I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about the same “friend” for almost 15 years. Needless to say, she’s beautiful, with flawless skin, perfect breasts and a mane of chestnut hair that seems designed for a wind machine. But her looks have only ever been part of my jealousy. What’s always set “R” apart in my mind is her lack of vulnerability. Her life has been far from charmed. (Just a few years ago, her younger sister died from cancer. She married a difficult guy who drinks too much and never helps with the kids. I suspect she feels frustrated in her career.) But she’s never invited any pity; even in difficult times, she’s calm and dignified. What’s more, she never says a nasty word about anyone. And so my jealousy of R has always been mixed with admiration. She’s also a little cold, even aloof.
And every time I see her – at this point, once or twice a year – I find myself trying so hard to please her that I come away hating myself.
It was my relationship to R that got me thinking about female friendship – not just the joyful moments when glasses clink and giggles fill the room, but the darker emotions that often accompany the laughter. If high school never ends, R will always be the most popular girl in school. She’ll be the girl who I’m both desperate to be invited to the Sweet Sixteen of, and hope has a humiliating fall from the top of the cheerleading pyramid, with equal vigor.
From “Sex and the City” to “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” female friendship in TV, film and books usually gets the “BFF” treatment. The bonds of friendship are shown to outlast and outshine all the other bonds of life, romantic, familial and otherwise.
But what about in real life? In an era where marriage and babies are frequently postponed until the 30s and beyond, friends often become our de facto families. With Facebook and Twitter, we probably have more to do with our pals on a daily basis than we ever did before. The result: friendship rivalry every bit as weird and intense as sibling rivalry. I would know. I have two older sisters, and all three of us are a year and a half apart. Some girls compete with their mother for their father’s attention. Growing up, I competed with my sisters for airtime at the dinner table – and, according to my mother, usually got drowned out. These days, my sisters and I are all very close. Two of us also stop speaking to each other at least once a year.
What do female friends compete about? For girls in their early 20s, rivalries tend to revolve around beauty and the attention of men. Later, it becomes easy to measure your lot in life (against that of your best friends) by the size of your wedding ring, the square footage of your apartment, the number of zeros in your or your husband or partner’s salary, and whether or not your kids got into a gifted-and-talented program. This is especially true in New York, a city whose official religion is “workaholia.” Little wonder that schadenfreude is rampant, along with its opposite (i.e. being upset when good things happen to friends), which I like to call “freudenshad.” “I’ve seen close friends break up over an apartment,” says my friend Tina, a real estate agent. “The old friend with the crappy walk-up simply can’t deal with her former college roommate moving to the Time Warner Center – that kind of thing.” In my own life, even while my husband and I are fortunate enough to own a three family brownstone in Brooklyn, I often catch myself feeling jealous and resentful of those better-off pals who don’t have to rent out half their houses, or who have renovated kitchens and bathrooms, plus all the original Victorian moldings and details.
In a recession, competitive feelings amongst friends become even more complicated. As many women have seen their net worth tumble, or their husbands have lost a job, some can’t bear to spend time with intimates who have been less affected by the economic downturn. I recently heard a story about a woman whose lawyer husband went south with Lehman Brothers – and who stopped speaking to her old friend without explanation, though presumably because the other woman’s husband continues to rake it in at Goldman Sachs.
The tale also served as a reminder that men, while every bit as competitive as women, don’t generally “break up” with their buddies as often as we do. Why? Possibly, it’s because men don’t have as close friends. Also, if my husband is any indication, the opposite sex tends to save its most lethal shots for the golf course or basketball court. Women, on the other hand, over-share. And then, feeling vulnerable, they can’t deal and cut ties.
As I get older, though, I can’t help but notice that the friends I once envied are frequently the same ones who’ve ended up in a bad way. The award-winning novelist who married a hedge funder is getting divorced and going through a nasty custody battle. (He’s accusing her of being an unfit mother who’s addicted to sleeping pills.) In another case, both love and a career have strangely eluded the Princeton-educated former model, now 40, to whom I once ascribed the nickname “Miss Perfect.” Then, of course, there’s R. But no matter what happens to her in life, I’ll probably find a way to turn it around in my head – so that she comes out the victor. It isn’t just friends who can be for life. Frenemies are, too.
Lucinda Rosenfeld is the author of “I’m So Happy for You: A Novel About Best Friends” (Little Brown), out now.