Dr. Friendship

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Dr. Friendship Says...

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Maybe, friendship is easier if you live in a pod.

Or, maybe, friendship is easier if you're a pea.

Never Trust A Woman Who Claims Her Husband Is Her Best Friend... She’s Really Saying “My Marriage Is Better Than Yours”

(#11 From Table of Contents)

Finding the love of my life in my 7th grade homeroom class and having him point me out to his mother at our 9th grade graduation, “You see that girl…the blonde with the ‘flip’ trying to hide the gum in her cheek? I’m going to marry her.” is a story that brings tears to the eyes of cabdrivers and makes flight attendants weep and give us and extra bag of peanuts.

We were meant to be married, Frankie and me. We were meant to talk baby-talk in bed like everyone else does and also when we’re not in bed, maybe because we were babies when we met.

The ‘till death do you part’ part never worried me. We’re headed for forever, good together because:

No one can make me madder or make me laugh harder.
I’ve called his mother “Mom” since I was fifteen. At first, it was to make her nervous, but so what?
My children are his children.
Frankie puts up with an inch of closet space in our walk-in closet.
Everyday he tells me I’m sexy.
On Thanksgiving he stays awake long enough to carve the turkey.
We go on all our vacations together.
We may fight about what movie to see, but we always end up in the same theatre side by side.
He’s the one I call when I have a fender bender.
I never hang up the phone without saying ‘I love you.’

I share my life with this man. Does he have to be my best friend, too? He just doesn’t have best friend qualifications. Period. And, I’m tired of Hallmark telling me otherwise.

‘Happy Birthday To My Husband’ - “You are my best friend.”

They sell a ton of these cards to women who a year later when they’re divorced from their best friend can’t afford the 37 cents to mail it.

All I know is female friendships are a bitch, but my best friend doesn’t…

shove a map in my face while she’s driving and blame me when she misses the exit.
complain that it’s taking me forever to get dressed and then when I’m ready make me wait because “I just want to catch a score..”
When I’m telling my best friend what happened to me that day she doesn’t respond, “Way to go, Giants!”

She doesn’t close her eyes and nod off, either. Let’s face it. Woman like to talk. Men like to nap. And, it’s not a coincidence that men start their napping as soon as women start their yapping.

After over 30 years of marriage Frankie still expects me to ‘cut to the chase.’ To a woman and her female friends the details are the story. Men demand a summary. Frankie shakes his head, rolls his eyes, scrapes every sesame seed off his bagel with his teeth just to keep busy while I’m talking.

Finally, he explodes, “All right. All right. I don’t need to hear all this! Just give me the bottom line. The poor guy is pleading. Meanwhile, I’m down on my knees begging him to listen to me. And, of course, that position just gives him other ideas.

On the way to the bottom line Frankie interrupts me with a wide variety of expressions…

“Jesus Christ!”
“Where are we going here?”
“Enough already!”
“Did I need to know this?”
“Aren’t you tired of talking?”
“What’s your point?”
“Is there a point to all this?”
“Are you running for office?”

And, so, I leave something out. Then, he complains, “You never told me that!”

I ask you…Is this a best friend? Women do not bottom line stories. We never scream “Get to the point, already!” We happily stay on our cellular phone until the battery runs out. At home we hang up if the house is on fire. Maybe.

My antennas go up when I hear “My husband is my best friend.” What is she trying to cover up? And, why does she say it in that annoying sing-songy voice? And, her eyebrows…the way she arches her eyebrows in that superior way makes me want to rip them off.

All that attitude can mean only one thing. When a woman says, “My husband is my best friend” what she is really saying is “My marriage is better than yours.” This naturally alienates all her other friends and now she’s stuck with her husband being her only friend. Is this so terrible? Not if you live in the woods with him and have no outside contact. You have to buddy up.

However, it’s tough to have a ‘girls night out’ without the girls. We woman must nurture our female friendships because we live longer than our husbands. The other widows won’t let us in the card game if we haven’t been playing all these years.

The thing is men need each other too. They just don’t know it. They want, us, their wives to be their best friend because they’re too lazy to get off the couch and meet new people. That’s why they still play ball on Sunday with their group from ninth grade. That’s not friendship. That’s I could have been a pro. I chose to be an accountant. When I hit a homerun I don’t need Viagra.’

It’s old news that Frankie doesn’t listen to me, but I found out last week that he doesn’t look at me, either. Some best friend.

We were at an event and I wanted to make a good impression. Naturally, I don’t strive to make a bad impression, but you know what I mean. It was important. We were having dinner with a group I knew, but not well and I wanted to get to know them better and I wanted them to see me in a good light.

Dinner rolled along pleasantly and after coffee was served, the lights dimmed and we watched a show for the next hour. At some point before the light came on I decided to re-apply my lipstick. I took out a small mirror, my lipstick and my lipstick liner. Except it wasn’t my lipstick liner…it was my eye liner, deep green. I outlined my lips with Maybelline’s Laggon/Verte Emerald.

The lights come up and I’m sitting there at a table of ten people with my husband to my left and green eyeliner on my lips. We’re ready to call it a night and the man I was trying to impress the most invited Frankie and me upstairs for a drink. I’m thinking, He likes me. I’m saying, We’d love to join you. I’m looking like a lunatic as we march upstairs.

Forty five well lit minutes later we say goodnight. Frankie and I drive home, he apparently with his eyes on the road the entire trip.

At home Frankie jumps into bed and I drag myself into the bathroom to take off my make-up. With the green eyeliner on my lips I’m looking in the mirror at Sandra Bernhard.

Ahh! I, run into the bedroom, turn on the lights, stand over my husband and say cooly, “Don’t you look at me?” Frankie clicks off the TV, rolls over and says, “Good night, honey.”