If I were to start an Internet-based quiz called “Which member of the ‘Group’ are you?” do you think may people would play? Is it possible to name the eight members of THE GROUP off the top of one’s head, or will the list come up one short, a la the Seven Dwarves? Let’s see: Kay, Helena, Libby, Lakey, Dottie, Priss, Polly, Pokey . . . you’ll have to take my word on it, I did it in three seconds. Then again, the eight girls have true narratives, unlike the dwarves, who just have adjectives.
I can’t remember when I first read THE GROUP. I have a hunch it was because — frequent theme here — I thought it was dirty. In “Goodbye, Columbus,” Brenda tells Neil she knows how to get fitted for a diaphragm because she’s read Mary McCarthy. Promising stuff. Of course, as always, while I was looking for the dirty stuff, the book’s irony and satire sailed over my head. Now it’s one of my annual re-reads. I wonder if I’m still missing bits.
I’ve also read McCarthy’s memoirs and criticism (highly recommended). At some point, I was surprised to find out that she considered Libby, the most loathsome member of the Group by far, to be semi-autobiographical. Other characters, too, carried pieces of McCarthy’s autobiography. Kay, clearly, had much in common with her creator — the Western background, the husband in theater. But it was interesting to me that she would publicly claim the hateful Libby as a part of her. (To be clear: I’m not sure if McCarthy said that, of it was in a piece I read about THE GROUP, and how it affected her friends from Vassar.)
The thing is . . . I have an inner Libby. Or maybe it’s an outer one. When Libby muses on how her friends cool toward her over time, her, she thinks: “They flee from me who once did seek,” or words to that effect. And when Polly thinks that she feels terribly sorry for Libby and girls like her, girls with big red mouths that just gab away . . . yep, that feels right, too. Libby wants to be a writer and is very full of herself. When a member of the Group dies, she stays away as long as there’s any work to be done, then shows up and demands the salacious gossip.
Libby popped into my head while I was pondering a woman I knew in college, someone a year behind me. We lived in the same dorm and I liked her very much in the brief time that I considered her a friend. I doted on her, thought of her as a younger sister — adorable, puppy-ish. Maybe that was the problem. At any rate, a day came when she no longer wanted my friendship. A _moment_ came. It was that seminal, that obvious. I can’t remember the words, but I remember the look — the exasperated eye roll, the strange thing she did with her mouth, the hand that fluttered briefly on the hip, the body language. I remember what she was wearing — dark down vest, over a beige turtleneck, duck boots — how she held her books in one arm. I can see it now. Me, who can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday — wait, it was leftover haroset on matzah — can envision this scene, my own little Zapruder movie of a friendship’s death.
Last year, “The Friend that Got Away” was the topic of an entire anthology of essays. Do all women have friends who got away? What about men?
When I moved to San Francisco I met a woman who became my best friend. We saw each other every day, supported each other through boyfriend, marriage and job trauma. And there came a point when she actively spurned me, because I moved out of our apartment and in with my boyfriend. At least I think that was the reason. I never really knew. Then, years later, she wanted to pick up the friendship again, which was fine with me. And she and my boyfriend (same one) had a fight, and she dropped me again. Which makes me wonder if they were doing more than just fighting
Last I heard she was on marriage number three and happy in her life (she’s a serial wife, like Elizabeth Taylor, but younger and prettier). And I’m happy in my life, so good for both of us, and no regrets.
The emotional wounding of losing what one thought of as true friendship can be pretty damn tough. I lost two friends not too long ago-one when I got published (a couple of years ago), and the other when my series was dropped this year. But the good news is that it made me realize they weren’t friends after all.
Hey, Guyot-I still love you.
A few of my friendships that died did so in a blaze of anger and recrimination. Usually puncuated with a hardy, “You’re dead to me.” If not actual fisticuffs.
Most just faded away because of my tendency to move around the country on a three year pulse.
Paul,
The “friendship” I described was so brief, relatively, that I think I was more like a blouse that she tried on and then decided wasn’t right for her.
If your friend suddenly made an effort, would it make a difference now?
I liked that part about “..if not actual fisticuffs..” I only wish I had lost my best friend through a knock down drag out, hair pulling spectacle, but it was more subtle than that. She pulled me aside one day and told me that I was too opinionated and she didn’t want to hear my opinions any more. So of course I expressed my opinion by telling her that was absurd, that all people have opinions and I didn’t mind sharing mine. As a once shy child, it took a long time to get to a place where I could share what I felt and then she tells me that.
I didn’t believe a word of it, by the way and for years I hounded her on an annual basis to tell me the real reason she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I did respect her wish to not be around her and eventually moved back to Baltimore. I knew she was lying when she said that I should just drop it. Not likely because I needed to know the truth. Not until I got the truth was I willing to completely leave her alone so I made one last ditch effort because I really did want to be done with it.
That is when I learned that the real reason she blew me off was because her teen aged daughter had once told her that she wished her parents were more like me. Oh. Then I understood. Only I thought about all the years we could have held on to our friendship because what teenaged girl doesn’t try to hurt her mother by saying something stupid like that? It cast this friend in another, less flattering light. We reconciled but it’s just not the same. She was too willing to toss me away instead of being honest with me. I miss the close relationship we had because we became soulmates in college and she really was the best friend I ever had.
Yeah I have a person who could be considere3d a friend that got away over some misunderstanding. I truly hate confrontation and so I have a really hard time speaking up at the time of a perceived offense. I go hide and hurt all by myself and then get mad and say something way too late and it’s out of context. So there I am looking like some stupid idiot when really it’s simple cowardice. I lost a fairly good friend like that and don’t have the guts to try to fix it. It all seems so contrived when I think about so I try not to. Well that’s been my pattern but in my old age I’ve been trying to adjust that behavior so that I don’t get so offended when there is the possibility that I could be wrong about what was said. I’ve learned to clear things up as they happen though it is still hard for me to engage in that kind of confrontation.
I have very good friends in my life now who know how I can get and know how to work me out of the corner I sometimes paint myself into. That is such a valuable thing to have in friends, the willingness to take you as you are and help you to get over being like that because they are so true that you just can’t help but want to be better.
So for me it’s the friends I have now that are so important for the above reason which one cannot expect from everyone. I do have friends from the 60s who I still correspond with as we continue to share many things in common though none of us can afford the drugs anymore.
I guess I would say learning from ones mistakes is the really important thing eh?
I had two best friends in high school whom I still miss today (30 years later). Jodie married a man I loathed and moved away. Mary went to a different college. Jodie called me out of the blue about a year ago and we talked for hours! Mary, I still wonder about. She sent me a nude photo of herself (unrevealing, but still) about four years after college. This was so out of character that I sent a letter back, asking her what the hell she was doing, and I never heard from her again.
There seems to still be hope for my friendship with Jodie. But Mary, I still wonder about.
I can’t remember “The Group” well enough – my version would be “Which Uncommon Woman” are you (using Wendy Wasserstein’s “Uncommon Women and Others” which is “The Group for the next generation, I think. Mt. Holyoke instead of Vassar.
Friends that got away? Wow, I would imagine we all do but isn’t it just because people change? or is that just a sort of bland fatuous statement. Last week when I caught up with a friend at a signing I also met one of HER oldest friends – I loved this. These 2 people had been friends and had stayed in touch for 30 years, far from home. I’m in awe of that kind of continuity and connection. And while I recently met someone I went to high school with – and look forward to seeing her again – I just assume tastes change, needs change, people move, grow apart. Friendship is hard work – and at times, it can’t be dealt with. I have friends who don’t mind at all that I can be very depressed and uncommunicative because I hurt every day. Others couldn’t cope because being around me was a downer.
Linda? I’d wonder about Mary too – a friend who sent you a nude photo? Was there any explanation with it? I mean like um, “here’s my photo for the fundraising calendar”? What a weird weird way to communicate.
<i>If your friend suddenly made an effort, would it make a difference now?</i>
Hmm, great question. I think I would be… excited, nervous, paranoid, bemused. I would drive myself crazy having to know what the hell possessed him to contact me. It would be a very odd situation on my end.
I’ve had many friends fade away over the years. In grade school there were four of us that were inseperable. Then one moved away. Down to three. Ninth grade hit, the other two went off to a different school; their’s was Catholic, mine was ‘private’ Catholic. Two seperate universes.
In high school it was the same thing – there were four of us. Then three, then two. Before I knew it I was in a ‘different’ group. And of course those faded away as we all went off to different colleges. I do still keep in touch via e-mail with one of the girls, and she hs come to see me at the beach, but it’s definitely not the same.
My one major blow out came about 5 years ago. She was my roomate and I became friends ( 100% completely platonic) with her COUSIN’S ex-boyfriend. She lost it. She swore there was something going on between us when there really wasn’t. She actually said to me “guys come and go, but real friends last forever”. Funny thing about that? I married the guy that was supposed to ‘go’. I think with all of her rants about it, when it was innocent, we decided that maybe she was seeing something happen before we did and that kind of pushed us together even more. we’ve been happily married for 2 1/2 years!
I have one friend, that still lives in the area, that faded away, and I do miss her. She started dating a much older guy and stopped hanging out with us. Then we found out that he was abusing her. By that point it had been about 3 years since I had talked to her. Luckily she wised up and got out of the relationship. She is now married to a good guy and just had a baby in October. But we run in completely different circles, so I don’t really see her anymore. When we do run into each other, it’s the same old thing – we’ll do dinner, or lunch, or drinks. But we never get around to it. And for that I’m sad.
I had a BFF in grade school and thought that we would be friends forever. We did so many memorable things together, things that still seem so important to me even now. She went to a different high school and we started growing apart. I hadn’t seen her for several years although my mother would run into her mother in the grocery store and keep me up to date. When I had Bianca, she was in the same hospital having her daughter, but I didn’t get to see her. I made an effort to find her number later and called her and tried to get together ( we only lived 5 blocks from each other!)We never did. I ended up seeing her one night at a high school information night. She looked right at me and walked by me. That really hurt and I don’t know why to this day it still bothers me.
I don’t live in the same state any longer and I’ve made a lot of new friends, but I make an effort to periodically call and email those women that I was close to during my married years. Sadly though, like Guyot, if I don’t call some of them they don’t call me.
I guess I should stop calling, but I think of them and I’m that kind of a person, once you’re in my life. you are part of my life.
It doesn’t sound to me like it was a friendship as much as something more maternal or nurturing for yourself. Maybe the girl picked up on that? Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I had a friend – as recently as during my “adult years” – who I loved being around. The guy was funny, liked the same things I did, same sense of humor, and on and on. I remember telling my wife, “____ is great. It’s perfect to finally have a really close friend that is also a writer.”
After about 8 months or so of going out after work, talking on the phone – I can’t remember ever calling another male just to chat – having our kids play together a couple of times, and blah, blah, blah… it stopped. Well, okay there wasn’t a moment so to speak. But I began to realize that I was the one pushing the relationship. I made all the effort. Now, he was right there, always being wonderful whenever I called or emailed or made the plans. But I noticed that he never did. Never made the first call, the first contact, anything.
So I thought I’d try an experiment – I stopped the calling and/or emailing. I wanted to see how long it would take for him to come to me.
I’m still waiting.
Guyot,
I have learned over the years that there are those who make the effort to keep in touch and there are those who do not. Regardless, they both value the friendship. I find it hard to understand but it seems true after some 45 years of friendships all over the world.
What an interesting question. With so many people who come in and out of a life, it’s hard to think of just one who “got away”. I do have one friend who I have been friends with since we were about 12. I always say that if we met now we would never become friends as we are so different than the girls we were. I have moments when I complain about her (as I’m sure she does about me)because she is in a different place than me and at times seems self absorbed. But is that me being selfish? We always keep in touch although we have lived at some points great distances from each other. Why we hold on to this friendship is something I have given some thought to on occasion. What about these friends that we just won’t let get away?
My friends and I all have an agreement not to remember each other’s birthdays. We can go months between contact. If “who starts it?” were a criterion, I’d have no friends.
Still, this prompted me to send out a few brief “hello” emails.
Reading all of these comments is certainly sad but also sort of gratifying because I tend to think I’m the only sad sack who has lost a few friends over the years. But one broken friendship stands out at this moment because of the recurring theme in some of these – about who keeps the relationship going, etc. Judy was a high school friend and I stayed sort of close to her after we both got married (one week apart). However we drifted a little bit, and when I would call her, all she’d do was bitch that it had been “___” weeks or months since she’d heard from me. Finally one day I realized: HEY – the phone works BOTH ways – why can’t she pick up the phone and call me! So I stopped calling her altogether.
When we ran into each other somewhere a couple years later, she told me she couldn’t take hearing me talk about my great kids and what terrific students they were, etc. To say I was stunned is putting it mildly. What else does one talk about when you have bright kids?! Was I supposed to make up lies about them? I don’t recall ever talking about it to the extent it would nauseate someone. We talked so rarely, I had a hard time believing her. That was the straw that broke the back of that friendship.
There were two sets of college roommates who entered college as friends. After a while, the friendships shifted (as if on cue) and we crossed rooms. Then, a short while later, we bacame friends with “the other one” from the other room, a dynamic that stayed constant for years.
Written, in fact, by the daughter-in-law of my friend, Lee, who is married to Julie Smith. Small world, huh?
Strolling thru the Barnes and Noble last week, I came across a new book called “What Did I Do Wrong” by Liz Pryor which explores communication in women’s friendships.
I do nor have a “one that got away” story, but I do have recently had a “you aren’t my friend” realization.
I have had a friend for the past two years or so, that is very good about making me feel bad about myself, she said I was her best friend but I was not invited to her Christmas party etc … The moment of realization came when I was dating a particularly handsome young latin hottie that waited tables at a new cafe. He was so good for me and after she met him she said “I should go in there wearing something really sexy to see what he does, we need to find out what he wants from you.” Of course I spilled my guts to BFF Greg, who went ballistic… and made me question, why am I friends with a person that doesn’t think I’m likeable… there were a lot of other things that just kept piling on top of that, some of the things she said and did were really bad. The movie to New Orleans is perfect for cutting ties. After reading all these stories I am thinking maybe I should talk to her about it.