223. Why are female friendships so hard?

course break down the Psychology of your twenties. 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 pick it up one day, and today's 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 also asked you all the listeners.

they wouldn't give it up in a second. The second group of people were those those of you who really had been burned, perhaps a few too many times, who saw female friendships as too dramatic, too over hyped, 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 doked by a patriarchal society that would have us compete for

male attention, that would make us constantly compare ourselves. 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 although stereotypes that women can't have long standing friends because they are just too caddy or bitchy, or dramatic or mean, and actually look at the psychology here that why is it the case that so many of us are having an experience in which our female friendships burned 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 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. It is bound to be very 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 experience, says, but that can also make it a hotbed for comparison. We 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 or have done the work to kind of address their insecurity, 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 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 as 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, But 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 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 resolve conflict. Firstly, he said that they didn't have any conflict, which I was like, okay, well, congratulations.

But when I push 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. We 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, which leaves a lot more

room for interpretation and hurt feelings without resolution. So that's my first big point. Maybe female friendships are 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 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. 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 thirteen 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 Gallantine's Day, 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 twenty four year old in a teenage argument and told her I wasn't going to continue the friendship. That just complete shut down 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, 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 improves because it's part of your journey. Or we're gonna 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. 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 to private, to 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 to female friendships and wish I had that same bond with my male friends because from the outside, female friendship seems 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 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 in 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 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, did this help 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,

mainly it's intimacy and its vulnerability. You feel like you know someone so well and they know you as one. If 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. Where 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 acknowledgment 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 favors 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 twenties, 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 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 seeing all of those things. But then I started to notice her putting some distance between us. I would expect her to answer instantly 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 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 bodiesccess, their relationship, their careers, 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. Society has such a weird obsession with pitying 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 confidante, but also enemy and number one competition based on how society continues to hate 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's only in the last seventy to sixty 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. You know, universities like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, A lot of them didn't even go co ed until the nineteen twenties or even the nineteen forties nineteen fifties, and even then classes were separated and only about fifteen

percent of graduates for female. When there is a smaller pool of opportunities for a section of society and for a section of the population that makes up fifty percent of the world, but has 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 ten of your friends are competing, they are of course your friends, but and you know there is that sense of camaraderie, especially in a male dominated space, 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 they're only being one seat at the table. When something is rare, we place a lot of value on it, which also means great a rivalry between the people that all want it. Petition may be less exaggerated now, but for our mothers and our grandmother's 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 friend's 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 gonna 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 matching with my friends. Who doesn't love showing up in the same outfit as someone? And she called me like ten 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 up 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 women, especially women who were in quite a successful group. Women know it's harder to get ahead, so we developed more jealousy, envy. We cam pare 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 was 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 shit, 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 too. That role is taken on by your friendships. 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 mail 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. If a man thinks you're funny, all 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 see more chill

and easy going. 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 thirties, As a woman in her forties 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 two thousand and nineteen study, these authors suggested that women's 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 s 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 were 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 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 haven'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 erods 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 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 and you know, we end up seeing a fizzle or

seeing a friendship breakup. Now this does 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, relationship has a potential expiration date.

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 twenty first. We were so close, and then one day she quite literally moved cities 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 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 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. You're in 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 somata sensory cortex or the dorsal posterior insular. What that basically means is that this loss, this emotional social loss, often has

a very tangible sensorary component that we feel. Friendship breakups also threatening and really calm 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 and 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 tip number one, communicate just as much about your frustrations

as you do about anything else. I have this saying that someone's only a true and long lasting friend when you've survived your first argument, your first fight, your first picker, 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 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 their 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 vibrant approval of like, yes, my best friend is the sh 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, to 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, and our friendships don't have the same same kind of path, and so you have to take a step back sometimes and just let them change as and develop as 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 guess it allows it to survive. You know, with every long friendship, there are years and times that you're closer 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 like 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 as making memories beyond our emotions. It's not me saying it'd 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, and 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 sums everything up perfectly for me and is such a testament to how beautiful and meaningful and important female friendships are despite the 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 thirty four, 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 twenties, 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 learn something about your female friendships, about why they might be difficult, sometimes for all the best reasons, not for the bad reasons, for the hard reasons. It's just because they are so vulnerable and expressive, and sometimes that just makes everything everything else more intense as well. If there is someone who you think would enjoy this episode, maybe you're female bestie maybe one of your girlfriends. Feel

free to share it with them. Share a link. It helps us 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 cool 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 you 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