Whenever I see the word 'girlfriends' I thnk immediately of Lucy and Ethel. They to me were the epitamy of girlfriends. They lived close together, saw one another each and every day, did everything together when possible plus trusted one another in all things. I miss, and wish I had a girlfriend that close to me. I did have but she died at an early age and if I had been there (I moved away) she never would have had the surgery to lose weight, that killed her.

Do any of you share that kind of relationship with a girlfriend? Who, and is it wonderful?

What I loved about Lucy and Ethel is they always managed to get into - and out of - trouble. I don't have a close girlfriend living close by - I have moved around so much in my life that it's hard to maintain close friendships like that. I have 'distance' friends, but it's not the same as having someone close by.

My next door neighbour and I used to see each other almost every day. This was in our other house. We both smoked then, and we had a morning ritual; - either her place or mine. We would drink our coffee smoke one or two cigarettes and just chat. We did this for years. But then, I quit smoking, and we stopped meeting. It was like there was no reason to meet anymore. Pretty sad, but smoking together is what kept us in constant contact. Our friendship remained, but it just wasn't the same.

I would love to have a friend like Lucy and Ethel too.

I have a best friend who has been through thick and thin with me for over 30 years. But she lives a 2 hour flight away...when we do get together, we have such fun and do neat things. I miss her so much.

I had what I thought to be good friends at work, we did lots of things together too, but when I stopped working there, these friends quickly drifted away. I don't have ANY friends at all here, my fault, between dealing with Gary's illness and death, then depression and all the travelling we do, it has been difficult to meet anyone, much less maintain the relationship. Up until recently, I didn't mind too much, because I was re-creating myself and rebuilding my life after all the deaths and chaos of the past few years.

I'm just so grateful for my online friends. No it's not the same as going out shopping or trying new restaurants or having a good gabfest with someone over tea (or wine), but for the time being, it really fills the void in wonderful - and global - ways!

Methinks alot of women at mid-life and onward have this problem of not having close gal friends. Sometimes I think the older one gets, one acquires more life experiences that is hard to articulate initially without sounding overly complicated and verbose. (If I tried explaining the major stuff that's happened to me in last 15 yrs..... I can't imagine..) And it is important because these life experiences forms our behaviour, reactions to new/other people we meet and our attitudes/opinions about certain subjects that come up in conversation.

I know quite a few women in a different forum, who don't have local close gal friends but instead their friendships are based on a shared hobby, interest or activity. We talked about this same problem too. That's fine too but some of those friendships don't gel into anything deeper.

Also as a society we are just more mobile...moving to other parts of a country or another country.

So I just make glacially slow forays into doing fun stuff with a few women here and there locally. It's not deep, but still friendly and supportive, but just doesn't happen often enough.

I don't know what to else to do: after all, deepening of a friendship can't be forced. It must be allowed to grow freely.

By the way, I appreciate online friendships but really I am the sort of person that needs to meet and know people face to face. Otherwise the conversation stays "safe".