Growing up, girls are told there are only two kinds of girls, either a "typical girl" or "not like other girls". That being "like other girls" is bad. And before you even get to know any girl when they grow an actual personality, you start staying away from them because you want to grow your own personality. Because you are told girls don't have personalities, and you want to be different. You want to look cool, you want to fit in, you want to be accepted, you want to stand out, you want the guys to like you, and for that, from all around you, you have to be different than other girls. I know because I used to believe that. Grew up a few interests I told girls can't have so I thought every day, I had to try and be more and more different from them. That there was nothing I could possibly talk to a girl about because hey, "All girls talk about is makeup! Makeup BAD! Girls BAD!"
The more I believed I could not talk to girls, girls wouldn't understand me, the more I thought boys could. Infact, I thought I could only talk to boys because action movies and football, pfft, who else talks about that? But the problem with them was, the more you proved to them that you were not like other girls, the more you had to prove it everyday again and again. And boys, their emotional framework is entirely different. So when I felt something beyond that and shared it with them, they'd tell me I was being irrational, a bit too much of this and too much of that, and I'd tell that to myself over and over again. Hey if a boy thinks I'm fucked up, may be I am? I wanted male friendships so bad, I felt like I had no other options in the world, so I kept doing more and more things to make them accept me. When they know you'll give anything to fit in, they ask for it. But in this world, doing whatever a boy asks of you, as it turns out, not a good idea.
I know years ago I could hardly even chat with girls. And I thought I should be proud of that. Then I was thrown into a women's college and I believed it would be hell. Because hey, all they do there would be big scary MAKEUP!!!
And hey, its not like girls didn't make me feel like not being like other girls isn't a crime. They absolutely did, all my life. But not all of them. The ones who saved me from myself were also girls. I don't know when exactly I started talking to girls, but the more I did, the more I noticed that I could talk with them. I found girls I could go to Marvel and DC movies with, girls I could go to watch football at stadium with, girls who'd go to comic con with me, girls who'd suggest me some new mindbending series, girls I could tag in memes, or girls I had no common interests with and still bonded with, and all that without the "friend" constantly trying to get into your pants. Or me constantly trying to impress them. And frankly, it was relieving. Of course, they do talk about makeup sometimes, among a thousand other topics, but it isn't as scary as the world tells you it is. And noone has ever forced it on me or tried to make me go through a makeup course. Instead they've done it for me, taken a thousand pictures of me, and taught me how to be a more colourful version of myself.
And you know what? No girl friend has ever told me I am being irrational when I wasn't. No girl has ever asked me to name ten football players other than Ronaldo and Messi. The best thing about girls is, they know how hard it is being a girl in this world. And much like that detention episode in "Sex Education" series, you bond over that as well. I still have male friends, of course I'm not implying one should not. But what I never had and have just discovered are female friendships. They lift eachother up, understand feelings in ways you couldn't imagine. They come up with these crazy ideas of fun the world would laugh at, enjoy it and laugh back at the world. They listen to eachother, do not invalidate eachother's feelings, do not expect you to be a robot, do not expect you to be cool, they just let you in, give you a hug you thought was cringey, and make you wonder why you ever said no to hugs. Many don't let you in but remember, you didn't let them in either. May be they are stuck in the same loop as you, "different is bad". And it makes sense why we are taught that. Because once you discover female friendships, you know, you can take anything they throw at you. And the world is so afraid of a powerful woman, let alone so many of them, together.
Art credit : @Juliehangart
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