Girlfriends

I have so many wonderful female friends. It’s pretty amazing, and I know and appreciate that it is also very rare for someone my age. I have been gathering these friends for thirty years now, forming close personal bonds with girls on the playground in elementary school, meeting and keeping friends during my college years, and finding a new niche of kinky friends as an adult.

I call them The Girls, and my husband knows exactly what I mean when he asks who I’m talking to. Sometimes I wake up to fifty new texts from our group chat where we consistently update each other on our lives, posting photos of kids and pets, and where we share our love for each other. There are five of us, we were all in chorus together in middle and high school, three of us played soccer together since we were eight years old. We are now more sisters than friends, having known each other for most of our lives. We are lucky in that time and distance hasn’t torn us apart. We survived college and marriage and babies, we fought and made up many times over the years, and we have been there through moments of hilarity and times of despair. What we have is amazingly special and we know it. I get to see them this weekend! One got married in Hawaii, sneaking off with her partner to elope on a sunny beach and now she owes the rest of us a chance to celebrate with her. So, we are all donning sequins and heels and dragging our not-so-reluctant partners to drink and dance the night away. When I see them, there will be hugs and squeals at first, but then it will be like nothing has changed, like time stood still until we were able to meet again. We will poke fun and roll eyes and laugh too loud. We are friends, we are family, we have chosen to spend our lives entwined in our own unique way.

It’s the close bond that I have with these women that inspired me to create my own group of girls here where I now live. I started The WNC Girls Club as a way for like minded women to share their lives. It’s a safe space for kinky women to explore and learn and grow. I’ve always heard other women talk about how they can’t be friends with women because we are all catty and bitchy, and I’ve never found that to be the case. I’ve had fights and disagreements, I’ve yelled and cried over the girls I love, but we’ve always come back to one another. I wanted to share that with others, I wanted to show other women that it is possible to have successful and fulfilling female friendships. So far we’ve been done just that. Yes, we have had some disagreements and some uncomfortable situations, but we stand by our commitment to no drama. When we first started getting together, there were those in our community who doubted us, recounting memories of failed women’s groups of the past. We actively resist the notion that we can’t make this work. These girls support each other and help each other in ways I never could have expected. We’ve created our own little kinky family and we love each other, and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of this wonderful group of women.

When my husband and I started delving into non-monogamy, I thought it was going to be all about fun sexy stuff. I never knew that I would find meaningful and fulfilling friendships by dating outside of my marriage. I imagined breathless utterances of “I want you”, not late night texts through tearful eyes saying “I need you”. I pictured holding hands on rooftops and making out in club bathrooms, not quietly painting pottery together, our eyes squinched in concentration. I never saw myself talking late into the night about serious topics, conversations usually reserved for the most intimate of partners. Maybe that’s just the way we girls are, naturally supportive and sweet, helpful and caring, fast comfortable friends. Maybe I just got lucky and found perfect pieces to my ten thousand-piece puzzle.

I would not be the person I am without my girls. My life would not be the same without the inspiring women around me. Female relationships have always been important to me, and they always will be. Women have to fight for so much already, for equality and respect, we don’t need to fight against each other. We can throw aside the ridiculous stereotype that women are catty and bitchy and can’t get along, and we can all just be friends.