DATE YOUR FRIENDS

Last year I made the difficult decision to end a friendship. We met, funnily enough for the point of this post, on Match. One day I’d received a message from a woman a few years older than me: She was helping her brother navigate online dating and thought I would be perfect for him. He was traveling outside the country, and by the time he returned I was already dating another guy, but she and I had hit it off and still kept in touch.

Looking back, it’s clear now that I didn’t really know her. We had drinks exactly twice before she moved back to her hometown, and then we did the typical female thing on Instagram—liking each other’s photos and replying to stories with effusive emojis. When I landed in her city for an art exhibit and we grabbed dinner, the topic of travel arose. I felt completely comfortable with her suggestion of going to New York for a girls’ weekend. After all, this was a friend I’d had for years, right?

Well, on paper, at least. If I were to swap the platonic for romantic, female for male, with the same history—two meetups, sporadic long-distance communication—would I have signed up for a trip together? Doubtful.

But certain realizations only come with hindsight. Somewhere between the innocent age of friendships forged in the sandbox and getting the sinking feeling I needed to part ways with my friend post-NYC, I’d internalized the idea that female friendships were as instant as a Just Add Water product. Think of Gretchen Wieners informing Cady of the girl code, firmly placing Aaron Samuels off-limits after she knew Regina et al for all of five minutes. Compare the kinds of confessional conversations with a new female acquaintance as opposed to the dating ritual of carefully parsing out personal information. Count the times a perfect stranger has doled out or been on the receiving end of advice in the women’s bathroom.

To be sure, there is beauty in how quickly women will fall into intimacy with each other. I think the danger lies in forgetting that not every connection is meant to last for a lifetime, and not everyone has our best interests at heart.

All breakups have two sides of the story, and I have mine, but this is not a diss track. I believe that when a person shows you who they are, there is no need to doubt or excuse it, and I know ending the friendship was the right decision for me. The experience made me realize it was time to raise my standards and be just as selective with choosing the women around me as I’d always tried to be with men.

For me, this has looked like declining invitations to promotional events from “friends” who otherwise don’t reach out, the equivalent of a “U up?” text at 3 AM. I no longer feel obligated to be anyone’s therapist or rescuer on demand. I will always be supportive, but if they’re not checking in to ask if it’s a good time to chat, that’s a red flag. Generosity is one of my core values, but I’ll be holding back until I know I won’t be taken advantage of. And overall, I’m taking my time to build each friendship and allowing myself to match energy and effort.

Love has many forms. Some of our soulmates in life show up as girlfriends, and I am so grateful for mine. As with dating, I think the secret is to first choose yourself; then you recognize the ones who are right for you.

x Kate