As the new year rolls in faster than any of us expect, a different kind of season comes into focus. It’s cold out, classes change, and new opportunities appear. We meet new people, and we keep some old ones. There’s something quietly special about the people we choose to keep close, whether we realize we’re choosing them or not.
The start of a new year is symbolic. It shows us what we want to carry forward and what we’re ready to leave behind. January becomes a time for goals, hopes, reflection, and, if we pay attention, the acknowledgment of who matters in our lives. This year, that feeling hit me harder than ever. There were people, situations, and habits I knew I needed to release. There were goals I was excited to chase — personal, academic, career, and creative. But for the first time, I felt completely certain about my closest friendships. They didn’t just fit into my life; they added to it. They made me better.
As I welcomed the new year, I found myself reflecting on my female friendships, which have quietly become such a defining part of my life. I’ve always valued companionship, but entering college, far from home and family, shifted something. Those friendships became a second family. That’s when I finally understood their importance. Growing up, there were times when I felt like I didn’t quite fit in, unsure of which crowd felt like mine. In these friendships, I felt something different: relief, belonging, and the comfort of being seen.
So, as we move through the new year and into the season of love, I want to reflect on the importance of female friendships and how they’ve shaped me over time.
What female friendships have taught me
I’ve always had friends of all genders, and I’ve never believed that friendship should be divided by gender. I enjoy the company of men as much as I do women, and my male friends bring a different kind of joy into my life: playful, unserious, and freeing, like a brief pause from everything else. But there’s something uniquely powerful about female friendships. No matter how much fun I have with my guy friends, that depth and emotional closeness is never quite the same. With my girls, I feel safe as if we’ve built an invisible string between us over time. As we form these friendships in adulthood, we begin to realize how irreplaceable they really are.
One of the biggest things female friendships have taught me is loyalty. You can feel when someone genuinely has your back — when they care for you without hesitation or doubt. There’s no jealousy, no competition, no hidden malice. Instead, you feel supported, seen, and built up. As I grew older, I realized my friendships shifted from quantity to quality. As a teenager, big groups and large social circles were what mattered to me. Now, everything feels more intimate and intentional. Since college takes us far from home, those deeper friendships matter even more. In many ways, we only have each other, and that makes these bonds feel irreplaceable.
Another thing female friendships have taught me is how deeply women encourage each other to grow. In the moments when I’ve doubted myself, my friends have been the ones pushing me forward. They understood what I was going through while studying for my hardest classes, comforted me when I felt stressed or stuck, celebrated my wins, and supported me through my losses, reminding me that rejection is just redirection. It made me realize that after my family, the first people to truly celebrate my success and be proud of me were my female friends.
Lastly, a small thing is the way it feels to simply be around them. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so excited to see my female friends. It’s coming home after a long day of classes, meetings, and studying to find my roommates sitting on the kitchen counter, cooking and laughing. It’s seeing my two best friends a few times a week when our schedules finally align, and feeling like I’m genuinely with family. It’s running into my wider circle at outings and feeling instantly lighter. It’s going back home and seeing the few girls with whom I stayed close, even after we all took different paths. That rush of joy, that feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else but in that moment. And that, to me, is one of the most beautiful things female friendship has taught me.
A New Year, Reframed
As the new year settles in, I’ve realized that the most meaningful changes in my life haven’t come from resolutions or reinvention; they come from the people standing beside me. Female friendships have taught me loyalty, depth, encouragement, and belonging in ways I didn’t know I needed. They’ve changed how I see myself and how I move through the world. And as I carry these relationships into another year, I’m reminded that becoming isn’t something we do alone. It happens in kitchens and bedrooms and coffee shops, in study rooms and on long drives home, in late-night conversations and quiet moments of understanding. Walking into the new year reminded me that friendship is its own love story, which is quiet, loyal, and endlessly transformative. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I can’t help but think about how beautiful it is to love and be loved by our female friends.