Love on the Brain
While I’m usually the first to indulge in red lipstick and lingerie-inspired dresses this time of year, I’m writing today’s post in anticipation of Rihanna and nachos with my Valentine. For once, I’m enjoying the domestic charm of having no plans beyond sitting on the couch with my husband.
As we gear up for Super Bowl fun, I’ve been wistfully remembering the Valentine's Day weekends of my girlhood. Before there was a husband, there was a best friend.
The one who got away, if you will.
When we were kids, she and I daydreamed about our future partners. It felt unimaginable that one day we’d look forward to eating junk food with anyone besides each other. Certainly never with a full-grown man.
And yet, here I am slicing jalapeños and sprinkling cheese on a plate she will never see. Somehow I’ve found myself wedged into a bed of tortilla chips, reflecting on a platonic partnership lost.
Must be love on the brain
Me singing Riri’s discography all week
For 15 years, my best friend and I were inseparable - like matching Heelys and joint family vacation level inseparable. We spent more time, shared more secrets, and went through more life milestones together than I have with anyone else.
Over our friendship, we evolved from sharing marbles at recess to apartment listings on our lunch breaks.
The language between childhood best friends is hard to articulate. We spent our adolescence in tongues of obscure references and weird noises. A decade later, I remember more nuances from our relationship than from any of my exes.
Anyone who met me in my twenties can’t possibly understand the cringe-y levels of obsession we had with Twilight or the sheer amount of Depeche Mode we consumed on the bus rides home. There are inside jokes and fictional worlds that none of my current friends will ever have access to.
Sometimes I still find myself wanting her opinion. Or, more accurately, wishing she wanted mine.
My photos from kindergarten to university
Like any relationship, we had our challenges. We stuck together to a fault. Over time, it prevented us from testing the waters outside of our own little bubble.
When I strayed too far into another social group, it broke us.
At the time, I thought she tore the rug out from under me for a boy. Looking back, it was always more complex than that. Female friendships generally are.
Platonic breakups are more ambiguous than romantic ones. We expect that priorities will change over time, and there are no legal contracts or diamond rings to remind you of your promise as a friend. At most there’s a clunky BFF necklace from Claire’s sitting in storage. Generally, we expect our inner circle to shift – people move, date people you don’t like, join MLMs – and the relationship recalibrates.
Or, simply, it doesn’t.
The way most friendships die is depressingly simple: it’s not that anything happens to either of you. It’s that things stop happening between you.
That doesn’t make the separation any easier. There’s a special kind of turmoil in losing a friend, especially since there’s rarely an explicit moment the relationship ends. One moment you’re inseparable, the next you haven’t seen each other in months. The slow de-prioritization from someone who used to hold you dear is devastating.
When my best friend drifted away, she slowly pulled a part of me with her. The person who bore witness to my adolescence is a stranger, and I feel like a chunk of my history floated off.
At the time, I didn’t grieve the way the loss deserved. I assumed tears should be left to the romantic heartbreaks. My anguish was limited to flippant explanations of oh we don’t really talk anymore, and I’m not sure what happened.
Worst of all, she wasn’t there to console me through it.
I find myself predictably jealous of those who’ve held onto their childhood friend groups. I imagine people flaunting friendships like designer bags - a close-knit group from kindergarten being the Birkin of besties.
Out of curiosity, last year I asked my readers how many had close friends from childhood. Every single person who answered had at least one.
So, it turns out, I’m the anomaly.
Many saw the strength of their friendships as a point of pride. There’s a superiority in having such long-lasting partnerships. Women can be competitive about the level of connection they’ve cultivated. Knowledge about someone’s life is currency, and someone like me is joining most friend groups at a built-in deficit. I will never be the girl who helped them through first love or first-period math. I am forever second to whoever was there first.
Michelle Ruiz articulates this same sentiment in her article for Vogue:
That our love for one another has survived decades, distance, politics, sickness, and plenty of problematic men feels like an achievement… But if keeping a friend is an achievement, is losing a friend a failure?
If it is, then my ex-best friend and I both failed. I wonder if she ever thinks of me as a stain on her friendship record. Maybe we are forever linked, not just by our relationship, but by our breakup, too. We are both marked by an inability to uphold the basic tenants of being a “Best Friend Forever”.
Like with any breakup, my life has moved on.
In romantic partnerships, we don’t expect most people to marry their high school sweethearts. In the same way, I’ve loved falling in love with other women. It’s exciting to create bonds in the new stages of my life. Now my friends aren’t tethered by mutual history, but by mutual interest.
To continually fall platonically head over heels is a joy.
My female friends - past and present - are the ones who have taught me to love myself and have fueled my soul the most. Despite losing my first true Galentine, I have filled my life with a circle of amazing women. In fact, 2023 marks ten years of friendship with a select few (shoutout if you’re reading!). They may not have seen me through my elementary awkward years, but they’ve watched a different kind of growth. They know me as a woman first, and there’s something nice about having the past reserved for just me and one other person.
She may be the one who got away, but what I’ve found is an intricate web of female support. I traded one best friend for dozens - all who share a different piece of my heart.
A couple of years ago I reached out to my ex-best friend. Not for anything important, just a quick sorry for whatever may have been left unsaid. The second I sent the message, I realized I didn’t know the person on the other side of the screen. I remember her home phone number, the two houses she grew up in, the names of all her early family cats, and her first crushes, but not who she is right now.
It turns out there’s no easy way to “get back together” in a platonic relationship, either.
As much as we grew together, we’ve now grown apart. What we had was special, but it’s rooted in a specific time and place. Our love will forever live in a suburban Ottawa basement. Likely, where a new family is watching the Super Bowl.
