FEMININE FRIENDSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20554, 3 May 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

FEMININE FRIENDSHIPS.

WHY IS IT ?

BY CONSTANCE M.IItLOWE,

"Women aro prono to adoro their

friends onb day and find them loss (o their liking the next, unlike men, Avho manage to keep their friendships at tho eamo steady temperature year. after

Why is it that women's moods so often Wash'! Why, when everything is xoulcur de rose, arc sharp sparks of disagreement struck'! Is it as men say—- , that women aro catty to their friends, jealous and suspicious, or is it that feminine attachments aro not so comprehensive as male relationships 1 Tho latter, I think, in all fairness to women! There aro few ulterior motives in men's friendships; but women fairly bristlo with them.

A women pigeon-holes her friends in subjects. Willi one she can play bridge, with another golf, a third is indispensable lo her socially, a fourth can jii'lp her 1" get her clothes on the cheap, witli a fifth she can count on a good old gossip', and so on. Much trouble arises when a woman mixes her friends and their subjects. As frequently as rot a fancied change of feeling is but tho reflection of her own disappointment. A confidanto has not como up to scratch! For instance, sho shouldn't go to (.he woman with whom she plays golf and treat her to a long harangue about her husband's short-comings. Sho (is endangering her prospects of playing golf with her again. The chances are jsho will end np by saying: "I don't [think I caro'-for so-and-so as much as I [did. She's so horribly unsympathetic." [itTseless for.a teasing masculino voice to [point out that a woman's desire to talk | about herself is sufficient at times to chill the most bosom friendship. Givo the lords of creation their due, they are rarely troubled with tho need Jor self-expression —about tiresome trivialities, I mean! For instance, men don]t complain about the servants to their yriends, as women do. But then, why vthouhl they complain when their wives r ftre doing it for them ? Let a man once catch sight of a housemaid brooming and she becomes a gem, henceforth removed from all criticism. But women make a far moro fatiguing business of friendship than men. They literally revel in it. Fow of them seem to understand tho delicate art of keeping an acquinatance on the strict terms of acquaintanceship, and so tho mischief begins. They becoma friends with little provocation, and, as likely as not as time goes on and their charms wane, enemies. Two women will drain tho dregs of one Another's personalities in a week. , Tho less .1 woman has to do in life, the moro she needs friends, and the less discriminate does she seem to be in selecting them. Men make few demands on their friends, which is probably why they keep them all their lives; but in women's unrestrained relationships there is none of this mutual respect for 0110 another's individuality and reserves. To vie with men in unstudied fidelity, women's only solution lies in cultivating tho habit of reticence, repressing her troubles, vexations and anxieties, instead of' expressing them. Thus, oblicrating the possibility of disappointments accusations, denouncements and regrets, the lordly male would no longer Vie able to proclaim his superiority, and there would bo some really genuine and enduring feminine friendships over which no man would bo able to pour his scorn.