Relationship break-ups. A death in the family. An excruciating fashion disaster. COVID-19. When the tough times come, who do most women turn to? They call a female friend. The importance of the bosom buddy remains largely constant throughout our lives. BFFs can share the burden of worries, help us cope with trouble, reduce stress, increase self-confidence, shore us up when we’re low and take us down a peg when we’re too damned pleased with ourselves.
They’re often the only ones who are brutally honest. When I bought a beautiful pink flouncy silk dress the other day that made me feel like the Sugar Plum Fairy, no one said a word except my closest female friend. “That makes you look fat and frumpy,” she said. The dress went back immediately. Female friendships are often long-lasting and powerful, transcending family, partners and others’ objections.There’s now a burgeoning amount of research on the importance of female friendships and how they nurture and sustain so many women. The findings consistently show they boost overall happiness and health, all the way from the survival of those terrible teenage years to approaching The End.
, a longitudinal study following the development of 10,000 children and families from all parts of the country, has found that teenagers who have at least one close friendship are much better able to bounce back from stress.While girls generally had lower resilience scores than boys – 25.5 out of 40 compared to 26.
I would suggest that if it could be fixed with books and movies, it wasn’t pain. Try interviewing people who lost their jobs or didn’t get their cancer diagnosed or whose teenager is now locked in depression.
Women are pathetic.
They revel in the drama of lockdowns.