[pluck77]

As a woman, I love bonding with others. Do you find that it is hard for people to open up and be willing to be vulnerable and real with others? Do you find that the majority of your friendships are on the surface and shallow instead of deep and meaningful? I do and that really bothers me.

[LizziB]

Absolutely. At the moment I don't have any solid friendships with other women, but even when I have, i've never felt secure enough in the friendship to be open and honest about everything. Even my sisters who are my closest friends I do not feel comfortable sharing some things. Personally for me it's a fear of being judged or looked down on I think. I come from a Christian background, and the church I went to had a general sort of superiority which in turn led to a 'goodie two shoes' sort of attitude, especially among the teenage girls, and there was a lot of gossip, backbiting and that sort of thing, which I engaged in, but obviously it's hard to trust people you know are gossips. To this day I find it extremely hard to make and maintain friendships with other women.

When I was a teenager, I longed to have a best friend, something that never happened, and I still get jealous sometimes when I see what I consider strong and meaningful friendships between women. in my experience, friendships with other women have been shallow and not entirely fulfilling, i'm interested to hear other peoples opinions, as I've always felt like I've been on the outside looking in.

[Beccalouise]

I'm sort of the same as LizziB.
I have never really had a solid, close, honest friendship with anyone, male or female for a long while. In high school, I actually had a few at different times, but as none of them sort of 'stuck', I think I'd find it difficult to have that sort of close relationship again with someone as a friend. The first close friendship I was in; she changed an awful lot and became a horrible person, she also used the personal things against me at one point. The second, I am still friends with but nowhere near as close as we were, we sort of lost contact after leaving high school and going to different colleges. The third person actually 'fell out' with me for a stupid reason. We left high school and went to the same college but we were on different courses, it seemed that she became friends with someone else and suddenly didn't want to know me or our other friends anymore, that and the stupid reason I mentioned. Another friendship was one over the internet that started somewhere at the start of high school and we were friends for a few years. We were extremely close but as we were both at high school and gotten to the point where we had a lot of work etc. we didn't have much time to talk and eventually lost contact.

I am currently kind of close with a friend I have been friends with since the middle of high school, we have a lot in common but she is a very closed and quiet person. I can be shy and awkward at times but I think she is more shy and awkward than me. I worry about her quite a lot, she seems to have some sort of weight issue that started at the start of last year (I think) and have been concerned about her losing more and more weight ever since. She also seems quite morbid lately. Perhaps she has depression because of her weight loss, but because she is so closed and quiet, we have never really been extremely close enough to talk about things like that, even though I wish we were. Unfortunetly, I don't see her as often now we have left college.

What I wanted to say was, I know what you mean when you say it bothers you that most of your relationships aren't deep and meaningful, I love an honest and meaningful relationship with anyone. I have that relationship with my boyfriend now, we are totally honest with each other and I love that he is also my best friend and boyfriend. But I do sometimes wish I had a proper best friend, male or female, like I used to have. But because of past experiences, I don't think I could have that kind of friendship with someone again and that saddens me. I can only hope.

[EricNYU]

I have one friend since childhood that's a deep friendship. My other friends are on the more shallow level. I'm cool with that. I think there's a window in life when you're younger when most deep friendships form, later in life it becomes our spouses and SO's that fill the role.