Housewives and Friendships

I've always been a fan of the Real Housewives franchise. I've watched the Real Housewives of the Orange County (RHOC) since the very first show (it was actually a special on their children and grew from there). Anyway, relationships are fascinating, especially female friendships. Female relationships are a very complex thing. Even at a very young age. Little boys duke it out, little girls are more emotional than physical.

So, after meeting Cosmo and the girls for lunch and taking T shopping earlier today, I caught up on my TiVo this afternoon, more specifically, I caught up on Real Housewives New York (aka RHNY). If you don't watch the show, I won't bore you with the details but Jill and Bethany have a rocky friendship and are sort of ending their relationship. So, it got me thinking about some of my relationships over the years.

Relationships change for whatever reason . . . you grow apart, you may move to another state, interests change, you're at different stages of your life, etc. I've got girlfriends who have never been married, never had kids. I have friends who have never lived more than 15-20 minutes from their place of birth, I have friends who have gone thru divorce, dating and second marriages. Basically, the total opposite of me and my life (I've been with the same man since I was 15 and have lived in several different states, different time zones, even!). I have friends who have supported me in everything I've ever done, I have friends who I've encouraged and provided support and helped thru some rough times. Some friendships are 50-50, some are 60-40, sometimes even 70-30.

A couple of friendships have ended naturally but I love Facebook and have reconnected with a lot of friends I've lost track of over the years (hey! when you move around as much as we have, it's hard to keep up!). I've also had to end relationships . . . those toxic friendships that just aren't healthy and totally suck the life out of you. Two relationships come to mind, one of the friends I really, really miss. The other one, not so much. The one friend has really changed a lot since we first met and I really don't care if I ever set eyes on her again. The other friendship makes me very sad. I enjoyed being with this person and looked forward to spending time with her. We had a lot of fun and had very similar interests and backgrounds. Her husband is a great guy and Cosmo really liked him, too.