There is much more pressure on the standard of friendships when it comes to females. While there are “bromances” and the “Bro Code,” there isn’t anything quite like the bond between two women. Females share everything from secrets to clothes to food. Your female roommate knows the exact location of your weird freckle and every boy that’s ever wronged you. They know your mother’s maiden name and the color of your bedroom.

A feminine relationship is a powerful thing because as everyone knows, girls can be mean. When you’re a girl and your entire gender is labeled with a negative stereotype, it’s important that your friendship goes against the grain. It is very easy to fall into competitive and jealous friendships, and it’s important to find a female companion that does nothing but boosts your ego and lifts you up emotionally (in a perfect world, it would be something like a Kate Middleton/Beyonce duo).

When entering college, there is a lot of pressure put on females to find their “bridesmaids.” Your mother, aunts, and grandmother all assure you, “College is where you find your bridesmaids!”

Well, who says I’m even getting married?

Just like marriage, friendships should be with the people you fall in love with. You should stumble upon them naturally. I am at the stage in my collegiate career where I know girls (and guys) who are struggling because they feel they haven’t found their forever friends or “bridesmaids.” Sometimes you just don’t connect with people that way, and not everyone needs bridesmaids. Some people just have a maid of honor. Some people elope. Literally, and metaphorically.

But for the people like me who have found their one “bridesmaid,” it makes you realize just how lucky you are, and just how hard connections like these are to find.

My bridesmaid knows not only when I’m in a bad mood, but she knows how to get me out of it. But she also knows when I need to be left alone.

She knows when I need to be told something I don’t want to hear, and she knows how to deliver it. Without sugar coating it.

She knows when I am coming home from class, simply because she can “feel my presence” enter the apartment building. While that sounds like an exaggeration, I truly believe it’s things like this that show you when you’ve found your soulmate. Your soulmate shouldn’t be the person you fall in love with, your soulmate should be the person that your soul intertwines effortlessly with. They become an extension of you. There is no effort; it just happens. There is no falling in love--it is just love, in the simplest sense.

I don’t know what having a soulmate feels like, but I’m sure it’s a little like finding your bridesmaids. And sometimes, our soulmates and our bridesmaids turn out to be the same people.