I really should be doing my homework and the laundry, which is what I was doing until about 15 minutes ago, when it all went to hell when I got up to go to the bathroom. A further detour to the kitchen for a few pickles and a diet coke has even more greatly diminished my desire to be productive, so I'm going to pick up where I left off last night.
I think a lot of talk, recently, has been devoted to how catty women are to each other, and how women are our own worst enemies. It's not women vs. men, per se, but women vs. women. I think that it's mostly bullshit. Most of my best friends have been women, and currently, besides S, most of the people who are deeply involved with me are women. I'm not necessarily the standard, but I do think that many, many women have close friendships with women.
Yet the fact that these friendships exist does not mean that they are easy. There is an immense pressure to "compete" with other women, and to some extent, I think we're always in competition. But if we can define competition in ways other than competition for love and attention, then maybe we can make some headway into the dangerous territory that women often get into.
For instance, in high school, my closest friend, whom I loved dearly, and still have contact with (though the contact and relationship is almost devoid of any intensity), stole men. I wouldn't say that she was always successful, but it was her aim (whether she knew it or not) to gain the attention of whatever boy her closest friends liked. In high school, that's painful. And she was a cute girl, and I was not, and so most of the time, she didn't have a problem. As a junior, she went to prom with the boy I really, really wanted to go with. I babysat. Now, I wonder why I didn't rip her hair out and scream at her, but then, I just chalked it up to her nature. I was much more forgiving then than I might be now. (Although I was slightly nervous about introducing her to S, and will probably always limit contact between them, just because. When she told me that she thought he was an amazing guy, and how much she liked him, I internally cringed. Reflex, I guess.) Her stealing men, it never affected how I felt about her. Other things, having to do with personal beliefs, that is what ruined our close friendship.
I think that at some point, I made a conscious decision to not let men be a point of competition between us, and to some extent, I like to keep to that with all my friends. We can compete over small things, over things that have no bearing on our friendship, but the big things remain taboo. I think that we have to make the decision to not let society define for us what we should be competitive about. We have to pick our battles.
I think that the temptation to blame all this on the *nature* of women is dangerous. I don't think that it is in our nature to be catty bitches. I think that we're very, very quietly conditioned to be this way. Women are expected to be nice. All the time. "Be a nice girl, darling" is not an uncommon admonition, even now, in the 21st century. Men, of course, face far less pressure to be nice to women, and aggression between men is often very overt. Not so, women. We don't talk about our issues, we talk behind the backs of those we have issues with. I've done it; I'm not immune to the pressure to be nice. And in fact, one of the things most often said against me is that I'm not *nice* to everyone. I try to be civil, but beyond civility, I find myself fighting really hard not to feel the pressure of being *nice*. It's easier to not be passive-aggressive when you are able to express your feelings naturally, and without being mean, per se. And passive-aggressive behaviors can really trip up friendships. So I may not be nice to everyone, but I'm able to refrain from the jealous, cattiness that traditional niceties can make almost necessary. It's not a perfect system, but it's given me the ability to have some close, wonderfully rewarding friendships with women.
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