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An Ode to Female Friendship

Editor in Chief Jasmine Oke renders a heartwarming expression of gratitude to her platonic loved ones.

 

I’m very much a girl’s girl. And yet growing up, I found that many of my close female friendships fizzled out over time. One moment you’d spent every waking minute together, and the next it was as though you’d never even met. Nothing in particular would cause the distance, and it was never distance consciously sought out by either party – but it still happened all the same. Just as Dakota Johnson’s Anne Elliot explains in Netflix’s adaptation of Persuasion: “Now we’re strangers. Worse than strangers. We’re exes.” But the truth is, I still hold a lot of love for the many friends of my past, and I hope they’re happy wherever they are. We’re still uniquely bound to one another, and I’ll forever cherish the memories I have with them.

 

Growing up with popular teen shows like Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries, my expectations for friendship and the relationships one formed as an adolescent were very high. I expected to find my platonic soulmates in high school; people I connected with on a deeper level and who I would do anything for, all the while knowing they felt just the same. I expected to find my forever people early. I think we all do, and such a dream would come true in an ideal world. But in reality, almost all of my closest friendships today were formed after leaving school. They’re people I’ve met through past jobs, people I’ve met at concerts, people I used to see in uni classes, and people I’ve stayed back in the Grapeshot office with to ponder the meaning of life (or just complain about our respective days). If we’ve ever yapped together, you know that I wax lyrical about the beautiful team at this silly little magazine and the friends I’ve made here.

 

How special is it to be loved, not only unconditionally, but also by choice? Not because you have the same blood running through your veins. Not because of forced proximity. But just because someone likes you and how you interact with the world. In Greta Gerwig’s 2017 film Lady Bird, after the maternal declaration of “of course I love you,” Saoirse Ronan’s character asks her mother: “But do you like me?” It’s freeing to never have to question this in mature friendships. Female friendship to me, in 2024, is just being so intrinsically bound to one another. It’s feelings of elation at a friend’s success. It’s the intertwining of one another’s pain and heartache, and the shared experiences that no one else would understand quite the same. It’s having various interests in common, but also respecting and joining in on one another’s niches. It’s mutual support – also known as exclaiming “well, yes!” or “exactlyyyy” whenever one makes a semi-decent point – and ensuring one another knows they’re never alone, and most certainly never too much. It’s the freedom to be honest, transparent, and unashamedly yourself.

 

I love my friends (and I like them a hell of a lot too). My love for them, and theirs for me, litter my bedroom walls. It’s like a warm hug whenever I’m alone. There’s artwork from places like Ireland and New Zealand (neither of which I have ever been to). There are handwritten letters, cards, and poetry. Beside my desk is a hand-drawn scene from Autumn de Wilde’s Emma. a friend sketched as she watched the film – not because she has any interest in the Jane Austen multiverse, but because she wanted to understand my master’s thesis better. As I’m writing this, I’m wearing my favourite scarf which was lovingly crocheted for me as a birthday gift. Yeah, female friendship is freaking beautiful!

 

I don’t just hope that our bond stays this strong, I know with everything in me that it will. For the first time in my almost twenty-four years of wandering through life, I feel secure and nurtured by all those around me. I’ve found my people. I am beyond content, and I sincerely hope that everyone reading this gets the chance to experience the same.

 


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