No 7: ONE TRUE LOVE(S)
PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH
REBECCA KOPELMAN
Every girl’s first love is her best friend–she may try to say that it was her elementary school valentine, or her first kiss, or the kid in her math class she pines hopelessly over, but the fact is that none of those people will know her in the same way that her first-ever soulmate does. The platonic relationships that exist between adolescent girls are some of the most intoxicating and terrifying bonds that exist–the intensity of being so in love with somebody, of knowing her so well, and knowing that she holds a significant piece of you in her clumsily-manicured hands, is borderline magical. Because you love each other so much and so selflessly (because you would have no self without her), because bits and pieces of her are woven into you and vice versa, you hold a strange power over each other–one that an outsider can never entirely understand.
My friends and I are made up of small bits of each other; it’s visible in our speech patterns, in our walks, in the way we do our hair and the clothing we share with one another. Adolescent experience and connection affect people for a lifetime–I would not be the person I am today without my friends contributing their mannerisms and selves to my identity. And, in twenty years, I am sure that the self I’ve built up through adolescence will continue to exist; that my friendships will have achieved a sort of immortality through the qualities of those I’ve loved woven into me.
My significant others might believe they’ve fallen in love with me, but really they’ll be in love with the Russian nesting dolls of all the people that have made me who I am, the detritus of the girls I fell in love with in my youth. My vocabulary is that of my middle school best friend with whom I haven’t spoken in a year or two; my fidgets come from the girl who I fought with in seventh grade and still haven’t entirely made up with; my music taste comes from a girl I hate now. They all live comfortably inside of me, and I’m sure I have a spot inside each of them
Young girls are intelligent and often cruel beyond most typical standards, and because they know how to best destroy their platonic lovers, the occasional and pointed toxicity of adolescent friendships cannot go ignored. Sophomore year, I told my best friend that I hated her and that I never wanted to see her again–I don’t recall why, but there was some sort of frivolous high-school betrayal involved, as there always is. I blocked her number and considered myself done (though that night I couldn’t sleep, unable to picture a life without my faithful confidante), but I learned quickly that this wouldn’t be especially easy. I got called into the school counselor’s office the morning after my shot at a clean break. With a false sincerity, the school psychologist asked me whether I had ever done crack cocaine, since a close friend had apparently come forward with her concern.
After vainly attempting to explain that I hadn’t, and that it had just been a calculated attempt at revenge, I stepped out of the office to find my ex-friend leaning cooly against a locker, applying lipgloss. Though my eyes were still glossy with tears, I gave her a lopsided smile and hugged her. “You sneaky bitch,” I said, “I fucking love you.” And I meant it, because I could never say it to her just to hear her say it back; because nobody else needed me enough to hurt me so well; and because in a twisted way, I knew that this was the most anybody was ever going to love me. As our grandest gesture of affection, we moved past the fight as if it hadn’t happened, because that’s what you do when you really love somebody.
Implied in most media consumed by adolescents is the idea that romantic love is the only true love. Any platonic love is simply a distraction on the way to the ultimate real happiness; friends are great for propping love interests up until they are prepared to fall into each other’s arms, and then are readily forgotten or paired off into their own bland relationships. Friendships are for children, romance is for grown-ups, and teenaged girls eager to mimic adults find themselves discounting platonic love as juvenile fodder to be dropped as soon as possible. When I first realized that I could enter relationships and receive romantic love at the small price of my backbone, the “cool girlfriend” persona left me well-loved but frequently miserable.
Only my best friends could see the way in which my boyfriends hollowed me out, and I almost always refused to hear their concerns: they don’t get it, I told myself, they haven’t experienced real love. Of course, they had, and so had I (though never with the people with whom I was romantically involved). That love was hidden in the way our arms linked when we walked together, in the way I saved the smaller half for myself when we shared fruit, the way we edited each other’s writing, and a million other invisible gestures that I didn’t even notice they were missing
