Kristan Higgins - Crappy Friends: The Ultimate Guide to Female Friends, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Dear Reader,

If youre reading this, youve probably had a crappy friend.

So have we.

So have most women.

The two of us, Joss and Kristanaka the Ladieshave been friends for more than fifteen years. We have a shared love of writing and thoughtfully made cocktails, dogs and eating out. But what made us jump the fence to a deeper and more trusting friendship? To that place where we could tell each other anything, no matter how dark?

It was a single conversation. One day, tentative and unsure, we both confessed that wed had awell, hell, the words are still hard to get outa crappy friend.

Female friendship is supposed to be sacred. Movies like Thelma and Louise, Steel Magnolias, Bridesmaids and Girls Night tell us that good people have good friends forever. To the grave. You meet in kindergarten, middle school or high school. In college or at your first job or in Lamaze class. Your kids become playmates, and you become besties. Its not supposed to end everlet alone end badly.

But here we were, both admitting that our hearts had been broken, and not by romance but by something even more baffling. By a close friendship, maybe by our best-friend friendship.

Our experiences were devastating. Neither of us knew how to process them. We were both ashamed of our inability to maintain something that, according to friendship lore, should have lasted all our lives. What did it say about us that wed once loved these women, cherished our friendships, and then decided to never speak with them again? What was wrong with us? Were we monsters, lacking in a fundamental goodness? Were we cold-hearted and unlovable? Were we dumb? Did we lack good judgment?

Honestly, we didnt know. No one talks about this stuff.

When we finally told each other our different (yet so similar) stories, the relief was immeasurable. We were no longer alone. Someone else had experienced that silent devastation.

Sometimes, the death of a friendship can hurt more than a romantic breakup. The expectation for women to stay friends foreverto have a special bond, to be soul sisters or sisters of the heartis everywhere and, so often, completely unrealistic. But none of us have to put up with crappy friends.

This book will outline certain themes and issues that crop up in many a female friendship. Youll probably find yourself nodding along, saying, Yep, been there! Well also give you guidelines on how to vet friends, really get to know them, keep appropriate boundaries, learn to get closer. Well walk you through how to break up with a friend when you have toand how to grieve and move on from a friendship when youre the one being dumped.

The motto of our Crappy Friends podcast is Girl power defeating bitchery. Dont get us wrong. A true friend is worth her weight in rubies. But every friendship is imperfect, just as every human is imperfect. Our podcast and this book are intended to help you:

• give yourself permission to ditch a truly crappy friend;
• stop viewing time spent with a crappy friend as punishment or community service;
• include friendship as part of your self-care regime; and
• make room for more positivity in your life.

We hope you to give you the tools you need to think clearly about your relationships, communicate with honesty and compassion and make the type of friendships that make your life shine.

Were so glad youre here!

Kristan and Joss

Maybe youre reading this because:

1. youre looking but cant seem to find that mythical sister-from-another-mister best friend;
2. youre in a friendship with a person youre not sure you even like, yet for some reason are giving that person way too much head space and time;
3. youve been dumped by someone you adored and are gobsmacked but pretending youre fine, just fine;
4. all of the above.

For many women, friendship can have a more powerful role in life than a relationship with a romantic partner, family member or career. We invest time, energy and emotions in our friendships, nurture them, think about them, and sometimes agonize over them.

In prehistoric days, women were the caretakers and child raisers; as we evolved, we learned to brew coffee and make hors doeuvres while the hunters and gatherers were out killing woolly mammoths. Only in recent generations have women started taking on the same jobs as men. But for generations, for millenia, women have gathered together and gotten shit done. Bonding, making friends and being friends forever feels like part of our evolutionary makeup.

There has been plenty of evidence throughout time of women working together, supporting each other, bonding. Crappy friends, thoughwhere are they discussed in the history books? Are there cave drawings of women clubbing each other around the fire? No. Instead, were given Celie, Shug and Nettie in The Color Purple. Jane and Helen in Jane Eyre. Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables. Everyone in Steel Magnolias. When there is a wretched female friendship in the movies, someone ends up dead (not an option we recommend).

These storybook friendships are why the idea of friends till the end is a tough one to shake. Every woman we knowincluding each of ushas had a friend shed like to ditch but just cant. Instead, we let that person eat up time in our lives and space in our heads. The imaginary conversations we have! The text messages and emails we dont send! The times weve bitten our tongues so hard they bleed!

Why?

Why do we tolerate the situation? Would we put up with a romantic partner who made us feel this way? Hopefully not. But, we tell ourselves, we have history with our friends. There have been some good times. They knew us when. And this idea of ending a friendship can be terrifying and traumatic. Sucking it up, accepting that youre wasting your time, enduring the crappiest pal, can be easier than what Kristan calls the special friendship unicornthat one difficult, honest conversation.

Whether youre the friend someone wants to dump or the friend who wants to shake someone loose, that conversation can be ridiculously hard to have. Too many times, we stay in a crappy friendship just out of habit or fear.

Youve known Narcissa (not her real name) since kindergarten. Yes, shes a self-absorbed pain in the ass who never takes the time to ask about you, but shes your pain in the ass. Then, little by little, you realize that every time you talk to her, see her, text her, you feel worse. Are you obliged to include her in your life forever? Do the ties that start in kindergarten condemn you to years of miserable, one-sided encounters with Narcissa?

Breaking up, as the song tells us, is hard to do. We dont want to sound mean. We dont want to make Narcissa uncomfortable. A lot of us women are trained from birth to be nice, even when that means sacrificing our own comfort and going against what we know is right. Its fine, we say instead. I can put up with it. After all, shes my friend. Weve known each other all these years.