Friends Forever How Girls and Women Forge Lasting Relationships

by Degges-white, Suzanne; Borzumato-gainey, Christine

• ISBN13: 9781442202009
• ISBN10: 1442202009
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-16
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Through thick and thin and everything along the way, it's through friendships that we understand our lives. In this book, authors Suzanne Degges-White, PhD and Christine Borzumato-Gainey, PhD not only explore the roles friendships play for girls and women over the course of a life, but offer a guide to finding new friends and enhancing current relationships. Using interviews with hundreds of women, spanning the ages of 4 to 94, Friends Forever provides readers with a contemporary perspective on female friendship. These personal stories, informed by the latest research on friendship, offer a rich and colorful picture that combines a life stage chronology of friendship with a guide for becoming the friend you would like to have while building strong friendships along the way. Readers will learn how to design and sustain their ideal friendscape, the dynamic and often misunderstood realm in which such bonds flourish. The authors thoughtfully examine the biological and cultural drive towards social connections among women and provide self-reflection and self-exploration opportunities that encourage readers to better understand their own roles in relationships and the roles that others in their social landscapes play.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Friendship Basics: An Introduction	p. 1
Why Women Need Friends
The Biology of Friendship: To "Tend and Befriend"	p. 7
Friendship in Context: Social Relationships in the Twenty-First Century	p. 17
"Friendology": The Science of Friendship	p. 29
Friendship Chronology
Early Childhood: First Friends	p. 45
Adolescent Friendships: Seeking Ourselves in Our Friends	p. 59
Emerging Adulthood: Decisions, Decisions	p. 73
Coupled Up, But No Kids Yet	p. 85
Motherhood: Kids on Board	p. 97
The Midlife Years: Reconnecting with Ourselves and Seeking Companions	p. 107
The Long Road Home: Community and Friendship in Older Adulthood	p. 125
Making Friends-Starting with Yourself
Understanding Who You Are as a Friend	p. 143
Roadblocks to Friendships	p. 155
Taking a Census of Your Circle of Friends
Mapping Out Your Friendscape	p. 169
Redesigning Your Social Support Landscape	p. 179
Finding New Friends	p. 189
Strategies for Survival-Building and Maintaining Lasting Friendships
Building Strong Friendships from the Beginning	p. 201
Tips to Strengthen Existing Friendships	p. 207
Friendship in the Digital Age: Technology Keeps Us Connected-Sometimes!	p. 217
Full-Time Friend, Part-Time Lover: Making Friends with Your Mate	p. 227
Coming Full Circle with a Circle of Friends	p. 237
Notes	p. 243
Bibliography	p. 261
Index	p. 275
About the Authors	p. 281
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