Hi readers,
I want to apologize for my absence for my newsletter the past few weeks. As some of you know, I have to prioritize working on my thesis and it has taken up most of my time and energy. I did not intend to neglect the newsletter and I am committed to providing you with high quality content. starting this week I will resume regular posting and you will receive a new post in your inbox every Sunday morning.
Now that I’ve apologized for my absence, let’s dive into a topic that’s been on my mind lately: adult female friendships. Over the years, I have realized that these friendships are a crucial part of my life, providing support, companionship and a sense of belonging. But as we grow older, our lives change and maintaining those friendships become increasingly difficult. In this post I want to explore the complexities of adult female friendships, from their importance to the reasons why they sometimes fail.
Let’s get started;
Many of us make our first friends on the playground and from there spend seven to nine hours a day spending time with the same people, in the same classes or extra-curricular activities. We develop bonds with no real effort needed to keep it going. However, as we transition to adulthood, maintaining childhood friendships can be challenging. As people move apart for school, or work, it can become challenging to keep in touch. I moved away from high school and it became difficult to maintain the same level of closeness. Let’s talk about my high school experience though.
As someone who went to an all girls high school (boarding), navigating female friendships was well… a unique experience. Living in close proximity to each other led to a mutual sense of camaraderie and mutual understanding as most of us were living away from home for the first time.
However, this also led to heightened emotions and drama as we navigated dealing with conflict in such a close knit community. We had a ‘class meeting’ every Tuesday that basically went like this; “there is someone, I won’t mention names, who CAN’T keep my NAME out of their mouths!!!” (so, unproductive). If you know me, you know how easily I make friends and just how many I have but this somehow worked against me in high school. I was always at the centre of rumours and all the drama and gossip! Though I’ll be the first to admit that I also didn’t put in effort to make ‘deeper’ friendships in school.
Finding a new tribe.
Therefore, before I headed off to university, I was anxious and was reluctant to make any new friends to avoid the drama. But university brought me a series of outrageous, laugh-until-your-belly-hurts experiences with women I didn’t know I needed in my life, until I met them. Going to concerts, plays, travelling and our impromptu plans to gate crush house parties (I also won’t mention names).
Contrary to the catty version of female friendship I had in high school, these new friendships were from that. These friends literally saved my degree, from helping write my dissertation, to sending voice notes explaining topics and sharing notes. We’ve survived mental breakdowns(yea, post covid was a weird time for my baddies), break-ups and parental dramas.
And it turns out, female friendship can literally mean survival. Research shows that women with early breast cancer were much more likely to survive if they have strong female friendships. (this is a fun fact I just learned about). However it is not always sunshine and roses.
Friendship Breakups.
In film and television, we often see female friendships romanticized and portrayed in an unrealistic manner where it is uncomplicated and lasts forever. Sex and The City being the obvious one, with Carrie Bradshaw proclaiming that her friends are the great loves of her life. It can also be portrayed on the other extreme where friendships are not as important as romantic relationships, whereas friendship breakups can hurt just as much if not more that romantic breakups.
My childhood friend and I had been friends for 14 years and then one day, nothing. She started ignoring my messages and I recently noticed that she blocked me on all socials( this is what triggered the article). I had no way of reaching her as we currently live in different counties and I don’t know why this happened. She just ghosted me!
But, turns out, karma is a bitch! I have ghosted friends in the past, which was not the best way to handle the situation. Although, we had only been friends for a couple of years, they were my first university friends and they deserved better. I thought I had genuine reasons for this, ‘they know what they did wrong’. Astonishingly, they felt confused, hurt and rejected just like I am. We ended up having a discussion about it, though the friendship may never be the same again, they were literally the first people to subscribe to this newsletter and they invited me for their graduation parties.
Contrary to what I thought, it seems that women hate confronting one another when a relationship is failing. This is puzzling because in both scenarios I presented we could talk for hours on end about anything and everything. So, why then are we so uncomfortable in airing our grievances with each other as adults? Are we all just afraid of confrontation and choose to avoid the situation by simply disappearing? I still don’t know.
The Bottom Line…
There are several reasons for friendship breakups, clash of values, communication breakdowns and simply just growing apart. One of the friends that I ghosted used to say that there are people who are like roots in your life(meant to stay) while other are leaves (here for a good time not a long time). So, in the case of my childhood friend, I was a 14 year leaf!
In conclusion, navigating female friendships and breakups are challenging but a normal part of life. It is crucial to remember that friendships are also subject to change and new relationships can be formed in the future. Treating our friendships as eternal and expecting them to be picture-perfect friendship groups portrayed in shows like Sex and The City, will be setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Remain open to new connections and you can move forward and thrive.
I love this!❤️
This is beautiful ♥️