Claire Cohen - BFF?: The truth about female friendship

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First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Bantam Press

Copyright Claire Cohen, 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design by Beci Kelly/TW

Lyrics on from Series 3, Episode 1 of Motherland, written by Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz and Barunka OShaughnessy.

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This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. In some cases names of people, places, dates, sequences and the detail of events have been changed to protect the privacy of others.

ISBN: 978-1-473-59855-3

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For my friends

Most days, on the train to work, I sit beside the same group of women. They are in their thirties and forties, stylishly dressed and clearly confident in whatever it is they do. But thats not what fascinates me about them. Its their laughter and easy camaraderie that has me removing one earphone and straining to listen to their conversation. Ive overheard them talking about work, offering advice that is sometimes brutally honest. When one woman had a broken phone, she was visibly touched when another offered her a spare: Take it, I dont need it! Sometimes they just talk rubbish for half an hour.

These women jokingly call themselves the Mum Commute Club (told you I was eavesdropping), because their children go to the same school, but their bond clearly runs deeper than shared homework timetables. Theres something about soaking up a little of their friendship each morning that puts me on the right track. And, if Im being honest, intrigues me. Why? Because for years, I struggled to connect with other girls and women and I know how hard it is at school, university and well into adulthood. I was never one of those people who seemed to be able to slide seamlessly into a squad, or find that perfect BFF. Perhaps you feel the same way. So many of us do and yet we tend not to vocalize it. Instead, we come through any tricky friendship experiences or look back at our younger selves, when we might have struggled to make friends, shrug and think, Phew, that was tough. We can spend years silently consumed with self-doubt or licking our wounds. But does it have to be that way? Are we really destined to go through life not paying as much attention to our friendships as we do our romantic relationships? Or could we be having a different conversation?

It took me until my thirties to feel truly secure in my friendships my female ones in particular. I firmly believe that if Id had a book like this when I was younger, it would have fallen into place sooner. That Id have been happier, more trusting and better able to deal with any bumps in the road. And we do need help. According to the Onward think tank in July 2021, a fifth of adults under thirty-five say they have only one or no close friends three times higher than a decade ago. We are in the grip of an epidemic of loneliness, as they put it.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 4.2 million British adults describe themselves as always or often lonely compared to 2.6 million before the pandemic. Overall including those who said they were sometimes lonely one in four adults in the UK said they were experiencing loneliness, and women more than men. The Campaign to End Loneliness takes it even further, estimating that almost half (45 per cent) of adults in England feel occasionally, sometimes or often lonely. And while social isolation is something that can disproportionately impact the unemployed, poor and migrant populations, none of us is immune it can strike anyone, of any age. Indeed, a 2020 Childrens Society report found that British youngsters aged ten to fifteen are the unhappiest they have been for decades, with a lack of strong friendships specifically blamed. Which makes the fact that Friends is one of the most streamed series among Generation Z who werent even born when it started in 1994 not so much interesting as sad. A new lonelier-than-ever generation is searching for aspirational depictions of friendship it can feel good about, because its struggling to make and maintain its own.

When it comes to female friendships which, as we will learn, are naturally more intense and intimate that process can be even more fraught. Of course, a certain amount of friendship trial and error is all part of growing up, but Im convinced that it doesnt have to be so hard. Thats why its more important than ever that we start being honest about whats going on behind closed doors. This is a moment to take stock. To think about who our friends really are. Because, when we get it right, there is nothing so nourishing as female friendship. And there are things we can do right now to change how we see them, how we define them and how we celebrate them.

I believe this is the golden age of female friendship and its only going to get brighter. Were entering a future where the women in our lives are just as important, if not more so, than anyone else. The conventional markers of femininity that have followed us around for centuries are shifting, and with that will come a recasting of our most significant relationships. It means that, for many of us, our female friendships are taking on a much higher level of visibility and importance.

Its already happening: we are marrying and having children later than ever, if at all. The roles we are expected to perform as women thinking of ourselves first and foremost as romantic love interests, defined by the male gaze are slowly starting to be questioned. Is that what we want? What other shape might our lives take? Friends are having children on their own, secure in the knowledge that they have a strong network around them to help make it work. Others are happy to say that they dont want a family, where they felt unable to just a few years ago, so strong was the sense that it was somehow unwomanly not to give birth.

The friendship tie is incredibly powerful and for women is going to become more and more important as we move through this century, evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin of the University of Oxford tells me. Actually we need to reassess friendship because for an increasing number of women, that is going to be your survival critical relationship the bond that is going to give you stability, give you that secure attachment, influence your life decisions and your health. If you dont want to be in a relationship, if you dont want children, then its your friends who are going to be the ones that will carry you through. Friendship is becoming more important for women than it has been in the past, and we need to recognize that.