223. Why are female friendships so hard?
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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of your 20s. This is an episode that I've wanted to do for such a long time and it's just kind of continued to sit on the list waiting for me to like pick it up one day and

And today is that day because we are going to be talking about female friendships, specifically the preconception that they are inherently difficult, that they always end up spiraling or codependent or toxic and why that may be or if that is even the case. Spoiler alert, it's a lot more complicated than that. I

I also asked you all the listeners to contribute to this episode. I wanted to hear your stories of female friendship, the good, the bad, the in-between, what you've learned, what you wish you'd known sooner. And what I was really surprised by was how absolutely divided we are. There were two very, very distinct boats. Boat one was people who have maybe had some bad experiences in the past, but

but truly believed that female friendship was one of the greatest gifts, was so meaningful, supportive, intimate. They wouldn't give it up in a second. The second group of people were those of you who really had been burned perhaps a few too many times, who saw female friendships as too dramatic, too overhyped, too intense. I'm someone who sits right in the middle. I think

Your friends are your first loves, and that often means that they will also be some of your first heartbreaks. Humans are inherently very, very flawed. But the nature of female friendships, being that they are so vulnerable, so deeply feeling, so intense, makes them equally special and sometimes disastrous.

And I think that they have an increased tendency to fall apart because of the things that make them so beautiful, because they are so intimate and expressive and deep, because we place a lot of expectations on them. But also because of this female rivalry that is very much stoked by a patriarchal society that would have us compete for male attention, that would make us constantly compare ourselves, right?

What I want to do in this episode is explore this and really dive into the complexity of female friendship. I really want to move past all those stereotypes that women can't have long-standing friends because they are just too catty or bitchy or dramatic or mean and actually look at the psychology here. Why is it the case that so many of us are having an experience in which our

our female friendships burn so bright but also end up burning out quite quickly or exhaust themselves so soon. Beyond that, how do we recover from the tragic female friendship breakup and

and manage that heightened magnified bond between us and our girlfriends how do we make sure that those relationships and those connections last there is so much to explore today i also have to say once again a huge thank you to you the listeners and to those of you who contributed thank you for your honesty thank you for your candor thank you for how expressive you all were and

It is bound to be a very illuminating episode, I think. And if you've ever asked yourself, why is this so hard? Why is this so strained when it comes to your female friendships? This is a great place to start. So without further ado, let's get into it.

I'll go on the record straight out the gate and say that I don't think that female friendships are inherently bad or hard or toxic. I don't think that they're doomed to fail. Rather, I think that part of what makes female friendships so tricky and intense is also what allows them to be so beautiful and fulfilling. The good and the bad go hand in hand.

Female friendships are so deep and intimate, but that also means that there are higher expectations attached, which can weigh heavily on the relationship. Female friends have so much in common. We have so many of the same emotions, the same feelings towards the world, a lot of the same experiences, but that can also make it a hotbed for comparison. We are

often end up telling our female friends everything. They make us feel so strong, so supported. But when the friendship changes, when something slightly shifts, gets in the way, it can be so devastating because we feel the separation even more profoundly.

In my experience, the female friendships that work really, really well are those that find that really small, tiny slice of balance. Each person expects the same from the other person, is giving the same, feels the same about their friend. They are mutually secure or have done the work to kind of address their insecurities.

And they also tend to have the same conflict style. So it's not skewed. One person, you know, doesn't enjoy confrontation whilst the other person is conflict averse. That's something that we don't often think of. But I hear so many examples of people with friends who suddenly up and left or suddenly confronted them with all these problems that have been building up for ages and

And I think that a lot of what that comes down to is having a skewed idea of conflict and a skewed idea of how to address problems.

If you want long-lasting friends, sometimes you do actually have to be able to have it out and argue and work through it. But it's about coming to that from the same kind of perspective. And as women, we are so conditioned into being conflict-averse, to not coming off as dramatic. We don't want to fulfill that bitchy stereotype. And that often has the opposite effect of making us more emotionally cut off.

We have such intense, close connections that eventually every emotion becomes magnified. But the problem is that we have only ever learned how to cope with the fluffy, good feelings. So the friendship is really, really intense. But so is the times when someone disappoints you or someone hurts you. But we don't know how to have those difficult conversations. It's something that I think men have an advantage in when it comes to friendship.

they are typically allowed to be more confrontational because people expect them to be less in control of their emotions.

And they've also normally been conditioned to be more outwardly expressive for specific feelings, not for, you know, feelings like sadness or talking about what's making them depressed or unhappy. No, those things we know are very much a suppressed emotion for men. But when it comes to things like anger, frustration, stress, those are permitted to have an outward expression. So, of course, that often gives them sometimes an excuse to be violent.

on a deeper level, when men are angry at a friend, they tend to just say it or show it. Women are a lot more subtle. Some people might say that women play mind games. I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. I think that we just don't want to jeopardize the friendship by just speaking out our fears and speaking out our problems. But that actually ends up having the reverse effect of making the friendship worse.

harder. And I was speaking to my boyfriend about this, just kind of getting his opinion on his friendships with other men and how they resolved conflict. Firstly, he said that they didn't have any conflict, which I was like, okay, well, congratulations. But when I pushed him a little bit further, he was like, well, we'll just have a fight. And he said this, and I don't know, take what you want from this. But he said, I'd much rather get like a punch in the face and have it be over and done with and know how they felt.

then slowly be iced out over the course of three months and lose that friendship entirely.

And studies have shown that men and women do fight differently for men and especially between the same gender within the same sex. So men fighting men, women fighting women. It's very different. I feel like everyone has some idea of that. But for men, in whatever form it is, it's often more direct and practical. Some would say violent. For women, it can also be violent, but it can be emotionally violent. And it's often more indirect and once again, emotional violence.

which leaves a lot more room for interpretation and hurt feelings without resolution. So that's my first big point. Maybe female friendships are, you know, harder because we actually don't know how to fight with each other. We don't know how to communicate the hard things and we don't want to come off as if we're being too bitchy or demanding or emotional or

by addressing our feelings but we also I think have this aversion to talking about the hard things about our relationship with someone because we think that we won't be able to recover from that we're so used to being supportive being there for them in their conflicts with other people we don't want to experience that ourselves and

Of all the stories you submitted, one of the biggest themes was also friendships that just ended because someone ghosted the other person. That was such a huge theme. Sometimes even after five to ten years of friendship, here was one of the stories shared by a listener. My best friend of 13 years just stopped talking to me. She said I had done something, refused to say what, refused to meet for weeks, refused to speak to me.

Then, when I couldn't do the one date she suggested, she kicked off and said that I was being unfair and dramatic. It's such a weird thing because I really don't know what went wrong. The last time I had seen her, she'd come to a party I'd hosted for Galentine's Day. She shut herself in a room, had taken the gifts, barely spoke, and then when I mentioned a photo of the group, ran from the room. It has been strange. I was the one to comfort her after that experience. I was the one to try and fix it.

In the end, after some advice from my friends, I realized I was a 24-year-old in a teenage argument and told her I wasn't going to continue the friendship. That just complete shutdown from her end must have been so difficult to manage. And here's the thing, I'm sure she has her side of the story as we all do. But what I find equally interesting and strange about female friendships is that, again, we talk about nearly everything else in our lives.

But we really struggle with talking about our feelings towards a person to that person, especially when they are deemed to be negative. The easiest solution, therefore, is to just avoid them altogether and to cut them off. You know, openly communicating with your friends is hard at first.

But I think it's something that you realize as you mature, you get what you give from that argument, from that conflict, from just putting it all on the line, right? Often having it out, saying what you're feeling, really addressing the core problems or rot in your relationship provides you with a better relationship, your friendship better.

because it's part of your journey. We're going to move on from that now because I feel like we've spent enough time talking about conflict, but this does kind of link me to a separate point about why we find female friendships so hard, but also so rewarding. They are just more expressive. They are more complex and therefore more intense and

A big element of this is the level of disclosure that we have in female friendships, which is basically a fancy way of saying we tend to tell each other everything. There is nothing that is off limits, too private, too TMI. We're constantly chatting about every little detail in a way that men typically don't.

I had one male listener write in and say, I always felt jealous of female friendships and wish I had that same bond with my male friends because from the outside, female friendships seem so involved and deep. I feel like none of my male friends want to hear about how my day went, what I ate for lunch, what I'm feeling, my heartbreak. Telling each other everything might seem kind of unimportant and obvious, but

But that level of disclosure builds familiarity quick. It builds trust rapidly, both of which are core foundations of interpersonal attraction and bonding. The same kind of bonding that happens sometimes between siblings or family members or between you and a romantic partner. The more you share, the more memories you have, the more you let people into your private, hidden, internal life,

the deeper the connection becomes and we get to that level of vulnerability faster because we tend to be more open sooner into the friendship. Why exactly do we do this? So there is this textbook titled The Evolutionary Psychology of Women that is fantastic. I never thought that I would be recommending a textbook, but here I am.

And I love this. I don't know why. I just find this book really, really fascinating. And they have this whole chapter on female friendship titled More Like a Sister, Women and Friendship. And in it, the author speaks about how female friendships are firstly more intense and exclusive than those of men because of how much we communicate. We already knew that. But this causes the friendships that women develop to really mimic the close communal relationships that

normally found between blood relatives, which is why we feel like sisters. We feel like there is, we're more than friends. We're more than friends. There is this strong focus on empathy and a responsiveness to other people's needs.

Maybe in the past, from an evolutionary perspective, this helped support childcare needs where women needed that trust through chatter in order to rely on each other more, or it would have helped with survival when the men were away to ensure that the women were bonded within the family group, even when they weren't related to still feel like they were related. And what does this actually produce? What does this constant chatter communication bring with it? Well,

Well, mainly it's intimacy and it's vulnerability. You feel like you know someone so well and they know you. As one of you put it, my female friends are the only people who see me for who I am as a person. My parents see me as their daughter, my siblings as their little sister and my boyfriend as his girlfriend.

And all of those are select versions of me. But my girlfriends see me exactly how I come. They don't care if I'm obedient or sexy or smart or loyal. They like me just for me. And there is a real platonic love there. Letting someone be their authentic self is an act of true love.

So firstly, we have a vulnerability that emerges and from that vulnerability comes the second component, which is expectation.

If I've opened myself up and you have as well, if you know me deeper than anyone has ever known me, I begin to expect something more from you. You know, when I need help with something, when I'm going through a hard time, a breakup, you'll be there for me. That's what we begin to believe. We have this mutual acknowledgement that if we trust each other, if we're vulnerable with each other and therefore we love each other, we'll show that through effort and favours and time.

But at what point do those expectations get out of hand? And what happens when you slip up? You know, you're going through a hard time. You're misreading signals. You can't show up for your friends the way that they have for you in the past.

Then things kind of explode. The reason that female friendships are so hard is because there is a huge expectation to, yes, almost be like sisters or family to one another. And sometimes that's really hard to do for everyone around you. It's really hard to do for every single one of your friends. You get kind of tired and...

It kind of feels like eventually you need to take a step back. You need to see other friends. You need to be your own person or you're going to let them down. Here's a story about that from a listener.

When I was in my 20s, I found it really hard to maintain close female friendships and have girlfriends because I would expect too much of them. I had a friend who we will call Sally, who I got really close to in my first year out of high school. We would do everything together. I'd never really had a best friend before and she made me feel so happy, safe, seen, all of those things. But then I started to notice her putting some distance between us. I would expect her to answer instantly and she no longer was.

Or I would do favors for her and she wouldn't reciprocate. She also started to make better friends. The expectations we have are sometimes too high because our female friendships can mean so much. But you can't rely entirely on one person because sometimes that would smother them. So I've learned to lower my expectations. This made me quite sad to hear because it's a question I think a lot of us have when it comes to friendship.

Do you give up that heightened level of intensity and intimacy? Do you lower your expectations just a little bit for the sake of longevity, even if you don't get as much out of the friendship? Or do you bet everything on this friendship? Do you get the matching tattoos? Do you become insanely close, knowing that this could eventually change and you could lose this bond?

It's complex. There is no one answer. Yet again, that's the dilemma when it comes to these almost codependent situations. They burn bright, but they can burn quick and eventually you need to settle down. That's going to be an adjustment period. And during that period is when things can become tricky managing expectations.

Now, something we need to talk about that we haven't yet is jealousy. Jealousy, envy, competition. Because that is possibly one of the biggest contributors to female friendship breakdown I think I have ever encountered. And you were all on my side with this. So many of you noted that women are constantly pitted against each other in almost every circumstance by a patriarchal society that

benefits from insecurity. It benefits from women focusing on seeing each other as the problem rather than a system that means we feel like we can't all succeed. Think about it in an online context. What are women not judged on in comparison to other women? Trolls, online critics, people in the comments will always pit women against each other based on their bodies, their success, their relationship, their careers, etc.

And it's hard not to buy into that, especially, especially when male attention gets involved. So we're going to talk about all of that and more after this short break. Stay with us.

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Society has such a weird obsession with pitting successful women against each other. For what reason? Truly for what reason? For entertainment? To fuel insecurity? To rage bait people and get likes? To get views? Attention?

I truly don't know, but it really does impact how we are able to relate to each other because it's difficult not to buy into this narrative that only a few of us can succeed, only a few of us can be the best. And it's not that we're competing with men, we're competing with each other. We are both each other's best friend and confidant.

but also enemy and number one competition based on how society continues to paint and view women. There is a real history of female rivalry that comes from a historical lack of opportunities for women due to discrimination and inequality. It

It's only in the last 70 to 60 years that women really began to be allowed into leadership roles, into highly esteemed jobs, into positions of success and power, even into some universities. Universities like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, a lot of them didn't even go co-ed until the 1920s or even the 1940s, 1950s.

And even then classes were separated and only about 15% of graduates were female. When there is a smaller pool of opportunities for a section of society and for a section of the population that makes up 50% of the world but is only given a small sliver of what is available for the other group,

Naturally, that breeds competition and it breeds competition not between the two groups, but between the group that has less, between women, between the group that is deprived of equality.

That scarcity mindset still really haunts female friendships today, despite that inequality, I think, starting to diminish. If you know that all the men in your group will get an internship, but there are only two spots for women and 10 of your friends are competing, they're of course your friends. But, and you know, there is that sense of camaraderie, especially in a male dominated space, but

But it's hard not to also see them as a bit of an enemy because they might get the opportunity that you really wanted and it can impact your relationship in a way that sometimes men don't have to deal with. That is the psychology behind scarcity or there only being one seat at the table. When something is rare, we place a lot of value on it, which also means greater rivalry between the people that all want it.

That competition may be less exaggerated now, but for our mothers and our grandmothers generation, it was very prominent. And those are the people who we learn a lot of our social skills and way of relating to others from. It's interesting really to me to hear how my mom and my friends' mothers have such different attitudes around their female friends than we do now.

An example of this I always think of is one of my best friends a while ago bought the same dress as me and it's this really cute black beach dress and she texted me about it and she sent me this really nervous voice message and it was like five minutes long of her being like, I'm so sorry, I bought the same dress as you, I'm going to return it, you can hate me if you want.

And it was honestly so strange. I was like, no, no, I love this. Like the dress is gorgeous. If it was on sale, you should definitely keep it. I love being naturally with my friends who doesn't love showing up in the same outfit as someone.

And she called me like 10 minutes later after I messaged her back and she was like, dude, I'm so sorry. That was all my mom. My mom was getting in my head. She was traveling with her at the time. She was making such a big deal about this. She kept saying that, you know, I was going to be mad that she was a bad friend for copying me. That is a mindset that, yes, I think is slowly becoming extinct, but is still present in the generations of the women before us in a

in a subconscious way. Like I don't always think that it is them trying to tear each other down, but I do think unconsciously back then there was more of a sense of competition between their fellow woman, especially women who were in quite a successful group. Women know it's harder to get ahead. So we develop more jealousy, envy, we compare more frequently and that can wear down the relationship.

Let's hear from a listener about this because literally I read her DM and I was like, this is spot on exactly what we're talking about. I had a friend whose life fell apart simply because I was doing better than her. We ended up going to the same uni, so it felt like we were starting off on the same foot. Very quickly, I began achieving a lot of amazing things in college and my personal life.

and it led to the deterioration of our friendship because she confessed she couldn't handle me having more than her and being quote-unquote better than her. She even ended up starting therapy because of it. We fell out and haven't been the same since. I truly feel like I'm grieving this friendship because she meant the world to me, and I really value platonic friendships as someone who is single. Anyway, she's moved on with new friends who are in a similar place in life than her and seems very, very content.

That's so unfair because often the first people we want to tell about our successes, our accomplishments, our big wins is our closest friends.

It almost feels less important if our big moments and milestones can't be shared, especially considering the bond we spoke so highly about. And when you are a single woman, right, it's like you don't have that person that you're in a relationship with to immediately tell everything to. That role is taken on by your friendships, right?

Some people are inherently more insecure about their worth regardless of gender. So do I think that women are just naturally poised to undermine each other and that's what makes our friendship so hard? No, I don't. I think that we actually need to start talking about the impact of male attention as part of this equation as well.

Men hold a lot of power. And yes, I mean power in a business success career sense, but also in a sexual sense. Those two things can, you know, also come together as well in some of the worst ways. But what is known is that when men like us, that can help us get ahead and we are socialized to desire patriarchal validation and

If a man thinks you're funny or good looking or interesting, you feel like you're in the in-group. And once you're in that in-group, you feel protected. Maybe that in-group is in the workplace where once the guys think you're one of them, you get included in more networking opportunities. You seem more chill and easygoing. You're one of the boys. You're less likely to be picked on or told that you're too difficult.

It also happens when it comes to romance. You know, finding a partner or a boyfriend can make us feel more secure in our future and protect us from the stigma of being single as a woman in her 30s, as a woman in her 40s, who society really requires to be coupled and married and to be a mother.

that naturally pits us against each other for male attention and approval. And that approval feels more special than female validation because of how the power is dispersed. It's why in a 2019 study, these authors suggested that women stereotypically gossip more about other women as a way of decreasing the value and standing of a female rival who is competing for that desired male attention.

It's where slut shaming by other women also comes in. Putting another woman down by suggesting that she's less pure, less loyal, less honest, less whatever. Not as good as us because she sleeps around. But maybe also feeling jealous of the fact that her being a so-called slut means that men must like her. You can kind of see how complex this gets. I hope that

You kind of see where I'm coming from. But at the end of the day, this vying for male acceptance and recognition makes female friendships hard because we are once again competing for something that will give us power, reassurance, safety, opportunity, maybe even love that we feel like we can't all get at the same time.

This actually has a name, especially when it comes to women who are attracted to men. It's called female intrasexual competition. And I would really, really recommend looking this up.

Let's hear from a listener about this. I hate to admit that a boy came between me and my best friend because it feels so cliche, like women only care about men over their friends, but it's what happened. I started a new job and this really nice guy, charming, sweet, attractive, was working with me. And through drinking, late nights at the office, we became friends. I confided in my best friend who I'd known for five years that I really wanted more and I thought that we had a future together. And

And she told me to invite him to my house party to hang out outside the office.

Long story short, he came and I was so nervous, but pretty quickly she spent the rest of the night flirting with him. By the end of the night, they were making out in the corner. The trust between us was ruined at that moment and I was devastated. Flash forward two years later, they are dating and I haven't spoken to either of them in over a year. I really miss our friendship and wish that we hadn't lost it over some silly boy. You know, that example in that story is so rough, but I think is also...

Kind of the perfect example of what I mean when I say that vying for male attention creates competition. And that competition erodes the trust that is so innate and beautiful in female friendship. The emotional environment created by all that, the intensity, the comparison, the competition, it becomes so heightened that it can be hard not to slip into competition.

Quite an unhealthy cycle in our female friendships of sometimes needing distance, then feeling guilty for needing distance, pulling them even closer, feeling overwhelmed or confused, which ends up having the same end. You know, we end up seeing a fizzle or seeing a friendship breakup. Now, this deserves special attention. Female friendship breakups. These kind of situations have undoubtedly hurt me more than some romantic breakups.

Because you kind of expect men to let you down. And I'm really sorry to any men listening, but that was my experience with a lot of my exes. I was never totally surprised when it ended up going wrong. Every romantic relationship has a potential expiration date. You always, you know, at the back of your mind, at times think, you know, what happens if we break up?

I don't think we have that same pessimistic attitude towards friendship, or at least I didn't, or I don't. It feels much more long lasting. So when it comes to an end, it can be devastating because it's unexpected. You never predicted it. You never prepared for it.

I'm going to give you guys a bit of my own story now. I've been relying too heavily on your contributions, but I had this best friend when I was in university. We lived together for all four years. She was like the, I think she was the only person to speak at my 21st. We were so close. And then one day she quite literally moved cities and

And never spoke to me again. Or really anyone from that time in our lives. Just packed up and left. And it was devastating. And three years on, I still have dreams about her. I still think about her, you know, at least once a week. Funnily enough, we now live in the same city. And actually in the same suburb. So I see her quite a bit. And I saw her about a month ago and had this moment where...

where I just kind of watched her from afar with her boyfriend and felt that same really deep sting in my chest all over again. You know, like you were going to be my kid's godmother. For a while, you know, this person knew more about me than anyone. She was the person I went to cry to, who I think I loved more than anyone else. I don't think any of my exes really knew me that way. And you just really miss them. You really miss the potential of who this person was going to be.

Of course, we know from the psychology around breakups, because this is a breakup, that what we're feeling is a unique kind of pain and a social pain. The grief associated with losing a valued social connection like a best friend is processed in the same area of our brain that processes when you bang your toe or when you accidentally cut your finger while cooking.

Specifically, that pain, the social pain and the real pain is processed by the somatosensory cortex or the dorsal posterior insula. What that basically means is that this loss, this emotional social loss often has a very tangible sensory component that we feel painfully.

friendship breakups also threaten and really harm core parts of our social identity as in you know I know who I am because you are my friend I am your friend you are mine you love me I'm a good friend to you I feel seen by you

A lot of our identity sometimes does come from those relationships with other people and who we are in relation to them. But when that connection is abruptly interrupted or severed, it can leave us feeling really lost and confused and rethinking not just our values or our sense of self, but also like, did I deserve this? Am I actually a bad person? Who do I share things with? Who else knows me this way?

It's very isolating on all fronts and it's very devastating to say the least. So how do we prevent this? Obviously, I think not all friendships are meant to last.

Their time has come. Sometimes you've outgrown each other and it's a natural separation. But despite, you know, maybe some of the negativity around female friendships that we have highlighted today, they are deeply, deeply important and intimate and vulnerable. And they do sometimes take the place of family or of partners.

It's like the quote that your best friend, you know, will always be at your wedding, but your boyfriend or your girlfriend might not be. Like they're meant to outlast a whole lot of other relationships that we have. I think it's just nice to have someone who has seen you at every stage, at every age and, you know, that you've been lucky enough to develop in parallel with. So let's talk about some tips for maintaining those female friendships, even when things get a little bit difficult. So

So tip number one, communicate just as much about your frustrations as you do about anything else. I have the saying that someone is only a true and long-lasting friend when you've survived your first argument, your first fight, your first bicker, because I believe that that is a huge sign. If you can get through that, if you have spoken about it, that you love and respect each other enough to do the uncomfortable thing for both of you and for the sake of the relationship.

If you feel like your friend is distant, if you're feeling like they're jealous, they're prioritizing other people over you, maybe it's become one-sided, say something. It feels awkward. And sometimes I do think we shy away from that because we think that it will end the relationship. But at that point, if you are harboring all these really deeply seated thoughts

fears, anxieties, frustrations, the relationship is doomed anyway because you're going to be overwhelmed by the resentment and bitterness that will build up. So you kind of have one of two options. Let the relationship die in silence or kind of fight for it. It doesn't even need to be a fight. Just a moment of honesty where you apologize, you open up, you accept responsibility, you admit, you cry, whatever it is you need to do. I think that that is a really important mark

of a good friendship is if you're able to do those things together. Secondly, just because they're doing a similar thing as you, whether that's at school, in the workplace, in your careers in general, it doesn't mean that they're competition. Actually, they can be your inspiration instead, a sign that you can and are doing it too, and that you can, you know, go to each other for advice, go to each other for feedback,

When you find yourself comparing, remember that everyone can win and that success is always going to look different on different people. And also, there is no point getting everything you want if you don't have true people to share it with.

And that includes these friends. I get the inclination to sometimes see them as competition, especially because of how hardwired our brains are by patriarchy, by so many other things. But please fight against that urge. Speak their praises when they're not around. Be outwards and loud about your admiration for them. And I think that that outwardness and that loudness and that

that vibrant approval of like yes my best friend is the shit she is cool even if we are in the same industry even if we are doing the same thing like we are we do this together not against each other being very like I said loud about that kind of scares away the insecurity and it scares away the people who want to come to you and implant that competition in your friendship

Thirdly, let the friendship change. I saw this amazing perspective around the difference between friendship and romantic relationships. Relationships have these defined stages of commitment.

You know, you move in together, you get engaged, you get married, you might have kids. Friendships, on the other hand, don't have those same obvious milestones. Because of this, there is more room for transience, inconsistency. You can also have more than one friend in your life in a way that, you know, it's not typical to have more than one partner. So it's kind of like our romantic relationships have this growth trajectory where

And our friendships don't have the same kind of path. And so you have to take a step back sometimes and just let them change and develop as they naturally would. Don't get too panicked by the times when one of you is more distant or busy. Let the friendship fade for a little bit when someone moves or someone is traveling. I just think that you need to let the person you love, your female friend, your friend of any gender, let them...

you know, change alongside you and let yourself shift your expectations for the chapter that you're in rather than where you feel you need to be. Really base your friendship on the season and what's going on around you. And I think that that allows it to have a more healthier, healthier life, I guess. I

With every long friendship, there are years and times that you're closer and periods where there is a bit more distance, so you just have to lean in. Finally, this might sound strange, but do more than just talk. Do activities as well. I feel like men are always doing things with each other. They always have activity-based hangouts, like they're doing sport or video games or whatever. And we can learn from that. Talking about our feelings, catching up is great, but so is making memories beyond our emotions.

it's not me saying, you know, be less feeling, don't talk about that. But I think that we also need to have something else to base our friendship on rather than just talking about what's going on.

I was on a girls trip with one of my best friends recently and we hadn't seen each other in over a year. We booked an Airbnb, so it was just the two of us. And we spent three days walking around this beautiful neighborhood, coming back to our space, cooking meals together, going out.

And it just felt special being able to actively live my life with her rather than just talk about it. And it's something that I want to bring to the friends that I see in my everyday rather than just once a year. I want to finish on a positive note with one more listener story that I think is

sums everything up perfectly for me and is such a testament to how beautiful and meaningful and important female friendships are despite their downsides. So let's hear from this final listener. I can count my genuine female friends on one hand. I don't need a whole lot of friends. At the age of 34 and with some life experience under your belt, you realize that quality always trumps quantity.

My girlfriends now are women who I know I can trust and rely on for anything and vice versa. There is never any pressure, never any drama. If there is something bugging us about one another, we are open enough to give and receive feedback in a respectful and constructive manner, not to tear each other down.

No longer do I have time for people who leave me feeling anxious, drained, annoyed or pessimistic. Not everyone is for you and you won't be everyone's cup of tea either and that's okay. How perfect is that? And I just loved that it came from someone who was no longer in their 20s who's kind of like,

Out of the woods. Out of the chaos of this decade. Because we have a lot to learn from that example. We have so much to learn from the fact that maybe the older we get, the more the drama kind of doesn't fit our lives anymore. The meanness. The indirectness.

It just doesn't have a place and you've got to really find your people who you can openly communicate with, you can have hard conversations with, who make life easier and lighter rather than harder. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you learned something about your female friendships, about why they might be difficult, sometimes for all the best reasons, not for the bad reasons, not for the hard reasons. It's just because they are so vulnerable and expressive and sometimes...

That just makes everything else more intense as well. If there is someone who you think would enjoy this episode, maybe your female bestie, maybe one of your girlfriends, feel free to share it with them. Share a link. It helps the show grow, helps us reach new people. Make sure that you are following along for future episodes and that you leave a five-star review if you feel called to do so on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening. And big thank you for making it this far. If you did, I really appreciate it.

you're sticking around and I appreciate you listening to this episode and hopefully enjoying it as always until next time stay safe stay kind and please be gentle with yourself we will talk soon

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