Ever since I was introduced to my new baby brothers, I immediately found I was fonder of hanging out with guys than girls. I grew up to find that I had a label, I was a “Tom Boy.” I hung out with only guys and growing up my two best friends were two boys from my school. I was always invited to play in football games and even more so went to sports-themed birthday parties. I rarely ever went to hang out with girls my age—unless they played on my sports teams. This worked pretty well until I got to the age where I was changing differently than my brothers and best friends. I never really felt that there was any need to have girl friends, honestly, never felt they offered me anything that my guy friends didn’t do.
In the midst of awful puberty and realizing I couldn’t talk to boys about boys, I felt it was time to make some new friends- some girl friends. To skip forward through the years and all the bad experiences and not make this too long of a story, the first few years of this was NOT easy and it actually made me really sad. I never really lost my guy friends, so that helped but I found that trying to meet new friends of the female gender was very hard. Through middle school and most of high school, I continued to struggle with finding solid relationships with woman and it really started to take a toll on my mentality. I thankfully had church girl friends that started to invest in me and although I was not showing fruit right away it led to some amazing relationships.
The great news is, I came out alright. I have some of the best relationships with girls I have met over the years through youth group, school, University, etc. These girls have been some of the best foundational pieces and even more catalysts to who I am today. Over course this is not all my female friends doing but they truly have kept me sane. These relationships have been necessary to be able to process a lot of what I have thought about. They have been there for when I am having guy issues and even more so when I just need someone is able to understand me. Yes, I have great guy friends who have been able to help me, but girls are able to make different strides and emotional support to each other.
I struggled and had some issues with making friends but when I found the necessity and sincerity of good, honest girl friend relationships, it was worth it. Finding those friendships brought me farther than I could have ever gotten on my own. As a progressive feminist, I find value in building up each other as women. The way to be able to do this and help to be progressive is to have sincere and honest relationships with each other and to build each other in those.
