Did we just become best friends?
The harshness of adult female friendships
Unfortunately for young girls, many things are thrust upon them at a young age. Beauty standards, Neat handwriting, and of course, the patriarchal conception of marriage. Before being of an age to understand love and all its complexities, a young girl knows that at the end of the day, it all comes down to the aisle, the dress, the man, and the bridesmaids.
My first bridesmaid responsibilities occurred when I was 2, a time of one’s life that is famously hard to recall. But slap me in a puffy dress and play the church organ, I will walk the walk with the best of them. I will be every ounce the bridesmaid a girl can be before she knows how to use the toilet independently. Unfortunately, Bridesmaids duties are a thing that often dwindles for a period of a girl’s life. Once not a cute toddler who will make the perfect flower girl for any family member in need, you will find that hormonal, acne-prone teenagers do not get asked to fulfil bridesmaids duties nearly as often.
Once the cruel 20s knock on the door, everyone starts to get married. It starts being the older siblings of your former classmates posting engagement photos, quickly turning into the girl who bullied you relentlessly in year 9 physics walking down a perfectly manicured aisle. What the fuck. Naturally, you begin to question life and all its challenges. For some, weddings make them desperate to enter relationships and shotgun wedding the whole thing with the man of last week’s dreams. For me, someone in a long-term relationship, I don’t question that, nor the prenuptial agreements, or what-age-is-the-right-age-for-a-sweetheart-neckline. I instead think ‘shit, who would be my bridesmaids?’
Okay Evie, calm down, marriage is a long distance out of reach, maybe your 10 year old sister will be old enough to be your singluar bridesmaid when the time comes. You could ask old school friends, of which you only communicate with one frequently, but miss all so dearly. Childhood friends! The girl who lived down the road, the girl who you became friends with because you both had the same first and middle names, the girl you called your best friend five ever, because 4ever just wasn’t enough for the two of you. The girls you work with, who you think you are real friends with, but what if they don’t feel the same about you, and you are in fact just a work colleague who they sometimes send TikTok videos to. What happens if one day I get married, and have no bridesmaids to share it with?
That’s enough about marriage. Although a real anxiety i have after a few too many instagram stories featuring Hen-dos where every girl is more gorgeous and intelligent than the last, I’m not spending my days hunting down girls to be a part of a non existant wedding party; I mean i’m sure you can rent a bridesmaid if it came to it. (Writers note: Bridemaids for hire are indeed a real thing and caused me to get distracted thinking about all kinds of screenplays you could make with that concept) No, this is about making and maintaining friendships once you leave education, something I am admittedly shocking at.
Sometimes I think about a friend I had for the majority of my primary school years. We were joined at the hip, doing everything we could together, after 5 years of heavy BFFing, we went to different secondary schools, thinking nothing of it. 6 hours of stupid school a day wouldn’t stop us from hanging out every weekend, right? We would still message every day, reading the same books, enjoying the same songs. Of course, every day is too demanding, We aren’t in primary school anymore, we have other lives to lead, but definitely meet up next week? Suddenly walking to school together every day becomes a ‘happy birthday!’ annually and eventually, just another Instagram like.
A friend I treasured so deeply, when I moved house at the end of last year, probably 9 years since we last socialised, I found a box full of momentos of our friendship, birthday cards, friendship bracelets, photos of things oh-so-important to a pair of 11 year olds. A Pandora’s box of how I should have maybe tried harder to stay in touch, a box that still sits under my bed as I type these words. I wonder if she remembers it as I do, if she remembers me at all. Whilst I stayed in a house mere minutes walk away from her childhood home, she went off to university in a city I have never been to, full of people to become friends with. I wonder if we’d speak if I saw her in the street?
Rachel green says “I got my girls” when asked if she’s ok. What happens when you don’t have your girls? I mean of course I have friends, I’m not completely alone out here. But I don’t have a core group. I have my boyfriend. I have old school friends who I interact with on the rare occasions we are all invited to the same place. I have old coworkers who I try to align schedules with so we can get a coffee and gossip about those we used to know. I have friends who have seen me at my drunkest, others who probably think I am sober as a nun. Is that just adulthood, you know people and you love them, but you second-guess if that’s enough. Would we still be friends if not thrust together in these exact circumstances that have put us in this moment? If I quit my job, would I still speak to all those people? If I moved to a new city, independent of educational needs or career, would I ever find my people?
Do you just approach people? A girl with kind eyes in a pilates class, someone getting the same coffee order as you in a queue, a woman with the most perfect bag walking past you in the street. Do you make them become your people. Do you have 15 minutes of idle chatter and say ‘did we just become best friends?’ How do I navigate it?
In my first year of primary school, there was something called the ‘friendship bench’. it’s exactly what it sounds like, biggest loser sits on it in hopes they don’t spend break time alone. 5-year-old Evie would spend the majority of playtime on the bench. surely eventually someone would come sit with me? I ceased to sit on the friendship bench after my mum had walked past the school and noticed me by myself, jumping through many hoops that inevitably led my teacher to forcing my classmates to play with me. ‘‘The lonely quiet girl has to play with us today’’ people would probably mutter when I would sit at their table with my ham sandwich. 6 year olds are mean.
My mum always told me that boys were better to be friends with than girls. Less drama. Maybe it worked for her. For a brief time it worked for me. At 15 I decided that girls were definitely too much drama, and that I totally wasn’t part of the problem. It didn’t take long until I had the harsh reminder that whether a boy or a girl, teenagers are always drama. Boys become less interested when they realise that you are not to be the Mila Kunis to their Justin Timberlake. Boys fight with fists first, with girls it’s typically words. Both as bad as the other, both enough drama to make one want to become a recluse, a wild species to only be seen on rare and special occasions.
Hiding away from life is a coward’s option, and baby I am a coward through and through. When friends started moving to university, taking a step I never cared for, I ran for the hills. I hid from messages, answering at only the most unsociable hours, if at all. It was jealousy, insecurity and self-destruction all rolled into one monstro elisasue of avoidance. In hopes people would forget about the girl who stayed home, never to be heard from again. A girl who didn’t need friendships to survive, not knowing it’s what I deeply craved the most.
Is maturing watching shows such as sex and the city or girls, realising that the normalised misogyny that made us hate taylor swifts girl gang, or think that all girls are bitches and not worth the time, has wrecked a formative part of girlhood? Having a sisterhood, people who can experience life at the same speed you are, all the love and heartbreak that comes out of the back end of adolescence. We can’t grow alone, why should we try to do it all solo? If I could go back, I would stay in contact with everyone I could, knowing some friendships are destined to fail, but with the knowledge that some of the most unlikely could flourish.
At 20 years old, life sometimes still feels the way it did 15 years ago, sitting on the friendship bench. I send messages to people who have definitely moved on, finding friends who message back at normal hours, who dont go distant and silent without notice, who never had to sit on a rainbow painted bench in an attempt to socialise, hoping i will get my second chance to find my girls, to assemble my bridesmaids. I’m New York City, waiting for my Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda.