Parks and Recreation had it right when they coined “Galentine’s Day,” a whole day dedicated to female friendships—“ladies celebrating ladies,” as Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, put it. This holiday is accumulating some well-deserved fame, and just recently passed on February 13th. Is the fact that Galentine’s Day immediately precedes Valentine’s Day an implicit message that our friendships should come before our romantic relationships? Back to you, Amy.
I do adore this line, but it’s also very heteronormative, so, to reframe: your friendships are just as fulfilling, just as sustaining, just as grounding, just as intimate, and just as valid as your romantic relationships, however those manifest, or if they do at all. This isn’t to dismiss romance or sexuality or the places where those two meet (and cross with friendship just as fluidly), this is just to say: romantic love is by no means the only love, or the best love, or the most necessary love. I might even say the opposite.
Personally, I think female friendships make the world go round.
Maybe my situation is unique—if so, I want to know what I did to get so lucky—but I have at least ten women in my life that I confidently consider a “best friend,” and for many of them, this has been the case for over seven years (some for as many as nineteen years, i.e. my entire life). My relationship with each one of them is indescribably unique. Nothing is more important to me. Nothing recharges my batteries quite the same. Nothing gives me more opportunities for growth, empathy, and connection. I am so grateful every day to have friends that are my home, and I value these relationships infinitely more than romantic ones, which typically don’t foster the same authenticity or exhibit the same longevity.
I think it’s hard to refute that friendships between women are unique. Perhaps it’s biological, and women are just hardwired to have more nurturing relationships. Or maybe it’s cultural, and the effective feminization of vulnerability and non-romantic love is, in part, to blame for the “no homo” epidemic. Maybe a combination, along with hundreds of other factors that are equally dangerous/problematic to generalize. I fully acknowledge that there are men with equally intense and intimate friendships as those of women, but the larger picture does demonstrate, anthropologically, that longer-lasting, more open, and better-maintained friendships typically occur between women.
But in the end, the safest thing to do is to just speak for myself, and I personally feel that my friendships with other women are my main source of encouragement and inspiration. I think what is most magical about my people is that I’m able to round them all up for my birthday, or some other occasion, or even no occasion at all, and I don’t have to babysit. I don’t have to facilitate the conversation or make sure everyone is included. My friends love me, and through the transitive property, they love whomever I love, as well. I’m in awe with how well my various friend groups (with some very different personalities) mesh, it’s almost as though it were written in the stars, or the mutual love for the mutual friend acts as its own love language. My chosen family is growing and changing all the time, but there are quite a few veterans that have my heart in a very permanent way, and I think (and hope) they feel the same way.
So, in a way, this is my ode to Sex and the City. To Broad City. To Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. To “ladies celebrating ladies.” I think there is no better cause for celebration. Women are amazing; the women in my life are so special that this article is coming apart at the seams simply because I don’t have words for how wonderful they are. If I ever have a daughter, I think I’d like to teach her early on that when girls say they’d rather stick to guy friends because girls are “too much drama,” this often directly translates to, “I am not prepared for the expansion of my life-force through deep, sustained, unforgettable connections with other girls.”
And lastly, if you aren’t in a romantic relationship, don’t feel guilty if it’s something you want/are seeking. Just don’t feel like you’re doing life wrong, or that you aren’t growing or learning about yourself without a romantic element. And if you are in a relationship, that is just as wonderful. Just make room for your friends, forever and always. Your mental health and your physical health will thank you.
Image Credit: Emma Derstine, Giphy