You can rip me to shreds for saying it, the age-old unfaced fact of womanhood, but the fact is as Valentine’s day approaches and we come buzzing to our friends the secret comes boiling back to the surface. We have frenemies. Not the kind you’re thinking of (being an avid Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, etc. fan), but a different much scarier kind. They’re the girl you whine to when your boyfriend forgot the flowers and chocolates, the one who puts her head on your shoulder and says “be my Valentine?” when she doesn’t have a better alternative, and the one who squeals when you tell her you finally went on a date with that guy she secretly thinks is just a little cuter than you..but she’d never tell you that.
You don’t need to comment..although some of you will and I’m sure you won’t have very nice things to say: “How shallow are you that you think other people secretly hate their friends!” “I love every single one of my friends. They’re what keeps me alive. LOVE THEM.” See, but you don’t. And whether you want to admit it to yourself, to me, or anonymously (yet again to me) is your choice. I’m not saying this type of “love” doesn’t exist, just that it’s rare and comes in spurts.
It’s in our nature, as women, to compete. Ironically men seem to think we’re not competitive in things like, say, sports, but that’s another article for another time because you see what’s really the issue at hand is that women make a critical mistake. We compare ourselves, in every respect, to people who are different from us in every way. How much sense does that really make? But let’s review. She threw a fit when you went out with your boyfriend because she doesn’t feel like you’re there for her. She talks about herself so constantly that you and your other friends contemplate an intervention. She doesn’t realize she’s being hugely promiscuous and its making you look bad. Wait, this is your friend?
The truth is some of our best friends are people we only tolerate part of the time. Is this normal? Can every girl relate to what I’m listing off? I’m in a sorority so naturally people seem to think it appropriate to diagnose that I pay for my friends. Hypothetically that means I pay about $300 in dues for…about 50 friends: seems like a pretty good deal to me now that I see it in numbers. But, in all seriousness, although I pay for other things (I’ve seen the budget breakdown, we’re very transparent) I don’t pay for friends. In fact I usually advise girls that you won’t find 50 best friends in a sorority: you’ll find your 5 (10 if you’re lucky) and then get along well with everyone else..hopefully. Usually most people do, if not we try to mend ourselves from the inside. We’ve gotten very good at it. Why? Because the only way not to turn mentally insane in a room full of 50 girls is to stop taking things personally, and the only way to give unbiased advice is to be fully uninvested in the outcome.
I would do almost anything a sister asked of me, but I honestly wouldn’t die for her. And anyone who says otherwise is just over doing it. How many people would you really die for? As a matter of fact, let me help you. If you can find a friend you would absolutely die for, and I mean really, truly, Bruno Mars style die for: run away, you’re too invested. Friendships like that shouldn’t exist. We force ourselves to make more feelings than are necessary, and along with those come jealousy, resentment, and even all out hate.
So this Valentine’s day, let your friendships breathe. Come back to them with the solid sense that your friends do not define you. While your at it, write yourself a mental note, stick it up there right next to “brush your teeth in the morning” and other such essentials. It should say something like “Friends are only part full-time”. If you let your friend complain to you, and then run to your boyfriend to complain that she always complains, you really shouldn’t have sat through the former. It doesn’t help her that way, and it just wastes time: it’s not in your job description to sit through every fit and every mini-crisis if you’re going to develop a gag reflex for them.
Luckily for me, my friends aren’t really complainers, I am.
But I’ll be working on that.