Getting the Pretty Back

by Molly Ringwald

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mathilda. What’s yours?”

  “Elle.”

  “I like cats,” my daughter told her.

  “Me too. Let’s be friends!”

  “OK.”

  And off they went, holding hands, skipping across the yard to discover what adventures they could uncover.

  Boom. This was the extent of their introduction, and they have been best friends since. No baggage. No history. No expectations. That all comes later. If we could just figure out a way to hold on to that simplicity. But marriages, family, responsibilities, careers, and our own personal histories get in the way. In short, life happens.

  So how do we make friends as adults? The first step is, obviously, having the desire. Very often we get stuck saying to ourselves that we are too old. The time for making new friends has passed. We treat friendship like a new language—if you didn’t pick it up in middle school, it’s too late. Why bother? This is far from the case. One of the advantages of being older is that you know yourself better—you know what traits really matter to you in a friend, and what you have to offer to a friendship. You can embrace your differences, rather than trying to fit a mold. A Mohawk isn’t going to convince anyone over thirty that you’re a nonconformist.

  While it’s fundamentally about having the right attitude—a willingness to put yourself out there and meet new people—a change of venue can help. Sure, it’s easy to make friends at work, but then when you meet up after work, guess what you talk about? Better to branch out a little and see if you can’t find a friend who offers a new and interesting perspective on things. A lot of people I know have met some of their closest friends while pursuing an activity. Whether it’s a cooking class, a language workshop, or a regular game of dodgeball (a friend of mine is a team captain!), surrounding yourself with people who share your interests and are bold enough to take risks is a terrific recipe for friendship. It doesn’t always work, of course, but when it does it can offer a remarkable and unpredictable boost to your social life.

  Being a celebrity, of course, complicates friendship a bit for me—not to say that it makes it impossible, but there is always the odd and undeniable fact that many people know me before I know them. Or at least they know some version of me based on a movie they saw me in, or else a grossly inaccurate, un-fact-checked Wikipedia entry. It can throw the most down-to-earth people for a loop, trying to figure out how to act—how to see me as the woman I have become rather than as the public person I have been almost my entire life. I am so grateful to those who get it right.

  * * *

  FRIENDSHIPS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

  SUSAN B. ANTHONY & ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

  HANNAH ARENDT & MARY MCCARTHY

  ELIZABETH BISHOP & MARIANNE MOORE

  DOROTHY PARKER & ROBERT BENCHLEY

  GLORIA VANDERBILT, OONA CHAPLIN & CAROL MATTHAU

  JACQUELINE KENNEDY & LEE RADZIWILL (FRIENDS AND SISTERS!)

  BABE PALEY & SLIM KEITH

  * * *

  BEWARE OF THE UNDERMINER!

  As inspiring as good friends can be, there is nothing quite so demoralizing as a bad friend. Often, however, they slither by undetected, discreetly ruining your life. A friend of mine, Mike Albo, wrote an entire book on the phenomenon of the “Underminer,” a friend who is dedicated—either seriously or casually—to making you feel terrible about yourself at all times.

  Here are some of Mike’s expert tips on how to spot your very own “underminer”:

  Your Underminer is strangely hotwired into your soul. He/she can detect even the tiniest whisper of doubt or regret that you harbor. If you are feeling unsure or insecure about something, you can bet your life that your Underminer will bring it up, delicately, with a moony look of concern on his/her face. “That’s great about your raise. Now what about your capacity for love?”

  Overuses the word “Fun!” when describing your achievements and appearance. “Wow! Your show was really fun!” “That skirt you wore last night was so fun! On you!”

  The Underminer thinks he/she is the world’s expert on your happiness. When rehashing a recent night, your Underminer will make sure to tell you how “happy” you looked, as if you are usually living with constant depression. “I was watching you talking last night at the bar and you looked so happy, holding your Bloody Mary.”

  The underminer always puts on a good face for others around you. New friends/coworkers/romantic possibilities invariably LOVE your Underminer when they meet him/her. The next day, your Underminer will probably tell you some cryptic fact about the new person that you did not know. “Your new girlfriend is so sweet and intelligent! It was great to talk to someone else, finally, about Burmese politics.”

  To highlight your lack of success, the Underminer casually mentions successful people and connects them to you in the guise of a compliment. “That new actress reminds me so much of you, like ten years ago.” “Did you hear that amazing piece on This American Life? It reminded me so much of that idea you had for a short story.”

  In social settings, the Underminer brings up fleeting, embarrassing styles or opinions from your past, especially if you are with someone new who doesn’t know you very well. “That’s so weird that you’re gushing about Berlin right now, because didn’t you always say you kind of hate Germans?”

  If something unfortunate happens, the Underminer will make sure you know he/she always knew, secretly, that it would happen. “It’s too bad Franklin broke up with you. Everyone thought he was so great for you, but I always knew he was sort of a sociopath.”

  Your Underminer is likely to reveal himself/herself at any moment you are feeling elation. Be on the lookout when you get a promotion, new haircut, second date, or are about to leave for a trip. “I love your new tight hairstyle. Did you also get a chem peel? No, no, it’s just you look so much…smoother.”

  I realize that it isn’t easy. While I am fairly underwhelmed by celebrity myself, I do confess to spending an entire Toronto-to-New York flight sitting next to Leonard Cohen without ever mustering the nerve to talk to him. I almost managed to squeak out my undying respect for him as a writer/poet/singer when, just then, the flight attendant swooped in and knelt at his feet like Mary Magdalene. She proceeded to swoon over him right up until it was time to fasten our seat belts and put the tray tables up. I eavesdropped and listened to him respond quietly, graciously to her questions, but I could hear the fatigue in his voice and couldn’t ignore the open Toronto Times in his lap that he was in the middle of reading. I decided to leave poor Leonard alone and retreated back into my book for the brief remainder of the flight. But who knows the opportunity I missed? Maybe Leonard could have been my new BFF?

  MY FACEBOOK SPACE ODDITY

  In the past couple of years, countless “social networking” sites have cropped up like little mushrooms in the forest. Being the proudly tech-savvy geek girl that I am, I have embraced these sites—under assumed names of course. Although there do seem to be quite a few pseudo—Molly Ringwalds out there. (Don’t be fooled. I would never choose that wallpaper!)

  Sometimes it’s hard to imagine life before Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and the countless other sites vying for our membership. How did we ever keep up socially? What a great way to stay in contact with friends! Thanks to the latest batch of updates, I know that my friend Merritt is heading out to Morton’s Steakhouse for a “very special dinner.” My friend Iris is “overworked.” Naomi “killed a massive black widow with a stick.” But what do I really know? At times, it feels like having CliffsNotes friendships. I have a vague idea of where my friends are in the world but no idea of how they are actually feeling. A huge majority of friends update their status when they are drinking a cocktail after a “lonnng day.” But we never hear how or why the day was long. It’s always just enough information to give us the illusion that we are in contact.

  I’ve recently come to the realization that these networking sites perhaps hamper friendships more than
they help them. The little “tweets” seem to satisfy our curiosity enough so that we put off getting together—after all, they come daily, even hourly at times. Additionally, every status update is intended for the world at large (or at least the massive list of “friends” that you invited in an elementary school flashback desire to be popular). Consequently, people rarely ever say what is really going on. When is the last time you shared that you are sad because you got in a really huge fight with your husband? Or that you were fired? Or that you are just depressed and don’t know why? Social networking sites are meant to be light and funny and glib. They are a performance. They have somewhat replaced the after-work bar experience—but it’s BYOB, and no one’s going home with anyone.

  Before our twins were born, some real (non-cyber-space) friends threw a party for my husband and me to celebrate the upcoming birth. There was something so refreshing and relaxing about sitting down with people, in the flesh, and telling one another stories. Being able to touch them, to hear their laugh, to look in their eyes. I had such a wonderful glow going all day and night, as did my husband.

  “We have really nice friends,” he said during our walk home.

  “Yes, we do.”

  “We really should make a point to see them more often.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  “We need to find the time.”

  That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it. Time.

  But in the meantime I will log on to Facebook tonight just to find out if there is anything new. Darcy saw an iguana the size of a basset hound cross the street in Costa Rica, and Alona needs stamps but hates walking to the post office. Marci is having a yard sale, and Thomas forgot how loud thunder can be. Kim is “giving up on perfect…”

  FOUR FRIEND DATES

  BOOKSTORE: Time to channel your inner librarian. A great way to connect with anyone is through a wonderful book. Make a date with your friend to meet at your local bookshop and pick out a book to read together. Treat it as a sort of book club for two. Even if it takes you years to read the selection (Um…Gaddis anyone?) it can only strengthen your bond, seeing the different ways you relate to the book and how the book, in turn, relates to your lives.

  BOTANICAL GARDENS/BEACH: In the stress of our modern-day lives, sometimes getting together with a friend can seem like another task to be completed. When you are feeling depleted, why not to go someplace where you can just be swept away by beauty. I love the botanical gardens—particularly when the cherry blossoms are in season. Nothing really seems to be too bad when you have pink petals fluttering down around you.

  CLASSES: Not only are classes a reliable way to make new friends, but they are also a fun way to enrich your existing friendships. Foodie friend? Try a cooking class featuring the cuisine from a country you both fantasize about visiting. Fellow theater lover? Go take a Broadway dance class and learn all about Fosse “jazz hands.” (Yes, they do exist.)

  WINE TASTING: This one should be reserved for the post-work/weekend hours. Wine tasting is both a lovely way to spend a couple of hours with a friend as well as a fun way to learn about wine so you don’t have to rely on the ubiquitous Wine Spectator number plastered on every bottle in the supermarket. If you are a teetotaler? Go pick some berries instead. (No judgments here!)

  Chapter Five

  SHE GIVES GOOD E-MAIL

  I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WHAT CAN BEST BE DESCRIBED AS A SERIAL MONOGAMIST. Ever since my dating history began, at the age of fourteen, there was always one special person…until there was the next special person, usually six months to a year later. Rarely did I ever date two people at once, though I fully approved of the idea. It just went against every fiber of my being that was screaming “Meld! Meld!” like a deranged Vulcan—if you’ll excuse the Star Trek reference.

  The turnover from special person de jour to the next was fairly dependable. To this day, I tend to chart important happenings in my life to what guy I was dating at the time (or, alternatively, what hair color I had). My driver’s license? Michael. The day I moved into my first house? Adam. And so on…I was never really stressed-out about finding Mr. Right. I figured that all of them were right—until they weren’t. There were a couple of stinkers thrown in there. “Knickknacks,” my mother calls them. “You and your sister have always had a taste for knickknacks,” she would tell us, shaking her head. But for the most part, they were all decent and had their own various charms going for them. I can usually look back and see where I was coming from; I can see why that particular person attracted me at the time. I can also understand why they don’t now.

  My curious method of charting time came to a halt when I got together with someone in my early twenties and stayed with him for close to a decade. I no longer found my memories so easy to differentiate—they all were wrapped up in this one man. The relationship ended just as I was turning thirty-three, the moment when you are thinking about Mr. Right…or more specifically, Mister Give Me a Baby Right Now! Like many women, I never really thought about the timeline for having kids. I just knew that it would happen when the time was right. Then bam! I was thirty-three years old, leaving a long relationship and marriage, and realizing for the first time that the certainty that I’d always had was suddenly eluding me.

  It was just my luck that the first person that I fell in love with, post breakup, was a twenty-five-year-old man. A brilliant writer and black belt in tae kwon do—“You could do laundry on his stomach,” my friend Helena enthused to me about him before we had even met. In fact it was Helena who was initially smitten with him, as she moaned to me about the relationship, which was going nowhere. At that time, he was twenty-four. “What are you doing with a twenty-four-year-old?” I sniffed. “What could you possibly have to talk about?”

  It was sometime later that I met the man myself (without actually realizing that it was the same person). Helena had recently formed a little “Pre-Facebook and MySpace” online group, something between a contact list and an e-literary salon. Every day she sent out a bit of poetry, along with a paragraph of whatever novel she happened to be reading, to a small group of writerly types. Everyone was supposed to respond with a piece of something great that they were reading. She cleverly named it “Quip Pro Quo.”

  * * *

  OH, WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A MAN LIKE THAT? WHAT CAN YOU DO? HOW CAN YOU DISSUADE HIS EYE IN A CROWD FROM SEEKING OUT THE CHEEK WITH ACNE, THE INFIRM HAND; HOW CAN YOU TEACH HIM TO RESPOND TO THE INESTIMABLE GREATNESS OF THE RACE, THE HARSH SURFACE BEAUTY OF LIFE; HOW CAN YOU PUT HIS FINGER FOR HIM ON THE OBDURATE TRUTHS BEFORE WHICH FEAR AND HORROR ARE POWERLESS? THE SEA THAT MORNING WAS IRIDESCENT AND DARK. MY WIFE AND MY SISTER WERE SWIMMING—DIANA AND HELEN—AND I SAW THEIR UNCOVERED HEADS, BLACK AND GOLD IN THE DARK WATER, I SAW THEM COME OUT AND I SAW THAT THEY WERE NAKED, UNSHY, BEAUTIFUL, AND FULL OF GRACE, AND I WATCHED THE NAKED WOMEN WALK OUT OF THE SEA.

  —FROM JOHN CHEEVER’S

  “GOODBYE, MY BROTHER”

  * * *

  Since I was still reeling from the dissolution of my marriage, having a little bit of daily inspiration in my in-box became something I looked forward to. One day I found a stunning piece of writing by John Cheever. It was the last paragraph from a story entitled “Goodbye, My Brother.” It took my breath away. I wrote to the person, thanking him for contributing it. He wrote back, telling me that he appreciated the Stephin Merritt lyrics I had contributed the previous week. Thus began our e-mail romance, a flirtatious correspondence that lasted for close to six months until we finally met face-to-face.

  Our initial meeting was a bit disorienting, to say the least. Because of his decidedly foreign name and impressive vocabulary (not to take away from his academic accomplishments, but his first language was Greek, which honestly gives you a leg up) I was fully expecting a short and swarthy intellectual type. A guy with wild hairs growing out of his eyebrows and mismatched socks. I had no idea that this was the twenty-five-year-old with washboard abs that my friend had been swooning over. His e-mail wa
s his full Greek name, as opposed to the shortened version that he regularly goes by—which explains my confusion, as well as my total lack of adhering to the girl code of “Thou shalt not date the obsession of thy girlfriends.”

  When I complained to my friends about the fact that he wasn’t at all what I had pictured, I got everything from a raised eyebrow to a generous helping of an arch gay friend’s sarcasm: “Cry me a river, Molly.” It did seem silly, but more than my long-held reverse snobbery regarding obviously good-looking people was the blatant fear staring me in the face. How in the world was this twenty-five-year-old going to be in any way interested in starting a family in the next couple of years?

  In the early days of our pillow talk, I would try to glean as much information without seeming too obvious. “What’s your favorite color? Baby blue? Aw that’s so sweet…If you could be any animal…a cheetah? No kidding…” And then I snuck in there like a ninja. “And when might you like to have kids? What? Sometime in your FORTIES?” I’ve never been good with math, but a quick calculation put me squarely in the land of busted biological clocks. Early forties for him meant late forties for me, which meant…no babies. No way, no how. It seemed like an obviously doomed future. I decided to regard him as my “getaway car,” the fun speedy little number that you drive across the panhandle, get good and dusty, and then ditch at the border. I even halfheartedly attempted to set him up with a young literary girlfriend of mine (which I’m happy to say, he nixed, telling me firmly that he could find his own dates, thank you very much).