My Thanksgiving Day Wish for You~
I hope you're surrounded by the warmth of family and friends---near and far---and that you are thankful for the bounty at your table.   Thanks for visiting my blog and enriching my understanding of friendship.   Irene

Moving on after a breakup
QUESTION Hi Irene, I have been reading the questions and answers on your website and finding them very helpful. I thought I would write and ask my own question. I have a friend with whom I'm currently going through a break up.   For a year or so, she's either ignored me or shut me out when she is going through something hard or is cross about something. I decided not to be close to her anymore as I find it too painful to be ignored for months on end and then treated like nothing has happened.   My dilemmas: We go to the same church, which is small so I see her every week. I try to say hello. Sometimes she will speak to me.

Obsessed by a breakup
QUESTION Dear Irene: I, too, have recently had a friendship break up with my bf. We both had a stressful year, I lost my job and she has had various stresses. She told me I was too intense, despite the fact that I tried not to call or ask her to go out too often. If I ever upset her, she went hysterical calling me names and screaming at me over the slightest thing.   I miss her terribly and told her so and that I could not stop thinking about her, like an obsession. However, my feelings are that of love for a friend nothing more. We are both happily married with kids. I think she misunderstood what I meant and is now completely ostracizin

Having second thoughts on Facebook friending
QUESTION Dear Irene: My BFF from high school and I were so tight--even beyond our school years. We never had a falling out or a fight, just suddenly stopped talking a few years ago. I friended her on Facebook recently. She friended me back...and then, total silence on both our parts for many, many months.   It's awkward. I still do care about her dearly. So strange to look at her life without me in it in any way. She feels like a stranger. Was it wrong to request her friendship on Facebook before clearing the air? Should I let more time pass? Make the first move? Any advice you can share about a failed friendship and Facebook would be v

Friendship by the Book: I'm So Happy for You
You may not be able to picture yourself in a relationship like that of Wendy and her college friend Daphne but in the larger-than-life caricatures of two quintessential New Yorkers, novelist Lucinda Rosenfeld captures the essence of many close female friendships.   Daphne Uberoff is stunningly beautiful and has all the trappings of material success; Wendy Murman is a struggling magazine writer, with fertility problems and a slacker husband. As the gap between the two women widens, the jealousy and envy that Wendy harbors grows so extreme that it becomes corrosive.