We are always telling our friends, especially our “best friends,” that we love them. But do we ever really sit and think about what we really mean? I’m not here to make generalized statements about everyone and their particular friendships, but I do want to share my own experiences with y’all.
You might be thinking at this moment, why I am I supposed to care about this girl’s friendship with another girl? This isn’t sexy, this isn’t going to be full of wisdom; it surely won’t even be exceptionally witty. However, for some reason, I feel the overwhelming desire to go through this with a public audience. I’m such a “twenty-something.” Or this could all just be a ploy to broadcast that I finally actually have a friend (high school was rough, man). #MommaIMadeIt
So, I met my now best friend through another best friend freshman year. We were always just awkwardly best friends with the same girl but never actually friends with each other.
Us with our other fabulous best friend and roommate at Holi junior year.
Then, last fall when we were both abroad in Europe, I visited her in Prague.
Us in Prague. Candid laughter. We’re super cool. No need to tell us.
And the rest was history.
Just kidding. It was just the beginning… Flash forward to end of Junior year when we were “officially” best friends. This “defining-the-relationship” stage caused me incredible anxiety. It was so hard for me, especially as a queer woman, to come to terms with accepting a woman into my life so completely and so non-sexually. So after the like month and a half of my thinking I was madly in love with her, in a romantic and sexual way (boy, wasn’t this a great time), school ended, and we got back on track over the summer.
At this point, I would never want to date or have sex with my best friend, but that doesn’t mean I’m not in love with her. She is hands down one of the most important people in my life, and I tend to treat her like she is my girlfriend. But she’s not. And that’s okay. She is everything “else.”
She is my partner in crime.
Who’s who, you ask? It could honestly go either way.
She is my cheerleader.
Not to say that she’s not graceful. But she sure knows how to lift my spirits.
She is my saving grace.
Does this even need a caption?
She is my rock.
This is the last animal picture. I promise. We just really wish we were baby animals.
I often tell people that I am madly, deeply in love with my best friend. I don’t know if it’s because they know/assume that I identify as queer or because people have a more rigid definition of love, but people habitually assume I have secret plans of wooing her and living happily ever after.
This pretty much sums up our relationship. Clearly, we need to be together forever.
I do want to live happily ever after with her. I want to live with her, until we find our own significant others, then live next to each other, and be the godmother’s for each other’s children. She is part of my happily ever after. But she’s not all of it.
Imagine this is us. Except for with Black and Latin@ women. Significant others TBA.
I write all this mainly because I personally think that people have overly strict and narrow definitions and parameters for what love is. People say that I use the word “love” too freely. I used to buy into this, and stopped saying “I love you” to the non-familial, non-romantic/non-sexual people in my life. But that started to get to me. I truly felt that I was inadequately expressing myself. I do love all of these people. I am not a naïve 20 year old who doesn’t know what “true love” is (feel free to disagree with me). I think that the world would be a better place if people felt less pressure to only love their family and the ONE and ONLY person they are with not only romantically but also (in entirely too importantly) sexually.
Look at Lana del Rey getting things right.
I love all of my friends, truly I do. And I am madly in love with Yasmin Cruz. With every fiber in my being. Nevertheless, I truly believe that all of my fibers are big enough to love all of the people in my life. There isn’t a max capacity for love.