Monday, June 20, 2011

Rainbows, Unicorns, and Braiding Each Other's Hair


It has been quite some time since my last post, I know, but life picks right back up after a three-week vacation to Australia...which basically means I'm broke and have been working my ass off to pay the bills. Now that I finally have some free time, your *favorite blogger is back!
(*may not be your favorite blogger)

A large part of my trip to Australia was getting to know the other girls on the trip. For myself, friendship is not always easy to come by or to maintain with other women. Given how the media often portrays the relationships between us, I figure what better way to contrast that than by talking about my new friendships with five other ladies.

What, exactly, does a friendship among girls/women look like, or sound like? Is it all rainbows and unicorns and braiding each other's hair, as Rob Schneider would have had us believe in "The Hot Chick"? Or, is it more like cat fights and snide, bitchy comments shared between soap opera BFFs?

Sometimes the media presents us with polar opposites. When it comes to female friendships, I think they do exactly that. Either we see these relationships as shallow and childish or as fake and *steeped in jealousy. In reality, female friendships run the gamut between these two examples.
(*look up "Frenemies" in your personal slang dictionary to learn more!)

In three weeks, I went from hardly knowing any of the five ladies I stayed with to considering all five of them some of the coolest, funniest, and most fun ladies to be around--friends. From day one we went in with no expectations of actually getting to know each other as well as we did.

Through the time we spent together we ended up having many conversations as a group, or between just a few or a couple of us. We shared stories about our lives, our hopes, our loves and our families. Sometimes we were very serious and candid with one another, and other times we were so giddy and silly that we probably would have all had *milk coming out of our noses had we been drinking any *milk. We accumulated a bunch of inside jokes over the weeks. You know you've made some real friends when you have inside jokes together.
(*substitute Passion Pop...they know what i'm talking about).

We didn't just have good times together, though. By the end of the trip we did have our tiffs, and had caught on a bit more to our key differences. Yes, there was some talking about each other behind backs--but, do I dare say we did that because we're women and for some reason can't be trusted? Perhaps our gender and communication styles do play a part in the gossipy aspects of friendship, but guys certainly do the same thing. Studies have come out showing this.

For some reason, when it comes to female relationships, the focus always gets shifted onto how women are inherently jealous of one another and see themselves as being in competition with girls they think are prettier, smarter, or funnier than them. Or, they idealize female friendships as perpetual sexy-sleepovers...idk what's up with that...my sleepovers usually resulted in me nerding out with my BFF and making Barbie movies with her parent's camera. That was fun. What we don't often see are accurate representations of our relationships with one another. Relationships that help us grow as people and individuals; relationships that have a deeper meaning than just having someone to do our hair and makeup with.

I was never one to make a lot of friends with girls because I had bought into these stereotypes when I was younger and thought for sure other girls were too high maintenance for me. It's unfortunate, because that kept from having more girlfriends at this point in life. I don't keep friends too close because I have had this idea in my head that i'm not "fun" enough (i.e. sexy sleepovers) or shallow enough (soap opera drama is too much for this mama). Isn't that stupid? It's stupid and it's too bad. So ladies, remember we aren't enemies, frenemies, or just hairdressers and fashionistas. We are so much more and together as friends we have so much more we can accomplish. It's silly to waste times on those stereotypical types of friendships just because they fall into a category of what's acceptable for females to do together, or how to act together.