Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here, back for another episode as we, of
Speaker 1: course break down the Psychology of your twenties. This is
Speaker 1: an episode that I've wanted to do for such a
Speaker 1: long time, and it's just kind of continued to sit
Speaker 1: on the list waiting for me to pick it up
Speaker 1: one day, and today's that day, because we are going
Speaker 1: to be talking about female friendships, specifically the preconception that
Speaker 1: they are inherently difficult, that they always end up spiraling
Speaker 1: or codependent or toxic, and why that may be or
Speaker 1: if that is even the case. Spoiler alert, it's a
Speaker 1: lot more complicated than that. I also asked you all
Speaker 1: the listeners.
Speaker 2: To contribute to this episode. I wanted to hear your
Speaker 2: stories of female friendship, the good, the bad, the in between,
Speaker 2: what you've learned, what you wish you'd known sooner, and
Speaker 2: what I was really surprised by was how absolutely divided
Speaker 2: we are. There were two very very distinct boats. Boat
Speaker 2: one was people who have maybe had some bad experiences
Speaker 2: in the past, but truly believed that female friendship was
Speaker 2: one of the greatest gifts, was so meaningful, supportive, intimate,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't give it up in a second. The second
Speaker 2: group of people were those those of you who really
Speaker 2: had been burned, perhaps a few too many times, who
Speaker 2: saw female friendships as too dramatic, too over hyped, too intense.
Speaker 2: I'm someone who sits right in the middle. I think
Speaker 2: your friends are your first loves, and that often means
Speaker 2: that they will also be some of your first heartbreaks.
Speaker 2: Humans are inherently, very very flawed, but the nature of
Speaker 2: female friendships, being that they are so vulnerable, so deeply feeling,
Speaker 2: so intense, makes them equally special and sometimes disastrous. And
Speaker 2: I think that they have an increased tendency to fall
Speaker 2: apart because of the things that make them so beautiful,
Speaker 2: because they are so intimate and expressive and deep, because
Speaker 2: we place a lot of expectations on them, but also
Speaker 2: because of this female rivalry that is very much doked
Speaker 2: by a patriarchal society that would have us compete for
Speaker 2: male attention, that would make us constantly compare ourselves. What
Speaker 2: I want to do in this episode is explore this
Speaker 2: and really dive into the complexity of female friendship. I
Speaker 2: really want to move past although stereotypes that women can't
Speaker 2: have long standing friends because they are just too caddy
Speaker 2: or bitchy, or dramatic or mean, and actually look at
Speaker 2: the psychology here that why is it the case that
Speaker 2: so many of us are having an experience in which
Speaker 2: our female friendships burned so bright but also end up
Speaker 2: burning out quite quickly or exhaust themselves so soon. Beyond that,
Speaker 2: how do we recover from the tragic female friendship breakup
Speaker 2: and manage that heightened, magnified bond between us and our girlfriends?
Speaker 2: How do we make sure that those relationships and those
Speaker 2: connections last. There is so much to explore today. I
Speaker 2: also have to say once again a huge thank you
Speaker 2: to you, the listeners and to those of you who contributed.
Speaker 2: Thank you for your honesty, thank you for your candor,
Speaker 2: thank you for how expressive you all were. It is
Speaker 2: bound to be very very illuminating episode, I think, and
Speaker 2: if you've ever asked yourself Why is this so hard?
Speaker 2: Why is this so strained when it comes to your
Speaker 2: female friendships. This is a great place to start, So
Speaker 2: without further ado, let's get into it. I'll go on
Speaker 2: the record straight out the gate and say that I
Speaker 2: don't think that female friendships are inherently bad or hard
Speaker 2: or toxic. I don't think that they're doomed to fail. Rather,
Speaker 2: I think that part of what makes female friendships so
Speaker 2: tricky and intense is also what allows them to be
Speaker 2: so beautiful and fulfilling. The good and the bad go
Speaker 2: hand in hand. Female friendships are so deep and intimate,
Speaker 2: but that also means that there are higher expectations attached,
Speaker 2: which can weigh heavily on the relationship. Female friends have
Speaker 2: so much in common. We have so many of the
Speaker 2: same emotions, the same feelings towards the world, a lot
Speaker 2: of the same experience, says, but that can also make
Speaker 2: it a hotbed for comparison. We often end up telling
Speaker 2: our female friends everything. They make us feel so strong,
Speaker 2: so supported, But when the friendship changes, when something slightly
Speaker 2: shifts gets in the way, it can be so devastating
Speaker 2: because we feel the separation even more profoundly. In my experience.
Speaker 2: The female friendships that work really, really well are those
Speaker 2: that find that really small, tiny slice of balance. Each
Speaker 2: person expects the same from the other person is giving
Speaker 2: the same, feels the same about their friend. They are
Speaker 2: mutually secure or have done or have done the work
Speaker 2: to kind of address their insecurity, and they also tend
Speaker 2: to have the same conflict style, so it's not skewed.
Speaker 2: One person, you know, doesn't enjoy confrontation whilst the other
Speaker 2: person is conflict averse. That's something that we don't often
Speaker 2: think of, but I hear so many examples of people
Speaker 2: with friends who suddenly up and left or suddenly confronted
Speaker 2: them with all these problems that have been building up
Speaker 2: for ages, and I think that a lot of what
Speaker 2: that comes down to is having a skewed idea of
Speaker 2: conflict and a skewed idea of how to address problems.
Speaker 2: If you want long lasting friends, sometimes you do actually
Speaker 2: have to be able to have it out and argue
Speaker 2: and work through it. But it's about coming to that
Speaker 2: from the same kind of perspective. And as women, we
Speaker 2: are so conditioned into being conflict averse to not coming
Speaker 2: off as dramatic. We don't want to fulfill that bitchy stereotype,
Speaker 2: and that often has the opposite effect of making us
Speaker 2: more emotionally cut off. We have such intense close connections
Speaker 2: that eventually every emotion becomes magnified. But the problem is
Speaker 2: that we have only ever learned how to cope with
Speaker 2: the fluffy good feelings. So the friendship is really really intense.
Speaker 2: But so as the times when someone disappoints you or
Speaker 2: someone hurts you, but we don't know how to have
Speaker 2: those difficult conversations. It's something that I think men have
Speaker 2: an advantage in when it comes to friendship. They are
Speaker 2: typically allowed to be more confrontational because people expect them
Speaker 2: to be less in control of their emotions, and they've
Speaker 2: also normally been conditioned to be more outwardly expressive for
Speaker 2: specific feelings, not for you know, feelings like sadness or
Speaker 2: talking about what's making them depressed or unhappy. No, those
Speaker 2: things we know are very much a suppressed emotion for men.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to things like anger, frustration, stress,
Speaker 2: those are permitted to have an outward expression. So of
Speaker 2: course that often gives them sometimes an excuse to be violent,
Speaker 2: But on a deeper level, when men are angry at
Speaker 2: a friend. They tend to just say it or show it.
Speaker 2: Women are a lot more subtle. Some people might say
Speaker 2: that women play mind games. I think it's a little
Speaker 2: bit more complicated than that. I think that we just
Speaker 2: don't want to jeopardize the friendship by just speaking out
Speaker 2: our fears and speaking out our problems, but that actually
Speaker 2: ends up having the reverse effect of making the friendship harder.
Speaker 2: And I was speaking to my boyfriend about this, just
Speaker 2: kind of getting his opinion on his friendships with other
Speaker 2: men and how they resolve conflict. Firstly, he said that
Speaker 2: they didn't have any conflict, which I was like, okay, well, congratulations.
Speaker 2: But when I push him a little bit further, he
Speaker 2: was like, well, we'll just have a fight. And he
Speaker 2: said this, and I don't know, take what you want
Speaker 2: from this, but he said, I'd much rather get like
Speaker 2: a punch in the face and have it be over
Speaker 2: and done with and know how they felt, then slowly
Speaker 2: be iced out over the course of three months and
Speaker 2: lose that friendship entirely. And studies have shown that men
Speaker 2: and women do. We fight differently for men, and especially
Speaker 2: between the same gender within the same sex, So men
Speaker 2: fighting men, women fighting women it's very different. I feel
Speaker 2: like everyone has some idea of that. But for men,
Speaker 2: in whatever form it is, it's often more direct and practical,
Speaker 2: some would say violent. For women, it can also be violent,
Speaker 2: but it can be emotionally violent, and it's often more
Speaker 2: indirect and once again emotional, which leaves a lot more
Speaker 2: room for interpretation and hurt feelings without resolution. So that's
Speaker 2: my first big point. Maybe female friendships are harder because
Speaker 2: we actually don't know how to fight with each other.
Speaker 2: We don't know how to communicate the hard things, and
Speaker 2: we don't want to come off as if we're being
Speaker 2: too bitchy or demanding or emotional by addressing our feelings.
Speaker 2: But we also, I think, have this aversion to talking
Speaker 2: about the hard things about our relationship with someone because
Speaker 2: we think that we won't be able to recover from that.
Speaker 2: We're so used to being supportive, being there for them
Speaker 2: in their conflicts with other people, we don't want to
Speaker 2: experience that ourselves. Of all the stories you submitted, one
Speaker 2: of the biggest themes was also friendships that just ended
Speaker 2: because someone ghosted the other person. That was such a
Speaker 2: huge theme. Sometimes even after five to ten years of friendship.
Speaker 2: Here was one of the stories shared by a listener,
Speaker 2: My best friend of thirteen years just stopped talking to me.
Speaker 2: She said I had done something, refused to say what,
Speaker 2: refused to meet for weeks, refused to speak to me.
Speaker 2: Then when I couldn't do the one date she suggested,
Speaker 2: she kicked off and said that I was being unfair
Speaker 2: and dramatic. It's such a weird thing because I really
Speaker 2: don't know what went wrong. The last time I had
Speaker 2: seen her, she'd come to a party I'd hosted for
Speaker 2: Gallantine's Day, shut herself in a room, had taken the gifts,
Speaker 2: barely spoke, and then when I mentioned a photo of
Speaker 2: the group, ran from the room. It has been strange.
Speaker 2: I was the one to comfort her after that experience.
Speaker 2: I was the one to try and fix it. In
Speaker 2: the end, after some advice from my friends, I realized
Speaker 2: I was a twenty four year old in a teenage
Speaker 2: argument and told her I wasn't going to continue the friendship.
Speaker 2: That just complete shut down from her end must have
Speaker 2: been so difficult to manage. And here's the thing. I'm
Speaker 2: sure she has her side of the story, as we
Speaker 2: all do. But what I find equally interesting and strange
Speaker 2: about female friendships is that Again, we talk about nearly
Speaker 2: everything else in our lives, but we really struggle with
Speaker 2: talking about our feelings towards a person to that person,
Speaker 2: especially when they are deemed to be negative. The easiest solution, therefore,
Speaker 2: is to just avoid them altogether and to cut them off.
Speaker 2: You know, openly communicating with your friends is hard at first,
Speaker 2: but I think it's something that you realize as you mature.
Speaker 2: You get what you give from that, from that argument,
Speaker 2: from that conflict, from just putting it all on the
Speaker 2: line right often having it out, saying what you're feeling,
Speaker 2: really addressing the core problems or rot in your relationship
Speaker 2: provides you with a better relationship, Your friendship improves because
Speaker 2: it's part of your journey. Or we're gonna move on
Speaker 2: from that now because I feel like we've spent enough
Speaker 2: time talking about conflict. But this does kind of link
Speaker 2: me to a separate point about why we find female
Speaker 2: friendships so hard but also so rewarding. They are just
Speaker 2: more expressive, They are more complex, and therefore more intense.
Speaker 2: A big element of this is the level of disclosure
Speaker 2: that we have in female friendships, which is basically a
Speaker 2: fancy way of saying we tend to tell each other everything.
Speaker 2: There is nothing that is off limits to private, to TMI.
Speaker 2: We're constantly chatting about every little detail in a way
Speaker 2: that men typically don't. I had one male listener write
Speaker 2: in and say I always felt jealous to female friendships
Speaker 2: and wish I had that same bond with my male
Speaker 2: friends because from the outside, female friendship seems so involved
Speaker 2: and deep. I feel like none of my male friends
Speaker 2: want to hear about how my day went, what I
Speaker 2: ate for lunch, what I'm feeling my heartbreak. Telling each
Speaker 2: other everything might seem kind of unimportant and obvious, but
Speaker 2: that level of disclosure builds familiarity quick it builds trust rapidly,
Speaker 2: both of which are core foundations of interpersonal attraction and bonding,
Speaker 2: the same kind of bonding that happens sometimes between siblings
Speaker 2: or family members, or between you and a romantic partner.
Speaker 2: The more you share, the more memories you have, the
Speaker 2: more you let people into your private, hidden, internal life,
Speaker 2: the deeper the connection becomes, and we get to that
Speaker 2: level of vulnerability faster because we tend to be more
Speaker 2: open sooner into the friendship. Why exactly do we do this?
Speaker 2: So there is this textbook titled The Evolutionary Psychology of Women.
Speaker 2: That is fantastic. I never thought that I would be
Speaker 2: recommending a textbook, but here I am, and I love this.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I just find this book really
Speaker 2: really fascinating. And they have this whole chapter on female
Speaker 2: friendship titled more Like a Sister Women in Friendship, and
Speaker 2: in it the author speaks about how female friendships are
Speaker 2: firstly more intense and exclusive than those of men because
Speaker 2: of how much we communicate. We already knew that, but
Speaker 2: this causes the friendships that women develop to really mimic
Speaker 2: the close communal relationships normally found between blood relatives, which
Speaker 2: is why we feel like sisters. We feel like there
Speaker 2: is we're more than friends. We're more than friends. There
Speaker 2: is this strong focus on empathy and a responsiveness to
Speaker 2: other people's needs. Maybe in the past, from an evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 2: did this help support childcare needs where women needed that
Speaker 2: trust through chatter in order to rely on each other more,
Speaker 2: or it would have helped with survival when the men
Speaker 2: were away, to ensure that the women were bonded within
Speaker 2: the family group even when they weren't related to still
Speaker 2: feel like they were related and what does this actually produce?
Speaker 2: What does this constant chatter communication bring with it? Well,
Speaker 2: mainly it's intimacy and its vulnerability. You feel like you
Speaker 2: know someone so well and they know you as one.
Speaker 2: If you put it, my female friends are the only
Speaker 2: people who see me for who I am as a person.
Speaker 2: My parents see me as their daughter, my siblings as
Speaker 2: their little sister, and my boyfriend as his girlfriend, and
Speaker 2: all of those are select versions of me. But my
Speaker 2: girlfriends see me exactly how I come. They don't care
Speaker 2: if I'm obedient or sexy, or smart or loyal. They
Speaker 2: like me just for me. Where is a real platonic
Speaker 2: love there? Letting someone be their authentic self is an
Speaker 2: act of true love. So firstly, we have a vulnerability
Speaker 2: that emerges, and from that vulnerability comes the second component,
Speaker 2: which is expectation. If I've opened myself up and you
Speaker 2: have as well, if you know me deeper than anyone
Speaker 2: has ever known me, I begin to expect something more
Speaker 2: from you. You know, when I need help with something,
Speaker 2: when I'm going through a hard time a breakup, You'll
Speaker 2: be there for me. That's what we begin to believe.
Speaker 2: We have this mutual acknowledgment that if we trust each other,
Speaker 2: if we're vulnerable with each other, and therefore we love
Speaker 2: each other, we'll show that through effort and favors and time.
Speaker 2: But at what point do those expectations get out of hand?
Speaker 2: And what happens when you slip up? You know you're
Speaker 2: going through a hard time, you're misreading signals, you can't
Speaker 2: show up for your friends the way that they have
Speaker 2: for you in the past, then things kind of explode.
Speaker 2: The reason that female friendships are so hard is because
Speaker 2: there is a huge expectation to, yes, almost be like
Speaker 2: sisters or family to one another, and sometimes that's really
Speaker 2: hard to do for everyone around you. It's really hard
Speaker 2: to do for every single one of your friends. You
Speaker 2: get kind of tired, and it kind of feels like
Speaker 2: eventually you need to take a step back, you need
Speaker 2: to see other friends, you need to be your own person,
Speaker 2: or you're going to let them down. Here's a story
Speaker 2: about that from a listener. When I was in my twenties,
Speaker 2: I found it really hard to maintain close female friendships
Speaker 2: and have girlfriends because I would expect too much of them.
Speaker 2: I had a friend who we will call Sally, who
Speaker 2: I got really close to my first year out of
Speaker 2: high school. We would do everything together. I'd never really
Speaker 2: had a best friend before, and she made me feel
Speaker 2: so happy, safe seeing all of those things. But then
Speaker 2: I started to notice her putting some distance between us.
Speaker 2: I would expect her to answer instantly instantly and she
Speaker 2: no longer was, or I would do favors for her
Speaker 2: and she wouldn't reciprocate. She also started to make better friends.
Speaker 2: The expectations we have are sometimes too high because our
Speaker 2: female friendships can mean so much. But you can't rely
Speaker 2: entirely on one person because sometimes that would smother them.
Speaker 2: So I've learned to lower my expectations. This made me
Speaker 2: quite sad to hear, because it's a question I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us have when it comes to friendship.
Speaker 2: Do you give up that heightened level of intensity and intimacy.
Speaker 2: Do you lower your expectations just a little bit for
Speaker 2: the sake of longevity, even if you don't get as
Speaker 2: much out of the friendship, or do you bet everything
Speaker 2: on this friendship? Do you get the matching tattoos? Do
Speaker 2: you become insanely close knowing that this could eventually change
Speaker 2: and you could lose this bond? It's complex. There is
Speaker 2: no one answer yet Again, that's the dilemma when it
Speaker 2: comes to these almost codependent situations. They burn bright, but
Speaker 2: they can burn quick and eventually need to settle down.
Speaker 2: That's going to be an adjustment period, and during that
Speaker 2: period is when things can become tricky managing expectations. Now,
Speaker 2: something we need to talk about that we haven't yet
Speaker 2: is jealousy, jealousy, envy, competition, because that is possibly one
Speaker 2: of the biggest contributors to female friendship breakdown. I think
Speaker 2: I have ever encountered and you were all on my
Speaker 2: side with this. So many of you noted that women
Speaker 2: are constantly pitted against each other in almost every circumstance
Speaker 2: by a patriarchal society that benefits from insecurity. It benefits
Speaker 2: from women focusing on seeing each other as the problem
Speaker 2: rather than a system that means we feel like we
Speaker 2: can't all succeed. Think about it in an online context,
Speaker 2: what are women not judged on in comparison to other women? Trolls,
Speaker 2: online critics, people in the comments will always pit women
Speaker 2: against each other based on their bodiesccess, their relationship, their careers,
Speaker 2: and it's hard not to buy into that, especially especially
Speaker 2: when male attention gets involved. So we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about all of that and more after this short break.
Speaker 2: Stay with us. Society has such a weird obsession with
Speaker 2: pitying successful women against each other for what reason, truly,
Speaker 2: for what reason for entertainment, to fuel insecurity, to rage
Speaker 2: bait people and get likes, to get views attention, I
Speaker 2: truly don't know. But it really does impact how we
Speaker 2: are able to relate to each other, because it's difficult
Speaker 2: not to buy into this narrative that only a few
Speaker 2: of us can succeed, only a few of us can
Speaker 2: be the best. And it's not that we're competing with men,
Speaker 2: we're competing with each other. We are both each other's
Speaker 2: best friend and confidante, but also enemy and number one
Speaker 2: competition based on how society continues to hate and view women.
Speaker 2: There is a real history of female rivalry that comes
Speaker 2: from a historical lack of opportunities for women due to
Speaker 2: discrimination and inequality. It's only in the last seventy to
Speaker 2: sixty years that women really began to be allowed into
Speaker 2: leadership roles, into highly esteemed jobs, into positions of success
Speaker 2: and power, even into some universities. You know, universities like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford,
Speaker 2: A lot of them didn't even go co ed until
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties or even the nineteen forties nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: and even then classes were separated and only about fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of graduates for female. When there is a smaller
Speaker 2: pool of opportunities for a section of society and for
Speaker 2: a section of the population that makes up fifty percent
Speaker 2: of the world, but has only given a small sliver
Speaker 2: of what is available for the other group, naturally that
Speaker 2: breeds competition, and it breeds competition not between the two groups,
Speaker 2: but between the group that has less between women, between
Speaker 2: the group that is deprived of equality. That scarcity mindset
Speaker 2: still really haunts female friendships today. Despite that inequality, I
Speaker 2: think starting to diminish. If you know that all the
Speaker 2: men in your group will get an internship, but there
Speaker 2: are only two spots for women and ten of your
Speaker 2: friends are competing, they are of course your friends, but
Speaker 2: and you know there is that sense of camaraderie, especially
Speaker 2: in a male dominated space, but it's hard not to
Speaker 2: also see them as a bit of an enemy because
Speaker 2: they might get the opportunity that you really wanted, and
Speaker 2: it can impact your relationship in a way that sometimes
Speaker 2: men don't have to deal with. That is the psychology
Speaker 2: behind scarcity, or they're only being one seat at the table.
Speaker 2: When something is rare, we place a lot of value
Speaker 2: on it, which also means great a rivalry between the
Speaker 2: people that all want it. Petition may be less exaggerated now,
Speaker 2: but for our mothers and our grandmother's generation, it was
Speaker 2: very prominent, and those are the people who we learn
Speaker 2: a lot of our social skills and way of relating
Speaker 2: to others from. It's interesting, really to me to hear
Speaker 2: how my mom and my friend's mothers have such different
Speaker 2: attitudes around their female friends than we do now. An
Speaker 2: example of this I always think of is one of
Speaker 2: my best friends a while ago bought the same dress
Speaker 2: as me, and it's this really cute black beach dress,
Speaker 2: and she texted me about it, and she sent me
Speaker 2: this really nervous voice message and it was like five
Speaker 2: minutes long of her being like, I'm so sorry I
Speaker 2: bought the same dress as you. I'm gonna return it.
Speaker 2: You can hate me if you want, And it was
Speaker 2: honestly so strange. I was like, no, no, I love this,
Speaker 2: Like the dress is gorgeous. If it was on sale,
Speaker 2: you should definitely keep it. I love being matching with
Speaker 2: my friends. Who doesn't love showing up in the same
Speaker 2: outfit as someone? And she called me like ten minutes
Speaker 2: later after I messaged her back, and she was like, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. That was all my mom. My mom
Speaker 2: was getting in my head. She was traveling with her
Speaker 2: at the time. She was making such a big deal
Speaker 2: about this. She kept saying that, you know, I was
Speaker 2: going to be mad that she was a bad friend
Speaker 2: for copying me. That is a mindset that, yes, I
Speaker 2: think is slowly becoming extinct, but is still present in
Speaker 2: the generations of the women before us in a up
Speaker 2: subconscious way, Like I don't always think that it is
Speaker 2: them trying to tear each other down, but I do
Speaker 2: think unconsciously. Back then, there was more of a sense
Speaker 2: of competition between their fellow women, especially women who were
Speaker 2: in quite a successful group. Women know it's harder to
Speaker 2: get ahead, so we developed more jealousy, envy. We cam
Speaker 2: pare more frequently, and that can wear down the relationship.
Speaker 2: Let's hear from a listener about this, because literally I
Speaker 2: read her DM and I was like, this is spot
Speaker 2: on exactly what we're talking about. I had a friend
Speaker 2: whose life fell apart simply because I was doing better
Speaker 2: than her. We ended up going to the same UNI,
Speaker 2: so it felt like we were starting off on the
Speaker 2: same foot. Very quickly, I began achieving a lot of
Speaker 2: amazing things in college and my personal life, and it
Speaker 2: led to the deterioration of our friendship because she confessed
Speaker 2: she couldn't handle me having more than her and being
Speaker 2: quote unquote better than her. She even ended up starting
Speaker 2: therapy because of it. We fell out and haven't been
Speaker 2: the same since. I truly feel like I'm grieving this
Speaker 2: friendship because she meant the world to me, and I
Speaker 2: really value platonic friendships as someone who was single. Anyway,
Speaker 2: She's moved on with new friends who are in a
Speaker 2: similar place in life than her and seems very very content.
Speaker 2: That's so unfair because often the first people we want
Speaker 2: to tell about our successes, our accomplishments, our big wins
Speaker 2: is our closest friends. It almost feels less important if
Speaker 2: our big moments and milestones can't be shit, especially considering
Speaker 2: the bond we spoke so highly about, and when you
Speaker 2: are a single woman, right It's like you don't have
Speaker 2: that person that you're in a relationship with to immediately
Speaker 2: tell everything too. That role is taken on by your friendships.
Speaker 2: Some people are inherently more insecure about their worth, regardless
Speaker 2: of gender. So do I think that women are just
Speaker 2: naturally poised to undermine each other and that's what makes
Speaker 2: our friendship so hard? No, I don't. I think that
Speaker 2: we actually need to start talking about the impact of
Speaker 2: mail attention as part of this equation as well. Men
Speaker 2: hold a lot of power, and yes I mean power
Speaker 2: in a business success career sense, but also in a
Speaker 2: sexual sense. Those two things, can you know, also come
Speaker 2: together as well in some of the worst ways. But
Speaker 2: what is known is that when men like us, that
Speaker 2: can help us get ahead, and we are socialized to
Speaker 2: desire patriarchal validation. If a man thinks you're funny, all
Speaker 2: good looking, or interesting, you feel like you're in the
Speaker 2: in group, and once you're in that in group, you
Speaker 2: feel protected. Maybe that in group is in the workplace,
Speaker 2: where once the guys think you're one of them, you
Speaker 2: get included in more networking opportunities, you see more chill
Speaker 2: and easy going. You're one of the boys. You're less
Speaker 2: likely to be picked on or told that you're too difficult.
Speaker 2: It also happens when it comes to romance. You know,
Speaker 2: finding a partner or a boyfriend can make us feel
Speaker 2: more secure in our future and protect us from the
Speaker 2: stigma of being single as a woman in her thirties,
Speaker 2: As a woman in her forties who society really requires
Speaker 2: to be coupled and married and to be a mother,
Speaker 2: that naturally pits us against each other for male attention
Speaker 2: and approval, and that approval feels more special than female
Speaker 2: validation because of how the power is dispersed. It's why
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nineteen study, these authors suggested that
Speaker 2: women's stereotypically gossip more about other women as a way
Speaker 2: of decreasing the value and standing of a female rival
Speaker 2: who is competing for that desired male attention. It's where
Speaker 2: slut shaming by other women also comes in, putting another
Speaker 2: woman down by suggesting that she's less pure, less loyal,
Speaker 2: less honest, less whatever, not as good as us because
Speaker 2: she sleeps around, but maybe also feeling jealous of the
Speaker 2: fact that her being a so called slut means that
Speaker 2: men must like her. You can kind of see how complex.
Speaker 2: This s gets I hope that you kind of see
Speaker 2: where I'm coming from. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: this vying for male acceptance and recognition makes female friendships
Speaker 2: hard because we are once again competing for something that
Speaker 2: will give us power, reassurance, safety, opportunity, maybe even love
Speaker 2: that we feel like we can't all get at the
Speaker 2: same time. This actually has a name, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to women who were attracted to men. It's called
Speaker 2: female intrasexual competition, and I would really really recommend looking
Speaker 2: this up. Let's hear from a listener about this. I
Speaker 2: hate to admit that a boy came between me and
Speaker 2: my best friend because it feels so cliche, like women
Speaker 2: only care about men over their friends, but it's what happened.
Speaker 2: I started a new job and this really nice guy, charming, sweet,
Speaker 2: attractive was working with me, and through drinking late nights
Speaker 2: at the office, we became friends. I confided in my
Speaker 2: best friend, who I'd known for five years, that I
Speaker 2: really wanted more and I thought that we had a
Speaker 2: future together, and she told me to invite him to
Speaker 2: my house party to hang out outside the office. Long
Speaker 2: story short, he came, and I was so nervous but
Speaker 2: pretty quickly she spent the rest of the night flirting
Speaker 2: with him. By the end of the night, they were
Speaker 2: making out in the corner. The trust between us was
Speaker 2: ruined at that moment, and I was devastated. Flash forward
Speaker 2: two years later, they are dating and I haven't spoken
Speaker 2: to either of them in over a year. I really
Speaker 2: miss our friendship and wish that we haven't lost it
Speaker 2: over some silly boy. You know, that example in that
Speaker 2: story is so rough, but I think is also kind
Speaker 2: of the perfect example of what I mean when I
Speaker 2: say that vying for male attention creates competition, and that
Speaker 2: competition erods the trust that is so innate and beautiful
Speaker 2: in female friendship. The emotional environment created by all that,
Speaker 2: the intensity, the comparison, the competition, It becomes so heightened
Speaker 2: that it can be hard not to slip into quite
Speaker 2: an unhealthy cycle in our female friendships of sometimes needing distance,
Speaker 2: then feeling guilty for needing distance, pulling them even closer,
Speaker 2: feeling overwhelmed or confused, which ends up having the same
Speaker 2: and you know, we end up seeing a fizzle or
Speaker 2: seeing a friendship breakup. Now this does special attention. Female
Speaker 2: friendship breakups. These kind of situations have undoubtedly hurt me
Speaker 2: more than some romantic breakups because you kind of expect
Speaker 2: men to let you down. And I'm really sorry to
Speaker 2: any men listening, but that was my experience with a
Speaker 2: lot of my exes. I was never totally surprised when
Speaker 2: it ended up going wrong. Every romantic relationship, relationship has
Speaker 2: a potential expiration date.
Speaker 1: You always you.
Speaker 2: Know at the back of your mind at times, think
Speaker 2: you know what happens if we break up. I don't
Speaker 2: think we have that same pessimistic attitude towards friendship, or
Speaker 2: at least I didn't or I don't. It feels much
Speaker 2: more long lasting. So when it comes to an end,
Speaker 2: it can be devastating because it's unexpected. You never predicted it,
Speaker 2: you never prepared for it. I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: guys a bit of my own story. Now. I've been
Speaker 2: relying too heavily on your contributions. But I had this
Speaker 2: best friend when I was in university. We lived together
Speaker 2: for all four years. She was like the I think
Speaker 2: she was the only person to speak at my twenty first.
Speaker 2: We were so close, and then one day she quite
Speaker 2: literally moved cities and never spoke to me again or
Speaker 2: really anyone from that time in our lives just packed
Speaker 2: up and left, and it was devastating. And three years on,
Speaker 2: I still have dreams about her. I still think about her,
Speaker 2: you know, at least once a week. Funnily enough, we
Speaker 2: now live in the same city and actually in the
Speaker 2: same suburb, so I see her quite a bit. And
Speaker 2: I saw her about a month ago and had this
Speaker 2: moment where I just kind of watched her from Afar
Speaker 2: with her boyfriend and felt that same, really deep sting
Speaker 2: in my chest all over again, you know, like you
Speaker 2: were going to be my kid's godmother for a while.
Speaker 2: You know, this person knew more about me than anyone.
Speaker 2: She was the person I went to cry to who
Speaker 2: I think I loved more than anyone else. I don't
Speaker 2: think any my exes really knew me that way, and
Speaker 2: you just really miss them, You really miss the potential
Speaker 2: of who this person was going to be. Of course,
Speaker 2: we know from the psychology around breakups, because this is
Speaker 2: a breakup, that what we're feeling is a unique kind
Speaker 2: of pain. You're in a social pain. The grief associated
Speaker 2: with losing a valued social connection like a best friend
Speaker 2: is processed in the same area of our brain that
Speaker 2: processes when you bang your toe or when you accidentally
Speaker 2: cut your finger while cooking. Specifically, that pain, the social pain,
Speaker 2: and the real pain, is processed by the somata sensory
Speaker 2: cortex or the dorsal posterior insular. What that basically means
Speaker 2: is that this loss, this emotional social loss, often has
Speaker 2: a very tangible sensorary component that we feel. Friendship breakups
Speaker 2: also threatening and really calm core parts of our social identity,
Speaker 2: as in, you know I know who I am because
Speaker 2: you are my friend. I am your friend, you are mine,
Speaker 2: you love me, I'm a good friend to you, I
Speaker 2: feel seen by you. A lot of our identity sometimes
Speaker 2: does come from those relationships with other people and who
Speaker 2: we are in relation to them. But when that connection
Speaker 2: is abruptly interrupted or severed, it can leave us feeling
Speaker 2: really lost and confused and rethinking not just our values
Speaker 2: or our sense of self, but also like did I
Speaker 2: deserve this? Am I actually a bad person? Who do
Speaker 2: I share things with? Who else knows me this way?
Speaker 2: It's very isolating on all fronts, and it's very devastating,
Speaker 2: to say the least. So how do we prevent this? Obviously,
Speaker 2: I think not all friendships are meant to last. Their
Speaker 2: time has come. Sometimes you've outgrown each other and it's
Speaker 2: a natural separation. But despite you know, maybe some of
Speaker 2: the negativity around female friendships that we have highlighted today,
Speaker 2: they are deeply, deeply important and intimate and vulnerable, and
Speaker 2: they do sometimes take the place of family or of partners.
Speaker 2: It's like the quote that your best friend you know,
Speaker 2: will always be at your wedding, but your boyfriend or
Speaker 2: your girlfriend might not be. Like they're meant to outlast
Speaker 2: a whole lot of other relationships that we have. I
Speaker 2: think it's just nice to have someone who has seen
Speaker 2: you at every stage and every age, and you know
Speaker 2: that you've been lucky enough to develop in parallel with.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about some tips for maintaining those female
Speaker 2: friendships even when things get a little bit difficult. So
Speaker 2: tip number one, communicate just as much about your frustrations
Speaker 2: as you do about anything else. I have this saying
Speaker 2: that someone's only a true and long lasting friend when
Speaker 2: you've survived your first argument, your first fight, your first picker,
Speaker 2: Because I believe that that is a huge sign if
Speaker 2: you can get through that, if you have spoken about it,
Speaker 2: that you love and respect each other enough to do
Speaker 2: the uncomfortable thing for both of you and for the
Speaker 2: sake of the relationship. If you feel like your friend
Speaker 2: is distant, if you're feeling like they're jealous, they're prioritizing
Speaker 2: other people over you, maybe it's become one sided. Say something.
Speaker 2: It feels awkward, and sometimes I do think we shy
Speaker 2: away from that because we think that it will end
Speaker 2: the relationship. But at that point, if you are harboring
Speaker 2: all these really deeply seated fears, anxieties, frustrations, the relationship
Speaker 2: is doomed anyway because you're going to be overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: the resentment and bitterness that will build up. So you
Speaker 2: kind of have one of two options. Let the relationship
Speaker 2: die in silence, or kind of fight for it. It
Speaker 2: doesn't even need to be a fight, just a moment
Speaker 2: of honesty where you apologize, you open up, you accept responsibility,
Speaker 2: you admit, you cry, whatever it is you need to do.
Speaker 2: I think that that is a really important mark of
Speaker 2: a good friendship is if you're able to do those
Speaker 2: things together. Secondly, just because they're doing a similar thing
Speaker 2: as you, whether that's at school, in the workplace, in
Speaker 2: your careers, in general, it doesn't mean that their competition.
Speaker 2: Actually they can be your inspiration instead a sign that
Speaker 2: you can and are doing it too, and that you can.
Speaker 2: You know, go to each other for advice, go to
Speaker 2: each other for feedback. When you find yourself comparing, remember
Speaker 2: that everyone can win, and that success is always going
Speaker 2: to look different on different people. And also, there is
Speaker 2: no point getting everything you want if you don't have
Speaker 2: true people to share it with, and that includes these friends.
Speaker 2: I get the inclination to sometimes see them as competition,
Speaker 2: especially because of how hardwired our brains are by patriarchy,
Speaker 2: by so many other things. But please fight against that urge.
Speaker 2: Speak their praises when they're not around. Be outwards and
Speaker 2: loud about your admiration for them. And I think that
Speaker 2: that outwardness and that loudness, and that vibrant approval of like, yes,
Speaker 2: my best friend is the sh she is cool. Even
Speaker 2: if we are in the same industry, even if we
Speaker 2: are doing the same thing like we are, we do
Speaker 2: this together, not against each other. Being very like I said,
Speaker 2: loud about that kind of scares away the insecurity, and
Speaker 2: it scares away the people who want to come to
Speaker 2: you and implant that competition in your friendship. Thirdly, let
Speaker 2: the friendship change. I saw this amazing perspective around the
Speaker 2: difference between friendship and romantic relationships. Relationships have these defined
Speaker 2: stages of commitment. You know, you move in together, you
Speaker 2: get engaged, to get married, you might have kids. Friendships,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, don't have those same obvious milestones.
Speaker 2: Because of this, there is more room for transience inconsistency.
Speaker 2: You can also have more than one friend in your
Speaker 2: life in a way that you know, it's not typical
Speaker 2: to have more than one partner. So it's kind of
Speaker 2: like our romantic relationships have this growth trajectory, and our
Speaker 2: friendships don't have the same same kind of path, and
Speaker 2: so you have to take a step back sometimes and
Speaker 2: just let them change as and develop as as they
Speaker 2: naturally would. Don't get too panicked by the times when
Speaker 2: one of you is more distant or busy. Let the
Speaker 2: friendship fade for a little bit, when someone moves or
Speaker 2: someone is traveling. I just think that you need to
Speaker 2: let the person you love, your female friend, your friend
Speaker 2: of any gender, let them, you know, change alongside you,
Speaker 2: and let yourself shift your expectations for the chapter that
Speaker 2: you're in rather than where you feel you need to
Speaker 2: be really base your friendship on the season and what's
Speaker 2: going on around you. And I think that that allows
Speaker 2: it to have a more healthier, healthier life, I guess.
Speaker 2: I guess it allows it to survive. You know, with
Speaker 2: every long friendship, there are years and times that you're
Speaker 2: closer periods where there is a bit more distance, so
Speaker 2: you just have to lean in. Finally, this might sound strange,
Speaker 2: but do more than just talk, do activities as well.
Speaker 2: I feel like men are always doing things with each other.
Speaker 2: They always have like activity based hangouts, like they're doing
Speaker 2: sport or video games or whatever, and we can learn
Speaker 2: from that. Talking about our feelings catching up is great,
Speaker 2: but so as making memories beyond our emotions. It's not
Speaker 2: me saying it'd be less feeling don't talk about that.
Speaker 2: But I think that we also need to have something
Speaker 2: else to base our friendship on rather than just talking
Speaker 2: about what's going on. I was on a girls trip
Speaker 2: with one of my best friends recently, and we hadn't
Speaker 2: seen each other in over a year, and we booked
Speaker 2: an airbnb, so it was just the two of us
Speaker 2: and we spent three days walking around this beautiful neighborhood,
Speaker 2: coming back to our space, cooking meals together, going out,
Speaker 2: and it just felt special being able to actively live
Speaker 2: my life with her rather than just talk about it.
Speaker 2: And it's something that I want to bring to the
Speaker 2: friends that I see in my everyday rather than just
Speaker 2: once a year. I want to finish on a positive
Speaker 2: note with one more listener story that I think sums
Speaker 2: everything up perfectly for me and is such a testament
Speaker 2: to how beautiful and meaningful and important female friendships are
Speaker 2: despite the downsides. So let's hear from this final listener.
Speaker 2: I can count my genuine female friends. On one hand,
Speaker 2: I don't need a whole lot of friends at the
Speaker 2: age of thirty four, and with some life experience under
Speaker 2: your belt, you realize that quality always trumps quantity. My
Speaker 2: girlfriends now are women who I know I can trust
Speaker 2: and rely on for anything, and vice versa. There is
Speaker 2: never any pressure, never any drama. If there is something
Speaker 2: bugging us about one another, we are open enough to
Speaker 2: give and receive feedback in a respectful and constructive manner,
Speaker 2: not to tear each other down. No longer do I
Speaker 2: have time for people who leave me feeling anxious, drained,
Speaker 2: annoyed or pessimistic. Not everyone is for you, and you
Speaker 2: won't be everyone's cup of tea either, and that's okay.
Speaker 2: How perfect is that? And I just loved that it
Speaker 2: came from someone who was no longer in their twenties,
Speaker 2: who's kind of like out of the woods, out of
Speaker 2: the chaos of this decade, because we have a lot
Speaker 2: to learn from that example. We have so much to
Speaker 2: learn from the fact that maybe the older we get,
Speaker 2: the more the drama kind of doesn't fit our lives anymore.
Speaker 2: The meanness, the indirectness, it just doesn't have a place.
Speaker 2: And you've got to really find your people who you
Speaker 2: can openly communicate with, you can have hard conversations with
Speaker 2: who make life easier and lighter rather than harder. So
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening to this episode. I
Speaker 2: hope that you learn something about your female friendships, about
Speaker 2: why they might be difficult, sometimes for all the best reasons,
Speaker 2: not for the bad reasons, for the hard reasons. It's
Speaker 2: just because they are so vulnerable and expressive, and sometimes
Speaker 2: that just makes everything everything else more intense as well.
Speaker 2: If there is someone who you think would enjoy this episode,
Speaker 2: maybe you're female bestie maybe one of your girlfriends. Feel
Speaker 2: free to share it with them. Share a link. It
Speaker 2: helps us show grow, helps us reach new people. Make
Speaker 2: sure that you are following along for future episodes, and
Speaker 2: that you leave a five star review if you feel
Speaker 2: cool to do so on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening,
Speaker 2: and big thank you for making it this far. If
Speaker 2: you did, I really appreciate you sticking around, and I
Speaker 2: appreciate you listening to this episode and hopefully enjoying it.
Speaker 2: As always, until next time, stay safe, stay kind, and
Speaker 2: please be gentle with yourself. We will talk soon