friend as my friend. Not only is she a great example for the kind of friend I want to be, but it is really great to know that she will remind me of who I want to be when I start letting myself off the hook. It is wonderful to know that there is someone else looking out for my best besides me, and unlike me, won't cave to or cater to my feelings about it.
So what about you? What does it mean to be a friend?

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The women who rule his heart

Your toughest competitor and critic will be none other than the woman who prepared your man’s food during his developmental years. It doesn’t matter if she was a good or bad mother, it doesn’t matter if she is living or dead; it doesn’t matter if she was an absent mother or a part of his life on a daily basis__ his mother is the template and prototype of what a woman should or should not be like burned into his brain. Her mere presence or lack thereof, through osmosis has conditioned him into his beliefs about women and their role in his life.

His mother is the first woman to satisfy his emotional and physical needs. She is the first woman that he stared at adoringly. His mother who may or may not be beautiful to you__ is the woman who has set the standard of beauty by which he will measure other women in his life. Will you cook his favorite dish as good as his mother? Will you do laundry and fold his clothes like his mother? Will you be able to understand and maneuver the little idiosyncrasies of his personality like his mother? His mother, grandmother, aunts, sister and other females relatives have defined womanhood for him through interaction such as eating, sleeping, playing, performing chores, watching television, down to simply deciding who should sit in the front seat of the car.

They will tell him to look beyond your beauty and drop-dead gorgeous body to see the real you. They will refer to you as a slut or good-girl. They will tell him all of the dirty little secrets that women share about the virtues and hidden agendas of other women. Contrary to popular belief, women are more likely to refer to each other as bitches, tramps, whores, and sluts more so than men do in every day language. Women are more likely to look at another woman’s clothing and call her a slut or tramp because she is jealous of this woman’s physical attractiveness. Women fear that their male partner may become aroused by the physical attractiveness of a beautiful woman. This is why many women sub-consciously verbally attack the beautiful woman’s image in order to tarnish her beauty in the mind of others.

In most traditional families it is the women in the family who prepare the food for family festivities. The women gather in the kitchen to discuss, debate, evaluate and determine not only who is going to make the biscuits and wash the dinner dishes, but which women are worthy to become a part of the family clan. While chopping onions, peeling potatoes, and kneeling dough, these women will discuss the clothing of all of the women who attended the last family gathering, the length of time that some women flirted and chatted with the male family members; and which marriages and relationships should be salvaged or terminated.

These women will decide while washing and drying the dishes, sweeping the floor and putting the leftover food in the refrigerator whether or not your marriage with their male family member should be saved through their intervention of wisdom, love, and support; or whether or not they should give him ten reasons why he should not propose marriage or break off the engagement. The women in his family can heal or destroy his relationship with you. Housekeeping, cooking, and mending are the chores that bind the apron and heart strings of a man to his feminine ideology.
The women who performed these tasks in your man’s life will remain constant; they were his first and will be his last love. You must figure out where you fit into this web of women is his life. And though we, women, never talk about the influence that women family members have on impacting the quality of the relationship that we have with the man in our lives, we acknowledge the power that women have over the men in their lives.

Not only can we take another woman’s husband or boyfriend; we also have the power to take away a woman’s male child. You are the woman who is going to take her little boy away from her and possibly break his heart. You are the woman who could possibly turn her little boy against her and break her heart. You are the woman who could possibly make better fried chicken, scrambled eggs and lamb chops than his mother. You are the woman who can deny her access to her grandchildren. Don’t think for one moment that she…his mother and female relatives are going to give their male relative’s heart to you if they do not believe that you are worthy of its possession.
Answer and discuss the following questions with other women to assess the hidden power that your male partner’s female relatives have in determining the quality of the relationship that he is currently having with you. In addition, based on your answers to the following questions evaluate if the women in your male partner’s life is likely to support or destroy your relationship with him during difficult times.

1. If applicable, did his mother (primary female caregiver this may include grandmother, aunts, sister or nanny) try to establish a relationship with you? In what way did she reach out to you or in what ways could she have reached out to you but chose not to.

2. Is his female relatives (especially his mother female primary caregiver) close to his previous wife or girlfriends? Briefly explain the relationship.

3. Does his female relatives (especially his mother female primary caregiver) invite you to family or social functions without your male partner?

4. Does his female relatives (especially his mother female primary caregiver) write to you or send cards without reference to your male partner?

5. Are his female relatives (especially his mother) friendly to you over the phone? (This is a very telling sign of how his mother feels about you.)

6. Does she talk to you about issues that do not concern her son? Give examples.
7. Is she critical of your ideas, clothes or goals? Give examples.

8. Do you intuitively feel that his mother likes you and supports your relationship with her son? (Trust your gut feelings).

9. How would you describe his relationships with his mother? How often does he talk to her? Does he speak fondly of her? Ask him three of his favorite memories with his mother?

10. Write a brief biographical summary about his mother. Include the type of jobs that she has held and her highest level of education.

11. How do you think that his mother feels about her relationship with his father?

12. How does your male partner feel about the quality of his parent’s relationship? Does he want to emulate their relationship? If not, why?

13. If he has sister(s) or female cousin (s), write a brief description of each close female, her dress style and the type of men that she dates. Note whether or not he has a close relationship with his sister and how you think that she may feel about your relationship with him.

Look at your answers to all of these questions. In what ways are you similar to the women in his family? In what ways are you different from the women in his family? Based on your responses, do you think that the women in his family support your relationship with your male partner?

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