Feminist Underwear

Why All My Best Friends Are Useless To Me

The problem with being in love with pop culture is that it has destroyed my friendship patterns.

“Ah,” you say, nodding sagely. “It’s because you spend too much time in front of the TV/computer/books, and not enough time with your friends.”

Wrong, asshole! That is not the problem. I see my best friends all the time. I’m constantly around my friends. And we love each other. In fact, if you dare to fuck with any of my best friends I will murder your entire family and feel really good about it (a line that I am fully aware only works because I am a white woman.)

I have several close friends but I have three best friends. The difference is that if my best friend wanted me to take a bullet for them I would volunteer my heart, whereas for a close friend I would probably only take one in the leg or something.

One of my best friends has lived down the street from me since we were seven. That is 14 years of being best friends. For the mathematicians, that means I have been alive longer as her best friend than I have not been her best friend. 

I met my other two best friends in college. They are both excellent at feminism and watching television and drinking and other things that are very important to me.

The problem with all three of these idiots is that they are all heterosexual women. I mean, they’re heterosexual in the way that I am homosexual, which is to say that we have lists of “exceptions” and would definitely be with someone of our non-preferred gender if we “were really in love” or whatever, but the fact remains that they are three straight ladies, and, even worse, I am not in love with any of them! I’m not even sexually attracted to any of them!

What fresh hell is this, Hollywood? 

By high school, I knew having a neighbor/best female friend I wouldn’t fall in love with was risky. At the time I didn’t identify as a lesbian, but I could have identified as a lamp and still known that this girl would always be my sister. We’re like Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins. Or Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. 

Also during high school I was “in love” with my best guy friend. Let’s call him…Shmeg. Shmeg had feelings for me as well, but given that I was a closet homo and he was a closet he’s-probably-homo-but-either-way-I’m-a-lesbian-so-what’s-up-with-his-sexuality-am-I-right? our sexual chemistry wasn’t exactly sparkling. Nonetheless, I spent most of my time in high school pretending that everything was going according to the proper romantic stipulations for Shmeg and I.

Obviously soon after arriving in college I realize my sexual meter pointed in the lesbian direction. (Also, Shmeg stopped talking to most of his old friends. I know, what a jerk.) But that’s okay! I totally had time to make other best friends to eventually fall in love with and marry, right?

Wrong again. One of my best friends lived on my hall freshman year, and the closer we became the more I realized the love I feel for her is similar to the love I feel for my other best friend/sister/Harry Potter. 

But there was still time! Time to meet another best friend and fall in love with her and have her fall in love with me! Ron is ready to meet his Hermione!

Of course, the great tragedy is that I met some other heterosexual female idiot, who is probably the only person on this earth who spends as much time actively thinking about fictional characters as I do. I love her in the same way I love ice cream, which is to say that I could have ice cream for all the meals every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it but I’m also not romantically attracted to it.

These friends have all failed me. And the worst part is, according to the rules set by the Romantic Comedy Gods, I’m already too late to make more friends. It’s awful. You’re taught to believe that at 21 you still have your whole life ahead of you but I’ve basically used up all my chances to have the best friends-turned-lovers relationship that I have always wanted. Everyone knows that childhood best friends fall in love. Not graduate school best friends or comedian best friends or nursing home best friends.

So this is my big fuck you to all my best friends for failing at being objects of my romantic affection. Now Ron will NEVER meet his Hermione and I blame all three of you assholes. But I’ll still take a bullet for you.