I was a classmate of the girls from Ames and find their story to be rather typical of the friendships developed and nurtured there. My own group of 10 friends has maintained close contact throughout the years as well, regularly getting together and providing support to each other through equally challenging life issues. We also date our friendship back to kindergarten and we reside across the United States. I believe that it’s the particular value set and shared experience of Ames, Iowa that fosters this kind of loyalty and connection. I, too, consider myself a Girl From Ames in the most positive meaning of that title.

Though I am only 24, hearing your broadcast today helped me realize that there is one friend I have had for over 2 decades and given me a chance to really reflect on that friendship. I moved from Colorado to Boston over 2 years ago, and though I have made great friends here, it is those friend’s from when I was young that I never have to explain myself to – I never have to go through the background of a story. We have so much history that we can get through anything with each other because we always have a past experience to lean. We can be apart in distance, but will always have enough connection to be truly close.

They sound a bit like a clique. I have always abhorred cliques. I do not wish this for my children.

How did they treat outsiders?

My three college roommates and I had lost contact over the years, except for an occasional Christmas card or letter. But five years ago, we met again at a writing workshop in Wisconsin; and once again we bonded, this time for the rest of our lives.

We e-mail each other at least every two weeks, and more often as special things occur. We also make it a point to get together once a year at our homes, be it Wisconsin, California, Massachusetts, or Maryland.

This year we all are turning eighty, and plan on many more years of this friendship. It is true and steady, and continues to amaze us all at how we love each other; how, even though each of us is quite different, our values are the same; how we are the best of friends even though the distance between us is great.

My three roommates continue to be one of the joys of my life. I don’t know what I would do without them.

I admit that I envy this group of women. I am in my mid-40’s and feel a big gap in my life because I don’t have many friendships with women. I invested so much of my time in my career and family. “Girlfriends’ sounds to me like a secret society of which I could be a member.

I’m pleased that younger, in their 40s, women are preserving and valuing their friendships. I have a group of friends and we have been a Pot Luck, similar to a sorority, since high school over fifty years ago. The ten of us reunited eighteen years ago (when we were fifty) and now meet every couple of years usually for a week. I love these old friends and am aware of how lucky I am.

I love listening to your show! I am in the process of planning a reunion for a big group of my sorority sisters this summer in NH. We all graduated in the late 90’s from UMass and have remained close friends. We are there for each other as friends in an intimate, dare I say sisterly way. We truly love one another and stay connected now as we age…into our 40’s. I cannot imagine live with out them in and part of my life.

Men cannot befriend women the way other women do because they usually sexualize every exchange between the genders.

My best girlfriends are dead now. Both died young, one was murdered, the other succumbed to cancer. I shall never get over the grief of losing them. No man I’ve ever met can take their place in my life.

Just quickly, I am a man, married happily, but my best friend for the past 20 years is a woman–we come together easily, without baggage or subtleties of marriage, and there is no need to forever explain things…as marriage often demands…

Karl

Just want to share that a key part of this is that these women are wonderful people in their own right! I am a college friend of Jane’s and know that she is the glue that helps keep our group of 4 close friends together. we can’t compete with 40+ years but 20+ years – not too shabby! My kids also look at our friendship and hope they have similar deep friendships when they are in their 40s!

I have a male friend from middle school and a very small town in MI. We have been friends, best freinds for 44 years, we have been through a lot together, he lives on the west coast/LA and I live on the east coast/Boston.
Our friendship has kept us grounded as people. We share a common value from being from a small town.

I am soo jealous. I never had a tight group of girlfriends in high school or earlier. Perhaps I was not ready for it. I have great friends now but wish I had the long term friendships for the continuity and bond

In hearing these stories, I am confronted with my own lack of sustained friendships from my childhood. I am jealous of these relationships these women have, but yet, I know this kind of relationship would not work for me. I am a loner, yet I can also be described as the glue of a group. I bring people together when we are all present but once I am gone, the group falls apart. I can sustain a few very close friends, but not a large group of ten. This has been something that I have had to accept and learn about myself. Though I envy these girls from Ames, I have to be honest to myself and know that my relationships are solid and valuable in their own right.

I wish I had grown up in a setting that emphasized making friends. This was something my family seemed to have no interest in encouraging in me, in fact more to the opposite. Perhaps if any of the schools I had attended had encouraged friendship among students in the way these girls’ school had, things would have been different for me then and now. We moved several times when I was growing up, and being the “new girl” was very hard on me. Because of the actions of various “mean girls”, I developed a distrust of women that affects me to this day. I find men clearer to communicate with, more straightforward. Yet still, I long for women friends I feel I can really let my guard down with and share feelings with that men are just not comfortable with, but it seems at some point, things turn and I find out in hindsight that I shouldn’t have shared.

I wonder if the darker side of friendship was addressed while I was in the supermarket? I was a member of a group much like the Ames girls. I left home in my early 20’s and I don’t think my friends have felt I deserved a place within the group since. Friendships take work, but they are not always salvagable. I visited at least twice a year and did much of the work of keeping in touch during my years abroad. I moved home 4 years ago, 15 years after leaving. I make calls and put out invitations, but there must be unspoken rules within some groups of friends. I clearly have the status as an outsider. The price of choosing an international life is a harsh one for me to live with. Has this experience been brought up? What a great title for a new book, eh?

I too was a girl from Ames.
In response to Sharon, it was a clique, and outsiders (myself being one) were very often ridiculed, teased, and treated like they were less valuable human beings. What they didn’t know, and I don’t think it would have made any difference at all in their treatment of others, was that I was ridiculed & abused at home, physically, mentally, and sexually. Not all of the girls were guilty of the teasing, but they kept their silence while it went on.
To the others that say they are jealous, there are many friends out there waiting, you just have to find them.

I met my best friend when I transferred to her school during 5th grade. She was the one who picked on me mercilessly for half of that same year! We are both now 35 and its interesting how things played out. We’ve gone through everything together. When she married her current husband, I was the only one who knew that she actually fell for him when we were in the 6th grade. Her first husband didn’t understand our friendship and tried to separate us by distance, our friendship survived. He could not understand that i would drive to Alabama from South Carolina just so that we could sit in companionable silence and read together on a Saturday afternoon. She’s like the older by 6 months sister that I never had.

I found the program interesting. I have a group for 6 male friends who went to kindergarten together 63 years ago. We get together frequently, have lunch, dinner with our wives, go sailing, theater, etc. We also meet with the rest of the class once a year and e-mail more often,now having our 5th annual 50th grammar school reunion. Not only women can maintain these relationships.

to: former girl from Ames

Thanks for keeping things in perspective. I can relate. I will listen with your comment in mind.

I am a girl from Nashville. I think you can find the important values of friendship in a large city, not just in small towns. My group of friends in middle school are still my closest friends at 29- give or take a few. All along the way we picked up more folks (usually new kids at school who didn’t know anyone yet) and those people are still our friends as well. It is an eclectic mix of guys and girls- business folks, lawyers, musicians, nurses, writers and non-profit professionals. The only common ground is our care for each other. From the first 2 members, me and my friend Katie at age 11, to the latest addition, Becky- who we met at 17, we all act as if everyone is family. And, it was one of the members of the family (Neil) that emailed all of us this link. I am sorry to hear that these girls were not open to newcomers or outsiders- it only made our group stronger.

I too have “girl” friends that go back to high school. There were 8 of us and are still in touch. We always met on Friday nite and called ourselves “The Friday Niters”. Have been through joys and sorrows but alway together. They are true friends and I love them all.

Nancy F.

This show is incredibly relevant this evening; my “Ames group” is a circle of high school friends from St. Catherine’s High School in Racine, Wisconsin, class of 1979. We heard over the weekend about the devastating news of one of our friend’s husband’s tragic death while walking the family dog. We have been emailing, calling, praying, crying…some of us were able to travel to support our dear friend (Julie), being ambassadors for those who can’t get away. They are there with Julie at her husband’s wake as this story airs.

I have always taken this group of friends for granted, thinking that everyone enjoys the support and love that comes from an amazing circle of women. After feeling the outpouring of concern and care over our friend’s tragedy, I know I can never feel like I am alone in this world. Even though I have a wonderful life, I need these friends and am eternally grateful for the connection we have that cannot be replicated. Thank you for this program.

As I am listening to this online, I am emailing back and forth with my 4 high school friends, working on when/where we’ll meet this summer. We had other friends in high school, but the five of us have been the ones who have stayed together for 25 years. We talked about getting together for 10 years, and once we made it happen, we haven’t stopped. For a few years it was “kidsfest” with growing families of three of the women. But now it’s become “usfest.” (A name I coined just now!) We don’t talk or email daily, or even monthly, but we can always pick up where we left off and we look forward to getting together. Social networking (Facebook) has helped us be more in touch… with their teenage and young adult children too! Even though I live in Mexico and the rest live in the midwest; we are still working at meeting yearly. My thought is to buy this book, read it, write in the margins, high light, underline, maybe even put our childhood photos in, etc. and pass it on to the next, and ask the others to do the same. I can’t wait until it makes it all the way around and read what others write.

I know ten of the girls from Ames only through the stories of the eleventh. But I owe them all a big “thank you”! That “eleventh girl” is my closest “adult” friend, and she really understands what makes friendship work. I’m sure she learned that in this group–and for that, I’m grateful!

I am fifty five and have had many of my friends for more than twenty years, some almost 50. They are invaluable to me. I do disagree with the statement of men not having “face to face” relationships. I know mine are and I would have it no other way! I have always encouraged my wife to have the same, to no avail. The outside view and reality checks can add stability to any relationship.

I really enjoyed the program about the Girls from Ames. I have a nine year old daughter and I hope that she will develop strong, life long friendships like the these friends from Ames. I know that friendships are important and sometimes we get lazy in maintaining them. Needless to say, I really admire these women on preserving their strong friendships through many years and geographical distance.

If it seems odd that so many other “girls from Ames” are posting here, keep in mind that it’s pretty odd for the rest of the class of 1981 to revisit our high school experience through the eyes of this clique and Jeffrey Zaslow.

I have no doubt that these women are wonderful, loving friends, wives and mothers today. I wish them all well; I sincerely hope that Angela and Kelly will beat breast cancer and be in Ames for our 50th reunion; and I’m hoping they will all have a ball promoting this book together.

In high school, however, they were Ames High’s ruling Mean Girls, who embraced a nickname I’ll have to approximate here: The S*** Sisters. They earned the name for their treatment of others, and wore it proudly, to the extent of sporting clothes with “SS” to school. The rest of us feared them and did our best to steer clear–my dominant memories of them are of hoping to escape their notice.

I think it’s disingenuous for Zaslow to brush off their past with the comment “They had a few Mean Girl moments, but we all have moments we aren’t proud of.” That’s undeniably true, but those moments weren’t defining characteristics for most of us.

For those of us who knew these girls back when, and to give everyone else a truer portrait of the group, it would be nice to see some acknowledgment of the toxic side effects of their bond. It looks very different when viewed from outside the group.

I was struck by the comment during the program that the Girls from Ames talk about the past, not their current jobs, etc. Can’t remember the exact quote. To be sure, a sense of past and shared memories are important — but at what point do old friendships such as this become somewhat stunted, and stunting? It is just as important to incorporate the present and thoughts of the future into friendship; otherwise, I think you’re at risk of limiting yourself.

I contemplate listening to this show, because I love my women friends, and I am surprised by how I react to the comments from the other Ames students. If any part of these comments are true, then the writers ought to reflect and make repairs. Then write a book. I’ll read that one.

Nancy Hess

I am a 56 year old woman with a number of very close friends – both female and male. I have made new friends as the years have gone by and kept the old friends when the friendship remained vibrant. However, I simply cannot relate to being friends with anyone I with whom I went to high school – or college. I have changed so radically over the years that I don’t even feel the desire to reconnect. My other question is: Where is the time to e-mail so many people so regularly and keep current with their lives? I can hardly keep up with my own!

I am 54 years old and I cannot express how strongly I related to this wonderful broadcast about women’s friendships. I feel the same way about my friends from home (New Orleans) as well as dear friends I’ve made later in life who live in the Boston area. There were so many observations made by Jeffrrey Zaslow that really hit the nail on the head. I am in touch with so many of my high school friends to this day, friends from youth group and friends from school, sometimes overlapping and sometimes not. Even if we don’t contact each other quite as regularly as the Ames girls, that bond is there.

In regard to my New Orleans friends, the strength of our friendships, both individually and in various groupings, was proven after Hurricane Katrina. For months I was on the phone nightly with family of course, but also with friends (often those two groupings intersected as well) as together we tried to keep tabs on what happened to everyone trying to make sure everyone was OK, offering moral support and shoulders to cry on as they wandered around until they were able to go back home and pick up the pieces – some to move into temporary quarters, others to rebuild while living in trailers, and still others who decided to leave. One friend even wrote regular email journal entries that beautifully captured the essence of the Katrina experience. She then emailed them to friends who continued to pass them on. This is our example of the continued bonding that I am sure the Ames girls can appreciate.

More recent friendships from the Boston area have been equally as important, and some of those we have had since before our children were born. So many of those friendships have been crucial to all of us, providing fun, companionship to events, childrearing advice, and just plain support.

I agreed with the comment that the advent of email definitely helped us to keep in touch. I laughed when they talked about how great it is to have that “Reply all,” button.

I applaud Jeffrey for his appreciation of these bonds. I also loved The Last Lecture and look forward to reading this book. I am passing the link to the show on to my friends as well. Thank you so much!

I was looking forward to reading the book, as my friends and family mean the world to me. I have been fortunate to maintain friendships with not only a few from high school, but also college as well. I find that I make a few new close friends as each decade passes, now being through work, or other activities I enjoy.
The key to friendship is to continue making new friends along the way as well as keeping the old ones. I bring my new friends together with the old ones, and we become one big circle.
It absolutely troubles me to read about the clique thing, and also to read some of the posts that are here in regards to how this group treated others. If that is the case, these girls hopefully will stand up and take responsibility for their actions. I don’t see that in any of the excerpts or reviews that have been written so far. After all, they are adults now. How would they feel if their children were bullied by some “S*** Sisters” at their schools now. Would they think it was still cool? I think that I am still going to read this book although some of the comments coming out are greatly disappointing. Perhaps these girls didn’t really tell the whole truth, perhaps they did.

I applaud Jeffrey Zaslow for investing his considerable talents in the study of the incredible and lasting bonds of many women’s friendships. It is sad, and a bit ironic, however, that he did not invest similar time in finding subjects that more appropriately supported his thesis. I too am a Girl from Ames, and witnessed the same mean-spirited and exclusionary behavior mentioned by others. I am confident that these girls have grown into more mature and responsible women and that the life of each has been enriched greatly by the support she received from from her “sisters”. Mr. Zaslow’s narrow focus on this particular group of women, however, has caused him to overlook the most important aspect of friendship among women. When exercised by accepting and inclusive women, these bonds can be an incredibly powerful force of good, not just across a small group, but throughout communities. You missed the mark, Mr. Zaslow!

As Emerson wrote,”A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature”. The St. Gregory women are 50+
and masterpieces indeed.

Originally there were 18 friends in our graduating class and 16 are still in regular communication. We are planning our “Sassy 70″ gathering in October 2009. This book is sure to be read by all by then. Thanks.

I look forward to reading this book, to revisit the past from another perspective. I don’t believe I knew any of these girls, but I’m sure I passed them in the halls – I was in Ames High for one year that they were.