Like most other girls, while I was growing up I was taught to want the fairy tale kind of love. I was meant to be the damsel in distress, who needed her Prince Charming to swoop in and heroically save the day. It’s a surprise to no one that the men of the real world do not, and cannot, live up to these unrealistic standards. My friends and I have spent our
short lives constantly being disappointed by men. How does a boy begging me to suck his dick – after I said no – compare to Prince Charming from the storybooks?
The idea that ‘Disney ruined love’ has been done to death, and has even been dubbed the ‘Disney Complex.’ And yes, it is true that those kinds of stories are damaging to our perception of love, especially to young girls who don’t know any better. But something we don’t see in these stories is the female protagonist having strong friendships.
The first time I experienced true love was not with a man. My girlfriends are the reason I know what love is. There is no love quite as fierce or intense as the one shared in female friendships, and it is not talked about enough.
I have been lucky enough to grow up with most of my closest friends. My friendship with each of them has been through so much. From silly arguments, to family, friendship, and relationship breakdowns, we have experienced more together than we haven’t. They are not just my best friends, but my sisters. They know me inside out.
While I was in high school, I heard from a lot of people that I wouldn’t keep most of my friends after we graduated, that we would all end up going different ways. That hasn’t been the case for us though. We have grown up but not apart, and our friendship is stronger than it has ever been. There isn’t a single thing we don’t tell each other, or parts of ourselves that we hide from each other. They are the people I can tell anything to, no matter what it is, and know they will make me feel safe and not judged.
Unlike the Disney princesses, whenever I have needed saving, there was no man for me to fall onto. Instead, it’s my friends who are always ready with open arms, ready to listen, ready to support me in any way. They have saved me every single time.
A time I really needed my friends was my twentieth birthday. I normally don’t mind my birthday. I have never freaked out about getting older, until the big two zero was looming over me, like a storm cloud interrupting the nicest summer day of the year. I couldn’t handle the thought of no longer being able to call myself a teenager. I didn’t think I was ready for what being a twenty-year-old would mean.
Of course, after I turned twenty I realised it is no different to being nineteen, and every day is still more or less the same. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves to be dramatic about things we know, realistically, aren’t the end of the world. And I sure did act like
turning twenty would mean my life was over.
I felt robbed in a sense. Thanks to covid, my senior year of high school was severely impacted. For weeks were doing school remotely, and there were restrictions on our formal and graduation ceremony.
For my eighteenth birthday, my present from premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was a three-day snap lockdown, that came into effect at 6pm that day. My nineteenth birthday was much more of a success, but there were still a couple pieces missing from my puzzle, as they were stuck in self-isolation. I had a fun night, but it still wasn’t everything I was
wanting. I put lots of pressure on my twentieth to be the best birthday yet, a banging entrance into my roaring twenties.
The day before, my friends and I went for a coffee at Joey’s at Kangaroo Point. It was a hot day, perfect weather for my last iced latte as a nineteen-year-old. I was sitting next to my beautiful friend Alaina, who was looking stunning in white linen pants.
A couple of my friends ordered an alcoholic drink, and as I was reaching across the table to look at the can, I knocked my coffee over. It spilt all over the table and Alaina’s white pants. Any normal person would feel terrible about this, but for me it set off a major overreaction, and I burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!’ I cried to Alaina. She told me it was okay, even though I knew how uncomfortable she would have been feeling in wet pants. A server helped us mop up the mess, and gave some cloths to Alaina so she could clean up. I apologised and thanked the server profusely.
‘Don’t worry, it happens all the time!’ he said. He was extremely nice, and brought out a new coffee for me. I was thankful, but I knew how ridiculous I looked, crying in the middle of Joey’s. If anyone should have been crying, it was Alaina. Spilling my coffee was my last straw, and every fear I had about turning twenty rushed to the surface and demanded to be known. I didn’t have to explain anything. My friends already knew. They comforted me, and I quickly started to feel better. As soon as we got home, I soaked Alaina’s pants in stain remover and put them in the wash. To my immense relief, all the coffee came out and there was not a stain in sight.
From then, the night only went upwards. We ate dinner together and we started drinking. They gave me my birthday present which I loved, and a card that meant everything to me. I loved it so much, I put it on my bookshelf so I can see it every day, and read it when I need a pick-me-up. We set an alarm for 11:59pm, and my friend Gabby put on a song of
my choosing. It was Comfort Crowd by Conan Gray.
As the clock struck midnight, I couldn’thave asked for a better way to kick off a new season of my life. With my favourite song by my favourite artist, with my favourite people. You could say I was with my own comfort crowd. We drank and talked long into the early hours of the morning.
It is definitely one of my favourite birthday memories.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learnt the importance of verbalising my love for my friends. To thank them for making my birthday extra special, to tell them I had a good day after hanging out, or to let them know when I’m thinking of them.
I think we often forget to outwardly appreciate our friends, the people who add things to our lives we didn’t realise were missing. Sometimes we are afraid to express our feelings because we’re not sure how we will be received. This happens all the time in romantic
situations, and I am forever guilty of it.
But it happens in our friendships as well. Is it socially acceptable for me to constantly tell my friends about how obsessed with them I am? Personally, I have passed the point of caring, and I let them know any and every chance I get. To my friends and I, it’s very
important to constantly tell each other we love each other.
There’s nothing quite like receiving a text from Harmony in the group chat that says:
I actually can’t put into words how much I appreciate all of you, every single day I wonder how I got so lucky to have the actual best people in the world as my best friends. I love you all so much and am thankful for everything. You guys are the best of the best.
Or one like this from Gabby:
I truly actually think about you all the time and I think, ‘hmmm I wonder what Kayla is up to right now.’
We need this reassurance from our friends because weare taught to want and seek male validation, which is actually not easy to come by, nor is it very validating at all. When a boy pretends like you don’t exist after calling things off, spreads rumours about you, or cheats on you, we don’t find that particularly validating!
Many girls will question their self-worth after something like this happens to them, wonder if they’re unlovable, what they did wrong. These boys somehow have the power to make us feel smaller than an ant, to completely destroy our confidence. But we do not need them like we were conditioned to think.
What we do need is our friends. Because a strong female friendship holds a million times more power than any insecure man or boy, who needs to drag his partner down to feel better about himself.
I sometimes need my friends to remind me of my own self-worth, and that I deserve more than the bare minimum. It is so easy to fall into the trap of romanticising the bare minimum, and I think this is part of the reason why so many girls end up in relationships with horrible boys.
For example, when my boyfriend picked me up for our first date, he walked up to the front door, came inside, and met my mum and my sister. A few days later when my mum and I were talking about it, she made a big deal about him coming to the door. And yeah, it’s nice, but has the bar fallen so low? Is that really all my boyfriend had to do to earn a
great big green check from my mother?
Well, my own standards are certainly higher, and I was not about to settle for something he should already be doing. I did it last year when talking to a boy I thought I liked. I would freak out over things that were nothing, like him asking how I slept, or hugging me hello and goodbye. That is NOT romantic, it’s expected.
During this time, I needed my friends to remind me that I deserve more than that, I deserve someone who would show real effort. And thank God they did, because they helped me avoid a situation I did not want to be in.
We need to do more to stop the glorification of the Disney Prince archetype. Romantic relationships are not the first place we learn what love is. We should put more energy into our friendships, the people who will always be there no matter what. A boy who goes
above and beyond the bare minimum crossed my path, and I would do anything for him too. But he was not my knight in shining armour. Instead, I have a small group of knights in shining armour, knights who entered my life in our youth and never left.
To them I say:
I LOVE YOU. You show me every day what it means to love and be loved. I can no longer remember what my life was like without you in it, although I imagine it was pretty miserable in comparison to what I have now. No matter what happens in my life, I know as long as I have you by my side, I will be okay.
