Mid-Age and female friendships

When girls become teenagers, they usually have a best friend at school or in their neighborhood. As they become adults, life changes such as new jobs, marriage, kids and relocation sometimes makes the best female friend fall into the backdrop of life. Some young women while vying for male attention become very competitive, and prefer to surround themselves with male friends instead of female ones. And many of us while married prioritize the relationship with our husbands, children and the new family unit we build for ourselves.

Something happens though after our forties: we need our female friends more than ever. Middle age can be a time of our lives where big changes happens: menopause, divorce, empty nest, cancer, loneliness, aging parents…life stresses that all of us can go through. That is when having a network of good female friends can be a buffer, a respite, a support. Women are less competitive when more mature. We know we do not have the power to seduce every man that walks by any longer, so we are not so focused on who looks better than who. We don’t see other women as competition.

Additionally, we see many of our “sisters” going through the same life changes that we do, and a bond is formed.  Finally, we have more common interests with these women from our generation than with the men in our lives.  Ah, and we all share our cheap reading glasses when we go out