Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

By: N. Amma Twum-Baah (October 1, 2009; One- Year Anniversary Reader’s Choice)

There’s a reason why TV shows like ‘Friends,” “Girlfriends,” and “Sex & the City,” have managed to find their way to my top five favorites of all time. Friendship has always been very important to me, not because I have many friends, but, because the few friends that I do have, have proven to be true and faithful friends. I know I can count on them for whatever, wherever, whenever. Being very picky about the people who make it into my friendship circle is one of the traits of being a Capricorn.

African women are known to be quick to abandon their friends as soon as they find love, get married and have children. This is rather unfortunate because there’s something that true and sincere friendship offers that no one else can – not even a husband and/or children, according to recent studies.

A Nurses’ Health study at Harvard Medical School found that women with friends are less likely to develop physical impairments as they age, and are a lot more likely to be leading a joyful life. The results were so noteworthy that researchers concluded that not having close friends or confidants is as disadvantageous to a woman’s health as smoking or carrying extra body weight. The study also showed that having a group of good friends around may be even more important, than family, for a long and healthy life.

A UCLA study concluded that friendships between women are important because they shape who we are and who we are yet to be. Friendships soothe our disorderly inner world and help us keep it real with ourselves. This is because true friends make sure we do not over-indulge in pretense.

Have you ever noticed that when you finally take the time to make that phone call to your friend, or send that e-mail, or arrange that dinner, that you feel so good you automatically start planning for the next talk or outing? We do this because this needed interaction with our female friends leaves us eager for more. Researchers say friends have important effects on our mood, self-esteem, and how we cope in difficult times, and even exert a healthy influence on potentially risky behaviors like smoking and drinking. Researchers also found that friends offset stress that seems to swallow up so much of our daily lives.

If friends are so essential to our health, spiritual enrichment and survival, then why is it so hard to find time to be with them? Why is it that when women find love they divorce their friends? In her book, “Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships,” Co-Author and Researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., states: “Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women … That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience.”

Knowing what you know now, cheers to a happy, healthy, life shared with many great friends – or the few fantastic ones you may have. Either way, cherish the times spent with your friends and remember: “A true friend is the one to whom you can pour out all the contents of your heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” Anonymous.