Maggie was my closest number one girlfriend in life. We’d shared everything that mattered, every day, for what felt like forever. And then, like a bad dream in slow motion, she quietly began her exit from my life, without ever uttering a single word about it to me. It retrospect, it was the perfect recipe of avoidance, unreturned phone calls, weekly plans suddenly cancelled, e-mails silently ignored.

The loss of a valued friend is a harsh reality—it hurts! When the ties of a connected and valuable friendship are severed, even temporarily, the results can be devastating. Emotional anguish between friends can spring from hurtful actions or circumstances.

Being that we are a “friendship site,” we at SocialJane.com always appreciate hearing expert opinion on friendship, and women’s friendships in particular. So we rounded up a host of questions based on common experiences of SocialJane.com members, and took them to an expert in the field of human behavior, Dr. Karen Dill.

Often women ask, “What would I do without my friends?” If we have first-class friends, they help us laugh; allow us to grieve and cry; listen to us when we are happy or upset; and share ideas about relationships, work, life. Indeed, healthy friendships may be one of the best things that can happen to us. Such relationships are joyful, fun, powerful, almost miraculous.