All Hail the Gal Pal

BFFs have been important to me my whole life, and I’ve always had at least one best gal pal chum since I can remember.

When I was with an ex, I asked him: “am I your best friend?” He said that I was. “Aww that’s sweet” I replied, “but Elle’s mine.”

I’ve just always been a girls girl, what can I say. The only exception to this being those wilderness years when you’re a teenager and want to act like ‘one of the boys’ to make yourself more appealing to the lads… And by ‘you’, I of course mean me. But that was a short lived period, when I realised that I was only trying to befriend the boys that I fancied, and everyone clearly saw the ulterior motive. Any kids reading this – don’t do that, it’s stupid and doesn’t work.

Samantha from Sex and the City once said, “women are for friendships, men are for fucking”, and whilst I’ll say that I don’t completely agree with that statement, I came to realise that my life is edging towards that. In that the only men I interact with are potential… Well you get it.

I wanted to insert Samantha’s quote as a gif, but unfortunately I ended up on a porn gif website, so this will have to do instead:

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some great male friends over the years, whose friendships were incredibly important to me, but nowadays I’ve come to realise that all my closest friends are girls… And I’m completely ok with that.

I went through a break up a few months ago (if you’ve even glanced at my blog, you’ll be very aware of this) and the thing that got me through (other than binge-watching Sex and the City) was my gal pals. So I really felt it when Carrie mentioned in one episode, “the most important break up rule [is that] no matter who broke your heart, or how long it takes to heal, you’ll never get through it without your friends”. God I am such a Carrie.

My friends were there for me when I was sad; when I needed a drink; when I needed reminding about how great I am… Even on the days when I thought I was fine, and found myself crying into a vegan sausage roll – they were there to pick me up.

Or the time when I was feeling particularly vulnerable and decided to pick up smoking. My smoking career ended the same day in case you were wondering. It went up in smoke (ha..)

The OG gal pals

I am so very grateful for all of the friendships I have; new pals; my closest pals; my uni pals; my Twitter pals; my housemates; my friends that live the other end of the country…. Or world. I have such amazing friends, and I wouldn’t change them for anything.

And when it comes to those new pals: I have shared secrets with women who I’ve just met many a time; whether in the cliche girls bathroom at a club situation; at a festival; or just with a new friend, chatting away on the beach. Even recently at a party (back when we were allowed 30 people in the house), I found myself telling a story to a girl over the course of about 3 hours, and very much oversharing whilst doing it. Before she, in return told me an hour long story.

I just love bonding with a new pal… And I also really miss making new drunk friends in clubs, damn.

I realised recently when needing a male opinion on a pair of flares, that I really should branch out and make an effort to make some male friends too. And now I think about it, I don’t actually remember the last time I interacted with a real life man… Bumble anyone?

This blog post is dedicated to my bestie, Elle:

Thanks for reading!

xoxox