Freezing Friends Out

I'm pretty sure this is an exclusively female ailment. For some reason, when a girl is dating seriously or gets engaged/gets married, she often drops her (single) friends. Doesn't she know she needs friends (outside of her husband) even after she's married?! Your spouse cannot be your everything, and even if he's really good at putting up with female drivel, you would do a lot better if you had a support system and social life that isn't just one person. Sure, your husband needs to be your priority, and you need to work on your relationship with him (sometimes to the detriment of your other relationships), but balance is key!

All too often girls freeze out their friends while they're dating seriously. Sometimes it's because they're unsure and insecure the whole time and isolate themselves without meaning to as a means to cope with the situation. Sometimes, they just get so wrapped up in it that they somehow forget about their friends who have supported them through so much else. Sometimes it's because someone told them that bracha comes to things that are hidden, so they don't want to tell people. Sometimes they just want to feel special and love the surprise when the friend whom they've shared every secret with up until now is blindsided. 

It's been awhile since I've been on the receiving end of this. I remember when my first friend to do this to me did this. We were super close, talked multiple times a day, and probably saw each other six out of seven days of the week, if not every day. Because we were in this much contact, of course I knew something was up, but she even denied that she was dating, making up multiple excuses why she wasn't around. She didn't date her husband that long, so she thought she was keeping up the facade well. I remember exactly where I was when I took her call when she told me that she was engaged, and this was five or so years ago. It was around 5:00 pm, and literally the conversation went like this, "Hi! Guess what? I'm engaged!! The l'chaim's at 7:00 at my house; you better be there! I gotta go call more people, bye." I was left asking, "Are you serious? To who?" to the dead phone. For real.

Things were a little ugly after that, so I'll skip ahead to the part a few weeks later where we sat down and talked about it...the first time we talked after that phone call. She explained how insecure she was, how she thought that telling anyone would mess things up for her, how she knows she kept a few secrets from her chosson and she was nervous some well meaning friend would tell him/his family and he wouldn't go through with the engagement, etc. etc. The funny thing is that he told so many people before their engagement was official, so while she thought she kept the best secret, he had already told half of the city.

On another occasion, a different close friend whom I talked to daily fell off the map for a month. She called me to share her news when she was dating her husband seriously. It was her first guy, and like so many other girls, she didn't really know how to navigate the parsha and how her friends fit in. Lucky for her, they dated for a bit after that, so I didn't feel completely left out of her life.

While it isn't pleasant for anyone, I think this hurts the most when the friend "being frozen out" is older and/or has been in shidduchim longer, has had more shidduch challenges, and the like. If you trust your friend when it comes to everything else, what happened here? At the end of the day, she wants to feel part of your life. You don't have to seek her advice or support while you're dating, or if you don't feel comfortable telling her about what's going on, even just a little heads-up makes all the difference. It's the difference between "I'm engaged," ie. my life just changed irrevocably and you're not part of it, and "I'm getting engaged tomorrow/tonight" –– my life is about to change in a crazy big way and I wanted to let you know so you can be part of it. 

Friends are important, and it's really hard to recover those relationships if you put them on ice.