Everything I know about love I've learned from my female friendships

After reading Dolly Alderton’s book, ‘Everything I know about love’, it made me reflect on how the female friendships in my life have shaped my perception of love…

I remember seeing this yellow book popping up all over social media. A hint of it in the corner of instagram influencer’s beach pics and I became curious of the book exclaiming everything known about love. I'm a big fan of self love books and that's what i expected when i opened this book but I was surprised to see that this was essentially an autobiography.

I know you cannot expect to relate to every book but when Dolly Alderton started off her story about living in a remote town and growing up with no social media, I struggled to relate. I was raised in the suburbs of Birmingham where social media was becoming more popular and the main form of communication the second I entered secondary school. Although being from the city you'd think I’d meet new people all the time, but wherever I went everyone knew each other. It was almost a clique. You couldn’t talk to anyone who didn’t know someone you met once in the pub, was the ex of your old primary school best friend or hadn’t already kissed your new crush, everyone was connected.

So going to university for me was so exciting, I could be whoever i wanted to be. It was the same for Dolly in her book, as she could not wait to explore this new life and meet completely new people. However the idea of having to start afresh with making friends did scare me. I’ve always been told that I am a lot. That I’m too loud, too energetic, too chatty and just too much. Me and my best friends have always said that we have a weird sense of humour, as we could find a distorted picture of Shrek hilarious for days. Sometimes my sense of humour would come across as mean or too sarcastic and I felt as though I wouldn't be able to connect with new people in comparison to the people who’ve spent years getting to know me at school. I’m not your polished, polite girl who will laugh at your jokes and just to be a people pleaser. I’m opinionated, argumentative and have been called ‘gobby’ by everyone in my life. So when I went to uni I felt like I had to refrain from being myself, to only show 50% of my personality.

But then I met these 4 girls, Eleanor, Lucy, Branwen and Meg, and they all seemed so genuine and sweet. They were a little quiet and nervous at first but then I remembered we have all left our family homes for the first time and have moved into a flat with 10 strangers in a new city.

I remember entering the door of the D1 Derwent flat in my Sheffield student accommodation and walking down a long corridor that was clinically lit up by harsh lighting. I entered room 1 and saw a vision of how I would spend the next year of my life in this small room. I had left my family bedroom that I had been in since I was 6. The room where there’s been many sleepovers and laughter with my best friends and us shushing each other to be quiet so my parents aren’t awoken. The house where my best friend would meet me everyday after school for our bike rides at sunset with music blasting through the speaker hanging out of our backpack. But now all my family and best friends were spread out across the country and these people would now be my new friends.

As I walked to the end of the corridor, I saw the door to room 5 propped open and a northern voice saying hello to me, her name was Eleanor. I look in the room to see a stack of the same books I have read or intended to read, posters of the artists I love, a disco ball just like mine in my room and a pair of doc martins on the floor. I knew I was going to get on with this girl. As she followed me into my room she noticed how similar they were and we gave each other a look. Nothing was said but I think we knew at that moment that we were going to be friends, something just clicked. The more I got to know her she reminded me of my childhood best friend. Introverted until you get to know them and then they are the funniest and most energetic person you have met. A kind soul. I guess they were similar in the sense that they were both 5’4 Pisces women.

One moment I'll always remember with Eleanor is when we were sitting on her bed after having a weird period of male validation involving some questionable looking indie boys who probably both claimed themselves as ‘The Smiths No1 fan’. We put on the sombre album ‘Punisher’ by Phoebe Bridgers and journaled all our feelings in silence. We talked about it for ages and even though i only knew this girl a month i just felt so comfortable. Nearly 10 months later, Eleanor came to stay in my family home for a weekend and we saw Phoebe Bridgers live in concert. I remember staring at her whilst listening to the songs that we bonded over, both of us teary eyed holding each other’s hand. We sang out the lyric “She knows she lived through it to get to this moment” and I knew then that I'd lived through my life and my first year of uni with this girl to get to this moment. A moment where i realised this girl will play such an important part in my life.

I remember getting ready for my first night out at Uni, listening to Taylor Swift to try and give me some comfort as I sit in this strange, new room. I remember us girls barely knew each other and we decided to take a polaroid to remember our first night out. Looking back I can’t believe how young we look and it scares me how fast time has already flown. Little did I know that I was going to meet these girls who would completely understand and accept me. They would truly accept my flaws with no judgement and love me wholeheartedly.

These girls day by day made my smile so much bigger, my laugh louder and probably made me a little bit more immature. But in the sense that I felt like I could be a teenager around them. There was no pressure to be this mature uni student who knew what they wanted to do with their future. We allowed each other to get stupidly drunk and embarrass ourselves and we’d all sit on the sofas the next day with a takeaway debriefing from the night before. I’ve been in girl groups in my life and my best friendship was a trio but this was the first time that I felt like I had a little girl gang and it was so fun.

I related to how Dolly felt when she went to Exeter Uni, being young and overwhelmed with this new found freedom and making mistakes. But just like Dolly, my friends were always there to pick me up and put me back together. I feel like everyone has got into unhealthy habits before, whether that was with drinking or being with toxic people for validation, and our friends would constantly give us advice and tell us to end it. We probably didn’t listen to them and thought that having the experience and learning the lesson ourselves was the right thing. But the best of friends are the ones that respect each other’s decisions and will still be there for you when it inevitably ends in tears. They will let you go on about it even a year after it happened as they understand that feelings don’t just go away.

Sometimes I feel like the reason why I don't feel the urge or desperation to be in a romantic relationship is because my best friends meet all my emotional needs. I am such an emotionally independent person and a realist and I rationalise all my decisions in life before I make them. I’ve always done everything for myself and never needed to rely on someone else. Yet whenever I needed that support I've realised my friends are always there for me. They’ve never left me, never found someone better or just stopped loving me out of the blue. They understand the importance of communication and they truly want our relationships to grow and progress.

I think one of the reasons why I have thrived so much at uni is because of the female support system I have developed. These girls take care of me and keep my soul alive with laughter, they respect me when I need alone time and don’t push me away if I am distant.

Whether they were temporary or permanent, each friendship has served a purpose in my life. I believe these women have all come into my life at the perfect times. When I was newly 16 and got my first waitressing job, I didn't expect to meet a girl who would become one of my best friends and would always be there for me and that we would go through such tough times together. I look back on the small intimate moments that have strengthened these friendships in such a simple way. Whether it’s singing karaoke at 2am after a 13 hour shift, sharing books with each other as if we are in an unspoken book club or making playlists for each other. My whole life revolves around the love and support of these women.

I think it all started with my sister. Now don't get me wrong she is the most annoying person on the planet but I know there will never be anyone who will be there for me in an instance unlike her. Maybe it’s the fact that i have essentially copied her personality that we get on so well. Maybe you can say it's just a family relationship but it’s the closeness of our female friendship that strengthens our sibling bond. I feel like there's something so special with a sister relationship. The arguing and being fine with each other one second later, the shared wardrobe, the brutal honesty between each other, the alliance formed against our parents. Your bonded for life. Although we differ, I'll always go back to her and I'll always be the most comfortable around her.

I wonder how anyone can compare to how much love, support, trust and happiness i feel for these women. They are the ones who have taught me how to love and treat other people. We have learnt about life through each other’s experiences and when everything falls to pieces they’ll always be there. So I guess as Dolly Alderton said, I have built homes with these women. Whether it is physical or not, I have built lives with them and they are who I have gained my strength from. They are all a part of my life. No matter how much our lives change and how far away we are from each other, the love we have for each other will always be the same and our friendships will never change.