11 Lessons About Lasting Friendship

Inspiring Tips from "The Girls From Ames"

Discover the keys to enduring relationships and being a best friend, forever.

By Jeffrey Zaslow

There's an old Spanish proverb: Tell me who you're with, and Ill tell you who you are.

I now see the great power in that statement, having immersed myself in the lives of 10 women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa. My book about them, The Girls from Ames, traces their 40-year friendship.

Now in their mid-40s, the Ames girls have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation, and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. Here are 11 lessons on friendship that can be learned by these relationships that have spanned four decades.

Read the first friendship lesson.

Jeffrey Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal columnist and bestselling author of The Girls From Ames. He is also coauthor, with Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture and of Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters with Chesley B. Sullenberger.

Friendships Are Most at Risk During the Busy Years

Studies show that in their late 20s and 30s, women have a harder time staying in touch with old friends. Those are the years when theyre busy starting careers and raising children. But at around age 40, women start reconnecting.

Before the 1990s, researchers assumed this was because women had more time for friendship in their 40s, as their children became self-sufficient. But now researchers consider this middle-aged focus on friendship to be a life stage; as women plan the next chapter of their lives, they turn to friends for guidance and empathy.

Women who are still friends in their 40s, like the Ames girls, are almost certain to be lifelong friends. Female friends show us a mirror of ourselves, one researcher told me.

Strong Friendships Can Improve Your Marriage

One explanation is that women who are good at intimacy with friends are good at intimacy with husbands. But researchers also say that women with close friends don't burden their husbands with all of their emotional needs.

The Ames girls husbands, like a lot of men, tend to show their love and concern by being solution-oriented. They want to be fixers. When one of the Ames girls tells her husband shes having issues with her mother, the husband is apt to recommend strategies: Here's what you ought to do But a female friend is more apt to say, I have trouble with my mother, too. And no matter what your mother says, I think you're terrific.

Because the Ames girls can talk to each other, sending constant reply all emails within the group, they don't have to lean on their husbands for all of their emotional support.

Friends Can Offer Great Solace in Moments of Grief

One of the Ames girls, Karla, lost her 12-year-old daughter, Christie, to leukemia in 2002. The Ames girls offered Karla comfort and support during Christie's illness, and they were there for her when Christie died.

After the memorial service, they joined 100 friends and relatives back at Karla's house. At one point, the 10 Ames women ended up together in Karla's bedroom. Someone closed the door and there they were. They noticed they were touching each other; everyone had a hand on a shoulder, an arm, a hand, as Karla talked about Christie's final hours.

In that moment, gathered together on Karla's king-sized bed, the Ames girls saw that true friendship means a willingness to share both joy and complete despair.

As one of the Ames girls later described it: Outside that door, grief was waiting to envelope Karla. But in that bedroom, for that half hour, a profound sisterly love was keeping it all at bay.

There Are Differences Between Men's and Women's Friendships

Researchers say women's friendships are face to face: They talk, cry together, share secrets. Men's friendships are side by side: They play golf. They play poker together. Men often resist going too deep.

Don't assume, however, that men's friendships are inferior to women's friendships. If we use a woman's paradigm for friendship, were making a mistake, says Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Social Work, who studies male friendships. Men might not be as physically or emotionally expressive as the Ames girls, he says, but they derive great support from their friendships.

Men turn to other men to escape from their problems. If they want to open to about emotional issues, they often prefer to talk to wives, mothers, sisters and platonic female friends.

Forgiveness Is a Part of Friendship

One of the Ames girls, Sally, was kicked out of the group in eleventh grade. Some of the others gathered at a slumber party, told her what they didn't like about her, and sent her home crying. It was devastating and painful for Sally, but at the same time, it was liberating and life-changing. Sally realized she was happy with the person she was, and she wasn't going to let mean girl comments stop her.

The other Ames girls eventually welcomed her back to the group, and have apologized for the incident repeatedly ever since. And Sally, now a teacher, feels that what happened to her at age 16 has made her more empathetic with her children and her students.

Readers of "The Girls from Ames" have written to say they admire Sally for finding it in her heart to forgive her friends. "I've forgiven everything," Sally recently told a crowd at a bookstore in Minnesota. "I mean, it happened such a long time ago. It happened thirty years, six months, five days, and six hours ago, not that I'm keeping track."

It was the perfect laugh line, and a reminder of the role forgiveness must play in our friendships.