Readers, please join me welcoming Susan Shapiro Barash , author of Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships who’ll be guest blogging here today! In Toxic Friends (St. Martin’s Press, 288 p, ISBN: 0312386397) , Barash explores the ten types of female friends and shows you why and how women get stuck with the worst kinds, the ways to get “unstuck, and how to recognize a true friend.” How Female Friendships Run Amok by Susan Shapiro Barash One of the more curious aspects of female friendship is how strained it can become once two close friends no longer share the same circumstances. I call this, ‘the mirroring friend’ syndrome. It happens frequently and in all sorts of situations. For instance, one friend is on her third child and her best childhood friend is still single. Or a friend gets a promotion and her best friend loses her job. In these instances the women who once had parallel lives no longer reflect one another. And this creates tension in the