I like girls. Don’t you? Aren’t girls the best? I think so. I’m glad to be a girl, and I’m glad to know a lot of girls, and I’m glad that I like girls.
I think everyone has that one woman friend who hangs out with all guys that’s always saying, “I don’t like women, they’re catty. Women cheat and are jealous and they’re just bitchy and I don’t like them.” “But, you, you are a woman yourself, ” someone else, someone who has a lot of girlfriends, might protest. And that other person who doesn’t like girl may not always say, but I think probably always means “But I’m different.” Well, okay. Sure.
And it’s not that I don’t like men (guys, boys, whatever. “Men” sounds so…institutional and oppressive. I don’t think I know any “men.” John Ashcroft, maybe), because I like men (boys) fine. More than fine. Some of my best friends are boys. I smooch one boy in particular on a regular basis, so I must think he’s okay. I’ve gone through friend cycles when I was one girl going out with eighteen boys every weekend, and that was just fine and dandy. The boys I know are very entertaining and smart, and many of them like excellent books and movies, and many of them are snappy dressers and are knowledgeable about many things. However, I only know one boy that I MUST speak with regularly, and there are several girls for whom I feel that compulsion.
I get itchy and cranky when I don’t get to have hilarious lunches with Michelle every so often. I get swept by longing for the Key Girls, all three of them, and then I leave sort of plaintive messages on their machines going “Oh, you’re not home? Oh. Well, I was just calling. I just wanted to talk with you. Okay. Well, okay. Call me. Miss you, love you. Call me, okay?” On the West Coast, I have made a recent policy to see Anna at least three times a year, plane fares be damned. All sorts of girls have open invitations to sleep on the purple futon with little to no notice, and I have similar invitations for their futons as well, purple or otherwise. If I ever wanted to take a U.S World Futon of Girlfriends tour, I totally could. And while I might make several stops on the futons of various friendly boys I know, I’d still breathe a whole different kind of sigh of relief when I rolled in the front door of a good woman friend.
I guess the treadmill of heterosexuality is part of the difference for me. Whenever I’ve found a boy I really like as much as a girlfriend (hi Carl!) then all of a sudden I stop thinking about his witty repartee and thinking about how good he looks in those pants and how much I want to give him muchas smooches. And we all know that wanting to give muchas smooches sort of changes a relationship. While I have been in love with a girl or two, I’ve never gotten to the smooching stage, and thus have never really thought to much about “ruining it” with a girlfriend I really like.
I guess it’s just freeing, having women friends that you can talk with about the proverbial Anything. Although it’s pretty hard to talk to any one person about Anything; usually it’s best to have a group of several from which you can choose to talk about specific parts of Anything. You know, like with one friend you can talk about religion but you steer clear of politics, and with another one it’s all about ephemera and ideas but not recipes or crochet, and with the other one it’s all about intense thoughtful emailing but seeing each other in person is only okay. In my mind there’s nothing contradictory about this, although I will say it’s taken me some time to figure out which part of Anything I can talk about with which friend. I’m really starting to believe you can ruin a fantastic friendship by not knowing that. I’ve lost some friendships (temporarily, thank heavens) for that reason, for thinking that one single person can hear everything you have to say with equanimity. I don’t have that expecation (okay, well, I try not to) for my boyfriend, so why should I have it for girlfriends? Contracting out works much better, although it can sometimes be dangerous at parties.
What it boils down to, really, is that I think I could live much easier without a boyfriend that without women friends. If I had to choose. I’m not talking about Carl specifically (hi again, sweetie!), but about the archetypal Boyfriend. Of course, I’ve spent most of my life without one, and have never gone through a time when I haven’t had girlfriends, so that’s a pretty easy call to make. And have you noticed that a lot of boys can only really Talk with girls? I’ve spent quite some time listening to platonic boy friends cry on my metaphorical shoulder about something or another, and when I ask what their guy friends think, they always say something like, “I don’t know. All I talk with about them about is batteries and reactors and things like that.” And then I feel sorry for them, but not too sorry, because at least they have a girl friend to talk to. I feel really sorry for those people, both girls and boys, who don’t have fantastic, if occasionally neurotic and ridiculous, girl friends in their lives, and if you don’t have some already, I recommend highly that you go out and get a few, and then take them to dinner and maybe a movie and then to Target because they’re having a sale.
Girls of the world, I salute you. Thanks for all those times you went shopping with me, even that one time I fell asleep in the Gap dressing room because you were taking so long. I think you look great in those pants, by the way. Thanks for going to parties with me when I felt silly going by myself, and thanks for letting me get snot on your pillows when I was crying and for being a soprano when I’m more of an alto and singing in the car with me. Remind me to give you those books I want you to read, okay? Miss you. Love you.