The Secret Language of Female Friendship
There’s something undeniably special about female friendship. Nothing makes me feel more empowered than being in community with my female friends. It’s shared experiences, shared desires, shared laughs, shared tears, shared beliefs, shared being. We communicate through this secret language of being. Being womanly, whatever that may mean for us in that particular moment. This language is filled with understanding, passion, joy, protection, empathy, power, solidarity, and humor. Only we can speak it because the women before us equipped us with the knowledge to do so.
I started to babble in this language by mimicking the example of my mother’s and sister’s fluency. Two women who have always been surrounded by impenetrable groups of women. I saw how they cared for their friends, and how their friends cared for them. I noticed how my mom’s friends were more like family to me, helping raise me in their own ways. I learned so much from these women, such as how to give a proper hug (one with a big squeeze), how to keep a secret (“Don’t tell your mom I’m giving you this chocolate”), and how to show up for the people who mean the most to you. They were at my birthday parties, my graduations, my grandma’s funeral, you name it, they were there. They were there because they loved me, but they loved me because they loved my mom first.
I remember the moment I said my first word in this language extremely well; it is a story told often in my family. When I was 4-years-old my parents took me on a Valentine’s Day cruise to Mexico. As any child would on a cruise, the kids club was my first stop. I quickly made friends with a girl around my age from Australia. With our parents looking on, we played with blocks, seeing who could build the tallest tower, when we were approached by a much older boy looking for some trouble. He knocked down my new friend’s gorgeous skyscraper with one swift kick, and with one swift punch in the nuts by yours truly, he went down just the same. I don’t think that’s my fault, I was only 4 and that’s all I could reach, plus, he messed with the wrong girl. Tough luck! Of course, she and I became best friends for the rest of the cruise, and I was let off with a warning. Though, I think that was the moment my parents knew I’d be a feminist. While I don’t remember that girl’s name, I cherish our week-long friendship because I learned a little bit about how to talk that day.
There are so many girls just like her, my girls of the past, the girls I loved before. At my big age of 23, it feels like there’s a never-ending list of girls I’ve lost touch with or grown in separate directions from, each of them teaching me new vocabulary in the language of friendship. There are so many girls from elementary school who I feel this way about, but it is truly my girls from middle school who taught me the depth of this language. I remember walking into the first day of middle school, a highly anxious 12-year-old who didn’t know anyone in her class. A girl I had heard of but never met approached me on the blacktop and asked me who my homeroom was, I told her and she exclaimed “Same!” in a way that felt instantly comforting. At that moment, I knew she was going to be my friend, but I had no idea just how important our friendship would be. We became the best of friends that year, and she encouraged me to write more than anyone has to this day. Every day, I’d sit in class writing my fanfiction and she would always be the first to read each chapter before I published them on Wattpad. She was actually the one who got me to publish them in the first place, and I don’t think there would be a Bits & Beths now without the confidence I gained from having a (semi)viral novel (Yes, let’s call it what it was. Seriously, it was like 30 chapters long.) on Wattpad at 13 years old. If you thought we were close before, would you believe we got even closer when I moved down the street from her for our entire 8th-grade year? We spent every day at each other’s houses, we even got grounded together. Through every mean girl and f***boy encounter, we were there for each other in a way I had never experienced before. We took care of each other. Yet, taking care of each other took on a new meaning very unexpectedly one day, when one of our closest friends experienced a tragedy, sending her to the hospital. We were her closest friends, as she was ours, so her tragedy felt like our tragedy. This was the first time we had ever experienced this feeling of deep empathy and heartbreak. I will never forget the fear I felt going to visit her in the hospital, but it was made a bit more bearable by looking down and seeing my best friend’s hand intertwined with mine. She whispered the words of solidarity in my ear and I knew, whatever happened, we would get through it together.
From that day on, I understood what this language meant beyond words, I understood how to speak it through my actions. In fact, I believe this language is best spoken in action. Whether that means going all out for a birthday or bringing wine over after a breakup, it’s your actions and how you treat your friends that counts. It means believing in and empowering them to accomplish their wildest dreams. It means standing up and advocating for them, even if they aren’t in the room.
Throughout high school I found myself to be a fierce protector of my friends, for better or for worse. It often got me in some trouble because maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the best at choosing the right words (shocking for a writer, I know). However, I have to say that standing up for my friends is never something I will regret doing, it’s in my blood. Hell, I’ve been doing it since I was 4. However, would you believe that my spitfire nature landed me in some hot water with my very best friend, a name you’ve heard before? Yes, that’s right, Jessica and my friendship is rooted in the fact that we were once fully enemies. Not frenemies, no, if she was going, I was not, and if I was going, she was not type enemies. For a full year, we did not speak, and we handled it horribly. Until one random day before senior year, she texted me just to let me know that she still listened to one of my Spotify playlists every day. If you know either of us, you know music is a BFD and that was the olive branch of all olive branches. Somehow, some way we became instant friends again. We joked about how terrible and stupid we once were and that was that. That was six years ago and since then we’ve learned a lot about friendship together. How do we stay best friends when our colleges are six hours away from each other? How do we make time for each other when I’m still in school and she’s post-grad? How can we prioritize each other when we have so much else going on? The truth is, it’s never been that hard with us. Sure, we might have to book a hangout a month in advance, but as we always say, we were essentially long-distance best friends for four years, so we’ve been through worse. There’s something about the way we communicate through this secret language, like it’s not really for anyone else. Anyone can speak the secret language of female friendship, but not just anyone can speak the secret language of Jessica and my friendship, it’s just for us. We’ve taken this special, sacred thing, and we’ve made it our own. I can tell what she’s thinking just by looking at her, and I know she can do the same for me. It’s like some sort of cosmic connection, we were meant to be best friends in every universe. She sees the world the way I see the world and we see each other the way someone could only hope to be seen. When I think about my future, only one thing is certain, and that is that Jessica will be by my side. I know she’ll be the aunt who teaches my kids how to hug, how to keep a secret, and how to show up for the people they love. I know together we’ll teach our daughters to speak this secret language because it will be impossible for us not to.
There have been days in my life when I’ve felt like I’ve lost my fluency. There have been days in my life when I’ve felt like no one wants to speak this language with me, or that they don’t understand what I’m saying. There have been days in my life when I’ve felt like an outsider in a conversation meant for two. Though this secret language feels like a natural product of my womanhood, it is also a skill that must be exercised, it must be learned, it must be taught. That connection with another woman can feel instant and powerful, but it takes more than that connection to showcase your fluency. It takes action—it takes showing up, it takes celebrating, and it takes communication to be truly fluent. But the thing about becoming fluent in a language is it’s always there. From now on, it’s always going to be there, even just in the back of your mind, waiting for you to use it however you see fit. Even if you go quiet, you’ll never forget how to speak it, and the women you love will never forget how to hear it.
To all my female friends, past and present,
I am so glad to know you, to love you, and to support you. I feel immensely lucky to have been surrounded by incredible displays of female friendships my entire life. Know that even if we don’t speak on a daily basis, or even at all anymore, I am still, and always will be in your corner. In every ounce of my being, there are traces of you, pieces I’ll never forget. Thank you for the laughter, the shoulders to cry on, the lessons. Thank you most of all for teaching me how to speak this sacred language, I hope you always hear whispers of me the way I will always hear whispers of you. I look forward to the next time I’ll hear a little bit from you. Know that I will always say your name in this secret language—because you taught me how to speak it.
Love always,
Beth
