girl friends

I was going to write about how a man called me boring last weekend. The topic of male behavior has always stirred motivation in me that is unmatched by other subjects. We know this. We’ve seen this. But then I widened the view of my weekend and remembered that it was not at all characterized by the mumble of a random man. I’ll remember that weekend because of the time I spent with two of my best girlfriends. In fact, what I’ll remember most from this summer is the time I’ve spent amongst the most beautiful of souls, the large majority of which are not men.

So, I was in Boston with my two best girlfriends, one of whom I met in the seventh grade and the other during my Freshman year of high school. We’ve put the hours in. We’ve seen each other move from preteen to puberty-stricken to beautiful young women, moving away from home and attempting the strenuous task of figuring ourselves out. That’s a bond permanently fused.

We went to a karaoke club. There were these guys there. We wanted to speak to them because conversing with the male sex is a large part of going out for us, and dare I say, many women. The presence, or sometimes the absence of men, is what I’ve found often makes a great going-out story. They can make people (me) angry or sad or disappointed or euphoric with their behavior, and naturally, or unnaturally depending on the substances being absorbed, shit goes down.

So anyway, we started a conversation (because they were never going to). They were not interesting or funny or especiallyhandsome or charming. They were just there.

“We’re up next,” the guy I honed in on said to his pack of friends. They were going back on the karaoke stage to sing a Nickelback song. I should’ve known.

“You’re going again?” I asked. They had sung several times now.

“Yeah, what else is there to do here?”

“Flirt with me, I’m right here.” A casual way to plead for his acknowledgment that I exist.

“Nah, that’s been quite boring,” he said.

This made me sulk for about 20 minutes. It stung even though his words carried no weight. I had only just met him. I was not interested in him. But I wanted him to be in love with me, of course. One of the other men had asked for my friend'snumber and then promptly moved across the table and kissed some girl who was visiting from Miami. So they were not the cream of the crop. We all just sat back and watched them sing Nickelback poorly and wondered where the night would end. That was before I decided to buck the fuck up. My friends and I sang “Dancing Queen” for the dwindling, late-night crowd. All the women in the room sang and danced along with us, swaying about the room like witches at a seance.

This is just another adage to our love story, the three of us. It is its own chapter in my book on female friendships. There’s another chapter for the people I met spontaneously this summer and got to share the stage with. The same people I felt comfortable enough around to truly be myself and love that version of myself without judgment. The same people I swam beneath the midsummer moon with, howling and cackling, wading through the dark water. There’s a chapter on forgiveness between friends and leaning on each other through every new life stage. There’s a chapter on moving apart but knowing you’ll return to one another. And all of these chapters make up for the friendships that didn’t accept or understand me. Tenfold.

These people remind me that it is women who make the story. It is women who make my weekend, my month, my year. It is women who do the damn thing. It is women who taught me to feel beautiful and who bring beauty into my life. And even though it is my stories with men that I feel called to share, women have given me the voice I need to share them