2008: Year of the Biffle

I texted a friend the other day to say Merry Christmas, beautiful. Love you. Hope to see you soon.

She texted back, Thanks, T. Love you too. See you Fri.

Yeah. Except I'm not T. I'm J. And we didn't have plans for Fri. As a matter of fact, we haven't had plans for a while. Not for lack of trying on my part.

"Give up," says my shrink, who may be just a little tired of hearing stories like this from me. "She can't reciprocate your feelings for her. Find someone who can reciprocate."

Okay. My shrink has said this before. Stop chasing after people who blow you off. You'd think, after twelve and a half years of therapy, that I'd have integrated this advice.

"But maybe it was something I did," I fret. "Maybe I alienated her somehow; maybe I should..."

My shrink shakes her head. "It's nothing you did. It's not about you. It's her. She's just not that into you."

We talk about some other stuff, and then she edges forward in her seat, her signal that the session's almost over. These are her parting words for the week:

"You've got to find a really good girlfriend."

I'm thinking about it all day as I write. Then I run into Amanda in the kitchen at the writers' room and we chat for a while. I tell her the text message story.

"Sucks," she agrees. "You should probably give up."

Amanda's a really good girlfriend, and has been for many years. But she's already got really good girlfriends coming out of her ears, fabulous wingwomen with whom she goes on writing retreats and to swanky parties.

Me, I tend to spend all my free time with Bill. Actually, when I think about it, the last best girlfriend I had was back when I was single.

"I think you're getting in the way of me having a girlfriend," I tell him over the phone, checking in from home for our late afternoon catch-up.

"Why, yes," he says. "I am."

Ha ha. He knows I don't mean a sex girlfriend. I mean a love girlfriend. I mean a Best Friend For Life. A biffle.

I hang up and go back to brooding.

I go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror, give myself a wry smile. I'm cute, I tell myself. Right? I mean, I've been down on myself lately because I put on a few pounds, and the waistband of my pants gives me an appendectomy every time I sit down, but my hair looks good, and this new shirt I got is really flattering. I give a few quarter turns in the mirror: left, right, left. Cute. Even I have to admit it. I'd want to meet this girl. I'd want to be friends with her. In fact, there's nobody else I'd rather be friends with.

It's like that line from the new book, the one my editor used for the title. The unspoken question Bill used to ask when I came home from volunteering each week: Have you found her yet? The one who reminds you of you?

I haven't found her yet. But I think I finally know what I'm looking for.

Comments

[chris lee]

My sentimates exactly. If you live in NYC you w will know more people than you need to. Most of them are frontin' you anyway.

[kath]

wow. Do I ever feel your pain!

I lost my best and closest friend when we were 26. Very suddenly. I had just lost my unfaulty door... my grandmother.

Since then, I have had a similar problem. K disappears for months.. years even at a time. But when she beckons there I am. ( Bah!)

Lin moved into a relationship with a very very possessive S/O.. then vanished . :(

There are more but it sounds like you know the feeling. I finally realized that my neighbor is also a good friend, probably the best that I will ever have at this point. Maybe we only get one true best friend? like a soulmate? Maybe Mary is just unequalable ?
( ? so I make up words big deal.. )

I wish you a wonderful biffle for the New Year.

[janet wolfman]

Hey I hate to push HE'S REALL NOT THAT INTO YOU but it's a fantastico incredible journey into not only the makle psychoti, but into everybody's MO. I personally don't need a girlfriend. The girlfriends I had would run and leave me flata with the lunch check when a man called and then I had to question my motives and why I was jealous anyway. Was I a lesbian Am I co-dependent BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well Girls I DON'T NEED YOU and I am speaking rhetorically. WHAT A FRIEND I HAVE IN JESUS Just kidding

[janet wolfman]

To all my felow GIRLBOMB bloggers Thank you for your birthday wishes. This year my new years resolution concerning this blog is that I will spell check myself and not have so many typos.
Besides that HAPPY NEW YEAR to this online community of great women and token men See you in the coming year and keep truckin' LOVE AND KISSES janet wolfmanXXXXXX

[jennifer glick]

Testify sistah, facing a similar situation wth a biffle of 30 plus years. Feh.

[Dana]

J, Happy New Year beautiful. You have saved my ass on many occasions, been an unbelieveable friend and mentor. You'll always have this girlfriend. I wouln't have made it through 2007 without you. Love you.

D.

[satia]

You know I probably need to email this post to a certain someone I know . . . I'll bet you know about whom I am speaking.

I seem to cycle through "best friends" and the latest moved to Finland. Sadly, I spend most of my free time with Romanov but then, I have a plethora for free time lately. That should be changing now that I am doing my new physical therapy.

I'm ready for 2008 (and awfully glad I read this before I started drinking the bottle of champagne I'll be imbibing alone . . . can you imagine the ridiculous comment I would have left otherwise? I mean, the ones I leave when I'm sober are bad enough!) and hoping for a wonderful new year!

[Naomi]

I'm here, always. And I love you, and I've loved you since we were twelve, including every minute of the years in between when I didn't know where you were or if you were still alive. And if I haven't been in as close contact as I might've recently it's because I've been afraid of exactly the same problem in reverse: that I'll be pestering you when you're Just Not That Into Me, and I don't want to push you or get in your way. I wish we lived closer, but I'll see you in February anyway -- and help you move stuff if you want me to.

*hug*

[girlbomb]

All right, now Dana and Naomi are making me cry. THE INTERNET KEEPS MAKING ME CRY.

Listen, I am super grateful for all my wonderful girlfriends, and my wonderful guy friends, too. I wish all of you a fabulous New Year full of love. Thanks for all that you give to me -- it's so appreciated.

[Kirsten]

sigh. does distance retard my candidacy? i'm into you. really, i am.

[Jennifer]

Hmmmm. Well, since you used a variant of the 'she's just not that into you' quote from Sex & The City, I'll use another.

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

I think you have the right idea. I only have two close girlfriends and they love the me that I love. It took me 30 years to find them and it was worth the wait.