I consider myself a normal girl. Relatively easy to get along with, typical girly interests, etc.
Despite this, I have a lot of headstones in my friend graveyard. We all have one. Ghosts of friends past. People that used to be in our lives but are no longer, for various reasons.
I have always had guy friends. Basically because if nothing else is true, guys are just easier to get along with. Girls are bitches. They are complicated, catty, backstabbing, and often exhibit other personality traits that the majority of guys just don’t posess. And no, it’s not a jealousy thing. I have girl friends that I consider more attractive/smarter/a better writer, etc. than myself and we have no problems getting along.
I have had two best friends in my life stop being my friend because they didn’t like my boyfriend. One from college and one more recently. I have friends whose boyfriend/husband I can’t stand…but you are not friends with the husband, you are friends with the FRIEND, right?
I have lost a friend because she had a baby and when I told her that I didn’t want to have kids (and subsequently neglected to ask her how her baby was during a conversation solely dominated by her bitching about her father’s marriage to the woman he left her mother for), she accused me of “slapping her in the face” and defriended me on facebook.
I have lost friends because in dating my college boyfriend (the fuzz) I basically became someone I really wasn’t to make him happy and totally wrapped my life around him and his friends. When we broke up, those friends became just his instead of ours.
Other friends I have just drifted with over time as our lives changed, our locations changed, or our interests and commonalities spread us apart. I have also had short-term friendships from various social mediums (craigslist, meetup, etc) that just did not last because clearly there was a REASON a lot of those girls were seeking friends electronically and it’s because they were CRAZY. Some day soon I will have my friend Kristen (an actual normal friend that resulted from craigslist, though she is the minority) write down the story of our crazy friend Rachel whose ex showed up at her house with a baseball bat and duct tape and she still went back to him. Or the girl I was briefly friends with who used me as an alibi while she was repeatedly cheating on her wonderful husband.
I am jealous of people who have the same tight knit group of friends they’ve had since elementary school. There is a lack of people in my life who have known me since way back when and that makes me sad.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the common thread in all of these relationships. Perhaps the problem is me. Maybe I”m the one who is the bitch that no one can seem to get along with. I know that I can be difficult at times, lacking in patience and sometimes empathy…and I can be a little self-involved. Perhaps I don’t put enough effort into my friendships and that is what is causing my friend graveyard to overflow.
But then I come to my senses and realize that there have been times that I have let a friendship go for one reason or another, but deservedly so. And the girls who stopped being friends with me, they missed out because I am one hell of a good friend.
I want to know though, why is it so hard to find good friends? The friends who will stick by you through thick and thin and be there for you no matter what? The kind of friends you can tell anything to and they won’t judge you? The friend who will give you good advice when you feel like your life is spinning out of control?
Tell me I’m not alone ladies. Am I the only one who finds it hard to be friends with other girls?
No you are definitely not alone. I am in the same boat. I have people that drifted who tell me they want to hang out, I tell them pick a day, and then I never hear from them. I had a friend delete me when I called her out on some stuff she had been doing and I thought she’d want to hash it out. She tried to add me back this summer and I said f no. Not without SOME acknowledgement of what went down. Anyway, I know how you feel and maybe that’s why I like our little group of blog friends. We get each other!
I would have said F no too…if she dumped you once, she will dump you again! Bitch.
You are not alone… I feel like I have maybe 2 really good friends. Relationships & babies always seem to take precedence over friends, and I gave up caring about alot of people because of this. It’s pretty sad.
No. I’ve had very few female friends in my life. I remember learning what a sorority was when I was like…12 and thinking “why would anyone ever put themselves through that? girls suck!” I went to a college that was 70% girls yet I had like…2 female friends. I can’t pin point why but girls just don’t like me.
I so agree with this. It never even crossed my mind to pledge a sorority. What fucking torture!
My school was something ridiculous like…80% Greek? They were EVERYWHERE. I occasionally would meet girls who had dropped out and would complain about all the bullshit. A few gems: they weren’t allowed to wear track pants/sweats/yoga pants to class, they weren’t allowed to drink alcohol at parties until after they were initiated, they were REQUIRED to bring their checkbooks to every chapter meeting, they had mandatory study hours they had to attend each week (regardless of how much they studied on their own time at home). I don’t know if that was all sororities or just one or two in particular, but it sounded like prison. And this was in Texas Cheerleader Country, so maybe sororities in other regions were more lax.
Yes, I am not a sorostitution fan. I had a couple friends who wanted to pledge in college and I figured, hey, have fun. I’ll plan my own weekends, thank you very much.
I actually did join a sorority in college, but it being a nerd school and I picked the nerdiest of the 4 on campus, my odds were good in that I didn’t have to go through any of the horrible stuff I hear they do. It was never more apparent to me that we were oddballs than when I went to a conference in the south and met girls from the southern and midwest chapters. They were shocked and appalled that I didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t ready to be married (I was 20). I don’t think I’d have joined had I gone to one of their schools. Yikes!
It IS hard to make good, long-lasting friends, especially the older we get, naturally having fewer opportunities to meet large numbers of people from which you can weed out the cunts and the backstabbers.
When I was younger, I worked at a TV station in Texas and, just due to the nature of the industry, everyone was a transplant, so we all became instant friends out of necessity. Here in Indy, its totally different. For some reason nearly everyone I know was born and raised here and already had their own very tight circle of friends, so it was a lot harder to meet people and not still feel like I was the outsider.
I also don’t love my new friends as much as I love the older ones who are now scattered all over the country and harder to keep in touch with. And I work in an office where 90% of my coworkers are 20+ years older than me.
And last: I agree girls are bitches.
/novel
I’ve seen the truism “friends are people who dislike the same people you do” and after many years of observation, would extend it to “and are at the same confidence level you are.” It goes beyond just common interests, though that brings people together as much as a lack of it forces them apart.
My theory is that some women can’t be friends with women whose lack of shared hangups intimidates them or who don’t validate said hangups. If I don’t have your baby fever/dysfunctional marriage/fitness obsession/eyebrow shaping approach or I don’t say “OMG, you’re so right” about yours, it is the friend death spiral.
I don’t have younger-life friends because our family moved around a bunch, and my HS friends and I have simply drifted apart because of time and place. But the graveyard friends are the ones I’ve made as an adult and later figured out that while I dislike head cases, they are only themselves by being one.
I love this…“friends are people who dislike the same people you do”
So true.
I definitely relate to this. I have managed to hold on to a few friends, but I’ve lost way more than I care to count. I think a lot of it is because I’m not good at keeping up with people, and a lot of it is because I get hurt really easily and don’t forgive easily, but sometimes it makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong. Since I moved to DC, I’ve really only made one solid girlfriend (not counting Kelly since I already knew her) that lives here and that I can hang out with if I’m upset or just want to go do something girly. It sucks.
Move to DC!
I know we’ve talked about this before, but I 100% agree with what you’re saying here. Making friends, especially as an adult, is SO hard. I have a graveyard that would rival Arlington at this point; for whatever reason, I tend to pick friends who will either screw me or have messed up ideals that inevitably cause a rift. I know it’s like this everywhere (the good friends I do have are mostly from high school, with a few from college, and they are all over the country now), but I do think it’s particularly hard here in the northeast, where everyone is all up in their own business with no desire to get into others’ (not to mention the pervasive “I’m above you” attitude girls around here tend to have). I joined a kickball league with my roommates a few years ago, and even that didn’t seem to help — although looking back, I wonder if it had more to do with them than with me, because I did end up talking to/hanging out with a few of the people after games at the bar. Let’s go friend-hunting together… as friends!
I changed schools in 6th grade bc my mom decided she wanted me to go to Catholic school, and was faced with the task of breaking into a group of like 25 people who had known each other since kindergarten. And on top of it, I was tortured by the girls in my class for being new, mostly bc I think girls are at their absolute bitchiest right around the 6th grade..
From that point on, I realized that I had to just look out for myself and had a hard time letting people in. Then I had 2 of my best friends totally turn on me my senior year of college. Thankfully, I’ve had the same best friend since maybe junior year of high school (we worked together) and she’s been there for everything. I’ve got a few close girlfriends now that I can count on, the rest are just too catty, jealous, unoriginal, competitive, you name it, for me to deal with. Maybe that makes me sound like a bitch, but then maybe that’s why I only have a few friends.
And I sort of agree with Kacy, except move to PA!!
I relate to this. I don’t have the graveyard, but most of my friends from high school and even college I’ve grown apart from. They have kids and wear mom jeans now. Obviously that’s not me. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have a lot in common with most women. I’m into girly things, but not to the extent that most women I meet are so I feel out of place and awkward. The fact that I’m too honest and a little bitchy doesn’t help my case either, but I own that. I think it’s important to focus on the friends that I do have than on the ones that have drifted away or just didn’t work out.
I just reread this comment…um…I think I lost my grammar skills.
I can totally relate to this post. I was actually just pondering this phenomenon in my own life recently. I think those people that claim to have the same tight-knit group of friends from childhood are either a) incredibly lucky, b) complete pushovers (or easy-going…that would be a nicer way of putting it, I guess) that don’t really care if people are excellent friends in the first place. I know that I hold my friends to extremely high standards, so I’ve also lost friends over the years. Then again, the friends that I have now are all excellent friends. Quality, not quantity, that’s my motto.
I think we’ve partially had this conversation…
I like guy friends. They’re uncomplicated. They stick with you. Rarely judge too quickly. And don’t freak out and ignore you if you don’t see each other for months on end. I’ve had falling outs before and usually it just takes a month or two to silently awknowledge we were both wrong, make a bad joke, and pick up where we left off.
Girl friends are important to me, too- and I have select few from different phases of my life, but damn those boys are so much easier to maintain a friendship with!
I feel like all girls can relate to this (well the ones I know at least) I’m lucky in the fact that I am still close friends with my same group of friends from my sorority days. None of us have any drama with each other and we enjoy spending time together, it’s great and ideal. However, what isn’t ideal is that we are all spread out all over the place so if we get to see each other once a year, thats a good year.
Charlotte is where my most of my friend graves sit. I made friends, new friend would blow up about something immature or be drama and I dont roll with that. I have to break up with some friends and one I had to change my schedule at work and change my phone # because she became a pseudo-stalker (yeah, this was a chick) It’s really sad but I havent even talked with any of my Charlotte “friends” since I moved and thats fine with me. They were more acquiantances to pass time with than friends to me.
I have always had small groups of friends. I have never been a person with 100 BFFS. That’s what my boyfriend is like and I never understand, how do you have the time to care about that many people?
ANYWAY these days I only talk to one or two people from the small groups of friends I have made along the way. Like someone else said I am really sensitive and I have had a lot of girls backstab me or lie to me and I am just not someone who can usually move on from that. I have so many stories, I have been friends with some real assholes.
Although I am MUCH happier without the drama a lot of my ex gfs carried, I do wish I had a closer group of friends. I feel like I always have to travel to see my besties and then I only see them 2-3 times a year. I miss the days where I could text a friend and be like hey wanna hang out and have no real plans but to chill. I dont feel close enough to any of my friends in the area to do that.
I have about 4 women in my life that I’m pretty sure I will keep for life (one from age 3, age 10, age 16 and age 22)…the rest can suck it. Too much drama. I like guys for friends. They don’t judge.
you’re not alone. the closest and longest friends i “had’ were my long term boyfriends of whom i am no longer friends with at all (can you stay friends with an ex??)
its hard. who knows you might end up patching things up with old friends – ive had fallouts with friends and now we are friends again, our bond is stronger then ever – so stay positive