Making girl friends as an adult
N.B this post isn’t exclusive to women, but I know more about what it’s like being a woman than what I know about being a man. I imagine male friend culture is different, but I would love to hear more about this so in fact, if any males volunteer to write an article for me, or answer some questions… I would really appreciate that. Please get in touch via my email address or my instagram.
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Do you remember being little? Do you remember walking into the schoolyard for the first time, absolutely petrified?
I grasped my mum so tightly and begged her not to leave me in what seemed like a hellhole, but she unbuttoned my pink coat and told me everything would be okay!
Not making any friends – a huge fear. “Everyone’s in the same boat”, she told me, but it didn’t calm my apprehension. 5 minutes later I had forgotten to even say goodbye to her, as I linked my arms around my new best friend, Star and any fear I ever had… dissipated. It’s so weird isn’t it? Children could make friends with anyone and everyone. Even an awkward child like me who was scared of everyone and everything could not resist the promise to be “best friends forever.”
My ultimate childhood best friend, Gabby, wasn’t even a friend. She was like a sister; in fact we looked pretty similar so we played on the whole “sister” thing. We would have sleepovers in each others beds, we would braid hair, look at bums on postcards and giggle, our mums would even bathe us together. Not so weird when you’re 6.
And this culture carried on way throughout primary school, secondary school and even college (maybe not the bathing).
But my best school friend Emma and I, were unusually close. We would even text each other every single night before we went to sleep to remind each other that we loved each other. If we didn’t get the text, we would worry, and then berate each other in school the next day!
And how we became friends? I think I told her that I started my period. She was the only person who I knew had also started her period and I felt like I needed some moral support. Since then, we were inseparable. We would have sleepovers, and even spoon each other in bed eating ice cream when we were having a super bad day.
My 21st birthday slumber party – wearing garnier moisture bomb facial sheet masks
But then something weird happens when you become an adult, and the culture changes. It’s a culture I noticed first when I got my first ever job.
I walked into my brand new job in a shop, and realised that I would never make a girl friend so easily ever again. I walked into an environment, which already had a clique, a friendship group – and I was the outsider.
There was a girl who worked there, who I found so damn interesting. She was beautiful, funny, and a true good friend material. Is that a super creepy thing to say? You know when you can just tell you’re gonna properly get on with someone.
Where do you even begin? I wanted to be her friend. But she already had tonnes of friends and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. How do you ask a girl to hang out? The feelings of nervousness I had must have equated to how someone must feel to ask someone else out on a date!
It is kinda like a date! A friend date!
Then it clocked how most adults do this – alcohol. The alcohol culture is so dominant in making friendships. How easy is it to say “shall we go for a drink after work? had such a long day!” I realised we would never have a proper friendship that wasn’t just going out and partying.
I also noticed that so many women didn’t have the need for girlfriends. Suddenly as an adult, everyone started entering long term relationships. It is often these boyfriends who replace the need for a female best friend – and of course, every woman would put their partners before any of their girlfriends.
And I noticed my relationship with Emma suffered. Suddenly; without even talking about it, there was a shift in our friendship. We were both adults now and we had to question what was socially acceptable?
Was it still okay we walk down the street holding hands? Society puts a huge amount of pressure onto you as a young adult, forcing you to fit a stereotype. All of a sudden we were drinking coffees and talking about our favourite candle fragrances. We distanced ourselves from one another as we didn’t understand how our friendship fit in anymore with trying to be an adult.
Although I love that our friendship has lasted throughout these monumental shifts between childhood and adulthood, I can’t help but miss the times I could just crawl into her bed and cry.
I started to wonder… why?
It makes me realise that the friendships you have with girls during your school times are bound together by the fact we had to be in school. You didn’t choose to be put in a certain class, in the grand scheme of life; you don’t have a lot of choice.
You don’t choose who you like the most, you just hang out with who you can deal with the most and that often turns into a friendship. More often than not, when I left school I only stayed friends with 2 or 3 people. I realised that every other friend I made; I actually had nothing in common with, it was just convenient at the time to hang out.
In the real world, you meet hundreds and hundreds of people. You get to pick and choose your friends.
After leaving school, having only kept Emma as my 1 female friend in London, (my other female friend decided to bugger off travelling) I was quite lonely. I would rely on boyfriends and men to be my best friends. I would use them for gossip, putting face masks on, and taking pictures for my instagram. But let’s be real – it’s never quite the same, is it? I remember having my 18th birthday, and the only people who turned up for my drinks were my 1 female friend, my boyfriend at the time and my brother. 3 of us, awkwardly sat there in Be At One wondering why nobody else could show. Was it that I was so socially awkward? I just found it impossible to surround myself with a positive, girl gang!
When I was 20 years old and working in my second retail job, I met Courtney Axford. This girl: a total unique character. A soul mate in female form, who was a turning point in understanding female friendship for me. She was wearing gold glittery eyeshadow, flared trousers and massive doc marten boots. She had a David Bowie tattoo on her leg and she wore her hair wild with crazy blonde curls.
I went to introduce myself to her, and she flung her arms around me in a tight embrace, and say “Hi, I’m Courtney!” I’m not gonna lie, if you’re reading Court, I was so freaked out. Who hugs each other upon first meeting? I think I even asked her a few weeks after we met because I was so confused. But it was like a blast from the past, that very same day, we spent lunch together gossiping about our boy woes. It was like we had been friends for years. She didn’t care what the social norms were, she just acted how she wanted to act, and what felt natural.
Not long after I also met Fay, and Bronagh. This was the origination of a girl group, which formed right before my eyes.
Suddenly we were having pyjama parties, cooking and sharing food, and even having a spoon every now and then. We’d message each other long, floral messages, and remind each other how grateful we were to be in each others lives. I don’t think I’ve ever told any of these girls how unusual that was for me, and how much I really needed.
When I went through a break-up, I relied on them more than ever – and I don’t really know what I would do without these girls. I suppose I would have my mum, but there’s not so much lack-of-sex frustration talk you could do with your mum.
As I no longer had a boyfriend, my friends were the literal goddesses of my life, and I told them everything. We were finally at a place where we no longer had to adhere to the “boundaries” that adults put in place for social interactions.
Kids don’t have those boundaries. Well, they either don’t have them or they are just too little to understand the adult boundaries. You don’t see kids meet and start to worry “do we hug, kiss or shake hands?” “do I introduce myself or do I just smile and wave?” “is it one kiss or one kiss but on each cheek?”
It’s not always good, as we do need to teach our children from a very early age what the boundaries are, especially involving consent. But wouldn’t it be nice if the social boundaries just slipped a little bit?
So instead, we don’t have these rules and we just guess. It works okay.. most of the time. Until you lean in to kiss someone and they jab you in the stomach with the hand they had out to shake yours.
But the guessing game is hard, to understand where you stand with someone. And mostly I feel like the anxiety is in both of yours heads; so much so that you end up not having a beautiful friendship that you could have had; as you’re constantly wondering and questioning! “Are they hanging out with me to be polite, am I annoying them, are they actually busy or avoiding me?”
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There is another reason why it is so hard to make female friends; and it’s a slight generalisation so I apologies in advance, and it’s also something which is changing for the better.
It’s no surprise that there is a catty culture between women, it’s inevitable. I like to think of it as an evolutionary trait that all women have. Back in a more animalistic time, other women were competition. They were a threat, and a distraction to the families we were trying to create, and the men we were trying to hold down.
Times are different now, but still; when we see a beautiful woman walking down the street, most women would say something negative way before they would compliment her. Perhaps it’s jealousy, and we cannot bare admitting that another woman is attractive.
I remember my mum would follow up a compliment with a derogatory word. “Look at you losing all that weight! Bitch.” Then her and her friends would crack up in a fit of giggles. It is almost as if this has created a culture where we have a negative view of other women and you are naturally inclined not to like them until proven otherwise.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that women are much harder to win over than men – and I think we look for validation between our friends and other women before we look for validation in men. I know for sure that I wear make-up to work because I want to be taken seriously by the women buying the products, it’s definitely not to attract any kind of male. What stops me from posting a certain picture on instagram or wearing a certain thing outside is the potential judgement I feel from my female followers on instagram.
I feel like this culture is definitely deteriorating since the female empowerment movement – which I am so grateful of. Most of the women in my life now consistently give me support and positive guidance – I just feel like it took me a while to find the right girl gang for me! These amazing photographs were taken on my 21st birthday slumber party. Fuck the rules, if you want to ask a girl out on a proper friend date, go for it! They’ll most likely be super chuffed you asked, be your best friend forever and then years later you’ll find them in your house wearing scary face masks!
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And the age old questions – where you do meet these ultimate babes?
2 of my girl friends are from school. We’ve had to work hard at making sure we continue to see each other and put effort in allowing those relationships to continue blossoming! The majority of my other friends I met at work. I am lucky though to work in an environment which is such a positive and empowering place where I have met all of these like-minded women!
And also – another great way to meet friends is to join classes. I now take a dance class twice a week, and I attend yoga; both places where I have met women and made friends! I even made friends on a self-empowerment course I decided to take to help me on my mental health journey.
It is so easy to meet women you get on with, and then for any friendship to fizzle out or never really take off for one reason or another – maybe you don’t have enough time or maybe you’re too shy to keep asking. I know for sure, sometimes it takes weeks to get together with someone because we’re both too busy – but these friendships are vulnerable to falling to the wayside.
You have to nurture relationships like you do with romantic relationships. You have to make time for your friends, arrange dates, and communicate with them. It’s why you might see me brunching and coffee-dating so regularly in my week! It’s vital (even if just for the gossip). Just make sure, to dedicate a part of your week to your friends, and in that time, don’t pick up the phone to your boyfriend, don’t text your mum. Give them all the time and attention they need – and I promise you, before you know it; you’ll have a girl gang as glam as me!
It starts with picking up the phone; or texting an old friend. Why don’t you call up a strong and empowering woman in your life, or even go through your phonebook and identify the girls you haven’t caught up with recently, and invite her out for a coffee today? Chances are, you’ll meet up and it will feel like nothing has changed at all!
Let me know what your thoughts on this topic is; and whether you struggle with the same thing!
Jessy Miller
@jessymillerx