#12:our rules for female friendships.
welcome to the school of friendship!
editors’ note:
Krystle: Behind every successful woman, is her hoard of equally strong women to lift her up.
The bond that women find within each other is a necessary haven that we all must seek to create, nurture and actively cultivate.
I haven’t had the conventional group of girls that are represented in movies and teenage dramas, but rather I have gained my share of the magic of feminine connection in a few individuals that have been able to carve out a safe space for me within them, from which I have been able to tap into infinite pools of comfort, joy and abundant emotional support.
Blessing: Oh, how I love being a woman! If you are suffering from internet brain-rot like I am – a.k.a if you are chronically online, you would know that 2023 was declared the "Year of the Girl". We saw it all: girl dinner, girl math, girl hobbies, the year of barbie, coquette-core, cottage-core, "I'm just a girl", the list is inexhaustible. Now the discourse around girlhood has come with its criticisms, some well-deserved, others benign, but I believe the year of the girl was an overwhelmingly positive experience for womanhood on the internet. Being a girl- growing into womanhood is a spectrum: it can be the best and worst feeling in the world depending on where the pendulum – and society swings.
I think our obsession with girlhood should birth better motivations and principles.The best form of girlhood for me is friendship with other girls. Being a girl's girl is the best thing you can do in the world, I believe. Ever since time was conceived, women have always helped other women, in community and in friendship. It is the sole reason for our continued existence. Girlhood, womanhood, femininity, is community.
We asked some of the girls we knew what their rules for female friendship are. Here are their responses. These are some rules that we have carefully curated from a multitude of amazing women on how to go about these unparalleled relationships.
In no particular order,
Rule #1.Tell your girlfriends about that boy: The council of elders and their advice is lifesaving – Blessing
Rule #2. Be affirming. Be each other’s number one supporter, at times to the point of delusion. – Krystle.
Rule #3.If you think a girl(woman) looks good, TELL HER – whether you know her or not. Smile, wink at that random girl. Give her the nod, you know the one. The one that says “I see you sis.” Compliments go a long way, especially in a society that is rife with unending insecurities that we all face. – Blessing.
Rule #4. Be your girl’s mirror. Does she have a stain on her dress? Is her hair out of place? Is she having a proper wardrobe malfunction? Tell her and help her (be nice) – Niaama.
Rule #5.Criticize her in private not in public. – Omoye
Rule #6.“I will never join in with other people to gossip about my friend” – Oummy.
Rule #7. “Don’t villainize another girl because she is a recipient of male attention. A pretty woman is still a woman and every woman has faced the brunt of the patriarchy.” – Gbèmisókè.
Rule #8. “I think the first rule of girlhood is for girls to delete the word 'homewrecker' from their dictionary” – Precious.
Rule #9. “I am still working on being a healthy friend, so I'm still making the rules as I go. But I'm big on communication. Especially the uncomfortable conversations. If you feel I'm doing something you don't like, I would love it if you told me so I would work on myself and become better.”- Josephine/Hadassah
Rule #10. Help a girl in need, any girl, even if you don’t really like her. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #11. Be dependable. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #12. Give your female friends grace. Be willing to forgive and understand (within reasonable boundaries) – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #13. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable (with those you appreciate your vulnerability and reciprocate). It really moves a friendship from the surface level to a one of meaning and care. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #14. Feel your friend’s joys as yours; feel their sorrows as yours. “If she’s winning, I'm winning”. Don't let the green-eyed monster get a hold of you – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #15. For God’s sake, don't be passive aggressive or backhanded. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #16. It's perfectly fine to have a friend that is different from you in style, aesthetic, religion, hobbies, social class, etc. The only non-negotiable are value systems and actually liking each other as people. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #17. Make an effort to be friendly to and with other girls. – Krystle & Blessing.
Rule #18. Keep secrets — Emma
Friendships are like romantic love. They should be easy, fluffy and pleasurable. Just like romantic love, intentionality and care must be present, and once it is, a great relationship is established.
We hope you liked our rules and are inspired by them. If you have more rules, you can comment below.
media matters:
books, movies and podcasts we listened to, read or watched that we enjoyed and deem worthy of sharing.
Blessing
This week, I watched Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023) and these were my thoughts:
Priscilla (2023) : [4.5/5 stars] It's very much from Priscilla's perspective . Keep in mind, she is a GIRL, not a woman when she meets him. We are seeing Elvis from her eyes. We grow with her, we mourn for her, we feel for her. We feel her budding crush on him from when she was fourteen (creepy!) and thought he was the next best thing since sliced bread, we see her grow to realize he is controlling and dark, we feel her loneliness, we see and we feel. Our mandate is to follow her wandering eye. I really liked the movie. I saw others online complaining about the pace and the plot, but I think it's perfect. It's very unsettling though... because we get to see Elvis the husband, Elvis the groomer. What deeply unsettled me was how Elvis (in the movie) saw and treated Priscilla like a bauble, a toy of some sort. His favorite toy, yes of course, but still a toy. Anyway give it a watch, I highly recommend!
I read Happy Place by Emily Henry and mildly enjoyed it. I love a good second-chance romance because I think it gives the author permission to explore hard conversations with the characters. Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan and My One and Only by Kristan Higgins does this so well. Even, dare I say Colleen Hoover’s All Your Perfects does a better job at a second chance romance than Emily Henry’s Happy Place. I'm sorry! I didn't like it as much. I was let down, and I have read better. The writing is not bad, but plotwise? The pacing? The dialogue? Not up to par at all, in my humble opinion. Color me shocked when I went on tiktok and saw people crying over Happy Place, as per it was emotional?! Is everyone well?! Don't trust the booktok girls, especially the…
Anyway! I rate it three out of five stars.
This week, I found out that Brittany Broski, theeee Brittany Broski of Broski Nation, has a podcast! It's called the Broski Report and it comes out weekly. I watched it on YouTube and I am in love. I am now a BB fangirl, and a loyal subject of Broski Nation! BB is loud, big, funny and unhinged. Just my kind of gal.
Krystle
Series Recommendation
Summer Strike (2022) [8/10] :This show follows the journey of Yeo-reum, who decided to make a huge decision to leave her city and her job and relocate during the summer, to a small town she knew nothing about. The catalyst of this decision was a hard and unexpected breakup as well as a painful death. Most importantly, she decided that for this summer, she didn’t want to do anything at all. She had saved up enough money to allow her to do this. And after years and years of working as just another member of a corporate job in which she was always overlooked and mistreated she decided to completely change her normal pace and tear down the monotonous structure that she had found herself in when it dawned on her that she had been living in a shell of what she used to be. The idea of forgoing all responsibilities and uprooting your whole life sounds out of reach and outlandish, but for someone like me who has seen the effects of stagnation on one’s mental health (including physically being in the same place when you know it’s not the most conducive setting for you) I found myself living vicariously through Yeo-rum on what became as essential healing journey.The slow paced and quiet nature of the show was very appealing to me, on top of the fact that I watched it having had a similar yearning to just pause everything that I needed to do and really take a moment to breathe when I realized that my mind was severely cluttered. I felt that the portrayal of Yeo-reum’s journey as well as the other characters in accepting her presence in their lives was very human. The connections she made were all organic as all great bonds are.
Throughout the show she is able to find that sense of peace she was striving for, but as life goes, she fell into a myriad of unexpected situations which set her path astray. But life was never designed to be a straightforward journey. Despite the odds, the new sense of tranquility and security she was able to gain from removing herself- literally-from the issues that plagued her at home was inspiring to me and something I hope I can find on my own path. I desire Yeo-reum’s journey, and I would love to be able to free myself from all expectations and the burden of ties to certain people. The freedom I feel even when I’m in spaces where nobody knows me is such an empowering feeling. The biggest takeaway for me, in summary is that for many of us, what we really need may require us to reach out and completely break away from the places and people we have become attached to due to familiarity, circumstance or whatever it may be. We have to step outside of what we deem to be safe in order to experience the true essence of life. In theory it sounds logical but in application this takes so much courage, but I hope I can find it within myself to do this and I hope anyone who needs to can do so as well.
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Thank you for reading dear blessing. I love you all! Special thanks to my darling Krystle for agreeing to collaborate with me on today’s post. I love you soooo much. Thank you to all the wonderful girls who answered our silly little questions without reservations. I love you all! See you all next week! 💌
 | A guest post by
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Girlsssss this was so refreshing to read😌 I am so a girls girl💕
I was schooled! Thank you ladies🥹. Also, I love love rule number 7💕