Why is it so hard to be friends with other women?
I feel very confident in saying that I’m terrible at maintaining female relationships and I don’t know why. I find very little meaning to the term “best friend”. In my experience, you’re just the friend for right now.
In the very first week of high school I had, who I thought was one of my best friends, tell me that she couldn’t be friends with me anymore. We were “too different now”. Even though I was good enough to be her friend a few months before when she called me crying that her boyfriend had broken up with her and I rushed to her side. I was good enough to be close friends for 2 years before that as well, but once we hit high school I was no longer good enough to be in her life. She ignored my existence for the entirety of our high school career.
Early on into high school, I remember girls talking about me in whispers to their friends. They’d call me names outside of class. I stood up for myself only to get threatened with fights. I even got into a fistfight with another girl in grade 10 and was suspended for a week.
Girls just never seemed to like me much. I was a “whore” and a “slut” even when I was still a virgin who’d barely kissed more than 1 boy.
I ultimately became close with boys. Trust me, this didn’t help with the “whore” name-calling. But it was my friendship with a group of 5 guys that got me through high school with some self -esteem and sanity intact. Even though it was rumoured that I slept with all of them (I didn’t), they were my rocks. They taught me that razzing and quick forgiveness was possible, not to take life too seriously, and that men are just as confused about how to deal with life as women are. It was in my group of guys that I found the comfort that I didn’t need to be perfect. Compliments were given freely for a good idea, a funny joke, or a nice outfit. Bullshit was called-out frequently for a shitty attitude, dumb comment, or stupid idea. We could air our grievances and move on from them with ease. No matter what else took place there was a platonic love that I had never experienced in a female relationship. There was always a phone call to hang out no matter how ridiculous I’d acted the day before. Plus, they could give me insight into the mind of the other sex, and I could do the same for them.
Even as we separated for university we all remained close, but as we separated to different parts of the country and entered into marriages or serious relationships my connection with them faded. No wife wants a friend from high school chatting with their husband regularly. I can’t say I’d blame her.
So adulthood left me to try and forge new friendships which turned out to be harder than I could ever imagine. University was hard because female friendships would fizzle quickly and I didn’t have my guys to fall back on. Full on adulthood friendships was a wilderness I had no idea how to manage.
I think there is merit in having your spouse be your best friend, but I feel that women just need some extras to get her through. We need someone who will do things with us that might not be at the top of our husband’s to-do list: pedis, cheesy movies and wine, shopping, play dates at the park, and talking at great length about anything that pops into our heads.
I thought I found my female tribe for 3 years. When we met at a yoga class it was an instant knowing that we were kindred spirits. The 3 of us could talk about anything. We’d talk about sex, motherhood, things we found interesting, things we felt shame about, our excitement, our interests, our boredom, and our sorrow. I thought it was a friendship that could handle anything but what I found out was that it couldn’t handle frustration. I expressed mine about one of them and that’s where the friendship ended abruptly. Anger spewed from their end at my audacity, and then silence, and then I was completely cut off. Clearly my “safe space” didn’t allow for grievances to be aired like they could be in my past.
So then I found comfort and solace with neighbour friendships. I found people I could lean on and build bonds with during lockdowns and every day life raising kids. Although precious and treasured, the only downside to being a neighbour friend is you’re treading along friendship circles that are strong without you. You have your place and you have your bonds but no matter what, you’re the neighbour who is one step outside of the core friendship circle. I take no offence to this. I find no one at fault. It’s just the dynamic that exists in this type of friendship.
So, at 34, after a lifetime of rejection and confusion in female relationships, I can’t say I know how to make them last. I know it’s lonely without them, but it’s an endeavour that has rarely been successful for me. I wonder if I’ll find my female counterpart but I’m starting to think I wasn’t built for one.