Book Club : I Know How You Feel

If you have meet me 4 years ago, you know that I am not so much a book reader. During that time, the only book I read was during my study time.

But years back,as a step to love myself and my life productively(is this even a word), I decided to start reading and I am glad I did. I know some people love ready story book or fiction thingy or even love story  novels. Well , surprisingly, I do not enjoy reading those kind of book anymore. Apparently I love self enrichment kind of book.

Alright, enough on the introduction. Point is, I am gonna make a review on my recent read book. I am gonna name the so called series , Book Club. Let us get to it!I better warn you, this is a long post.


I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL  is written by F. Diane Barth.
The joy and heartbreak of friendship in Women's lives was the way she describe the book.

Dont get me wrong, I am not going to review or summarize the whole book. You still need to read the book to the get that. I will only list down the point that  I think are interesting  or basically the things I learned or at least confirmed my pre existing idea of the said matter.

•  Many women define friends  as "someone you can be yourself with," "someone you trust ,"and "someone you can call on for help". 

• To have a friend ,you have to be a friend. Friendship is about compromise. In more mature relationship , we learn to understand that no one can be everything for you and you cant be everything for someone else. Acknowledging the positive makes it easier  to tolerate each other flaws- at least to certain extent. 

• Having friends feels good, but being a friend can feel even better. That being said, there are four crucial items in being a good friends  ( ideally of course but not to say impossible to be one):  ✔Being there in times in need
✔ Non judgemental
✔ Occasionally checking in             ✔Give space / cut some slack (compromising, remember? )

• In regards to betrayal / rejection in friendship, what really stings  is sudden sense of being far less important to a particular friend  that you thought you were. ( This subject really make sense to me as I experience them myself, but lets not go to that story. ) 

          Interestingly, studies have shown that the two parties involved in betrayal measure the pain differently. The one who was injured ( betrayed) may experience the pain significantly greater than the betrayer believes the betrayed one really felt.

( which then lead to the discussion about revenge and moving on, but I will not highlight it here  because it does not interest me that much)

There is no single right way to handle betrayal. it is crucial to recognize and acknowledge at  least to yourself , what you are feeling. Talking out with the involved party may be the optimal approach, also perhaps the most difficult path. It is advisable to allow yourself a cooling- off    period before deciding on next action.

• The book also discuss on how  most women always belong in a group or cliques. Being part of  this kind of group is said to help a sense of self. 

" The right group validates who you are and also projects an ideal version of yourself - can lift you up almost effortlessly almost over time."
" Staying with wrong crowd will leave you walking against the wind, having to exert more and more effort just to move forward."

It is crystal clear that what it means is choose right people to be your friends.

• Similarities are important in women's friendships as it provide a senses of connectedness, but differences add spice to friendship. Finding balance between similarity and difference is one key to both giving and giving especially when giving advice.

• Making space for differences is important to human connectedness in general and to healthy friendship in particular.( Hence, this confirmed the compromising aspect in friendship. It is not so alien if two person with significantly different character can be BFF .)

• It turns out that the number of friends is less important than the role they play in your life. Thus, more friends does not necessarily means you are happier. And guess what, lack of social connection was worse for physical well being than smoking, obesity, or high blood pressure.    (You can no longer say friend is non essential, right?)

• The number of friends we have diminishes naturally over time. It is normal process of moving from late adolescence into early adulthood. Some happen quietly, as we change our focus and goals,and sometime  the shift is painful.

• In regards to competition among friends , men are better able to incorporate competition into their friendship because they are more about it while women tend to take things personally, getting all sneaky and manipulative and sometimes mean. One of the right way to deal with competition among friends is stop viewing it as all or nothing. Remember, win or lose not supposed to change who you are as person.  And please, don't take it personally.

• Women often think boundaries and empathy are opposites, that good friends are supposed to  have limitless empathy. The truth is empathy will help us recognize, set and respects healthy boundaries. Boundaries protect friendship.

•  In related to confrontation, women avoided confrontation because they did not like loud arguments and  afraid of displeasing friends with whom they have issued with. They afraid friends would  dislike or reject them if they openly expressed their anger or dissatisfaction.      (Though  this rarely happen to me, as I am always loud with my feeling but I do see the point).  Interestingly, it says it is difficult for women to tell a friend that certain things they did bothers them because they  feel embarrassed  about being bother by it.                                                  ( funny, but I get it! It happens sometime).

• However as we (women) got older, we will felt more comfortable expressing our own opinions  with realization on there are time we have to choose when to argue and when to keep quiet. It is important to know when  not to talk  things out. Sometime, better to establish a temporary peace and revisit the conflict later. It is often after the cooling off period, the issue that started the disagreement feels less important than the friendship itself.

• Connections are so important to women, hence it is no unusual for us to grieve the end of close friendship, whether it is result from death, life changes or unresolvable dispute. And it is not surprising that some friendship ends when one friends feels that she is giving significantly more  and getting significantly less, because women count on mutuality between friends.  

          Because it is process is personal, people will mourn the loss of a friendship in their own way.

• Tiny details or small talks are the small elements of experience that quietly drawing friends together. This  details that seems insignificant  are actually the vehicle for talking about who we are and what we value. Those long hours of  talking bout unimportant things connected us in a very deep way.

• We change over time and our friendships change along with us. Friendship needs change over the course of a lifetime. Friends did not have to be deeply attached or perfectly matched to make a meaningful  connection.

•  Aging is not lost of youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

And finally, my favorite friendship wisdom is this one ; A friend is someone whose stories interest you and who is interested in your stories.

Hope you get  some good input out of this!

Thank you for reading!