a girl + girl friendship is depicted in books and television as something extremely sacred, tight-knit, and sisterly. girls adhere to a tacit bond of mutual compassion and understanding. however, from most of the girl + girl friendships i’ve experienced, this is far from the truth.

in high school, i was close friends with a few girls (whose anonymity will persist throughout this post). now, i’m not saying i didn’t have fun with these girls nor do i think they weren’t even good friends to me. what i’m attempting to discern is the need for competition among what appears to be a close group of girlfriends. it was never said — oh no, girls wouldn’t dare say that they feel threatened by their own kind. instead, the competition was a silent one, one of grades and boys and overall congeniality. nearing the last few years of high school, i drifted from these friends. perhaps this result was derived from the pressure of my silent competitors and the stress of not being able to win against such fierce opposition.

there was, of course, also the unnecessary bashing and scrutiny going on behind the scenes with the seemingly level-headed girls which my friends and i were. perhaps the question is not what was said but why these things were said. and the answer is: i don’t know. it’s a drive. it’s a condition of the female spirit. it could very well be the chemicals in our strawberry-banana lipsmackers. i really can’t say. but the motive for competition was there; it was always sensed and thusly followed.

so for the next year or so, i unknowingly surrounded myself with male friends and confidants. i felt more at ease with guys; i didn’t worry about competing for relationships or even wardrobe constituents. i felt completely at ease.

not so long ago, i befriended another girl who quite reminded me of my old girlfriends from back in high school. she was kind enough, compassionate enough… i didn’t perceive any threat from her (“threat” as in someone who would eventually backstab me). so our friendship ensued over the course of few months and a few months turned into a year. nearing the end of our “friendship” i felt pretty close with her. i even began confiding my secret interest (ooh la la) in a certain male i had just recently met. now, as a friend, she knew quite well that me developing any interest whatsoever in the male species is a long and arduous trial of life, considering the painful demise of my last relationship. so one could very well assume that this friend of mine would have been supportive and just plain fair.

“fair?” you say. “what does fair have to do with anything about a certain male that one friend liked and the other had no connection to?” well, this is how fairness comes into play. fair is when one friend acknowledges another friend’s evident interest. fair also appears when that one friend doesn’t move in on the person for whom her friend has a growing interest.

of course, this exact scenario transpires and all hell breaks loose. or shall i say hell breaks loose on my side, while the latest addition to happy coupledom goes gallivanting into the crimson sunset that is my bleeding heart (how poetic). one more girl + girl friendship that ends in a bitter competition and me getting shafted. suffice to say, i now ignore the both of them at all costs; i pretend their little lives are trite and meaningless in the great universal cosmos. i find apathy a fate worse than death.

so what does this all mean in the grand scheme of girl + girl friendships? they are a complete and utter farce to humanity. sisterhood? what a load of pink and strongly potpourri-scented bullshit. now, when my present male friends insist that i am “one of the guys”, i just thank my lucky stars.