Getting Real With Our Women Friends

Learning to have those difficult conversations

A while back as I was reading bell hooks’ book, Communion: The Female Search For Love, I realized for the first time that I was not being honest with my women friends. If you had asked me before I read this book if that was true, I would have said, “no.” I would have said that I was very honest with my women friends.

But the journey hooks (she did not capitalize her name) took me on while reading this book exposed the unexposed shadows inside myself and encouraged me to reevaluate myself with regard to the women in my life.

Sure, I am a good listener and I often give tough and honest advice when asked for it. I am very vocal and honest about my feelings around men and the patriarchy and can talk about my experiences and listen to a woman friend’s advice.

I can have those difficult conversations where I listen to things I may not want to hear about myself with regard to what is happening in my life, or in my other relationships, but talking directly to a woman friend about something she did that upset or hurt me, or expressing my anger toward her, being direct about my feelings about her to her face, well, I was actually not being good about doing that.

I realized I let those things slide for the sake of the relationship. It was some kind of deal I made in my head: “I won’t bring those things up in order to keep the relationship and I can count on her not bringing hers up to me too.”

I realized not only was I not honest with my women friends but I was absolutely terrified at the thought of it.

Somehow female rejection had lodged itself in my psyche as the worst possible thing I could ever experience. I am a straight, Cis (meaning gender in line with biological sex) woman. I have always treasured my friendships with women.

Now it had become clear that one of my largest fears was doing anything to put those into jeopardy. Reading hooks’ book I realized it was not only the thought of losing them that terrified me, it was a deep deep fear of being unloved and unworthy.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I could barely breathe. How had she brought me to this place so unsuspectingly and with my heart wide open? How had she brought me to find this hidden and shame-riddled understanding deep inside my most private self?

And of course, now that I let myself see this, feel this, how could I continue on this way? Recognizing that many of my most important relationships were scripted by white lies and omissions, I had to make a change.

Can I change this? I asked myself. Can I confront my feelings and share them with my true friends to have even better friendships, ones that are based on mutual respect and honesty?

Communion is really a book about how women feel unloved, how we still feel and believe on a deep level that we have to earn love by looking and behaving a certain way. This leaves women confused, disappointed and yearning for something that seems unattainable — truly loving relationships.

“From birth on, most females live in fear that we will be abandoned, that if we step outside the approved circle, we will not be loved”(xv).

bell hooks helped me understand that I was bargaining dishonesty for love. I was afraid that if I were truly honest with my friends and sisters, I would become unlovable. To share unpleasant feelings, express my hurts — both large and petty — ask for something I need that I am not getting, I felt risked not being loved.

For over 50 years I had been willing to engage in this bargain. To not be my whole self and not wish for my friends to be and express their whole selves in order to feel loved and loving.

I decided to try to be more truthful with my women friends. To break the pattern of not telling the truth in order to be loved.

And so I did. And so I am, stumbling and fumbling around in the dark to try to renegotiate this bargain. To risk being unloved and allow myself to be whole. When I feel hurt or upset, I now express it and I am learning to do that in a non-violent way. And I have wonderful women friends who respond by saying, “I am so sorry. I will try better,” or “Let’s talk about this,” and I try to do the same for them.

Ultimately, the book Communion is about self-love. Committing to that and learning to live by that. Treating ourselves and our friends with respect by being honest about our feelings seems a good place to start.

bell hooks is a teacher, mentor, literary critic, feminist scholar, activist, leader, visionary and author of twenty-one books. Her given name is Gloria Watkins. Born in Kentucky in 1952, she has a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D from UC Santa Cruz. In 2014, she founded the bell hooks institute whose mission is to “promote the cause of ending domination through understanding the ways systems of exploitation and oppression intersect through critical thinking, teaching, events, and conversation”(http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/#/aboutthebhi).

We lost this bright light in December of 2021.

© Theresa C. Dintino

hooks, bell: Communion: the female search for love. HarperCollins Publishers, 2002.