My mom isn’t exactly what I would define as a “movie buff,” but she has seen tons of movies in her life. She doesn’t watch TV much, and instead relies on movies, old and especially new, to pass the hours she doesn’t sleep. The reason I say she doesn’t classify as a “buff” in my book is that she has a very short memory, which is great for a movie watcher. She can watch a movie a dozen or so time, each time being like their very first. It’s actually quite amusing to watch her watching a movie, marveling at the events unfolding, surprised even that the plot untwists the way it has the first ten or so times she watched it. She also doesn’t get most of the subtle undertones or messages in movies, so she relies solely on the surface entertainment value of the film. So no, I wouldn’t call her a “movie buff,” but since she’s been visiting, we have been watching a bunch of movies, including Ground Control, an older movie from the late nineties starring Keifer Sutherland as an air traffic controller…cool movie for controller types, but others, probably not so much; Speed Racer, the movie version of the cartoon… I think…pretty cool racing scenes, although the story was straight out of a cartoon plot; Becoming Jane, a charming movie starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austin (one of my favorite, yet not yet read authors…I know…strange, but Pride and Prejudice and The Jane Austin Book Club make me want to read everything she ever wrote in one sitting, something I will need a good number of hours of solitude for.); and The Women, starring Meg Ryan, Annette Benning, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, and Jada Pinkett-Smith.
This last movie intrigued me the most. It’s about friends, specifically women friends. In fact, there are no men at all in the entire movie…well, except for the baby boy born in the last scenes, but he doesn’t really count. There are no men’s voices, despite the oft conversations with them on the phone. There aren’t even any men on the streets of New York, where a lot of the movie is set. Is that even possible??
Basically the plot goes like this…Benning gets gossip from a nail girl about Ryan’s husband cheating on her with a perfume girl at Saks, played by very sexy Mendes. The friends get together to decide whether to tell Ryan, meanwhile, Ryan gets the same bit of gossip while getting her nails done, and by advice from mom, played by a very well maintained, although probably not without pharmaceutical help, Candice Bergen. Of course, girlfriends convince otherwise, including some amusing confrontations and conversations. I won’t spoil the movie for you, so you’ll have to see it unfold for yourself. 
The thing that intrigued me the most about this movie was the friendships between these women. They were all very different, with very different priorities and lives, all busy, but still, the strong bonds remained among them. It made me think about my own life and lost friendships along its path. I don’t have any real “lifelong” friends. I don’t have girlfriends that I can always turn to. I don’t get together with the girls. I do have friends scattered all over the world, but our correspondence is monthly at best, and we haven’t seen each other for months, if not years. Counting out my blood family, and even then, only my parents and children count, I haven’t had any relationship of any kind that has lasted the test of time. None longer than a couple years, and only if in close proximity with almost daily interaction. I don’t know if it’s my lack of social grace, or my being an only child, or my moving every couple years with my father’s military transfers, or what. I’ve never been good at making, or keeping friends. As a matter of fact, my best friend almost always falls within the same body of whoever the man in my life happens to be at the time. That makes it extremely difficult to 1) break up with someone, and 2) find a sympathetic shoulder to cry on (since that is traditionally a job for a best friend who you are not actually breaking up with).
I am exceedingly jealous of women who have these types of relationships with other women. I’m jealous of those who visit each other regularly and enjoy endless conversations about nothing. I’m jealous of those who know each other so well that they not only know when the other is upset, but know the perfect combination of wine, flowers, and chocolate to cheer the other up with. I’m jealous of those who laugh and cry and hope and despair side by side, holding each others’ hands (or heads) along the way.
I have found women with whom I relate well with, sort of…but never really well. The comfort level isn’t there, or if it is, it doesn’t last. Our lives change, and we grow apart and I’m left back at square one. So what is my problem? Well, I’ve traced it to a number of things:
- When I’m in a romantic relationship, I delve so deeply and wholly into it, that I tend to neglect my others.
- I am reasonably young, and most of the women my age are in a totally different place than me. I am balancing young children, with working full time in a traditionally male world, with going to school full time for an engineering degree, with almost-constant drama with the ex-men, with life in general. Most women my age may be going through one or two of the above, but not all. It’s hard to bond with someone who can’t possibly understand my life.
- My interests are strange. I like photography, movies, video games, books, and writing. I color with my kids, or doodle at work. I love shoes, but also like to get dirty.
- I get along much better with men. I spent more leisure time with my dad and his friends as a child, so naturally I learned leisure from them.
- I’m terrible at keeping in touch. Email, phone, letters…they all allude me.
So here I am, without the comfort of a girlfriend, observing those around me from afar via movies, blogs, or stories from my friends who have their own girlfriends, at a time when, quite honestly, I could really use one.
*sigh* Poor me, right? *sigh*
