Female friendship in the 21st century is a complex business in comparison with the friendships our mothers enjoyed. We are the generation who have delayed marriage and children, had a variety of different jobs and, along the way, collected friends the way our mothers collected tea towels.
Plus, we expect a lot more from these friendships than merely having a moan about the housekeeping over a cup of tea. We have a wider circle of friends and are more intimate with them, but have less time to see them. And so friendship has become like a second career, at the same time requiring the sort of emotional investment that used to be reserved for lovers and relatives.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, modern women rigorously edit and categorise their friends, allocating them specific roles in their lives, picking and mixing to create their own tailor-made support networks, geared to providing them with exactly what they need to stay afloat.
Many of us have partners, children, careers and, crucially, a group of between three and five girlfriends who fill the empty spaces in other areas of our lives. The partner who is your soulmate is no longer enough, nor is one lifelong best friend.
Our mothers were never so self-indulgent, but then nor were they attempting to live the multitasker’s existence.
So, if we are to pull off the supreme juggling trick, we need girlfriends for each of our various existences. We might not actually colour code them in our address books, but still we all have those ones who massage our egos when they most need it, and the others who know us for who we really are and to whom we bare our souls.
”The Single” is single in spirit if not in reality, which is to say she behaves the way she has always behaved and, if she had a motto, it would be, ”Just say yes”. Her role is to prevent you from slipping into a cosy, ordered routine by suggesting spontaneous adventures, always ordering that extra glass of wine and refusing to give up smoking.
She knows all your sexual secrets and has the capacity to make you feel completely uninhibited, even though that isn’t how you are as a rule. Typical singles: Anita Pallenberg to Marianne Faithfull; AbFab‘s Patsy to Edina.
”The Mother” is highly domesticated without coming close to being a goddess. The Mother exists for her husband and children, is a natural-born nest-maker and is therefore crying out for extra chicks to feed and coo over. Whether attached or unattached, women gather at her skirts for wifely words of wisdom and the maternal touch. She is a top-grade listener, the one you seek out to complain to about your emotional and practical problems. Typical Mothers: Nina Campbell to Geri Halliwell.
The ”Anna Wintour”, named after the high-flying, no-pussyfooting American Vogue editor, is your inspiration. She works in the same field as you but has climbed considerably higher, or she’s at the same stage of life (three children under six) yet somehow manages to make it all seem just a matter of basic organisation. Her role is to push you to do things you would never have considered. The Wintour treats you like her protegee (you are the same age but, nonetheless, you feel a lot younger) and is quick to offer advice. Typical Wintour: Emma Thompson to Kate Winslet; Madonna to Britney Spears.
”Straight Friends” belong to the cosy time before you twigged that friendship has its qualifications and there is something about them that prevents you from allowing them to mix in your new life. Perhaps you have lost the accent and reinvented yourself to a degree that would make Straight Friend gape and point. Nonetheless she is your conscience and your link to your roots, and she is the one you always ring when you are at rock bottom, though never, naturally, when you are on a high. Typical Straight Friends: Kylie and Dannii Minogue (the less successful sister is the equivalent of the Straight Friend).
”The Show Off” is the adult version of a schoolgirl crush combined with a shot of social ambition. A Show Off is either very good looking, very influential, famous, extremely posh or absolutely loaded. Either way, you use her as a trump card to beef up an occasion, as bait for other show-off-league types, or just to give you that very special glow that comes with knowing someone other people would like to know.
Naturally you don’t get to see your Show Off much, but having her in your address book and producing her once in a while for the benefit of your less glamorous friends is a perk beyond price. Typical Show Offs: Kate Moss to Meg Mathews. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002