Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Women, Friendships, and Pushing Each Other Away


Women have trouble getting along with each other. A few days ago several women and some men bonded together in a Facebook group over this issue. There were several separate posts where women ranted. Because of issues I've had, I even joined in and made a post of my own where people left their opinions.

My particular post was about women who have been close friends, but abruptly stopped responding to me. They didn't answer my calls or bother returning phone calls. After three tries, I get the message and back off. They didn't bother texting and after I stopped trying to reach out to them. The only connection we started to have was Facebook and other social media outlets. Some of those women will still click the like button on my posts or leave their own opinions when it's a general topic. It's odd because if they wanted to cut off all communication, why are they still paying attention to what I put on social media? One good answer was that I pissed them off but they still saw some good in me. As a woman who notices these issues, sometimes I can't help but wonder what I did wrong and why we as women struggle to connect with each other.

Why can we women never seem to get along? The older we get the more we find ourselves seeing only one or two other women as close.

We push each other away for men. Some women go as far as cutting all of their friends off the moment they get into a relationship. The downside of this is breaking up with that man and wanting to hang with those same people again.

We find the tiniest problem about another woman to explain why we shouldn't like her. If she always dresses a mess, she can't be a part of our crew. If she likes R. Kelly's music knowing about his past, something must be wrong with her. If she disagrees on a topic, we should stop liking her. I had an instance in college where I disagreed with a girl in a classroom discussion. She wasn't a friend and I eventually forgot about her. One summer afterward I was volunteering at a daycare center when that girl reappeared and made an allegation toward me. She accused me of saying bad things about her to her child. I had no idea who her child was, but I quit volunteering at that daycare center upon hearing that.

We create friction with false allegations against other women. I had a moment in time where a bunch of girls didn't like me. They happened to be roommates with a girl that I was good friends with. Our friendship ended because they were spreading false rumors and she started to believe those rumors even though she knew me. Months later after our anger toward each other had calmed down, she wanted to be cool again. This is where my issues of trust comes in with other women. After another woman has shown me how hateful she can be to me, I'm not going back to smiling in her face and being besties.

It's all odd because we want to see each other succeed. That's the main reason Black Girls Rock was created. There needed to be a spotlight on successful Black women and girls. Now, if only we can create the spotlight where us women can work toward meaningful friendships that involve more than two women we can trust. At the end of the day when that boyfriend becomes an ex-boyfriend or we need a break from the relationship and kids, we are all we have. However, we don't even have each other if we're constantly trying to make our circles smaller.


Lashuntrice

Lashuntrice