FRIDAY TRACK: Make Friends, Not War!

Kilon Sparkles!

Why do women enjoy dabbling in some girl fight every now and then? Way before Scholar Paris Whitney Hilton in all her infinite wisdom made it momentarily cool for women to call each other BFFs (although she ironically managed to change hers every series), women are largely as faithful to their girl-to-girl friendships as George Michael is to sobriety.

I’ve kept a lot of female friendships in my life. I’m as good a handbag shopping partner as a Marks and Spacks
Food Hall bargain hunter. I got my training from 4 sisters and I excelled.

I understand women (or perhaps I like to think I do) – I enjoy their energy and often played up fragility. I adore their purpose in this thing called life and their part in giving it. I can go on for days celebrating the ‘woman’ – from the one that likes to shout her importance to the one who leaves that to others. I celebrate my mother, your mother, and our mothers.

As much as I enjoy learning the difference between Malaysian Hair and its Brazilian counterparts or what a certain French shiny, red-lacquered soles say about the purchaser. There is however one thing that beats me about women and that’s their historically poor record of keeping a steady girlfriend relationship. It seems the average chick changes her girlfriends with last season’s La Senza knickers.

The term sustainable development means nothing to women and their relationships with each other. I almost feel obliged to do corporate social responsibility initiatives to assist women befriend each other for a whole of 3 months. My mother said to me years ago and this stuck with me “…women don’t vote for other women, instead of rallying behind each other, they assist in blocking her progress…”

I too, looked at the friendships that I’ve admired in the past and they all happen to be male friendships nurtured since childhood. I couldn’t think of one female sibling or indeed many female friends whom has kept her childhood friends.

It’s almost preordained that at some point, one will steal the other’s curling tongs, or hide her hairdresser’s phone number to avoid the same ‘suku’, or sabotage the other’s dream of being the only woman at her wedding to wear white, or being the first in the clique to purchase something from the Hermes store (even if it’s a keying) or the most cited reason – one dislikes the other for having 2 inches of natural hair more than the other.

2 weeks is a long time in the life of female friendships, which is why you’ll hardly find me asking a lady friend about her girlfriends even if I saw them together last week. I’ve learnt that I’m often not prepared for the answers I receive. My eyes and ears have read, heard, and witnessed some serious verbal assaults on how “she never told me about him”, “how can she wear that to that event”, “how can she start talking to that girl even though she knows I can’t stand her”, “how come she made me buy that aso-ebi”, “can you imagine she’s rocking a borrowed shoe”…

As you can see, the average girlfriend relationship is ridden with real-life shattering issues. If you feel this is slightly exaggerated; do me a favour and call any girl you know as you read this and chances are she’s fighting, or just had a fight or plans to fight with another female friend.

Perhaps this explains Hollywood’s long-term obsession with bitchy films about girls scratching each other’s Bobbi Brown painted faces. Notice how films like Thelma and Louise are few and far in between. It’s because even the gullible movie-going community can’t be fooled into believing that females get along. Bromance movies, on the other hand, are guaranteed seat fillers.

Even the so-called ‘tomboys’ never fail to amuse me in their seemingly ‘safe’ haven (amongst a group of boys) with voluntary confessions about how “I don’t get on with other girls” or “girls don’t like me”

All I can say is, stop taking yourselves so bloody seriously. Like Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius ‘I often marvel how it is that though each woman loves herself beyond all else, she should yet value her own opinion of herself less than that of others’.

Start trusting your own judgement ladies and stop relying on third party support for your choices. Just because she doesn’t agree with your choice of girdle doesn’t mean she thinks you’re fat.

Ever wondered why guys get on better? It’s because they don’t share every minute detail of their lives with each other – some things are sacred – ti pata e ba gan, so what? Not everyone needs to know you’re on your period, you don’t hear guys telling each other “…hey buddy, I bashed the bishop to a picture of your sister last night…” when chances are, he probably did.

It.is.really.not.that.deep.ladies!

This week’s Friday Track is from Miguel Jontel and his fantastic new single “All I want is you” featuring J. (who dat! who dat!) Cole.

Enjoy!