yesterday was intense. what with the guest postage at scary mommy and prairie mama, the debate over whether or not ppd is a copout for when you feel like your kids are too annoying, and the fact that i peed approximately 94 times in 18 hours, i barely had a spare second in my day. but today is awkward thursday so all is right with the world.

for those of you who are new to my blog (hi pretties), sorry for the mess around here. i am still in the process of converting to wordpress, so there are nails lying around and chipped paint on the walls and i might have drilled a hole into my hand when i was hanging a picture. but that’s ok, i have another hand, and the construction will be done soon.

awkward thursday is the day when i write about subjects that are frequently stigmatized by society, and have some importance to women. i used to have a nifty little page that had links to all my awkward posts, but that page is currently on vacation in the land of “technology hates alexis and is trying to kill her via a heart attack over the state of her blog.” coincidentally, this is also the land in which my comments are languishing.

a few of my previous awkward topics have been race relations, sleepfarting, nether hair, and my tragic struggle with elephantitis. as you can see, this blog is both well-rounded and undeniably mature.

today i was reading marie claire and i came across an article about how our best friends might be our worst enemies. in the opening paragraph, it talks about this scene in sex and the city (the first movie) when samantha is rationalizing why she dumped smith, who was arguably the best boyfriend anyone could ask for. and he’s hawt. she says that she couldn’t be with him because she “love[d] herself more.”

and instead of telling samantha she was being ridiculous, the girls affirmed her decision and patted her on the back for being so fabulous.

when i watched the movie, i found myself thinking that samantha was an idiot. and now that i’ve read this article, i think her friends were idiots, too.

i have this friend, who i am very close to. if you know me in real life, don’t try to guess who it is because you don’t know her. but she’s dealt with a lot in her life, including a long-term struggle with weight, which led to an eating disorder and what i think is a very skewed self-image. for these and many other reasons, she didn’t really date during her twenties, at least not seriously. she is in her early thirties now, and i’m sure the questions about if she’s ever going to get married are starting to get annoying.

i admit to being one of the people who wondered, “what is this girl waiting for? she needs to find a man and settle down already!” not because i think that’s what every woman needs, but because that’s what i genuinely thought she wanted. i didn’t want her to be lonely or unhappy, and it killed me that she thought she wasn’t good enough for anyone.

so when she started dating someone last year, i was initially ecstatic for her. i’m completely ashamed to admit it, but i thought, “yay! now she will finally get married and have kids and we can complain together!” i encouraged her to date him, and had long conversations with her about the possibilities for her future. but as i came to find out more about their relationship and the guy she was with, i realized that he was a terrible match for her. he was in a serious relationship with someone else, and he was also kind of an ass. a dumbass, if you will.

as soon as i understood just how toxic this person was to my friend, i told her. in no uncertain terms. the word she used to describe my approach was “harsh”; i would call it “honest but really bitchy.” i refused to enable her in making choices that i knew would come back to haunt her later. and i hoped that she was grown-up enough to see that i wasn’t criticizing her, i was trying my best to protect her the only way i knew how.

i haven’t always been a good friend. there have been times when i have backstabbed, sabotaged, and hated on. i have occasionally been jealous of friends’ successes and wished i could be better than them. i’m not proud of those times, and thankfully i left them behind when i got married, grew up and realized i was being a douche. since then, i have tried very hard to be a loyal and honest friend.

i realize that my methods are not for everyone; it’s never fun to be told that you are making bad choices. but i would rather be the ONE person who stood up and said what needed to be said, even at the risk of losing everything, than be one of the many who didn’t tell the truth and allowed something bad to happen.

for example, same friend: like i said, she used to have a weight problem. she was skinny all through high school, then had a rough patch in college and gained a lot of weight. it took her years to get back down to a healthy weight, but she did it. and now she is obsessed with staying that way.

at first, i was so happy that she was finally getting her body back and it was so much more fun to shop with her when she wasn’t always grousing about how nothing fit her. but then i put my good friend hat on and realized that there was something very distressing going on with her.

while i commend her for her determination, i worry about her ability to distinguish healthy from crazy. the yo-yoing, the calorie-slashing, the obsessive weighing; none of that is normal. and i tell her, EVERY SINGLE DAY. i don’t let her talk about being fat when she’s with me. she can do that with other people, but when she’s with me, i don’t want to hear about her jiggles. i’d rather know if she is having a good day, or if anything funny happened to her at work.

people might call me rude. fine, call me rude. but i maintain that the secret to being a good friend is NOT telling them whatever they want to hear. to me, the key to friendship is being a mirror. it is my job to accurately reflect my friends, so they can see themselves clearly and make well-informed decisions. because really, who am i helping if i just agree with everything my friends say? no one.

friendship isn’t about lunch dates and manicures and whether or not to get bangs, or at least not all about those things. it’s about having someone who you can call and say, “hey,” then burst into tears, knowing that she will cry with you and then ask if she can bring you cupcakes.

and for the love, please don’t think i’m saying not to support your friends. yes, PLEASE do. but if you can see that they are doing something they could potentially regret, or if you see that they are stuck in a pattern that they don’t even recognize, it is your responsibility to tell them, even if it means it’ll make to look bad.

and when it comes from the right place, your heart, it’s not criticism. it’s love.

— Alexis