00:00It's even funny because I feel like when one of us starts dating someone, we all start dating him.
00:04So I'm like, if you two don't like him, then I definitely don't like him.
00:09Wait, now it's two.
00:10Welcome to the R29 chat room. I'm Emily.
00:13I'm Allie.
00:13And I'm Courtney.
00:14And today we're talking about female friendships.
00:16So Courtney, Allie, do you think female friendships are the most important thing in your life?
00:20Definitely for me.
00:22And I think that that's something that's evolved a lot since I got to college.
00:26I realized the other day that I really don't have that many guy friends anymore.
00:31I've dated all of them.
00:34My female friendships are kind of all I have left.
00:37And they're so important to me.
00:38And I go to them for basically everything.
00:41It's almost like a sisterhood of like female and friends.
00:43And like you get each other and supporting each other and being there for each other and being friends.
00:47It's a whole different sort of like love and affection and support.
00:50I agree.
00:52So how do you feel when girls say they only have guy friends and they don't get along with girls?
00:57Well, when I was in high school, I definitely felt that way.
01:00But I honestly think it was because I didn't have a group of friends that 100% meshed well with
01:06me.
01:06Like once I went to college and I went to an all-girls school, it became quite clear.
01:10Like I don't have a problem with women.
01:12I just had a problem with the women I was with.
01:14For me, like my guy friends were just so much easier for me to like come of age with.
01:20But once I found that in college, I just, I would thank the stars every day that I found them.
01:25Because it totally changes the way that you like walk through the world.
01:28For me, like I had similar things in high school.
01:31But then in college, I like found my people.
01:33And I was like, yes, this is it.
01:34I feel like when I had those people, I was like the most me I've ever been.
01:37And there's something about like being around guys and being friends with guys that like immediately made me like resort
01:43to like the cool girl persona.
01:45Like I was like, I'm chill.
01:47Like you guys can talk about whatever I want.
01:48Whatever you want.
01:49Like I don't cry.
01:51I don't cry.
01:53I don't fear.
01:54It was like immediately I like resorted to that personality.
01:57And then you have girls and you realize like, wait, these things aren't okay.
02:00And like we can have fun.
02:01And like I'm allowed to cry and let's binge eat.
02:03And it's fun.
02:03And like for some women, like that's not going to happen.
02:06And like that's okay too.
02:09And I think we should just like leave room for people to like have the kinds of friendships that they
02:13want and like figure it out for themselves.
02:15And that's the thing.
02:16It's been like true for me where I like love that so much.
02:19But you're right.
02:19What's true for me isn't going to be true for someone else.
02:21And of course we want everyone to have fulfilling friendships, whether that is with a girl or a guy, you
02:25know.
02:26That brings about like the age-old question.
02:28Do you think guys and girls can actually be friends or do you think sexuality comes into play?
02:33I definitely think that it's possible.
02:35I know that it's harder and it's nice to have somebody who's like isn't living the same experience as you
02:42to be able to talk.
02:43I kind of agree with you.
02:44I think it's totally possible.
02:47Although it hasn't really happened for me.
02:49Like I said, I've literally dated or had some kind of hookup or relationship with every guy who has been
02:55my guy friend.
02:56The only guy friends I have left are gay or queer or non-gender conforming.
03:02Well, that's something that we actually haven't addressed is the fact that we're mostly talking about straight men right now.
03:07Literally my best friend in New York is a gay guy so.
03:10Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they always say like, well, you're gonna date someone when you're friends first.
03:16It's like, well, I don't want to be friends with anyone but girls.
03:18So like, so that kind of segues into our next question, which is how do you think society views girls
03:25who are solely friends with guys?
03:27You just get like slut-shaped a lot I think for it or you're viewed as like your situation is
03:32so sad.
03:33I will say there are a couple girls that I know that like primarily hang out with guys and they,
03:37like when I've seen them interact with guys, they really are truly themselves.
03:40The most frustrating thing is other people projecting onto you what your like sexual interests are.
03:46Like don't go and tell me like, oh, he just wants to hook up with you and it's like, that's
03:50totally taking away my friendship with that person and until there's evidence of that, then like I really don't need
03:56you to like tell me that, you know?
03:58Totally.
03:58So Courtney, Allie, what do you think of when you think of like a friend breakup? You know, is that
04:03worse than an actual breakup?
04:04It's heartbreak, like that's real heartbreak. There's no like sexual or romantic like reasons, like conflicts.
04:12It's like literally they couldn't have you in their life as a support system and couldn't do that for you.
04:17It sucks.
04:18We can talk about ex-boyfriends even in a joke or something over French but there are girls' names that
04:23we just do not say anymore.
04:24Right, it's like you can joke about ex-boyfriends but like if you ever joked about an ex-friend like
04:27that's like territory.
04:28We can't go too far.
04:29Yeah, we don't do that.
04:31It's truly like being stabbed in the heart.
04:33That got kind of dark, sorry guys.
04:34It got really dark.
04:35At the end, we were all just like...
04:37I think what we know is that female friendships are all really, really important to us but also what we
04:41learned today is that you can feel fulfilled many ways in many different friendships.
04:45Totally.
04:46I don't think we want to say like one friendship is more important than the other.
04:49It's just about making deep connections with people and feeling loved and not to sound sappy but it's so important
04:55to your growth.
04:56It is.
04:57Should we hug it out guys?
04:59Feel free to use.
05:01Yeah.
05:01Yeah!
05:01I don't know.
