Problem:
Life events that affect friendship vary throughout our lives. Some big events are adolescents, marriage, transitioning into parenthood, retirement and aging. Adolescent friendships are the best, we start out primarily same-sex friends, because boys and girls think the other sexes are just gross. Then, we mature and respect the opposite sex enough to establish cross-sex friendships that can potentially last a lifetime. Marriage and parenthood are where we see the friendship norm shift. Women still need their closest girlfriends to literally discuss and share every life event with, but the friendships become less of a priority. Men still maintain their friendships from college, and I feel like this is the time in life where the female friendships are affected more than the men. Throughout life, our married friendships merge, and the women become the "glue" to these social relationships. Women go through the empty nest syndrome when everyone leaves home, and this is kind of helps prepare her for the next stages in life, whereas men are not affected as much here. Later, during retirement and aging, if a man becomes widowed, he becomes more affected. The female bond is no longer there to serve as the glue to the