The Topeka state journal., 1921-02-26
Dorothy Dix Tails
The Art of Friendship-1
ny DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid womaa WK1ta

| A girl writes me that she is lonely,
| that she desires friendship of her own
| age and sex, and she asks how she can
make other girls like her.
Alas, my child, that is a question
that no one can answer specifically.
There is no follow -this-rul4-and-you-
| can't-fail recipe for making what
| Emmy Lou called intimate friend :"
as there is for making spice cake. All
that one can do is to offer you a few
general observations on the gentle art
of making friends.
OF course, the very essence of the
| subject is comprised in the old axiom
which says that to have friends we
must show ourselves friendly. There
| is something in our very desire to be
liked, that draws people toward US.
| 1t is some warm human quality that
makes US akin to all with whom we
come in contact.
I So if you want girl friends, you must
show yourself friendly to other girls
You must do little kindly things for
| them. You must show them that you
enjoy them, and you must meet them
more than halfway. None of US have
| such superior charms that we can af-
| ford to stand aloof and wait for other
| people to seek us out 1t is just as
| much our business to make oyertures
1
If you want girl friends you must
be sympathetic. You must be willing
to enter into the joys and sorrows of
those about you. and to rejoice with
those who rejoice, and weep with those
who weep. You must be willing to
help the green young girl who is just
! starting in the store or office in which
| you work and who is scared to death,
| or to say a friendly little word that
makes a strange girl feel at home in
| the social set in which you move. Just
! a hand held out at such a moment
has given many a girl a friend for life.
And you must be able to listen with
| out WEAKNESS while other girls tell
you. over and over again. for the mil
lionth time, the story of their trou-
| bleS at home, or about the row they
had with their beauX. Heaven knows
why friendship should be a tear jug.
! but it is. The price we pay for our
friends as long as we live is being a
receptacle for their hard luck stories.
If you would have girl friends, you
must be willing to play the game.
Friendship means teamwork, and sac
rificing your own individual desire to
| the will of the many. No girl who
insists on bossing the bunch ever has
any friends, and the girl who is al
ways ready to take her doll rags and
go home if the others won't play her
way is very soon permitted to go home
| and stay at home by herself.
If you want to be popular with Is
be easy to get along with. The sensi-
tive girl who is always getting her
feelings hurt, and who has to be han
| died with kid gloves, is too much
4 trouble to bother with. So is the high
tempered girl, who is forever taking
offense, and getting angry and making
a scene, or going into a gloomy crouch
and who has to be continually pro-
pitiated to keep her in a good humor
So is the sQueamiSh girl who is a per-
petual wet blanket on every party, be-
cause she is always being shocked, OF
she is afraid of something, or she
can't have everywhere exactly the
same amount of physical comfort that
she has at home.