Female friendships just don’t work
(I’m a seventeen-year-old girl, for context.)
Female friendships just seem really awful. I see girls betraying each other all the time, and my friends do not support me when I need them, whilst I am always doing my best to be there for them. I feel like I am doing all the work in all my friendships. When I ask my friends to come with me to the school’s café during our shared study periods, they say no, but when they ask me, I say yes. And, sometimes they do actually go during the studies when they say no to me, if another friend asks them. And they leave me with barely any explanation to go join their other friends, and they never leave their friends to join me. And it’s just really awful for me, because I have very severe anxiety and some paranoia as well, so even just going to that café is genuinely scary for me. And in the big things as well: They tell me it’s my fault I got into trouble for supporting Palestine at school. Of course it’s my fault, but what I did wasn’t wrong. But they refuse to support me. And this is a weird example, but if I ask them to wrestle with me (in private of course, not in front of anyone), it’s always an absolute no. Like, even if I invite them to my house, they won’t do it. I know this is a weird example, but it’s something I’m very interested in, and friends are supposed to at least pretend to care about your interests. But they even ignore me after ASKING me to tell them the plots of the books I’m writing.
I never see guys having these issues. I overhear girls complaining about their friends to each other all the time. I never hear guys doing this, except when all their friends are girls. Is it just a feminine thing to be a rubbish friend?
And I also have only ever seen guys who are passionate about my greatest passion: politics. I have never met a girl who cares anywhere near as much as I do. But I have overheard two guys in particular talking to each other about this stuff at school, and they even have views that are SUPER similar to mine. One of them is a really good kid; he’s nice, well-mannered, respectful. And honestly, I feel, like, a friendship attraction to him, if that makes sense? I don’t have any kind of romantic/sexual feelings for him, I literally just want to be his friend, because he’s nice and shares my political views (i.e. we would be able to have great conversations). I mean, the fact that he’s aware of politics in the first place is a big achievement in the country I live in. Also, he’s from a country I’m very interested in, so that’s also cool to me because I would be able to hear first-hand things about that country from him and probably learn a lot about it. But I obviously can’t be friends with him, because that’s haram.
It’s just agonising to know that people I would actually like to be friends with do exist, but I can never be friends with them because they are all guys. I feel like I’d be better off in terms of my friendships if I was a guy.
And the school counsellor told me to find communities on the Internet to express myself, but it’s not the same. I can type up many eloquent paragraphs about how great Cuba is, but sometimes… I want to actually SPEAK to people. I want MY VOICE to be heard and I want to HEAR someone’s voice in response. I want to be able to discuss things using props and hand gestures and facial expressions. And I can’t do that with my friends because they don’t actually care, not just not about my passions, but also not about ME. And no woman has ever come across like she would care about the things I have to say, to me. But guys do. I can literally imagine having animated conversations about the Soviet Union with that nice kid I mentioned earlier, even though I have never actually spoken to him, but I cannot imagine having these conversations with any female I know because I am the only one who will be animated, whilst they will just sit there nodding blankly and thinking I’m weird for caring about politics when this is literally me trying to stop innocent people from dying. My Economics teachers (both men) let me speak (sometimes), and they seem to actually want to have these discussions with me, and my own mother does not.
Response from a “Fatima” Counselor:
Salam dear sis,
You sound like someone who is deeply empathetic, compassionate, passionate, highly principled, and has strong convictions with a drive for the pursuit of an idealistic future for the world. These are beautiful virtues and will be your superpowers in your life and your future inshAllah.
But with all superpowers, they must be a wielded with balance or the shadow part of the virtue will make it hard for people to connect with you and make it difficult to connect with yourself. Here’s a short list of some shadow sides and see if any of these relate to you:
For example, the shadow side of empathy and compassion is over giving and self sacrificing to people who don’t reciprocate.
The shadow side of passion is frequently expressing righteous indignation and anger without tact or discernment of the delivery, which pushes people away rather than persuading them to your cause. A second shadow side to passion is talking extensively about your passion without checking to see if your interlocutor is even interested in what you’re talking about.
The shadow side of being highly principled with strong convictions is judging others who don’t abide as strictly to your principles as you do or even looking down on others who don’t meet the standards you place for yourself.
The shadow side of pursuing an idealistic future is persistent dissatisfaction when life gets messy, and forgetting gratitude.
When we unknowingly lean into the shadow parts of our virtues we find it harder to relate to people. I’ll give you some tips on how to come back to balance with your virtues, but first I want to address another part of your difficulty in relating to other girls.
Being interested in politics is niche, especially for girls in your age group, so I totally understand the isolation you feel when you can’t discuss this subject with them. Two things come to mind about what you can do.
1. Once you learn how to balance out your virtues, you will find that you have the capacity to influence and teach your friends about your political views because you will have learned how to connect better with the people around you and hold their attention.
2. You can start a club at your school around discussing politics. You can ask one of your teachers to represent the club. This will offer a halal context for you to discuss these topics with girls and boys in your school because it’s in a public setting and it’s educational, and it will attract people who are interested in the topic in the first place.
Now, these two points can’t happen unless you balance your virtues.
With your empathy and desire to give to friends who don’t give back: take a step back. Instead of doing so much, first try to connect verbally and emotionally with your friends by asking them how they feel about things, what their struggles are, and ask them how they would like to be supported (refrain from offering advice unless they ask). They may not have even wanted certain things that you feel inclined to do for them. It’s also important to first assess if this is a true friend who is worth investing in acts of service for or if this is someone who is more of an acquaintance and doesn’t expect you to do much for them (nor do they expect to do anything for you).
With your passions like with politics, be mindful that people may not show an interest in your passions and that’s okay. You may even find that your passion for a subject may make you accidentally speak excessively about something to someone who’s just trying to be polite and listen but actually isn’t engaged. A good rule of thumb here is to use a bread crumb approach. Start by dropping one small thought related to your passion, and if your interlocutor asks a follow up question or seems intrigued, then give a bit more. If they seem bored or want to change the subject, then that’s your cue to leave that subject alone for now. You can try to bread crumb again another time.
If you want to win people over and to receive influence from you, you have to first gain their trust. Trust is built when a person feels heard and understood by you. Much of your qualms that you described is how misunderstood you feel. To quote Maya Angelou, “seek first to understand before seeking to be understood.”
You said “friends are supposed to at least pretend to care about your interests,” and I would say it’s more nuanced than that. A friend is supposed to be interested in why their friends enjoy what they enjoy. For example if I was someone who couldn’t care less about fashion, but a dear friend loved it very much, it would be disingenuous to pretend that I cared about fashion. But instead it makes more sense for me to be curious why my friend is interested in this thing that to me seems totally un-interesting. I may ask with loving curiosity: What do you like about fashion? What is your personal taste like, and why is that your ideal fashion aesthetic? How do you feel about yourself when you’re dressed a certain way? After you’ve gone deep with understanding your friend’s world and her love for fashion, you might even start to explore the politics of fashion and see if she may be interested in exploring it with you.
You will find that the more that people feel heard and understood by you, the more likely they will want to reciprocate and hear what you have to say.
When you have strong convictions and principles, be careful not to impose them on others. Even if your friends are Muslim, not everyone is raised with the same emphasis on everything in the Sharia and even if they are, you are all at an age where you’re starting to explore your own autonomy and values for yourselves. The Prophet (p) invited people to righteousness mostly by being an example. People loved him so much that they wanted to emulate him.
Here’s one last suggestion: ask all of your friends individually, “how can I be a better friend to you?” and see if any of the shadow parts of your virtues shows up. That will give you more to work with.
At the end of the day, it’s important to note that even if you try everything above and you have finally successfully balanced out your virtues, you may find that you only deeply connect with one person, or maybe no one at all. This can be really difficult because it means you’re hanging out with people on a surface level who don’t deeply connect with you and that can be a lonely experience. If that ever ends up happening, make duaa to Allah to bless you with meaningful and righteous friendships, and continue working on becoming a better person who people can connect with more easily.
May Allah make you successful in connecting with yourself and others and to enhance your virtues and make them the means with which you make the world a better place inshAllah
Sincerely,
Your Sister in Islam,
Fatima “YR”
Response from your friend at Stones to Bridges:
Salam sweet sister,
I really enjoyed reading through your post. I can tell you have strong passions and that is such a wonderful quality to have, MashaAllah. Navigating the complexities of female friendships can be quite challenging. I can assure you though that there are young women out there who do seek to develop and maintain high quality friendships like yourself. Not all friends have to share the exact same interests in order to have a good connection. I pray that as you grow you will insha’Allah be able to find other sisters who you feel connected to. With the rapidly changing world, it seems many people are spending more time online than in person. This can make it harder to find those who are willing to invest time to foster a healthy and encouraging friendship. That’s not to say it is impossible, there are things you could do to help you in your search.
I completely understand how you feel about not wanting to find a friend online and I can agree that it is incomparable to maintaining friendships in person. Therefore, depending on where you live, you could try to seek out different organizations. This could be attending your local masjid for any activities they have for youth or the Friday prayer. If there are any extra-curricular activities at your school that you’re interested in, you could also try that. I understand that you have very strong anxiety so taking that into consideration maybe try to first find something that takes you a bit out of your comfort zone but not too much that it feels overwhelming.
Never give up on making dua to Allah to place you in the company of those who you feel connected to. Dua is your weapon for change and as long as you show Allah that you’re taking the steps to find more meaningful connections, trust He will Guide you in the right direction.
May Allah bless you with the best of friends who allow you to feel supported and accompany you not just in this life but the next.
All the best,
Your Sister in Faith
Here are some additional posts on this topic that you may find helpful: https://www.stonestobridges.org/tag/friendships/
