A little over a year ago, the marketing campaign for the Barbie movie launched and we all entered a sort of group psychosis. Do you remember that opening weekend? I do. I was having a drink that Sunday with my friend who happened to be wearing a blush (barely pink) shirt, and a group of girls dressed in bubblegum and flamingo called out to her “Hi Barbie!” She yelled back, in a pitch I haven’t heard since kicking my feet on a playground swing set, “HI BARBIE!”
Around that same time Taylor Swift and Beyonce both kicked off their respective tours. We put bows on everything, obsessed over coquette, worshiped at the altar of Sandy Liang. We ate “girl dinners” and soothed financial guilt with “girl math”. “She’s just not a girl’s girl” became our modern version of “bless her heart.” Like being a “guy’s girl” is a gross moral shortcoming, a scarlet letter assigned by Girls at Large. Publications like NPR and Fortune dubbed 2023 The Year of the Girl.
Most of my time in New York can be categorized as “for The Girls.” I’ve been here for four years and the majority of my friendships are with girls. Even when I had a boyfriend, “date night” meant wearing a cute outfit to get dinner with The Girls. My camera roll has 5 million photos of dinner parties with The Girls. On Sundays, my friends and I meet up in the coffee shop to Girl Rot together. What I’m saying is…every night is girl’s night in Barbie’s dream house.
But, I’m afraid the Barbie pink tint on my life is starting to fade. I’m calling it now, the Girlpocalypse is coming.
The Girlpocalypse has less to do with movies, pop stars, and TikTok trends and everything to do with the actual girls in my life. I started to hear rumors and prophecies of the Girlpocalypse when I approached my mid twenties. I heard older friends talk about their friends moving in with partners, getting married, having babies. But I think I foolishly (or maybe it was denial) underestimated what all of this meant.
I imagined my life as a long drive with my friends and I taking turns in the driver and passenger seats. And as they got into serious relationships, well I guess I just assumed their partners would pile into the backseat and queue up a few songs. But I wasn’t examining how partnership would really affect my friendships—which I will admit is incredibly naive especially considering at times I’ve been the one in a long term relationship.
But I’m feeling this doomsday energy more intensely now as the majority of my friends are in serious, committed relationships. And although they are all at various stages it feels like this year, more than all the ones before, everyone is on the brink of some major change in their relationship. People are moving in together, getting engaged, getting married, having kids. Last year the girls were down bad. This year they’re settling down.
I’ve seen friends date, fall in love, and hit milestones with partners all through my twenties but this time, because of our age (God, I hate saying that) it feels different. And I’m starting to understand that no matter how early I call shotgun, it’s going to be my friends and their partners in the front seat with me in the backseat along for the ride.
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A few months ago I was at a dinner party with a bunch of couples. I remember thinking how fun it was that we were in our dinner party era. That’s when it hit me. This isn’t an era, this is the rest of our lives. It sunk in that it’s called a “girl’s night” or a “girls trip” because the default becomes a trip or a night with your partner.
I can’t speak for my friends, but for me, my twenties has at its core revolved around my female friendships. I know that might be surprising as I’ve written four essays this year on my dating life, but through all the relationships, heartaches, and breakups, my friends are the partners who have always been there. They’re the ones in the passenger seat beside me—in the driver’s seat when I need them to be. I’m bracing myself for the fact that we’re entering a period of time when it all changes.
I wonder if I’m turning into Jo in that scene in Little Women. It’s Meg’s wedding day and Jo begs her: “We can leave. We can leave right now…You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.”
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Which brings up the question: Do I secretly resent all my friends’ partners?
The answer is no. In reality it would all be so much easier if I could corral all the partners and stick a huge sticker on them that says: “ENEMY.” But this line of thinking ignores one crucial universal truth: my friends are so perfect, flawless, and spectacular with discerning taste and judgment. Which is all to say… Goddammit, the guys are good.
They are kind, funny, and warm. They make me cocktails when I come over, text me back and forth when I need advice installing a light fixture. They send me articles they think I’d like. They listen earnestly and thoughtfully when I need advice on relationships. The sick truth is that my friends’ partners are my friends too and I love them. Bastards.
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So no, I’m not Jo. In reality, I think I am Issa in that scene at the end of the Insecure finale. She’s watching Molly get married and she’s happy for her but there’s also this look on her face that’s just like “Damn….” When her boyfriend asks what’s wrong she says, with equal parts acceptance and melancholy, “There goes my girl.”
I’ve hesitated to write about all this because I’m afraid A.) it’s all so trite and B.) I’m going to sound like that token single friend who can’t wipe the frown off her face but… fuck it, I’m going to say the thing you’re not supposed to say: Whenever one of my friends talks about their timeline for getting married or asks me my opinion on engagement rings I can’t help but feel like I’m boarding them up and shipping them off to cross an ocean. But the doomsday energy I feel has nothing to do with the partners in question. It’s that ocean. That space between us that is ever expanding as we all take journeys we are meant to—need to— take.
I think what has taken me a while to articulate is that I don’t feel like I’m being left behind. This implies that my friends and I are all on a path and some of us are moving along at a faster, maybe smoother, pace. What is harder for me to stomach is that we are on completely different paths, all moving along at exactly the same pace and our lives are actually diverging in different directions irrevocably.
Do you ever do this? You look at your friend thinking you’ve known this face forever, better than you know your own, and then you zoom out. The background comes into focus and you wonder, “How did our lives become so different?” A part of me wishes we could stay in lockstep forever.
And it’s not just partnership or family planning that is setting us on these different pathways. It’s the careers we choose, the cities we move to, the values we double down on, the things we choose to accept, the things we refuse to accept. It happens whether you’re single or not, whether you’re aware of it or not.
And sure, maybe these paths will converge again or run parallel. Or maybe, what I’m forcing myself to consider, is that there will always be a wide chasm between us. It’s up to us to shout across it, over and over again as our voices grow hoarse, if we want to stay close. And as successful as we are, the chasm will always be there.
At the core of my Girlpocalypse anxiety is my fear of change and my understanding that growth requires friction. But I also know that even if I end up missing this pink-hued era of my life, if I’m right in thinking we will never have it again, life is bound to be beautiful and technicolor in ways I haven’t yet imagined.
A few weeks ago I went to my friend Sarah’s apartment where she lives with her partner Henry. They had me and two couples over for a big beautiful dinner. I walked in as Henry finished up the pasta Pomodoro and Sarah made me a spritz. We ate cured meats that the two of them had picked up on Arthur Ave. earlier that day. Henry called me over to the freezer to show me the short ribs they’d bought as a part of their haul and said, “Next time you gotta come with us.” I took a photo of Sarah, glowing, as she showed The Girls the “chocolate salami” she made for dessert.
Before dinner was served, my friends gave a toast and I couldn’t help but think of how grateful I was that they lived here and how lucky I was to eat pasta with them. At the end of the night, like magnets, all The Girls piled on the loveseat in the dining room and gabbed until it was time to clear the dishes. It was a good reminder that it can still be girl’s night even if Barbie shares the dream house.
eugh i feel like i'm the last girl standing in the girlpocalypse, living in a city that every close friend I've had has now moved away from. it's very sad but i keep holding out that i'll have a new phase of girlfriends as i enter into the weirdness of my thirties.
stoppp that last line is so beautiful and true, but adjusting to the new reality comes with its own grief!!! I feel you so much.