Once upon a time, I had a bestie named Eleanor. We had just become teen girls, and we did everything together. We wrote short stories, drew pictures and biked nowhere late into the night. We spent hours at Eleanor’s house following the convoluted plotlines of the soap opera Passions, including the almost incomprehensible storyline of Timmy the midget and Tabitha the witch (they were a particular brand of besties, where one is constantly in distress and the other is constantly coming to the rescue.) It seemed like nothing could come between the intense bond that Eleanor and I shared. It was almost as if our identities were merging into one.
Our honest mutual attraction changed us from straight-girl besties to queer-girl besties. She was my first girl crush, and the person who made me realize I wasn’t straight. We were two 13-year-old girls obsessed with each other, and we were the object of each other’s desire. We eventually fooled around, but never actually became girlfriends. Instead, I eventually lost my bestie.
That teen experience made me feel fearful about queer female friendships even into my mid-to-late twenties, even after dating lots of women. I was afraid I would repeat this same adolescent relationship as an adult because I still tended to have intense friendships with other queer women. Because we don’t have names and social codes for queerness, this close relationship is often dismissed by straight people as “You are so in love with her!” But it’s so much more complicated than that.
read the full essay here: http://fusion.net/story/257619/queer-best-friendships/
