Best Friends Forever

This month’s article is dedicated to the close friends I have had over the years. As women we are naturally social creatures. Studies show that women have an actual physical need to converse nearly twice as much as men. This could be the reason our social calendars are so full and why so much of our time is spent with our girl friends. The term best friends forever (BFF) was added to the dictionary in 2010 as a way to sign off from an email or text message so your friends would know how you felt about them.

Many of us have a BFF and stay connected to them almost daily. Texting and live video apps such as Facebook live or Snapchat make it easy to be involved in one another's daily grind. I think back to my adolescent years and how exciting it was to have a pen pal from across the country. I greeted the mailman at the mailbox and would jump for joy when I received a letter from my best friend. Those were the days when I followed my mom over to the neighbor’s house so we could play outside with the other kids. Our moms would share some coffee and chat on the porch and we would play for hours. I never understood why the grown ups would rather sit and chat vs. playing and getting all sweaty outside with us. Now I get it!

Some days we can’t answer the phone live and our callers are forced over to voicemail. Long gone are the days of rotary phones and stay-at-home moms. It seems like the world has sped up and we fill our days with so many different appointments. The terms phone tag and see ya later are commonplace. I would love to see less cell phones in people’s hands and more ladies walking down the street arm-in-arm like our grandma’s did with their best friends. I hope that we can still all appreciate a good face-to-face conversation over a beverage and that the process does not become a lost art form. I see the stress on ladies faces at networking meetings when they try to set-up time to connect and chat. When did we get so busy?

My daughter is a young mom of three small children and is fortunate enough to be at home with her brood.

I get to see all of those life moments on Facebook and am watching the grand kids grow up online. I know that she has some close girlfriends in her life and that makes all the difference. Being able to connect and talk about what is happening in life everyday is a wonderful thing. Let’s hope that society never looses the ability to realize the importance of making time for close friends and staying connected. Fran, if you’re reading this it’s time to share some tea at our favorite Chinese restaurant my dear friend! Love you!