A friend in need is a friend indeed -- at least until she leaves the room.

as a woman i've been spoonfed sugary sweet stories of bosom buddies lasting from the cradle to the grave and beyond as often as i've been sucked into spending my five minutes waiting in line at the grocery store snickering to myself over the latest hollywood starlet debacle to make the cover of the tabloids. (which in and of itself kind of makes my entire point.) so let's just get to it:

what happened to girls sticking together? why is it that women glean such deep and evil pleasure from witnessing the stumbling of a pretty young thing?

the only answer i can reach is to blame the biological drive of competition. a competition so cold and calculating, so animalistic, that it's astounding romans didn't pit two women at their dating prime against each other over a studly man or a silk, designer-inspired toga with results even the lions couldn't match. though most women have more in common with a gila monster than a prowling, pouncing lioness: rather than blatently ripping our prey's jugular, we subtly inject our poison and stick by our target's side -- enjoying the long, painful time it takes for it to die.

it's a vicious cycle from which my circle of friends is not exempt. we've stuck together through bad boyfriends, brutal pms, drunken binges and penny pinching. all through our college years when we were still on level ground the illusion of a thelma and louise-like connection was strong. united in our distaste for girly girls and our love for cheap booze, as well as our oodles of free time to waste, we blazed a trail through every social scene we stepped into as a unit: daring, dramatic, and determined.

that's when things started to happen. a couple of us wound up with souvenirs of our poor dating judgements in the form of bright, bouncy babies. at least one of us failed out of school over a boy. someone lost their baby fat, and somebody gained their freshman fifteen. a few of us got responsible and found nine to five jobs. some of us stubbornly refused to change our lifestyle, and as of yet still haven't.

it was at this point, the point where maybe we needed each other most to hold hands through the terrors of moving far from home, of deciding to commit long term to a career or a man, of becoming more woman than girl -- this is the point where the illusion evaporated and the claws came out. don't get me wrong -- everyone is still there for the bad, lending a shoulder and comforting word (or buying the beer, whichever is most appropriate). it's during the good -- college graduations, promotion celebrations, kids' birthdays, great date evaluations -- that everyone disappears.

none of my girl friendships has ever been entirely free of the brand of cattiness that begs to know from a mutual friend who looks better in the dress we both own, who the cute guy across the bar was checking out, who discovered which new hangout first. however, the difference between then and now is that then we were all only searching for affirmation that we were somebody special. now, ten years later and at an age where we should be fully aware of not only our own specialness but the importance of the specialness of others, we seem to be in the midst of a never-ending quest for justification of the wisdom of our own choices in life at the expense of all else.

are we really this bitter already? or is there still such pressure placed on post-feminist era women to have it all that we tear ourselves and others apart in the persuit for perfection?

i can't answer that. it's like trying to discover why it is that every woman with a head full of beautiful, naturally curly hair works herself into tears at least once struggling to get it straight and sleek, and every woman with straight hair at one point or another spends three hours in the bathroom scorching it with a curling iron. it is human nature to want what we don't, or can't, have (more on this later). but why do we have to be such bitches about it?

it's one thing to giggle over the terrible exploits of the indomitable miss lohan, who unfortunately is subjected to such treatment merely by the stature she's been able to achieve so early in life (as well as being one hell of a fascinating target). some of us giggle because we've been there, albeit on a smaller scale, and some of us giggle because she is younger and prettier and richer than we'll ever hope to be. the fact remains that despite her reality as a human being (and i do pity her for that), her distance from reality separates her into a caraciture supposedly immune to all the snickering and scolding occuring in a grocery store in pennsylvania that odds are she will never, ever set a monolo-clad foot into. she's an accurate analogy, and a grand starting point, for the discussion on what exactly is wrong with us.

everyday laywomen doing this to each other -- turning our own insecurities and regrets inside out to paste on someone we look at through a veil of green envy -- does nothing to further our goal of equalizing the gender divide, nor to help our species move forward into a civilization that's actually capable of being civil. corporations have long known that keeping the employees dissatisfied with each other reduces the chances of their taking action on what dissatisfies them about the corporation; in essence, this is what women are doing to themselves.

as long as we allow ourselves to be distracted by hating on what we percieve as our more successful counterparts, we will be stuck on a repeat that will watch us stagnate, or even worse, backslide (which is a real threat these days). child-bearing and fashion differences aside, nobody wants to see that happen.

so instead of staring angrily at the slender back of the five-foot-ten, hundred and fifteen pound blonde standing in front of us with her hunky husband as we wait to buy our cat food and single-serving frozen lasagna, let's be nice. smile. say hello. buy her a candy bar, one with lots of calories.

because it isn't any easier for her than it is for you. in a world of decreasing reproductive rights where women still only make seventy-five cents on the dollar and pot-smokers recieve longer jail sentences than rapists, us girls have to stick together.