BFF definition: Informal. plural bffs, BFFs
- a person’s best friend, typically a girl’s (sometimes used facetiously)
- one’s close associate, ally, or supporter
“All the literati keep an imaginary friend.” — W. H. Auden
“I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We’re still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends.” — Ian Rankin
As I write, it’s the last day of my two-week holiday staycation. Yesterday, was the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. Last year, and the preceding years since 2019, it was challenging to celebrate the holidays with bio, chosen family, and friends, except in small, isolated, and protected groups, due to the pandemic, and two years ago, my recovery from a hip-replacement.
Gratefully, this year, I was able to share the holidays with family and friends, in their homes, the hospital, or nursing home. I also had one-on-one brunches and gift exchanges, plus time in my home enjoying the simple pleasures of a singleton life, the luxury of napping when I wanted to, ability to practice spontaneity, cook foods I enjoyed, check-off things on my to-do list, procrastinate, lastly, stream content and watch movies in my PJs in my recliner under a comfy throw with the fireplace glowing. Yes, the hygge life.
A hygge morning.
The Backstory
One of the things I’m most grateful for is the emotionally intimate circles of bio, chosen family, and friends, my IRL BFFs. Though I live alone, my life is rich with relationships that enhance my life. Some relationships span over 30 years or more, others are more recent, yet bring fresh perspectives which help me remain, to a degree, forever young.
As a woman of a certain age, a cinephile, and baby boomer who grew up in front of the television, I watch a lot of content. The choices of what to watch have greatly expanded, yet the dominant culture still rules for the most part, reflecting the skewed standards of beauty, power, and acceptance. Marginalized and diverse communities are sometimes invisible, underrepresented, or portrayed as stereotypes.
Again, as a person of a certain age, who identifies as a lesbian, is considered morbidly obese, and judged as woke, liberal, progressive, and the list goes on, I often don’t often see myself reflected in our dominant culture.
Since I’ve already admitted to watching a lot of television, films in theaters, videos on my phone or online, and streaming content, I look for characters I can relate to, virtual BFFs, women, lesbians, people who identify as gender neutral or trans, characters that represent different cultures, races, ages, ethnic groups, and values, in essence, fall outside what is considered as “the norm.”
Yes, I’ve already admitted to watching a lot of content from different sources during my holiday staycation. This was also true during the pandemic, recovery from my hip-replacement and a few months later, after an accidental fall and fractured arm, and full disclosure, every day, beginning when I wake up in the morning and fall asleep on the couch with the TV on all night. I’m that girl!
During this staycation, though I ventured out on the morning of Christmas Day to see a matinee of A Complete Unknown, in between holiday gatherings, visits with family and friends, and errands, I watched a lot of content. I looked for stories and characters I could relate to, my new virtual BFFs.
Recently, one of my favorite limited series ended, Somebody Somewhere. I was already missing Sam and her friends. I began thinking about which shows I considered guilty TV pleasures, or appointment TV. Each of these limited series featured characters and stories I could relate to, where I could see myself.
I thought about series that featured women characters as the leads, explored their lives, challenges, and friendships. This was the short list I came up with (there are more), which represented different generations, classes, and settings:
Girls
The L-Word
Work In Progress
Somebody Somewhere
Sex in the City
Golden Girls
There were four series from the above list, which I watched religiously, though only in three of them, did I see myself represented realistically, Girls, Work In Progress, and Somebody Somewhere. These women — and their stories — became my new virtual BFFs. In past years, I‘ve binge-watched series during holidays and staycation including, The Sopranos, The L-Word, and Mad Men.
During this holiday staycation I binge-watched Girls, the HBO/Max series, created by and starring Lena Dunham and her character, Hannah. Total series stats: 6 seasons, 10, 30-minute, episodes each season. When I do the math, that’s 1800 minutes, or 30 hours, or one-and-a-quarter days of streaming content. Oh, My!
Full disclosure: I’ve had imaginary friends growing up, storytelling with my Muffie Dolls as a child (yes, I’m that old!). When I was first separated from my long-term partnership and began living alone, I had an imaginary next girlfriend and wrote a 10-part series of conversations with her. See the link to Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend at the end of this essay.
My first imaginary friend, a Muffie Doll from the 1950s
Let me introduce you to my Virtual BFFs: Hanna, Abby, and Sam:
Girls (HBO/Max)
“Lena Dunham’s fearless comedy tackles female friendship through the eyes of four 20-somethings as they attempt to navigate the unpredictable waters of adulthood in New York.”
Girls Poster
I was first introduced to Lena Dunham in an independent film she wrote, directed, and starred in, Tiny Furniture. It was filmed in her mother’s NY apartment and costarred her mother, artist, Laurie Simmons, and sister, Grace. It also featured two actors, Jemima Kirke and Ray Karpovsky, who would later appear along with her mother and sister, in Girls.
Tiny Furniture from 2010 was described as follows, “After graduating from film school, Aura (Lena Dunham) returns to New York to live with her photographer mother, Siri (Laurie Simmons), and her sister, Nadine (Grace Dunham), who has just finished high school. Aura is directionless and wonders where to go next in her career and her life”
This narrative became the template for the Girls series. Later in 2010, HBO approached Dunham and invited her to create and submit a pilot for a series. The pilot became a series in 2012 and featured Hannah (Lena Dunham) and her three millennial friends from college, Marnie (Allison Williams), Jessa (Jemima Kirke), and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet). Former and current boyfriends of the lead characters played pivotal roles, chief among them, Adam (Adam Driver), Ray, (Ray Karpofsky), Charlie (Christopher Abbott), Ellijah (Andrew Rennells), and Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).
The friends in Girls
The series attracted and showcased guest cameos by many established and upcoming talents including: Donald Glover, Patrick Wilson, Jenny Slate, Gaby Hoffman, Patti LuPone, Rita Wilson, Riz Ahmed, Amy Schumer, Felicity Jones, Hune Squibb, Mathew Rhys, Michael Imperioli, Jack Lacy, Gillian Jacobs, Spike Jonze, and the list goes on.
From an article in The Guardian in February, 2017, by Jonathan Bernstein, Lena Dunham’s Girls: the show that turned TV upside down:
“Lena had gone to HBO and said: ‘I don’t see myself or my friends represented on television’” – didn’t conform to those rules. Dunham’s Horvath – the one who in earlier decades, if she was cast at all, would have been shoehorned into the prudish role – was instead the character who was most often naked, notching up sexual experiences both satisfying and squalid. “There’s people who don’t want to see bodies like mine,” Dunham has said. “It’s a very specific body. Even great reviews will be like: chubby, portly, overweight. Sometimes I’m like: ‘Ugh, how did I make myself the guinea pig for this?’”
Lena Dunham
Dunham experienced criticism and body-shaming for her nudity, sex-positive portrayals, for the self-involved character narratives of someone who couldn’t keep a job, finish graduate school, publish her work, or maintain a committed relationship. These in fact, were storylines and criticisms that captured my attention. I saw aspects of myself in Hannah, which I never saw poignantly reflected in series like The L-Word.
Dunham was — and continues to be — a lightning rod. When her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, was published, it ignited more controversy, especially about an incident from childhood involving her sister, Grace.
“It touches on two simultaneous debates that have swirled around Dunham and her work since her HBO show premiered in 2012: her fight with the left over what those critics will sometimes call rich white girl privilege and her fight with the right over the politics of gender and sexuality.” — Vox, The Lena Dunham child abuse controversy, explained, by Alex Abad-Santos, Nov 8, 2014
In bingeing the Girls series, I saw myself, imperfect, a work in progress, which leads me to my next virtual BFF, Abby.
Work In Progress (Showtime)
“Abby, a self-identified “fat, queer dyke” who lives with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, enters into a vibrantly transformative relationship during a time of crisis. Chicago improv mainstay Abby McEnany co-created and stars in this semi-autobiographical comedy series.”
Abby, who alternately identified as a queer dyke, nonbinary, and/or gender fluid, lived in Chicago, a Midwestern city I could relate to, and their friends looked like the LGBTQ+ community I was familiar with in Madison, Wisconsin.
Two limited series were broadcast in 2019, and couldn’t be more different in how they portrayed the LGBTQ+ communities at the center of their narratives, The L-Word: Generation Q on HBO, and Work InProgress on Showtime. I watched them both, though II only saw myself in the latter. These were my people!
Abby, the character, struggled with their mental health, OCD and suicidal ideation, difficult family relationships, illusive loverships, friendships, work life, body dysphoria, and the journey to find the right therapist match, after her therapist in season one dies during their session. Oh, My!
Abby McEnany
I saw myself in Abby’s struggle with body dysphoria, my own mild OCD behaviors, relationship history, self-involvement, intermittent oversharing, and more. Unlike The L-Word: Generation Q, Abby hung out at places familiar to me, coffeeshops, bookstores, lesbian, and gay bars. Their friends could be my friends. Season two of Work In Progress was Abby’s search for a therapist, which echoed mine during the pandemic when I was ready to return to therapy after a long hiatus. Gratefully, last year, I found a new match.
One of my favorite continuing stories was the challenging relationship Abby’s character had with Julia Sweeney, “Julia Sweeney, who portrays a fictionalized version of herself who is trying to make amends for the discomfort her “Saturday Night Live” character Pat has caused for Abby.” What makes the storyline even more entertaining is Sweeney’s husband is portrayed by “Weird Al’ Yankovic. The other storyline that was thought-provoking and consciousness-raising was Abby’s relationship with a transmasculine character, Chris (Theo Germaine).
In season two of the series in 2021, from the Vulture review by Jen Chaney, “Work In Progress Is Living Up to Its Name” “…the tone has shifted as the realities of what’s happening in the wider world — the COVID pandemic, as well as the racial protests sparked by George Floyd’s death — burst into Abby’s Chicago bubble. The episodes, most notably the recent eighth one, titled “FTP,” become more experimental and reflective of the anxious, untethered headspace that Abby finds herself in as a mentally ill person who already found life overwhelming before 2020 started. A lot of series have tried to address the pandemic era, with varying degrees of success. Work in Progress does it more thoughtfully and effectively than most, in a way that captures the constant, swirling emotional confusion of it all.”
The decision by Showtime to not renew season three of the series was a huge disappointment, especially when I suspect the depiction of characters that populated that series will return to the closet the next four years.
I miss Abby’s presence in my life. Gratefully, when one door closes another one opens, and that’s when Sam from Kansas became my next virtual BFF.
Somebody Somewhere (HBO/Max)
“The Peabody Award-winning and critically acclaimed series follows Sam, a true Kansan on the surface who, beneath it all, struggles to fit the hometown mold and its expectations. As she grapples with loss and acceptance, Sam finds a saving grace in singing. It leads her on a journey to discover herself and a community of outsiders who don’t fit in but don’t give up, proving that finding like-minded people and a voice is always possible. The series explores the themes of change and growth against all odds.”
From the very first season. until final season three episodes, I found my midwestern chosen family. Bio, chosen family, and a network of friends, new and old. From the first episode of Season Three, I wrote the following:
“I can’t say enough about the first episode of Season 3, the final season of the Peabody-award limited series, “Somebody Somewhere.” This unglamourous, un-Hollywood, Midwest story of friends and family in small town Kansas will steal your heart. Nothing earth-shattering happens other than the existential search for where and with whom we fit in, to find the people who welcome, love, and support us. Grief, loss, loneliness, and solace are depicted, as the characters laugh at themselves and not judge each other when they stumble, as they find meaning in their daily lives and loves. Diversity sets this ensemble cast apart from typical sitcoms. It showcases family, both bio and chosen, and highlights the human need to find one’s tribe. Watch this bittersweet dramedy on HBO & MAX.”
Bridget Everett
Sam, her friends and family, mirrored the quirky and diverse ensemble characters of my own everyday life. When the small bumps in the road seem epic, and we lean on others for help and advice, often when we feel we least deserve it, our lesson is accepting both the help, and accept too, that we are perfectly flawed as we are, and deserve the love we receive. We give the same as we take. We are middle-coasters, midwestern, people with big hearts and equally big dreams.
Sam, I’ll miss you.
What’s Next?
First and foremost, I’m grateful. I have friends and family in real life. I’ve learned too, to write and tell my own stories, to be visible, to be present and available for those I love, and to accept love and support when needed. I’ve found my tribe. I’ve nurtured relationships with my bio family and made amends when I’m able. With chosen family and friends, I strive to be honest, authentic, generous, accepting, present, and love with an open heart. With colleagues, I continue to be a student of life. I have more to learn. I may make mistakes, yet often missteps lead to change. I’m a work in progress.
I have an abundance of BFFs in real life. I’m lucky!
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Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend
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