Female Friendships
Jan. 8th, 2023 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI wrenched my back. God knows how. Not badly. Not incapacitatingly. But enough so that combined with the reemergence of SAD now that I’m no longer popping gummies with my morning vitamins, I fell into a Bad Mood.
This is the only reason I can come up with why I allowed myself to become so annoyed by Ryan (not her real name) yesterday.
Ryan and I have a kind of faux friendship.
Meaning: I like her well enough. We click conversationally, which is my favorite form of clicking. But we pretend more intimacy than we really have.
I think Ryan is controlling.
Ryan thinks I am—well. I don’t know what Ryan thinks I am.
Control outside the workplace is not a quality I particularly prize. I’m a big fan of spontaneity. Meaning: I like to make plans with broad strokes and let the details fill themselves in on their own. Makes for better adventures.
Ryan likes to choreograph plans right down to the tiniest detail. Kinda like every day is a wedding she’s planning. This goes along with a highly performative nature: Much, if not most, of what Ryan does, she does for effect. She’s something of a Mean Girl in the true Lindsay Lohan movie sense of the word. Sometimes, when I look at her, I see an unhappy high school adolescent with big plans for the future: As God is my witness, I’ll never be unpopular again!!!
###
Here in the Hudson Valley, I have few female friends.
I have L—but L feels less like a friend (because, honestly, we don’t have that much in common) than a family member about whom I feel warm and fuzzy.
There is Lois Lane. With whom I really click—but who is incredibly fucked up both emotionally and situationally. Right now, I limit my interactions with Lois Lane to rescue missions—the occasional bag of groceries, a cash gift at Christmas. Maybe that will change some day, but probably that won’t.
There is Loraine. Who has a really pleasant astringent quality, a great eye for bullshit, and likes some of the things I like. Loraine lives right across the street. We have a standing dinner-and-a-movie date once a month, text often, and gab practically daily when she’s out walking her dog, and I run into her when I’m getting into my car.
But most of my friends in the Hudson Valley are men.
In California, I had a big female friendship network, and I miss that. I am ever on the hunt for female friends.
Hence, Ryan.
###
The incident that set me off was embarrassingly trivial.
I showed Ryan a piece of artwork I’d created, of which I was inordinately proud.
She responded with a dismissive remark disguised as an arch joke. What GenZers might call a “micro-aggression,” I suppose.
I got furious.
I didn’t show it.
I monitor my own reactions pretty carefully since I don’t actually feel emotions the way other people seem to and thus am inclined to distrust the few that actually break through my humorous, mildly dissociative façade.
In particular, I distrust that white edge of fury.
But inside, I was just fuming.
I will never, ever speak to that person again! I thought.
Which is just fuckin’ ridiculous. Since I do enjoy her company.
The appropriate response is just to accept that conversational sympatico notwithstanding, there are limits to this relationship. I should not expect more from Ryan than she is capable of giving—which would be freudenfroid (my new favorite word! Joy in the joy of your friends! The opposite of schadenfreude.)
Diminished expectations are the secret to all happiness.
This is the only reason I can come up with why I allowed myself to become so annoyed by Ryan (not her real name) yesterday.
Ryan and I have a kind of faux friendship.
Meaning: I like her well enough. We click conversationally, which is my favorite form of clicking. But we pretend more intimacy than we really have.
I think Ryan is controlling.
Ryan thinks I am—well. I don’t know what Ryan thinks I am.
Control outside the workplace is not a quality I particularly prize. I’m a big fan of spontaneity. Meaning: I like to make plans with broad strokes and let the details fill themselves in on their own. Makes for better adventures.
Ryan likes to choreograph plans right down to the tiniest detail. Kinda like every day is a wedding she’s planning. This goes along with a highly performative nature: Much, if not most, of what Ryan does, she does for effect. She’s something of a Mean Girl in the true Lindsay Lohan movie sense of the word. Sometimes, when I look at her, I see an unhappy high school adolescent with big plans for the future: As God is my witness, I’ll never be unpopular again!!!
###
Here in the Hudson Valley, I have few female friends.
I have L—but L feels less like a friend (because, honestly, we don’t have that much in common) than a family member about whom I feel warm and fuzzy.
There is Lois Lane. With whom I really click—but who is incredibly fucked up both emotionally and situationally. Right now, I limit my interactions with Lois Lane to rescue missions—the occasional bag of groceries, a cash gift at Christmas. Maybe that will change some day, but probably that won’t.
There is Loraine. Who has a really pleasant astringent quality, a great eye for bullshit, and likes some of the things I like. Loraine lives right across the street. We have a standing dinner-and-a-movie date once a month, text often, and gab practically daily when she’s out walking her dog, and I run into her when I’m getting into my car.
But most of my friends in the Hudson Valley are men.
In California, I had a big female friendship network, and I miss that. I am ever on the hunt for female friends.
Hence, Ryan.
###
The incident that set me off was embarrassingly trivial.
I showed Ryan a piece of artwork I’d created, of which I was inordinately proud.
She responded with a dismissive remark disguised as an arch joke. What GenZers might call a “micro-aggression,” I suppose.
I got furious.
I didn’t show it.
I monitor my own reactions pretty carefully since I don’t actually feel emotions the way other people seem to and thus am inclined to distrust the few that actually break through my humorous, mildly dissociative façade.
In particular, I distrust that white edge of fury.
But inside, I was just fuming.
I will never, ever speak to that person again! I thought.
Which is just fuckin’ ridiculous. Since I do enjoy her company.
The appropriate response is just to accept that conversational sympatico notwithstanding, there are limits to this relationship. I should not expect more from Ryan than she is capable of giving—which would be freudenfroid (my new favorite word! Joy in the joy of your friends! The opposite of schadenfreude.)
Diminished expectations are the secret to all happiness.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-09 01:09 am (UTC)You're right, though; you can't expect more of a person than they can give :-\ And diminished expectations do make for more happiness ;-)
Hope your back recovers soon.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-09 12:20 pm (UTC)Ryan actually does make things—which is why her dis was so disproportionately wounding. I think she was trying to establish herself as the alpha Maker of Things in that exchange. 😀
I just want to be supportive of my friends and have them be supportive of me. Fuck the power dynamics. 😀
no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 02:08 pm (UTC)I'm sorry Ryan dismissed your creation, but there could be all sorts of reasons for that which have nothing to do with the art itself. Your comment about her wanting to be the alpha maker hit on what I was thinking when I read the post. When it comes to this kind of stuff, better show it to someone with less skin in the game.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-11 03:19 pm (UTC)Good advice. Yes.
She is a better graphic artist than I am. I really can't draw. But her remark wasn't meant to be a critical appraisal; it was a personal putdown.
But I am in an overly sensitive phase right now. (Seasonal Affective Disorder, doncha know.)