The Lessons I've Learned from Having Women as Friends

The other day, I was thinking about all my past relationships—either romantic ones, from work, friendships, or family. And I realized something: the most real relationships I've had were with other women. More than that, I've learned so many valuable lessons from them.

The truth is it also made me realize I didn't have many healthy relationships in my life. Growing up, my mother was too worried with controlling everything around her and not letting us confuse her as "a friend" instead of "a mother-slash-authoritative-figure" (nowadays things are much better with her, but that's a story for another article). My father left home when I was 14—and we actually became closer after he wasn't around anymore, even though he was never able to open up completely.

Furthermore, I've had a total of 4 boyfriends in my life (not counting the on-line ones I would meet while playing Ragnarok Online). The first one was 5 years older but would behave like a child, the second had this clear picture of who he wanted me to be and would fight with me whenever I wouldn't meet the criteria, the third was extremely jealous and abusive and the fourth was basically fucked-up on his head.

At work, I had male coworkers who would bully me a lot for being the only girl on the team, or a boss that would behave totally inappropriately (and also steal my ideas).

I've dealt with anxiety, depression, self-esteem issues. Many were caused by all these people. Many of these issues still follow me until this day.

But you know who stood there for me when I had my worst, or taught me how to be strong and to love myself?

My girl friends.

Whoever says women can't be friends is saying major bullshit. Only one woman can understand the other, specially when living in a society that profits from our body and insecurities. Specially when living in a society that is still ruled by men.

Now, at 26 years old, I am learning what it is like to have an actual healthy relationship for the first time in my life with my roommate. She is awesome. She has taught me that I shouldn't feel insecure about my feelings. That I am allowed to feel hurt and to take my time to heal. That it is okay to burst sometimes, and occasionally fight, because we will make up for it later.

Have you watched Friends? There's an episode (I can't recall which season, I'm sorry) where Chandler and Monica have this big fight. Because of that fight, Chandler assumed that everything was over between them. When he told Monica that, she said "no, silly, we're not over! We just had a fight. We make up for it and everything goes back to normal."—I may have changed that a bit since I'm writing from memory. The thing is, when it comes to relationships, I am totally a Chandler. I'm not used to having disagreements with people because I am such a people pleaser. Chandler tries to please people with his jokes, I do it by trying to be exactly who I think that person expects me to be. He didn't really understand the basics of how a real and healthy relationship works, and neither did I.

With my girl friends, I've learned that it's okay to have flaws and to be upset at things some times. And it is also okay to talk about it.

You have no idea how that takes out a giant weight from my chest. Can you imagine being yourself and still getting love and attention from the people you care about?

I'm still not all there yet, though. But I like to think I'm getting there. And I catch myself thinking about it almost all the time. I really think that that's the real meaning of sorority—being together, supporting each other, learning from each other, sticking to each other. I am so grateful for everything I've learned and for everything that there is to learn.

Girls, let's stop with the bullshit that women are enemies. We don't have to compete against each other. We only have to lose from that. We gain so much more when we stop and listen. And share.

This is getting more motivational than I intended, and I apologize for that. However, I have to say that it is true when people say that you only understand certain things when you experience them. I've experienced being at the bottom and having an amazing woman helping me get my shit together. Sometimes we don't even realize we have these amazing females around, but all we have to do is open up and let them in.

Obviously, we don't have to do that with everyone. But learn to trust your instinct. I grew up doubting myself all the time and it is as exhausting as it is useless. If you can't trust yourself yet, at least trust that friend next to you telling how amazing you are. That is probably true.