"Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces"

Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s striking metaphor draws a vivid distinction in how friendship is handled by men and women. Comparing male friendships to a football, she suggests an almost rough physicality, a robustness and resilience allowing for neglect, teasing, and even mistreatment without apparent damage. Men, she implies, often subject their friendships to tests and challenges, perhaps even taking them for granted, yet these bonds seem to endure regardless of the strain. The repeated "kicking around" symbolizes a sense of casualness, perhaps even a lack of overt sentimentality. The durability of such friendships may rest on a tacit understanding or an unspoken loyalty that isn’t easily shattered by time, distance, or neglect.

Conversely, Lindbergh likens women’s friendships to glass, something inherently fragile, beautiful, and requiring careful handling. Women may treat their relationships with intense care, investing emotional energy and attentiveness. However, this very delicacy renders such friendships vulnerable. Small misunderstandings, disappointments, or slights may fracture these relationships quickly, resulting in irreparable breaks. The image of glass "going to pieces" captures the devastation that can follow when expectations of closeness or mutual understanding are not met. There is an implicit suggestion of higher emotional stakes, finer nuances, and perhaps a heightened sensitivity in women’s friendships.

Lindbergh’s observation is not so much a critique as it is a reflection of differing cultural and emotional norms. She highlights how the quality, expectations, and endurance of friendship can vary by gender, shaped by societal mores and internalized values. Her words invite reflection on whether treating relationships with robust casualness or fragile attentiveness serves anyone better, and whether these gendered patterns are inherent or acquired. Far from prescribing a right way to be friends, Lindbergh encourages the reader to consider the paradoxes at the heart of human connection: sometimes things last because they're tough enough to withstand rough handling; sometimes, fragility itself invites both beauty and risk.