I have two female friends, Ginny and Mika. I’ve written about Ginny (ie Gin) before. Specifically, that her perspective on having a spouse is skewed because her parents fulfill that role. In this article, I’m going to take a deeper dive on Ginny and it’s all because of Mika. In the last year or so Mika has decided she doesn’t want to be around Ginny. This surprised me. They were both Mom’s about the same age, and both had children that liked to hang out with each other. When Ginny and Mika hung out together they seemed to enjoy eachothers company. Then one day Mika told me she really didn’t want to hang out with Gin anymore. This, of course, makes being friends with both of them at the same time challenging. Ginny is kind of clueless as to why she was getting the cold shoulder from Mika, and honestly, so was I.
From my perspective, for a little while at least, they were very close. Then, as far as Mika was concerned, it was over and she didn’t want to be around Ginny at all. When I asked Mika about it, she said it was because, although they were the same age, they were years apart in maturation. Mika claimed she was tired of, what she perceived as, Gin’s childish attitudes, actions and values. In Mika’s own words, Ginny never grew up.
What did Mika mean when she said Gin didn’t grow up? I reflected on it. There definitely are some behaviors and values that people who are more seasoned in life develop. I personally believe that much of this comes from being in a stable, long term, usually marital, relationship. Mika is in a traditional marriage and is a mom of three. She’s friends with others in the same station in life. Conversely, Gin made poor choices when she was younger, and got knocked up by the hottie bartender guy at the bar they both worked at. As you might expect, the Don Juan Mixologist vacated the relationship before the child was born and was never heard from again. Ginny found it was next to impossible to find a partner willing to take on an instant family. So she jumped from boy toy to boy toy. This has led to stunted emotional growth on the part of Gin, and ultimately divergent values between the two friends which eventually killed the relationship.
So what mature values is Gin missing? When I really thought about it, I realized Gin is missing the following:
- A Respect for group norms and relationships.
- Respect for boundaries
- A desire to be self sustaining and Independent
- A realistic focus on Activities that benefit the long term.
So let’s start where they both are in life. Gin is mentally and emotionally stuck to the bar scene for her social interactions. The very same lifestyle that many people go through in their 20’s. Typically you’ll do that for a period in your life, then when you settle down with a spouse, going out drinking every weekend tends to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, Gin never settled down and never outgrew it. The bar scene is, for all intents and purposes, her happy place. Since she spends her social time in these establishments, it means she’s influenced by the attitudes you find in bars by the young single set. It’s not a secret that the denizens of the bars and nightclubs hold differing values versus traditional families. The nightclub mentality is much more of a bohemian lifestyle vs. the traditional family which often maintains values stemming from 1600’s era puritan roots. In the bar scene, the attractiveness of a person is almost always more important than how stable they are. Not being in a marital style relationship, Gin simply never adopted, as Mika would put it, “grown up” values which prioritize stability over looks.
Grown Up Value #1: Respect for group norms and relationships.
I witnessed an example of the friction of these two differing lifestyles first hand. The large group of friends that Mika and Gin was a part of was having a social gathering. Since Gin wasn’t feeling especially social, she walked into the venu, didn’t speak to any of the other moms and promptly grabbed Mika’s husband to go sit at the bar by themselves. It was all public, so this wasn’t a scenario where anyone thought Mark (Mika’s Husband) was engaged in any sort of inappropriate behavior with Gin. He was just trying to keep her company. There are two things that are wrong with this scenario. The first is that Gin, for the most part, ignored the other mothers when she walked in and they all felt this was rude. The group norms in this type of gathering include engaging in small talk in social settings. A mature individual understands the needs and benefits of following norms of social gatherings. They would understand that even if they aren’t in the mood, it’s important to maintain connections.
The second was that Gin was hanging by herself with Mika’s husband whom Gin was friendly with. Even if it’s innocent, there are strong norms about getting too close with a girlfriend’s partner or spouse. I’ve heard this as being part of the ‘girl code.’ In effect, Gin was subconsciously seen as a threat to Mika’s relationship by everyone in attendance and many communicated this to Mika with disapproving tones. There is a lesson here: When you grow up, you understand the importance of engaging the group and adopting group norms. Life is hard, and you never know when those connections can be helpful navigating the ups and downs. I’m pretty sure that if Gin had a spouse, she’d have felt pressure from her spouse to go interact with the other couples rather than sitting by herself. Over time, she would have become more comfortable in a group of couples vs. sitting at a bar chatting it up with a guy.
Grown Up Value #2: Respect for Boundaries.
Before they were estranged, when Gin had some major issues with the utilities at her home, she started to hang at Mika’s house, 24/7 every weekend and did so for several months. Part of the reason was that Gin needed to do her laundry and Mika was willing to assist. Still it doesn’t take an entire weekend to do laundry. Gin could have accomplished the task in two hours and then gone home. Unfortunately for Mark and Mika, Gin would hang out for the whole weekend. Gin wanted to spend the weekend drinking and engaging in meaningless gossip like she did at her bars. Mika had her own Laundry to do, child events to taxi to and from, and a relationship to foster with her spouse. Mika also needed some down time. Mika never wanted to tell Gin that she was coming over too frequently as that would cause a rift yet, there was some resentment growing. Gin was clueless as to all of this as she was focused on her own needs for interpersonal connections. Part of the reason, in my opinion, is that Gin didn’t have the life partner / spouse to meet some of those interpersonal needs. If Gin was doing things with her own family she would be more aware of the needs of other traditional families.. I.e. She’d hang at Mikas house less frequently as she’d better understand the needs of Mika for managing a family household and for non-social down time. The Lesson Here: When you grow up, you will better understand the perspective of others who have grown up. You will have a shared understanding and respect for the interpersonal needs of others. Simply stated you’ll set appropriate social boundaries better.
Grown Up Value #3: A desire to have a self-sustaining independent family unit.
One of the other aspects that has created a rift between Mika and Gin, and to a lesser extent the rest of the women in the group I mentioned earlier, is Gin’s reliance on her parents. Life is tough, and to survive it, you have to do the hard work of earning your own way in life. At some point, mature individuals look at their parents and make a conscious decision to not be reliant on them as that will seem like childish behavior. A mature individual will prioritize finding a stable spouse or life partner in which they can build a foundation together. An Adult individual understands the benefits of being in a long-term relationship. Ultimately the mature individual will lose respect for anyone in their 30’s or 40’s who prioritizes looks over stability and who is still in a codependent relationship with their parents.
Because Gin never learned how to be in a long term supportive relationship with a stable life partner,she doesn’t appreciate the need to maintain one. She’s constantly downplaying the importance of relationships when the topic comes up. If someone in the group is complaining about some small issue, then Gin will say things like “I’d never be in a relationship where I’m not happy all the time.” Clearly a more mature outlook on relationships is one where you understand there are ups and downs emotionally, yet they really aren’t that important when considering the bigger picture of a spouse to share the load. Additionally, I believe there is no question that this attitude underscores the threat the women in the group feel. If Gin tells their spouses the same thing, it would encourage the spouses to think more about leaving then staying in the relationship. This builds animosity from the married women towards the ever single Ginny.
Grown Up Value #4: A focus on thinking long term.
When you grow up, you tend not to think short term, you think longer term. What does this look like? It looks like getting some form of education or developing skills that will make you independent. In Gin’s case, and enabled by her parents, she fell into short term training in things like bartending, culinary arts and wellness coaching. This type of training may lead to a job. Unfortunately since the barrier to entry is so low, there is a greater supply of workers with those skills. That usually equates to lower wages and non-existant benefits. A single parent will struggle with a lower income.
In addition, these types of short-term trainings typically don’t result in developing strong critical thinking skills or longer term career paths. So all of Mika’s friends, who did think about the long term, committed years to an education and had solid professional careers, get a bit annoyed when they hear Gin talk about her employment issues. If the manager of the local bar where she works is a womanizing asshole, then Mika and the other woman in the circle will agree that it’s an untenable situation. They will also think, but not say “well you wouldn’t be in this situation if you got an education and built a career like I did!”
In the end I feel bad for Gin. It’s not just that she has lost a friendship with Mika. It’s that she’s never going to be able to maintain social connections with females in stable married relationships because she’s gone down a different life path. Without a life partner, she’ll never truly understand or value having one. By not understanding or valuing that type of relationship, she’ll never fit in with those who have a spouse. I think this is why Gin’s long term friends are always dysfunctional single people who work in the bars. She never seems to have friends who are in married and stable relationships. If you have never grown up, then you stick with what you know and are comfortable with. Changing your thinking, changing your behavior and leaving your comfort zone is hard. I wish I could help Gin down this path, but I can’t. She has to want these changes for herself. On the positive side, if she ever wants them, then I’ll know that Ginny is finally ready to start growing up!
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