Keep your friends close and your Girlfriends Closer.
Girlfriends
I have discovered one of the biggest problems with Craig being my ‘friend’ before he was my boyfriend.
Because I was comfortable talking to him about everything I was feeling when I was friends with him, when I fought with him I would go to him to talk about how upset I was when we became a couple. That was a very bad idea. Because things change in communication when a person is a boyfriend and somethings are not meant to be said i have caused Craig in turn to get more upset instead of him telling me how to deal with the situations we are having in a more rational and calm way.
That’s where girlfriends are supposed to come in.
I wouldn’t call myself a girly girl and I wouldn’t call myself a Tom boy. I’m just a girl with real life sisters who are both too old and too young for me to get to know, and build real tight knit relationships. So as a response to my lack of sisterly love from my family and since I was normally surrounded by boys in my family I changed the way I looked at relationships in school.
In high school I feel I was often surrounded and most comfortable with people of the opposite sex. Some of my classmates in the past thought that was because I always had crushes on guys, but the fact was that I just didn’t know how to deal with girls. I liked to blame it on the lack of drama that came from hanging out with guys. When I found just as much…and many times more drama from my guy friends (Jason, Scott, Adam, Alex, Jacob, Matt, Kevin and many others) as I found with my girl friends.
I used to like that they thought differently then girls. Girls scared me because they thought so much like I do. I have problems knowing that they know what I am thinking. I like to be in control of how people see me, and with men I used to think that I could manipulate them into thinking I was a good innocent girl and fun to hangout with.
Whenever I tried building a relationship with a girl things would go well for awhile but our similar personalities would eventually clash and I’d find myself wanting to create frienemies out of them. Now that I look back to high school I realize that I had girls that I would now consider my girlfriends that I’m only NOW that I’m in college trying to get to know.
My guy friends from high school are still my good friends but they don’t understand me like they might think they do. I need more than someone who I can hangout with and joke and watch movies with. I need an emotional connection that can only comes from someone who thinks as I do. With my guy friends and I whenever I talk serious they can’t keep a serious face and the jokes eventually start following out like an immature boy might do.
My solution to this emotional disconnect was to search out and find girlfriends. I wanted a group of girls who I could be myself with and relive my girly dreams of sleepovers and makeup parties with. I wanted girls who I could ask to be my bridesmaids someday in my life. So I made it my mission in university to search for somewhere to find real girlfriends. I wanted to be around girls because I didn’t think knew how to wear makeup or how I could make myself look pretty. I didn’t think that I’d be able to attract ‘that guy’ who I knew I’d be meeting in University to marry; (as my mother married young and at university I also wanted to marry young.)
I thought I found those girls when I joined Delta Tau… all my girlfriends. But they became more sisters to me than girlfriends. As sisters I got to live out all the things that I’d been dreaming about as a girl to be girly but I wasn’t about to fully confide in my DT sisters as I could with a girlfriend. As sisters I borrowed clothing and was about to have sleepovers and experience partying with other females but I also fought with my sisters and I had disagreements with my sisters and there were rumors going around started by my sisters and I could be upset with my sisters. I had my friends outside of my sisters and what a girlfriend has that a sister doesn’t is a sense of loyalty and responsibility. My sister’s didn’t live by all the sister-girlfriend rules.
So I continued my search to find a girl who wouldn’t only be my sister but who would also be my friend.
I found two people now who I know who are my girlfriends and I’ll tell you why these girls are the ones.
There’s Heidi Winter and Mel Simington.
Heidi Winter :D
Heidi Winter and I were classmates when we were young and in middle school. We did a lot together because we had a lot of the same classes. Heidi and I were both the little girls in our classes that didn’t have much money, and who were sheltered and overprotected by our parents. We both had abusive fathers and we both didn’t share that part of our lives with our classmates in school. Heidi and I both played the violin and are multicultural. I have my Edina culture and I have my black culture. Heidi has her Edina culture and she has her Mexican culture. We both went homes to world different from that from which we grew up. over the years Heidi and I got separated for a number of reasons. The first and biggest being that Heidi switched schools and we lost track of each other.
Over the years I’ve had many opportunities to get to see Heidi and reconnect with her…we’ve always had a great time and have reconnected. I realized though that Heidi was one of my girlfriends when I realized that no matter what she’d tell me what I needed to hear rather than what I wanted to hear. I realized it when she went out of her way to buy me socks and underwear because she was thinking of me and thought I would like them. I realized it when she would buy me food and not ask to be reimbursed. I could call her and talk about my boyfriend all I wanted and she would alway side with me and tell me what was right to do. I can see myself being with Heidi forever In a way that I hadn’t seen her before. She’s in a committed relationship like mine where she and her boyfriend Nate act and fight like a married couple even though they aren’t. She’s buying a puppy and loves hampsters and her mom is a lot like mine. Heidi is loving and is loved in return by me.
Mel Simington
Mel is someone I didn’t grow up with. I forget how we met but I remember that we both hit it off really well when we first got to hangout together. Mel lived in my building in Drew Hall at Hamline University she is a former cheer leader and she used to battle with issues with her family and her self image. She became an inspiration to me when I was first thinking of joining Delta tau and we seemed to be able to do everything together. We’d make dates to workout and we’d actually keep them. As pretty as she is she’d always encourage me to build my self confidence. She’s one of those people who has goals for her life that she knows she’ll accomplish someday. She associates confidence in herself with success, something that I need major improvement on. She was going to join Delta tau when I did and I remember pledging and studying for DT tests with her. We’d talk about boys and past relationships and as strange as it seems Mel like me was surrounded by boys growing up. Her brother is in the military and she was passionate about army men being treated with respect. When I was going through a phase before Craig when Jason used to call me from Iraq all the time I was happy to be able to talk to Mel about how proud I was of Jason. Mel and Jason didn’t get along because Mel was quick to see how Jason was a total ass and she said it was a good idea for me to break up with him…the truth. Mel and I drifted apart as Heidi and I did Mel became busy with her school work and other friendships and the popular drama of first year university and she never ended up join Delta Tau. She’s reconsidering it now and she reconnected with me to ask me about Delta Tau life. We totally picked up where we’d left off and I am now able to go to her with questions, wanting advice on my relationship with Craig. Mel thinks as I do but at the same time she has the keen ability to think like men do. She’s the only girl in her family having two brothers so she knows how men think. I love the way she can tell me how Craig is thinking when I myself am confused. She can explain to me a situation from Craig’s perspective and put it in words and emotions I can understand. Like an interpreter. I knew she was my girlfriend when I realized that even though we weren’t DT sisters we still connected and create traditions. We still are as tight as any girl could be with a girlfriend even though we haven’t known each other long. We can share like we’ve been with each other our whole lives. I really love her for that.
Just this morning I had a fight with Craig. Not only was Mel able to talk me down from where I’d been…but she was able to help me understand where Craig was coming from, and help me figure out a way to solve my problems with him. It was great.
I feel that none of my guy friends would have been able to do that. They wouldn’t understand and they would probably make things worse. I’m no longer upset with Craig…I just wish he was around so I could try implementing the plan the Mel said I should execute on him.
So from now on I’m going to try to keep my Guy friends Close but my girlfriends closer.
Who?