4 Tips For Fostering And Navigating Female Friendships
Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was someone’s best friend. I wanted to wear those matching Justice friendship lockets, go to sleepovers at each other’s houses, whisper secrets to each other in front of everyone else, and have a million unexplained inside jokes. BFF was a title I wanted to win, and I was determined to earn it. So, I studied friendship rigorously. I ran surveys in my head about what made my friends like me the most, noted styles of clothing that would help me fit in better, and worked to curate a palatable, likeable version of myself who could be someone’s best friend.
However, nothing has taught me more about friendship than losing friends and growing closer with new ones. I think friendship, especially female friendship, is so integral for girls in their teens and 20s. No one understands us like each other. So, here is a short list of practices I try to follow to be a good friend.
1) “And you know what, that’s okay.”
When I came to college, I met one of my best friends during Week of Welcome (WOW). I remember seeing her around in my WOW week group and wanting to talk to her. Finally, as we were walking towards the football stadium, we ended up walking side by side. Instantly, I thought she was one of the warmest and kindest people I’ve ever met. She made me laugh so hard that I forgot how nervous and anxious I had been about making friends in college. We stuck together for the rest of WOW week, and now I spend most of my free time hanging out with her and our other friends in the building.
Since becoming so close, her vernacular became my own. She always says the phrase, “and you know what, that’s okay,” whenever she is a little frustrated or something didn’t go as planned. I love this phrase because I think it’s the perfect way to handle being annoyed or frustrated with a friend. In college, you are spending way more time with your friends than you did in high school. At least for me, almost all my free time is spent socializing with my friends.
However, I am a very sensitive person, and I get overstimulated pretty easily. College was a hard adjustment for me because so much was happening at once. You’re dealing with new adult responsibilities, adjusting to a new city, living with people you just met, and not having the support system you always had around. I found myself being more short-tempered and frustrated than I usually am with these new changes. Something that helped me navigate this is my friend’s phrase, “and you know what, that’s okay.” Every time I feel myself getting easily ticked off with someone around me, I try to repeat that to myself. Usually, our friends are not the root cause of our issues or annoyances. I found that, for me, if I am feeling irritable or frustrated, it has to do with something I am dealing with internally. The last thing I want to do is take my internal frustration out on my friends. They don’t deserve that, and this phrase helps me separate my annoyances from my friendships.
I also feel like the phrase helps me be less judgmental. It accepts that everyone is different and doing their own thing, and you know what, that is okay. It is so important to have friends who are different from you because they make you more open-minded and add so much depth to your life. The last thing I want is one of my friends feeling like they can’t tell me something or be themselves because they feel judged by me. Everyone is different, and everyone has the right to choose how they want to live their life. I can’t change a friend the same way I can’t change someone I am dating. I may not want their lifestyle, but I can always be a supportive shoulder and a listening ear to someone I care about.
2) Keep it real
I can’t lie, I love it when my friends just do something for the plot. It is so fun to gather around the next morning after a night out and chronicle an insane night over breakfast. However, doing things for the plot does not mean it makes you or your friend happy, and it is important to recognize that friends are more than just a form of entertainment. When I first become friends with someone, I almost never disagree with something they say. I don’t want them to dislike me or feel like I am judging them. But after a certain point, you’re not being a good friend by blindly agreeing with everything they say or encouraging them to do things they might want to do, but are not good for them.
For instance, another close friend of mine from high school is really good at this. She’s a business major, and I would always tell her that business is perfect for her because she is so articulate and great at building relationships. One way she does this is through her honesty. She is someone I, along with many others, go to for advice. She is compassionate with her honesty, and I can feel that she genuinely cares about me, even when she calls me out for something I did wrong. I always know she is telling me the truth, even when it is hard for me to hear.
Friends who tell me the hard truth are the kind of people I feel like truly care about me. I found being honest and keeping it real with my friends builds genuine trust between us.
3) Show up for your friends
As someone who has moved around a lot, I struggled to find a sense of community. Most people I went to high school with have known each other since elementary school. I never understood the references they made, and I never got to build that sense of understanding they had with each other by growing up together. However, I learned how to build my own community by showing up for my friends.
Little things like showing up for my friends’ senior nights and dance recitals, or just reaching out to make plans, were habits I made sure to follow in high school. It shows my friends that I care and that I am supportive of them. Showing up for your friends could also mean being their biggest cheerleader. Hyping them up for all their cool achievements and making them feel good is so important for friendship.
4) Fight (And Make Up) Like Sisters
I wouldn’t say that I have been through a serious friendship break-up. However, at the beginning of my senior year of high school, a close friend completely stopped talking to me. It kept me up for hours wondering what went wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint one moment when we had gotten into a huge argument, but her new behavior felt so sudden and visibly different. After a few weeks of being irritated, but mostly just confused, I finally pulled her aside and asked if I had done anything wrong. She said I didn’t, and actually told me she thought I was mad at her. I never was, and I thought everything would go back to normal. But it didn’t, and we were never as close as we used to be. It’s normal for friendships to fade as people grow and change, but this situation still aggravates me almost a year later. Looking back, I definitely did do something that bothered her, but I guess I’ll never know what.
This is such a huge issue in friendships. I know it is scary to call out your friend for something that you feel they did wrong. It makes your friendship feel more serious, and you never know how the other person will react. But it is so normal to get into fights with your friends and get irritated by them. My roommate and I were talking about this, and she said:
“Friends are not people who get along all the time” — Riya’s super cool roommate
And she’s so right! One of my closest friends of eight years (my future maid of honor, honestly) and I have fought a lot. We have been friends since early middle school and are pretty different people. I am much more open about my emotions, and very anxious, and she’s more laid-back, yet sensitive. It was hard to navigate our different styles of communicating and expressing our feelings in high school, but the reason we are still friends today is because we are not afraid to call each other out. Just a couple of weeks ago, I texted her about something she said over the phone that started to bother me. We chatted about it, she apologized, and all was good! She does the same to me when I say or do something that she doesn’t like. It can be uncomfortable, awkward, and weird. However, I think being able to do that is a sign of a true friend. I think people are losing friendships that can become so much deeper, or just keeping their friendships at a surface level by refusing to communicate.
I specifically like the term “fight like sisters,” because it implies that you and your friend will always bounce back, just like family. No matter how many times you fight, you always end up finding a way to make up. Friends are the best kind of family. They aren’t hanging out with you because they find you exceptionally attractive, and they didn’t carry you in their womb. They just like being around you, and having a friend that feels like family is one of the biggest privileges.