"The Girls from Ames" - interesting insight on friendship for men vs women

[tj2001]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204830304574131491060933358.html

Wall Street Journal
May 16, 2009
The Ties That Bind
Linked by 30 years of experiences and memories, 10 women from Ames, Iowa, are a lesson in the power and lifelong benefits of friendship
By JEFFREY ZASLOW

They were 11 girls growing up together in Ames, Iowa. Now they are 10 women in their mid-40s, spread all over the country. And they remain the closest of friends. Whenever "the Ames girls" get together, it's as if they've stepped into a time machine. They feel like they are every age they ever were, because they see each other through thousands of shared memories....

I've just spent two years immersing myself in the friendship of the Ames girls for a book project that grew out of my Wall Street Journal column, Moving On. I had written a column about the turning points in women's friendships. My story focused on why women, more than men, have great urges to hold on tightly to old friends.

That day I got hundreds of emails from people telling me about their groups of friends:
"We've gotten together twice a year since we graduated from high school in 1939...."
"We met in Phoenix and call ourselves Phriends Phorever...."

And then there was the email from Jennifer Litchman, an assistant dean at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Jenny from Ames. She told me about her friends, the Ames girls, and I got the sense that they had a moving and sweeping story to tell...

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[etherealtruth]

1. A lovely story

All I can say is that at the age of 47 I am grateful for my friendships that have lasted 10, 20 30 and 40 years. Human relationships are what makes life worth living.