Liz Pryor - What Did I Do Wrong?: When Women Dont Tell Each Other the Friendship Is Over

I have changed all the names, places, and other identifying characteristics of people in the stories within the following chapters, except for my own and my familys. My appreciation and gratitude go out to the hundreds of women who took the time to stop and share their hearts and experiences with me.

You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship.

MARY MCCARTHY

I remember thinking how lucky I was to have found a friend like Maggie. I had moved to Los Angeles from my all-American roots in suburban Chicago. I was positive that not a soul Id meet would go deeper than the color of her hair, andboom!along came Mag, real to the bone. Smart, tough, and my kind of funny. We became the kind of friends women live to have. We spent endless hours contemplating life and love and books and men. I was newly married and she was a budding actress. Our lives were perfectly opposite.

The arrival of my first baby was a thrill beyond what either of us ever imagined. We reveled in the babys every move. The first time my daughter laughed she was sitting on Maggies lap. We thought she was choking; we panicked in sync like psychotics. When the baby had her first vaccination shots, Maggie came with me. For days afterward we fantasized about the different ways in which we could kill the wretched nurse who had administered the shots into my little angels bicep. We shared everything that happened in our lives. From the grandest to the smallest, we were emotionally enmeshed.

Just about four years after we met, I called her on an ordinary Saturday afternoon to see if she wanted to join my pregnant-again self and my daughter at the park, and for some reason I didnt hear back from her. When the third day without reply came and went, I began to wonder. Had something happened? Had I pissed her off? Had the baby pissed her off? Had I done something wrong? Two weeks passed. I finally reached her; she picked up her phone and I said, Oh, my God, is something wrong?

She answered quietly and directly, Not really, Im just sooo busy.

Deep in your heart, where bullshit cant survive, its impossible to mistake one woman blowing off another for anything other than what it is. When I hung up the phone with Maggie, I knew somewhere inside me that our friendship was over.

It happens without warning and it hits you with devastating force. Your closest girlfriend, the Ethel to your Lucy, the Thelma to your Louise, stops calling you or seeing you. She has decided for whatever reason to move on with her life and she leaves you to clean up the broken pieces of the friendship. The experience can be as painful as the death of a loved one, and just as confusing as an unexpected breakup with a significant other.

Every woman has experienced a failed friendship, but when it happens we rarely talk about it. Why? For one thing, we have nowhere to turn. The one person we confide in during times of duress is the very person who has left our side. As for husbands and boyfriends, well, we know what little solace they provide in this department. Maybe she is busy, my husband, Thomas, replied when I told him about Maggie.

Women are raised to believe that the conflicts in male-female relationships may never resolve, but that the bond between two female friends is steadfast and impervious to other influences. After all, we dont just make friends; we make friends forever. So when our nearest and dearest gives us the cold shoulder and the silent treatment, were left reeling and confused, overwhelmed by a pain that is both acute and unfamiliar. To protect ourselves, we internalize our hurt feelings, bury the issues deep inside us, and try to fill the hole by focusing our attention on anything but the failed friendship.

The problem is that the hole an intimate friend leaves behind can never really be replaced or filled. It is the loss of a loved one, a permanent loss, and in some ways dealing with it can be more difficult than dealing with death because this loved one made a conscious decision to leave your life. A full resolution rarely happens, but it is vital for every woman to try consciously to overcome the experience.

Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.

MAY SARTON

T he ending of my friendship with Maggie ultimately led to the profound beginning of something much biggera realization of the prevalence of these unhappy endings to womens friendships and a need to understand them. However, at the time, I was completely unaware of anything other than the sadness, confusion, and havoc her avoidance had brought into my life.

I felt positive that Maggie and I were not these two estranged women. If our friendship were in trouble, we would have discussed it. Something or someone would be accountable. Maggie would never say, Im busy and be done with itor would she?

I hung on as long as I could to the sliver of hope that the whole thing was some sort of crazy mix-up. In fact I convinced myself after another week had passed to call her one more time. Maybe, just maybe, I was insanely paranoid and we would laugh together at the absurdity of the idea of this friendship being over. I dialed her number, and the moment she answered, I wished I hadntI wanted to hang up, but instead we carried on a brief swapping of pleasantries. Everything I had felt earlier was validated once and for all. She was done.

Through my wave of nausea, I found the courage before hanging up to ask if she was angry with me about something. I think it was my feeble way of letting her know that I was on to what she was doing. She stuck quietly and adamantly to the busy thing. My sliver of hope was gone as I put the receiver down.

The part of me that sees a glass as half full recognized that at least the guessing was over. She was done. But I was a mess. Just after I hung up the phone with her I felt the first real taste of rage, sadness, and shame. I think I was angry with myself for not having had the nerve to say something more direct, like, I know what youre doing, you coward. At least admit what you are doing here. Say, I break with thee. Say something. But I couldnt muster up any more to say to her even though, clearly, I had nothing to lose. The emotions of these experiences are tough to explain while youre so close to themand right in themwhich is one of the reasons I wanted to write this bookto help myself, and other women, get clarity and perspective on these murky situations.