Being a “best friend forever” can be hard work. Then add in variables of time and distance, and you have an equation for an even more difficult relationship. So how do you keep a friendship going across the miles and over the years?

The No nonsense brand recently got some insight into that question as they collected essays from thousands of girlfriends in their No nonsense® Between Friends Contest. With over 16,000 essays submitted on the subject of girlfriendship, No nonsense discovered a treasure trove of girlfriend wisdom! Happily, they’re sharing what they’ve learned with us all. Here are their five tried and true tips to help BFFs stand the test of time:

1. Be invested. It’s going to be a bit harder to connect through different time zones and different phases of life, but if you’re serious, you’ll be invested for the long haul.  Being invested can be as simple as remembering to call weekly or monthly or as complicated as making the effort to plan vacations together.  And the investment can vary over time and space, as long as the relationship remains positive and fulfilling for both friends.

2. Be authentic. The internet offers new and wonderful ways friends can share and get really personal through online support groups and chat rooms.  It’s paramount that you represent yourself authentically because trust and honesty are the foundation of any relationship whether it’s in person or on line.  When you’re sharing about a personal issue, make sure you’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth…if you don’t, your friend will know. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have a circle of girlfriends, or just wish you did? For many women, having a “circle of friends” is still a dream. Irene Levine, author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, explores the “circle” concept and offers her expert advice on how to grow your girlfriend circle. We’re honored to have her guest post, written just for GirlfriendCelebrations. Find out how to win a copy of Irene’s book below!

By Irene S. Levine, PhD (aka The Friendship Doctor)

The idea of a “circle of friends” isn’t new. Beginning in the late 1800s, Amish women formed quilting circles to share expertise and companionship. After they had finished individual patches for a quilt, they would come together (sometimes travelling over relatively long distances) during the spring and summer to lend a hand to one another in piecing them together. The quilters socialized as they sewed, catching up on gossip and developing long-lasting bonds that became part of the fabric of the Amish culture.

The desire to have an embracing circle of female friends hasn’t diminished but still remains elusive for many women. When I interviewed Jeffrey Zaslow, author of The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship, which chronicles the story of an exceptional friendship among 11 women that has extended over four decades, he told me two types of readers had written him: those who have a circle of friends similar to the “Girls” and those who wish they did! It’s easy to understand why many women without a tight-knit circle of friends would covet one for companionship, support and comfort they offer.

But as women graduate, marry, mother, divorce, move, or change work, often not even in any particular order, their lives often diverge and they find it difficult to maintain old friendships, let alone friendship circles. The girlfriends someone made in elementary and high school may live in other states or other nations. (One study of college students, found that the average student moved more than six times over the course of 19 years, and that the average distance between friends was 895 miles).  Your co-workers are more likely to hop from job to job than ever before, or decide to change their career paths entirely.

Don’t get me wrong. Not every woman wants or needs a circle. In my survey of more than 1500 women for my new book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, I found that certain personality factors may predispose some women to gravitate towards circles as opposed to one-on-one relationships. For example, compared to introverts, extroverts often enjoy having a larger number of friendships and may be more likely to relish the dynamics of a group. Or they may so thrive on being with people, that they like being part of circles as well as being part of twosomes.

If you are a person who feels even a tinge of circle envy, and there are many reasons why you would, there are still opportunities to forge a sisterhood later in life. One of the keys to creating a circle is creating or finding some natural affinity group that has the potential for longevity and creating rituals to bind the ties of friendship.

The Friendship Doctor’s Prescription for Circle Envy

• Join a knitting group, sewing circle, book club or cooking club;
• Organize a regular canasta, bridge, Bunco, Scrabble or mah-jongg game;
• Volunteer as part of a smaller group attached to a larger religious or civic organization;
• Volunteer at a museum or hospital;
• Become part of a church or faith-based community;
• Adopt a cause, such as conservation or animal welfare, or a political action group
• Join a support group of women who share a common problem
• [Editor's Note: One more suggestion: Look into Girlfriend Circles, a service that introduces you to potential friends in your area.]

With any luck, you will form natural ties within the group, Then, you can figure out ways to strengthen them at GirlfriendCelebrations!

Irene S. Levine, PhD is an award-winning freelance journalist and author who is trained as a psychologist. She blogs about female friendships on The Huffington Post and on The Friendship Blog. Her book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, was just published by Overlook Press. She is also a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.

Now For the Giveaway!

When we first heard that Irene Levine was writing Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, we were a little dismayed. After all, friendship breakups are no fun. But now that Irene’s book has hit bookstores and we’ve read our copy cover to cover, we can truly say: This book should be on the bookshelf of every woman who cares about female friendship. Not only is it filled with the kind of smart advice Irene dispenses regularly on The Friendship Blog, it is warm, comforting and takes the shame out of losing a friendship. This book can help you come to terms with the friendships you have lost (and we’ve ALL lost girlfriends and wondered why) and give you hope for new friendships to come. It’s easy to read, and contains loads of scannable advice for us short-attention-span gals. Just read it! We’re giving away TWO COPIES of this fabulous book, courtesy of Irene Levine! To enter, simply:

1. Leave a comment on this post stating why you want the book, AND/OR

2. Re-tweet this contest using the hashtag #GirlfriendCelebrations and this link: http://bit.ly/32ugH4

Two winners will be chosen at random from all entries received by 11:59 PM on Thursday, September 24, 2009. Winner must have a U.S. shipping address. Good luck! Read the rest of this entry »

So many of you have asked us how to make new friends, and whether we offer a service to help women make friends in real life. Well, we don’t. But now, we know just who to recommend! Shasta Nelson has started GirlFriendCircles, an on-line service that helps you meet circles of women offline, in real life, who are also looking for new girlfriends! In several U.S. cities, GirlfriendCircles is introducing women and facilitating their get-togethers, helping them find new gal pals. It’s about time! This is a much-needed service, and we wish Shasta great success. We hope you’ll all check out her site and give GirlfriendCircles a try. We were honored to write a guest post for GirlfriendCircles on how to make and keep new friends. As you know, keeping friendships alive can be a challenge. Once you’ve met some new potential girlfriends, you need to keep the friendship going—and growing—in the right direction. We’ve got some great tips for preventing “friendship fizzle.” Read the post here.

In Part 1, Christine Arylo helped us define the kinds of friends we would like to have. In part two, she takes it a step further by identifying four friendship rings and the expectations we should have for each. 

By Christine Arylo

Not all girlfriends are the same – we have different friends for different reasons. Some are closer than others… some you connect with because of work or shared interests, or because you’ve known each other for years. When you understand the different levels of friendships, a.k.a. your Friendship Rings, you’re empowered to ask for and get what you need from every friend. Unknown, unmet and unexpressed, expectations are one of the major causes of friendships failure.

Action: Define your expectations for each Friendship Ring. On a piece of paper, draw a set of four concentric circles, one for each ring. Then list your expectations for each. Your expectations should differ depending on the type of friendship.

 Soul Sisters: Your closest circle. You share your lives.

 You may all have different mothers but these women are your heart and soul. They’re here for you in the best and worst of times. You can expect that they will pick up the phone when you call at 2 a.m. with a broken heart; that you can share all of yourself with them—the good and the ugly—and they will love you anyway; and that you can be completely honest about your feelings, even when you’re angry, and that they will listen and work with you to create an even deeper friendship.

Good Time Gals. You have fun with these girls. You share a good time.

You chat. You laugh. You never go too deep. You can expect that they will invite you to do things with you and accept the invitations you give; that they follow through on what they say they are going to do; and that when you’re together you can share what’s going on in your life and get some good advice, but nothing too deep.

Affectionate Aficionados. You work at the same company, belong to the same club, or run in the same social circles, but that’s as far as it goes. You share common interests.

You can expect that you will have a good time when you are together; that you will share your enthusiasm for your common interest but maybe not much more; and that they add good energy to your life, not suck it away or create drama. You can also expect that when that common interests shifts, you may no longer stay friends.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, girlfriends! We’re so excited to bring you this guest post from the dynamic Christine Arylo, self-love expert and developer of the Create Fabulous Friendships program. Christine wrote this article,  just for Girlfriend Celebrations readers. In it, she guides you through three questions to help you get clear on who you really want to call “girlfriend.” Look for part two on Monday!

by Christine Arylo

If you were asked, “What’s the biggest challenge you face to create the friendships you really want,” what would you say?

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Your biggest challenge is not time or the inability to meet new people. Your biggest challenge is you. You determine both the quantity and quality of your friendships based on who you are and how well you know who you want as a girlfriend, regardless of who’s in your circle today. Think about it. You wouldn’t consider dating or getting married without giving thought to who your mate is. Yet, even though we have close, intimate relationships with our girlfriends, we rarely give conscious thought to the kind of women they are. Instead, we choose friends by chance or duty, and with the busy lives we lead, you can’t afford to waste your friendtime on friendships based on obligation or on friendships that take more than they give.

If you’ve never stopped to ask yourself questions like, “What kind of women do I want in my life? Does my current circle of friends reflect the kind of energy I want to surround myself with?” chances are you are missing out on some great friendship opportunities, and spending too much energy on ones that don’t give you what you really want.

If you know who you want as a friend, you’re much more likely to attract that kind of person into your life. And she is much more likely to fit the life you are creating for yourself. So do yourself a favor, and take the time to get clear on who you really want to call girlfriend and why. Ask yourself the following questions using the action activities to get you crystal clear on your answers.

Questions For Creating Fabulous Friendships

QUESTION 1:  Why do I want friends?

It seems like a no-brainer question. Who doesn’t want friends, right? True, but this is a question worth answering because your response will tell you a lot about what you expect friendships to do for you. We all have different motivations, most of us just don’t know what they are.

Read the rest of this entry »

With swimsuit season staring us in the face, we’ve been thinking a lot about fitness. Getting in shape is definitely one of those things that is better with a girlfriend. It’s so much easier to stick to a fitness regime when you have a partner to check in with, to cheer you on, even to commiserate with you. So, we girlfriends-in-chief have embarked on another little fitness quest together. This time, we’re working on our tummies! Read on for the details, as well as a few more easy suggestions for getting fit with a girlfriend. And, we’d love to hear your suggestions, as well!

You may remember a while back we did the Mama Mio Bootcamp for Butts, with good results. Well, our girlfriends at Mama Mio came out with a Bootcamp for Tummies and we were two of the first lucky ladies to try it out! First of all, we simply adore Mama Mio products. They smell heavenly, they are loaded with high- quality ingredients, they are smartly packaged, they are labeled with good humor,  and most importantly, they work! For the Bootcamp products, Mama Mio has teamed up with exercise specialists to create targeted, efficient exercises that you can realistically do in just minutes a day. (For the tummies bootcamp, maternal fitness expert Julie Tupler developed the exercises.) The tummy exercises are easy to do, and you can literally do them sitting down (in the car, at your computer, anywhere!) The rest of the regime consists of two skincare products: Tummy Toner Skin Tightener and Get Waisted Body Shaper—each of them a great product on its own. If your tummy is puffy, crepey, and mom-like, you will see a difference from using these products. We’re into about the third week of our bootcamp, and we both are seeing our waists look more whittled, and the look and texture of our skin has definitely improved! One important lesson we’ve learned from using Mama Mio products is that by paying attention to a body part and treating it nicely, you actually start to feel better about it! And when you feel good about yourself, you look good!

So, here’s our point: Doing this bootcamp together is much more motivating than doing it alone. We can check in with each other and say “Did you do your exercises today?” or “How’s your tummy doing?” It’s fun to hear each other’s progress and share in each other’s successes. If you are “stuck” in your fitness regime, we challenge you to call up a girlfriend and get her to be your fitness partner. Just give it a try for 30 days and see how much better fitness can be with a girlfriend!

We’re all about easy, quick, ways to fitness, so here are a couple of our other fave ways to get fit with girlfriends:

Wii Fit Club: Invite your girlfriends over to work out on your Wii together. Using Wii Fit or the new EA Sports Active for Wii, you can create indivdual profiles and track your progress together. Do you workouts at home, then get together once a week for a check-in and group workout.

Walking Group: Maybe it’s from reading the new novel Wildwater Walking Club, but we’re newly inspired to walk! Walking and talking is seriously good for the soul. Take to the sidewalks, hiking trails, or woodland paths with your girlfriends at a regular time. Invest in a pedometer and pledge to reach 10,000 steps a day. 

Your turn: Do you exercise with girlfriends? We’d love to hear how that is “working out” for you. Give your fingers a workout and tell us in the comments! Read the rest of this entry »

[When we need friendship advice, we know exactly where to go! We're proud to have a guest post today by Huffington Post blogger, author and friendship expert Irene Levine. You'll find her thoughtful answers to girlfriend friendship dilemmas on her friendship blog. Today, she tells us how to be better girlfriends by pointing out five common stumbling blocks on the road to girlfriend bliss.] 

By Irene S. Levine, PhD 

[Winners have been notified. Please check your email. Thanks to everyone who entered!] Well, we told you we’d be celebrating all things red in February. Bet you weren’t thinking of your old Aunt Flo! But once we introduce you Rachel Kauder-Nalebuff and her fabulous new MY LITTLE RED BOOK, you’ll at least consider celebrating your monthly visitor. In My Little Red Book (240 pages, Twelve Books), this 18-year old author presents a collection of stories about first periods, gathered from women of all ages from around the world. The accounts range from light-hearted (while water skiing in a yellow bathing suit) to heart-stopping (a first period discovered just as one girl was about to be strip-searched by the Nazis). The contributors include well-known women writers (Meg Cabot, Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem, Cecily von Ziegesar), alongside today’s teens. The taboo around menstruation seems to be one of the few left standing. By revealing what it feels like to undergo this experience firsthand, and giving women the chance to explain their feelings in their own words, My Little Red Book aims to provide support, entertainment, and a starting point for discussion for mothers and daughters everywhere. Whether you’re seeking a thought-provoking read for your book club or a thoughtful gift for a teen, we know you’ll enjoy this engaging book. We were delighted to interview Rachel Kauder Nalebuff—this young woman deserves kudos not only for her accomplishment, but for her giving spirit. In addition, we’re giving free copies of the book to FIVE lucky readers! Perhaps a Valentine gift to yourself? Read on for all the details:

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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, girlfriends. One way to survive this “celebration of love” is to turn it into a day of appreciation that leaves everyone feeling loved—romantically attached or not! What can you do to make Valentine’s Day a positive experience? Take a lesson from our girlfriend Carmen. Carmen belongs to our Facebook group and she wrote to us about “Lucky Reds” —her girlfriend group’s fun Valentine underwear tradition. Why not use her idea as a starting point to start a fun valentine tradition with your gal pals?

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[Giveaway winners have been notified. Check your email!] Are you divorced, widowed, on an extended break from dating? Are you “of a certain age” and thinking about dipping your toe back into the dating pool? We know that many of you are dating “the second time around.” So, we jumped at the opportunity to interview Judith Sills, PhD, author of the brand-new Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You’ve Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted—especially after reading her views on female friendship! In this 288-page guide, clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Sills leads readers through each stage of the “re-entry” process. It’s an honest, witty, and sophisticated look at midlife dating, and definitely “not your daughter’s dating guide.” Here’s a woman who really knows relationships—and, she’s funny—so we were thrilled that she took some time to answer some questions especially for GirlfriendCelebrations.com.  Read on for our interview—and all the details on how to win one of FIVE FREE COPIES of the book! 

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