Too Fast, I'm Furious: Reflections on Female Friendship Part III

“I never liked her,” my mother said. “It was always about her.” 

The her she was referring to was my best friend throughout high school. In my recent attempts to think and write about female friendship it occurred to me that my mother was right. This friend was consistently selfish and tricked me into believing what a “best friend” was supposed to be. I was quiet and complacent, often waiting for her to wake up in the late afternoon while I sat around bored with nowhere to go.

 

She lived in a single-parent household with her mother who either stayed in her room or wasn’t home. Despite my mixed feelings, I loved spending the night at her house because her mom would buy Pizza Rolls and Pizza Bagels and Coca-Cola. The closest thing we had to junk food at our house were Fig Newtons. Her mom would even buy me Easter candy because she knew I was deprived of sugar-coated goodness at my house.

 

After we had received our driver’s licenses’ and both had our own cars, she began getting into the local street car scene. Sometimes I would go with her to a movie theater or Home Depot parking lot filled with Fast and the Furious cars with their hoods pulled up. I don’t fabricate when I tell you these were the some of the dumbest men I’ve ever met. So, naturally, a few of them asked her about me.

 

On one of these evenings we met a guy named Joel who drove a silver Honda…something. Prelude? That’s a car, right? He came back to her house with us and we sat around watching television and eating junk food. Time had passed and she said she was going to walk Joel out to his car. Thirty minutes went by and I was still alone. I went to the front door and looked out the window. They were making out against the side of his car. I went back into her room and more time went by. I went back to the door and this time there was no sign of them. I stayed at the window, confused, until I saw a back moving up and down inside the car. OOOOOOH. I went back into her room. 

 

When she eventually came back into the house she told she had just taken Joel’s virginity. She went on to tell me about the overwhelming size of his…stick shift and that Joel mentioned that he thought I was cute. He wanted to date me and fuck her on the side. I really wish I remember what I had said in response to this. Hopefully it was something along the lines of, “that’s fucking disgusting.” 

 

When we went out, she always had to drive. It was her way or the highway. One rainy weekend night, she drove us and another friend out to a darkly lit country road where she wanted to see how fast her car could go. I told her I was uncomfortable with this; how dangerous this could be. She told me I could get out of the car and wait on the side of the road if I wanted. Late at night. In the dark. On an empty country road, slick with rain. What a bitch, I hope I was thinking. My safety, my feelings were not important to her.

 

When I finally realized this, it was 2004 and our friend had just died three days before her 20th birthday. I was a fucking mess and when I tried to call her for sympathy, empathy, compassion, ANYTHING, she said nothing. She told me she wasn’t going to attend the visitation or the funeral. I was too young to understand. This wasn’t normal. Our friend wasn’t supposed to be dead. How could she not have a reaction to this? This was unacceptable to me. Just as unacceptable as another “best friend” said that what this girl had done was completely selfish. 

 

My so-called “best friends” were fucking useless, at least that’s how it felt then. How could I trust another female friend ever again? What does being a “best friend” mean anyway?

 

Being friends with her made it very difficult for me to trust other women. The only time I remember standing up for myself was outside a comedy club where her mom had signed up for open mic night. We had tickets to the Vans Warped Tour in Cincinnati and I told her I wanted to drive. She wasn’t going to let this happen. I was pissed and she got pissed because I said fuck in front of her father, who a few years later would impregnate and marry a girl a barely older then us. I ended up taking my own father to the outdoor festival so I could see my beloved bands Boy Sets Fire and Ozma.

 

Sometimes friends just outgrow each other and that’s okay. I continued to learn that lesson throughout my twenties with the rise and pervasion of social media and the passive aggressive comments made by another “best friend.” The women whom I call my best friends now have made me comfortable using these words because we recognize each other as equals. We don’t shame each other, or make each other feel small. We support each other. We hear each other. And that has made all the difference.

 

Comments

Popular Posts