I actually wrote a version of this blog about two months ago, but I didn’t love it enough to post it. However, since watching the Barbie movie and my Tik Tok being filled with video mementos to female friendships, I give you… ‘Female Friendship Trumps All’. Enjoy!
Entering my early twenties, I have recently learnt numerous things; how to make soup, that it’s okay that everyone is in different stages of their lives, you don’t need to end a night out with a kebab and, that your female friendships are probably the most important relationships you will ever have.
My female friendships are so rich, profound, and intimate. They understand me and everything I’m going through. The emotion of, “you have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you want to be thin; you have to say you want to be healthy,” as Ugly Betty perfectly summarised in the Barbie movie. Or the subconscious idea that we are a sisterhood, hyping each other up but simultaneously, most of the time, also tearing each other down. Your female friendships understand this!
I dress my best for my female friends, but they have also seen me looking my all-time worst. They have heard my ugliest secrets and inner thoughts, yet also heard my most poetic words about love and kindness. They pick me up when I am lowest and celebrate me when I have achieved something I deserve and have been working hard for. This is such a pure and special relationship.
I have learnt, your female friendships should also be the metric against which you measure your romantic partners. They should set the standard for how you should be treated in your love life. Personally, the standard that the women in my life have set, the way they celebrate me and see me, makes it hard for a man to even match.
When a love relationship begins in my life, I must consider, does this person love me as much as my friends do? Because I know that they can’t possibly love me more, so they will have to love me equally. This is a concept I believe all women should consider.
Call me lucky, but if I told my friends, hey, I feel like I don’t see you that much can you please make more effort to see me, or I really needed you in this time and I felt like you weren’t there for me; they would apologise a thousand times over and do better. Just like I would do for them. The commitment always goes both ways. Yet, I don’t think I could say the same for some of the men I have seen in my life or my friends’ lives.
So, to my friends I say, thank you. Our friendship has taught me what healthy love can be. I now have a level of expectation that no man should treat me any less than how you girls love, respect and cherish me. Even without romantic relationships in our lives, it’s a special idea to know, no matter what, I have you guys. You are the greatest love stories of my life.
As for Barbie, it’s kind of a special thing for all women to be currently banning together and feeling validated. Feeling like yes, thank fuckkk there is a real life visual and monologue explaining exactly how we all feel. Before, it was like this unspoken, secret emotion because we must “always be grateful” (I know, weird for us to have a secret emotion considering we are constantly criticised for having too much emotion).
So, thank you Greta (yeah, we’re mates). I have never felt like I could conquer the world more. Finally, you have released the truth Beyonce has been trying to scream about all these years. Women can run the world, and probably start a lot less wars. I mean… look at the very movie that was released the same day as Barbie. A movie about a war, started by a man, where a MAN made an atomic bomb.
That’s my ramble.
Ruby x
Comments