Growing up, all my friends were of the opposite sex. Many of the girls I knew growing up, especially in my formative years, weren’t the nicest people. I was bullied profusely by my fellow girls. Therefore, I stayed away from most of them. I also liked, and still like, lots of traditionally “guys things,” like sports and cars.
Thus, even in college, I tended to shut out most of my fellow females as I cultivated friendships. As I’ve neared the 40-year mark, however, I’ve truly discovered the importance of creating and maintaining friendships with other women. It is good for my mental health.
Isolation = Depression
My guy friends are great. They teach me things I cannot learn from the women in my life. I also have sisters, but they are much younger than I and very close in age to each other. I love them, but I will never have with either of them what they have with each other. That’s okay.
When I was younger, I let that isolation lead to depression, as it naturally can. Humans are built to socialize. Historically, we grouped ourselves according to gender, tasks, etc. Though this grouping was pragmatic in nature, it still built camaraderie and kept our ancestors from many of the mental illnesses we see today.
By isolating myself from making female friends, I was only making myself more unhealthy, mentally and physically. Health is a circle. If you are mentally unhealthy, you will be physically unhealthy, and vice versa. We need to tackle our mental health just as deliberately as we tackle our physical health.
Age = Wisdom
As I grew older, I began to realize that, hey, not all women are mean bullies. Some of us do indeed mature, and it isn’t as though I didn’t have any female friends. College afforded me the opportunity to meet women with whom I am still friends more than 15 years later.
Yet even college friendships waxed and waned, some to the brink of destruction. What I learned with age is that though I did need female friendships, I didn’t need all of them. Not all friendships are good for us.
Toxic friendships are just as bad for us as not having any friends. I had one friend who declared herself to be my best friend, but whenever I needed her to be there for me, it was a chore. When I moved 20 minutes away from her instead of just five, she whined that I was leaving her to be closer to other friends.
I had just bought a house all by myself, yet my supposed best friend made me feel as if I was abandoning her. Toxic friends don’t celebrate with you. They complain instead. This “friend” had serious mental health issues, so I always felt guilty about getting upset when she treated me so poorly. I finally realized it was time to put myself first, and I discontinued contact with her. Especially after her husband, who I never liked, wrote me an email telling me I was a bad friend.
Tribe = Empathy
Once I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of female friends, I truly learned the value of those friends. I can get a little good-natured sympathy from my guy friends about my crush on Benedict Cumberbatch. Hell, more than one happily married male friend gleefully shares Cumberbatch related material with me all the time.
However, it’s my female friends who truly empathize with me about things like what it’s like to be a single, middle-aged woman finishing grad school. Guy friends aren’t likely to tell it to you straight. Most are afraid of hurting your feelings. My girlfriends tell me the truth. If I’m being melodramatic, I’ll be told so.
I can simply vent to my girlfriends, too, about anything from my love life to my family. Again, the level of empathy is greater with my girlfriends than it is with my guy friends. I’m not talking about whining, like the toxic friend I dumped. I’m talking about venting all my feelings on a topic, knowing I won’t be judged for what I’m saying or about whom I’m saying it. The older I get, the more disinclined I am to vent about something to a guy friend. Tech or sports, maybe, but I also have girlfriends who empathize with my love for those things.
All of this empathy leads to a boost in self-esteem that I can’t get from guy friends. Even the little self-esteem boost of my girlfriends empathizing when I’ve spent an entire day working with debilitating cramps is more than my guy friends can give me.
In the end, there are just times when I want my girlfriends more than I do my guy friends. They make me feel better about myself.
Photo Credit
Pinky Swear – Free Image From Pixabay
Guest Author Bio
H. E. James, MBA
Hattie is a writer and researcher living in Boise, Idaho. She has a varied background, including education and sports journalism. She is a former electronic content manager and analyst for a government agency. She recently completed her MBA and enjoys local ciders.
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I had my eyes opened a few years back when I realized how modern culture discouraged women in terms of promoting friendships. If you watch any shows (especially those targeting the younger crowd) they love to show that women are constantly stabbing each other in the back, while the guys form life long bonds. Bros before hos. All you have to do is apply the Bechdal test to be shocked. Is there two female characters in it that have names? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk to each other about something other than a man? It’s astonishing how many movies cannot pass this simple test.
I found that I had been conditioned to say shitty things about my fellow females without even realizing what I was saying. “I prefer working with men, because they’re easier to get along with.” The reality is that I’ve worked with some of the most amazing people in the world, and the majority of them were women. That’s not to say that all of them were wonderful, some of them were down right sneaking and conniving, but guess what? Some of the men were complete asshats as well. The fact of the matter is that no matter the gender, the ethnicity, the religion, the profession you will find both great people and awful ones and every type in between.
The sad thing is that I see a trend coming on strong from younger women who are falling for this crap. The other day I was listening to a young woman in her twenties talk about how she didn’t like feminists. They were all lesbians. The fact of the matter is that we should all be feminists, both male and female. The more equal rights in a country, the higher the standard of living is for the population. The questions to ask these women are…Do you want to be equal? Do you want the same pay as a man doing the same job? Do you want to be able to have the vote, buy property, control over your own body, rights like everyone else? If the answer to that is yes, then you are a feminist. (No matter your sexual orientation.)
As women we need to stand up for each other and keep demanding our rights until it’s no longer necessary and that starts by being friends.
Gab, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I think your final point is the greatest one! We can accomplish so much, as men and women, by simply being friends!