Building female friendships

I think if you're at a stage in your life where you're no longer in education, the best strategies for making female friends are joining clubs (especially ones with a majority of female members) and taking up hobbies. If you want to go down the work route, try to see if you can get secondments in different departments or offices. Or don't stay in the same job too long, keep applying for better jobs at new companies. That way you meet more people as you network and can make friends you don't work with every day/longterm. If you have children, get involved in activities to meet other mothers. Alternatively, things like going on cruises and day trips/coach trips can be a good way of making more female friends if you're an older woman. I think it's important just to look for women who share your interests and values and match your energy. If you feel like you're putting too much into a friendship ad not receiving the same back, tone it down and redirect that energy somewhere else, to different people. If you realise a friend is a pickme, just do a slow fade in communication and look elsewhere. One of the good things I've found about female friendships is that it's just so much easier than dating. You're more likely to encounter consideration, respect and genuine interest. There's also never a limit on how many friends you can have! The more the better. Don't look exclusively for one woman to be your BFFL who has everything in common with you. If you find someone like that it's great but it's just as fulfilling to have different friends for different areas and aspects of your life, hobbies and personalities.

I think a lot of female friendship is practise. I used to be such a pickme and had so few female friends but if you looked at my life now you probably wouldn’t believe me. I was very awkward but I kept putting myself out there. I started a book group where I live (and have just joined an online one). I made an effort to talk to the mums of my son and there are a couple I’m getting friendlier with. I just joined a local charity and there’s a woman there I like so far. I go to female networking events a lot. I basically turned the effort I put into dating/romantic relationships towards female friendships.

Thank you so much for this post. 🌺 Making friends as I got older taught me how SO MANY women befriend me just to enjoy homemade food, free cleaning and free emotional labour. ( I genuinely love cooking amd cleaning) Although I have been very lucky to find friends who extended genuine support to me over the years. So when I started weeding out the harmful/exhausting friends, I basically used strategies similar to what we use in dating. To make it short, I just stopped taking initiative all the time and reduced it to some times. It gave them the chance to take initiative also. And sometimes it gave us both space. Over the years, I have also improved certain things about myself. So I approached the acquaintances that I couldn't turn into friends,again ,after taking a break and improving. In some cases they did the same and we were able to improve our relationship better :) About the pick mes, IF they are originally kind women who are simply pick mes without actively affecting me, I keep them close as well. And create distance by expressing disagreement politely, only when they are unleashing their pickme tendencies . What I did that I consider unique in this topic was, leaving social media. A lot of women who were not genuine in their intentions of friendship left me alone very quickly and easily. Also, I noticed that it helped in weeding out other shallow people.

There’s not much else I can add as the comments already completely nailed it. I just came here to say that the entire energy of this thread is absolutely gorgeous. This is such a wholesome post reminiscent of OG FDS. The comments are realistic, not coddling, taking ownership of our own needs and what is in our control, but still so encouraging of taking accountability for ourselves and trying to actively improve our situations. It's hopeful. I really appreciate you all. 🥲

I think we have to create the change we want to see. By that I mean, if we want to connect with more women and nurture friendships with them, we might have to create those spaces ourselves if they don't already exist. One day, I would like to do this. My life does not allow it right now. I would love to create a group of some kind or a women's circle or just a space where women can gather. For now, I've nurtured some strong bonds with women online. Any connection is better than none. People can be present in our physical reality and yet offer us no emotional support and make us feel alone. I've connected with women through shared interests, like books and art. I find tarot and divine feminine/goddess spirituality spaces to be very positive and uplifting as well. And FDS has also been a great place for connecting to like-minded women.

Building, nurturing and maintaining a friendship is work and requires effort from all parties. It's no different than building a romantic relationship minus sex. There need to be plenty of bond building activities, transparency, vulnerability, and, of course, mutual care. Most women are naturally good at fostering warm, fulfilling friendships, you just need to find those who share your values.

Just like vetting for men I had to learn that it's important to vet women for friendships as well. Male-identifiying pickmes stay on the outskirts of my social circle, if at all. I've had some really damaging experiences with Pickmes so I'd like to avoid them. However I'm uncertain how to vet for that - I don't want to start getting close to someone and then have to cool off or even end the friendship (hurt feels and all). What would be good ways to figure out another woman's attitudes early on so I know if it's safer to let her in? I feel it's difficult because Pickmeism seems like the default, and being too upfront (I have strong feelings about it lol) might not be the best tactic.

Female friendship are amazing and so wholesome ! It's so sad that our society doesnt value them as much as romantic relationships

If you're religious places of worship are a great way to meet like-minded women

Female team sports also :)

my biggest difficulty is lack of reciprocity. i got tired of it and now i don't take initiative anymore. the most noticeble situation is people devaluing my time. the will cancel on me last minute a if it's nothing. i hate it!

second biggest difficulty is the so called friends prioritizing dick before my friendship. and i'm not talking about a boyfriend or a husband. i'm talking abut random crushes or even fuckboys from apps (which can be very dangerous).

i'm currenly friendless and i'm developing a suspition of women as friends. i've lost the few friends i used to have after finding a goo job and leveling up. they just left me or treated so bad i had to leave. true friend don't do that.

i don't have strategies to suggest since i'm also in need of friends. all i can say is: vet the hell out of them. don't be vulnerable too quickly. cut them off if they value dick more than anything.

I'm rereading your post today as we're in a similar spot.

Yesterday I communicated my boundaries to a childhood friend. I texted her that I'm concerned she's depending on me for her emotional needs. For the past 22 years, I was the giver and she the taker. To borrow your words, she has severe "unmanaged mental health issues."

It was awful. Surface-level apologies. Low self-awareness. Entitlement. And a complete lack of accountability. She texted that she'll turn to her boyfriend instead in future. The guy has no idea what's about to hit him. Our conversations were so bizarre. It felt like reading the texts of an 8-year-old in a tantrum. I mentally checked out of our one-sided friendship years ago, but it still left me feeling used and discarded.

Suffice to say, I really don't see myself being friends with her anymore. She still wants to, but your truly have self-respect and frankly, I'm getting sick of her. I thank my lucky stars she's moving out of the country soon. Time to start afresh!

Moving forward, I plan to get therapy and focusing on genuine friendships with a few female friends I made last year. One online, the other offline.

I got to know one friend through Instagram. We've been following each other's account and one comment to another led us to now being pen-pals. We met end-2022 and it was such a breath of fresh air. Mutual respect, silly banters, and meaningful conversations. Even when we were talking about the hard stuffs, we made sure to be of mindful of each other's space. It was really a valuable experience. It gave me the front row seat at how a healthy friendship and conversation should look like. We're making plans to meet again and I'm really looking forward to it.

I met my other friend in a mental health support group. I'm still getting to know her, but during the short time we've spent together, she's shown herself to be independent, warm, and introspective. I'm planning to meet her next month to catch up.

I wholeheartedly agree with @RecycledPopcorn. It's really important to look for women with similar interests, values, and energy/vibe. From today onwards, anyone with low emotional maturity, fragile ego, and dismisses mental health, and jealous of other women's achievements gets the automatic boot from me.

Community/clubs that involve a lot of interactions are a great place to start. (e.g., painting workshops probably won't work, as I've found them to be solitary. We just paint, make small talk, and say bye 😐) Meetups.com can be helpful, too, though it does require a bit of digging. Groups with few participants (as the host wants to keep it small and meaningful) and require you to share your expected expectations before qualifying you are also worth checking out.

Good luck and have fun out there! 😁

i just let people approach me and i vet them. i don’t have many friends and i’m in college. i know a lot of people but those girls are pick mes and very fake and i’m over hanging around low value women.