Golden Thread
THE GOLDEN THREAD:
Female friendships are fragile – not because women are inherently dramatic or difficult, but because these relationships are carrying an impossible amount of weight in a society that gives us no framework for navigating them. And yet, they’re worth fighting for.
This episode is about understanding WHY female friendships feel so hard, validating that struggle, and giving people both permission and tools to lean in anyway.
TWO POTENTIAL DIRECTIONS:
DIRECTION 1: “Why Your Female Friendships Feel So Hard (And Why They’re Worth It Anyway)”
Focus: The societal pressures + practical navigation + hope
Structure:
- ▪️ Opens with your vulnerability about why you delayed this episode (the responsibility, feeling different, focusing on “what could be”)
- ▪️ Danielle’s journey from high school teacher to friendship coach
- ▪️ The fragility of female friendships (the weight they carry)
- ▪️ Why women seek emotional support from friends (men often can’t provide it)
- ▪️ The high expectations + narrow margin for error
- ▪️ Your directness story (the group trip conflict)
- ▪️ Why women bite their tongues (people-pleasing, reputation management, fear of being “difficult”)
- ▪️ The birthday dilemma and unspoken expectations
- ▪️ Danielle’s personal story about becoming comfortable with womanhood
- ▪️ Closes with why friendship is worth the fight (being SEEN)
Why this works: It validates the struggle HARD while also giving hope. Your personal vulnerability about why this episode was hard to do adds important context. Danielle’s research grounds it. The progression from “why it’s hard” to “why it’s worth it” is perfect. Your bachelorette weekend story as the closer is beautiful.
DIRECTION 2: “The Impossible Standards We Hold Our Female Friends To (And How to Stop)”
Focus: Expectations + communication + self-work
Structure:
- ▪️ Opens with the bereavement leave story or high expectations concept
- ▪️ Why women have higher expectations in friendships than men
- ▪️ The “she should just know” trap
- ▪️ Healthy vs unhealthy conflict (Danielle’s expertise)
- ▪️ Your directness as a protective factor
- ▪️ Why women avoid conflict (gender expectations, social consequences, fear)
- ▪️ The corrective experiences concept
- ▪️ Danielle’s 6-hour-a-week experiment (changing relationship with work)
- ▪️ Her personal journey with womanhood and belonging
- ▪️ Closes with permission to lean in
Why this works: More immediately actionable. Focuses on what readers can DO differently. The expectations angle is concrete and relatable. But might lose some of the emotional resonance of Direction 1.
MY TAKE:
I’m strongly leaning toward Direction 1 because:
- ▪️ Your vulnerability about why this episode was hard to create is SO important and sets the tone
- ▪️ The “fragile because they carry too much weight” frame is perfect
- ▪️ It validates the struggle comprehensively before offering solutions
- ▪️ Danielle’s personal story about becoming comfortable with womanhood is GOLD
- ▪️ Your bachelorette weekend story is the perfect emotional close
- ▪️ It addresses both the systemic issues AND the personal work
- ▪️ The progression feels natural: this is why it’s hard → here’s what’s really happening → here’s why it’s worth it anyway
- ▪️ It honors both “what is” and “what could be” which is your whole approach
Direction 2 works if you want more tactical/actionable content, but I think Direction 1 better captures the depth and importance of this conversation.
I need to be honest with you about something.
I’ve been avoiding this episode.
If you’ve scrolled through the podcast archives recently, you might have noticed: There’s no dedicated episode on female friendships. And that’s… kind of wild, considering this is a podcast about friendship and I’m a woman talking primarily to women.
But there are reasons I’ve delayed recording this. Big ones.
The first reason: I’m overwhelmed by the responsibility of talking about such an important topic.
As a woman, I know how foundational our friendships are to our lives. These are relationships that give us support and security. They’re a place of respite where we can let go of all the roles and titles we’re holding and just BE ourselves.
I also believe that female friendships are carrying a lot of weight in our society. They’re holding together the fabric of our communities. Our families. Our sanity, honestly.
That’s a lot to cover. And I don’t know if I can do it justice.
The second reason I’ve struggled with this episode: My experience of female friendship feels different than most.
I hear your stories – the intensity, the drama, the cattiness, the jealousy. And if I’m being honest? It’s been a very long time since my female friendships have dealt with these types of extreme experiences.
That’s not to say my friendships are perfect. They’re not. There are disagreements, hard conversations, friendship breakups. I’ve been on the receiving end of friendship ghosting. I’ve had those days where I wonder if I’ve completely ruined a friendship.
But I don’t experience the constant drama that so many of you describe.
And I think some of you might hear that and think: “Oh, Alex is just special.”
Sure, I’m special. But not in the way you think.
I approach my friendships differently because I’ve had no other choice.
If you know my story (go listen to Episode 19 if you don’t), you know that my friends ARE my support system. I’ve gone to great lengths to never reach the point of drama or cattiness. I will put myself in SO much discomfort and have healthy conflict as soon as possible so I never have to reach the point of unhealthy conflict and risk losing a friendship.
I’m not special. But I am different. Because I’ve been put in a position I would never wish on anyone else, and it’s caused me to approach my friendships with a level of intentionality most people don’t need.
The third reason I haven’t recorded this episode: My work is often focused on “what could be” rather than “what is.”
I love reimagining our friendships. But that means I often don’t focus on what IS. And that’s just as important.
Because I know there are so many of you who aren’t quite ready to reimagine your friendships. You simply want to thrive in your current situation. You want to understand why female friendships feel so damn HARD.
And you deserve that understanding. You deserve tools. You deserve hope.
So today, I brought in an expert. Someone who’s doing the deep work on female friendships, who understands both what is and what could be.
Danielle Bayard Jackson is a female friendship coach and author of the book “Fighting for Our Friendships.” And I’m not exaggerating when I say her book is a game-changer.
If you’ve ever said “I feel like I’m always the giver in this friendship” or “I just can’t relate to her anymore,” this conversation is for you.
Why Female Friendships Are Fragile (And It’s Not Your Fault)
Let me start by telling you something Danielle asserts in her book that stopped me in my tracks:
Female friendships are fragile.
Not because women are inherently dramatic or catty or jealous. But because these friendships are carrying an impossible amount of weight.
Think about it: Women juggle the needs of everyone around us. We’re mothers, wives, employees, daughters, sisters, caregivers. We’re desperately trying to survive and looking for someone to help us carry the load.
And we’re seeking that help from other women who are ALSO desperately trying to survive.
“So many resources for romantic relationships and how to be a good mom and how to be a boss in the boardroom,” Danielle told me. “But friendship? We’re all adding different things to this space, but there just aren’t enough resources.”
Here’s what makes it even harder: Society tells us the most important thing we can do is find a romantic partner. That a partner will solve all our problems.
But the reality? A lot of women are going to other women for emotional support because their partners often can’t provide it.
I know, I know – we’re generalizing here. But hear me out.
“The number one thing women look for in their same-sex friendships is emotional support,” Danielle explained. “It’s the number one thing across multiple studies. Which says we’re like, ‘Hey, if I don’t get anything else from you, that’s basic – that you’re going to support me emotionally.’”
The problem? Many men have never experienced emotional intimacy outside of being with a girlfriend. They haven’t had practice. They might need to be coached through it.
So women turn to their female friendships even MORE. Hungrier for that specific kind of support.
And that creates a LOT of pressure on these relationships.
The Weight These Friendships Are Expected to Carry
Let me paint you a picture of what’s happening:
You’re a woman navigating power dynamics everywhere. At work, you might have an executive position but you’re still being asked to take notes and plan the company party. At home, research shows you’re still doing more than your share of domestic labor.
In every other space, there’s a power dynamic. Your friendships are supposed to be the ONE place where you’re equals.
So you have higher expectations. You expect your female friends to UNDERSTAND. To show up. To support you without you having to ask.
“If there’s a power dynamic in every other space,” Danielle said, “it’s like we almost have a higher expectation that in our friendships, you of all people should be able to understand, should be able to support, to come alongside me.”
And the research backs this up: Women DO have higher expectations than men in our close relationships, both romantic and platonic.
We want more reciprocity. More self-disclosure. More emotional attunement.
Which means there’s a very narrow margin for error.
Danielle told me about something sociolinguist Deborah Tannen calls “the birthday dilemma”:
Women expect you to get them the right gift for their birthday. But you’re not supposed to SAY what you want. Because if you say it, it detracts from the closeness you’re supposed to have.
But if you say nothing and they give you the wrong gift? It’s revealing that they don’t really know you.
“It’s this cycle,” Danielle explained. “I’m not saying anything, but you should know. So we believe that our chemistry is somehow going to transcend the need for communication. And it’s just not true. And it’s not fair.”
In the full episode, Danielle and I go much deeper into the expectations we place on female friendships and why communication is so crucial – even (especially) with our closest friends. If you’ve ever felt hurt that a friend didn’t “just know” what you needed, this conversation will challenge you.
When I Decided to Be Direct (And It Saved My Friendship)
I’m going to tell you a story that illustrates what Danielle’s talking about.
During the pandemic, a bunch of my friends rented a house together. We all moved in for a month with very specific agreements about everyone’s safety tolerance.
One friend felt like she’d been left out. She couldn’t comply with what the house had agreed upon, so she couldn’t come. And she was upset.
I called her immediately.
“Okay, here’s how I think I messed up in this conversation. I’m sorry for the ways I did that. I also think you assumed certain things. Let’s talk about it.”
We had this great conversation. I told her: “I want to have this conversation because I care about this friendship so much.”
We worked through it. We moved on.
Now, I KNOW that’s not the normal thing to do.
Most people would have let that fester. Let the hurt feelings build. Maybe ghosted each other. Maybe complained to other friends about it.
But I’m the direct friend. And honestly? I think that’s saved more friendships than I can count.
Because here’s what happens when we DON’T communicate directly:
We expect our friends to “just know” what we need. We get hurt when they don’t. We withdraw. We build resentment. Eventually, the friendship falls apart.
And we never gave them a chance to show up differently because we never TOLD them what we needed.
Why We Bite Our Tongues (Even When We Shouldn’t)
Okay, so if direct communication saves friendships, why don’t we all do it?
Danielle had some really important insights on this.
“I want to validate those who feel reluctant,” she said. “Because there’s a lot of things we have to consider that men don’t. We have a lot more social consequences for being perceived as difficult.”
Women are managing reputation constantly.
We don’t want to be seen as dramatic. As too much. As difficult. As the one bringing problems.
“I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable. I don’t want to look like the bad guy,” Danielle listed off. “A lot of the language we use around having hard conversations comes from a desire to maintain an appearance of cooperation.”
And here’s the really painful part: This gets worse depending on your intersectional identity.
Danielle, as a Black woman, shared: “When I’m with white friends, I find myself managing reputation or perception a little bit more when I’m angry, because it’s not going to be perceived as ‘I have an attitude’ even though we’re friends.”
We’re all calculating social risks. Wondering: Am I still lovable if I’m disruptive? Are you going to withdraw from the friendship if I tell you I’m uncomfortable?
It feels like too great a risk. So we stay quiet.
Even when a friend asks explicitly “Are we good?” we might say “Oh my gosh, yeah, of course!” when actually, we’re kind of offended by what they said yesterday.
“It’s tricky,” Danielle said. “And I think it might be because a lot of us don’t have practice with navigating conflict in a healthy way and then moving on.”
If you’ve never gotten into it with a friend and then successfully repaired and moved forward, it feels TERRIFYING to start now.
In the full episode, we talk extensively about healthy vs. unhealthy conflict and how to navigate hard conversations. Danielle even has a step-by-step guide in her book. If conflict feels impossible to you, this conversation will show you it doesn’t have to be.
The “Good Girl” Trap
There’s another layer to this that I think is crucial:
Society has trained us to be “good girls.”
Loyal. Nurturing. Likeable. Empathetic. Not too much. Not too loud. Not too angry.
And if other women in your group also subscribe to being the “good girl,” there’s a penalty for stepping outside that box.
“If we all subscribe to the stereotype or ideal, then part of me knows it’s not safe to push back,” Danielle explained. “Because we all agree that would be ‘being drama’ and we’re so chill. We’re so chill.”
But here’s what friendship expert Shasta Nelson says: You can’t have any human relationship without drama. Ups and downs are inevitable.
The question isn’t whether there will be conflict. The question is: Do you feel safe bringing it up without it being conflated to “you’re so much, you’re making such a big deal”?
And for many of us, the answer is no. We don’t feel safe.
So we stay quiet. We minimize our discomfort. We pray for the best.
And our friendships suffer for it.
It’s Hard Work Either Way
Here’s something I say on this podcast a lot that I want to repeat here:
It’s hard work either way.
It’s hard work to figure out how to navigate conflict, to have the growth mindset, to do the communication.
It’s hard work to let go of a friendship and build a new one. Making new friends is WORK.
It’s hard work to go it alone.
They’re all hard. There’s no easy option.
So the question isn’t “How do I avoid the hard work?” The question is: “Which hard work is worth it to me?”
And I think – I KNOW – that learning to navigate healthy conflict, to communicate directly, to build resilience in friendships… that’s the hard work that pays off.
Because as author Rhaina Cohen said (and Danielle quoted this): “I’d rather have the issues with community instead of the issues without it.”
Yes, people are messy. They let you down. They disappoint you. Those are the problems that come with being in community.
But I’d rather have those problems than the problems that come with being alone.
When Someone Tells You They’re Done With Female Friendship
Danielle coaches women who’ve been deeply hurt by female friendships. Women who say things like:
“I thought she was my friend and she talked about me.”
“She hit on my boyfriend.”
“Women are just too dramatic. I can’t deal with it anymore.”
And Danielle’s approach is beautiful. She doesn’t immediately counter with research or try to convince them they’re wrong.
She meets them where they are.
“Oh gosh, that must have been so frustrating. I agree – if that happened to me, I’d be devastated. That really sucks. I’m so sorry.”
And then she introduces the concept of corrective experiences.
“Just because something is comfortable for me doesn’t mean it’s good for me,” she explained. “I may have gotten used to living life without close girlfriends. It doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”
A corrective experience means allowing yourself to be in a situation that feels similar to the one that hurt you – but with different circumstances.
Maybe you shared something with someone and they weaponized it. So now you’re terrified to be vulnerable.
But what if you meet someone who’s shown evidence of being trustworthy? What if you muster the courage to try again?
You share something small. She meets you with kindness. She says “Thank you for sharing that with me. That stays here with us.”
Your brain updates the message you downloaded about women being unsafe.
“I have to muster the courage to position myself for corrective experiences,” Danielle said. “Because my brain knows intellectually that friendship is important. But emotionally, I’m very tender and I don’t want to be hurt again.”
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: You probably WILL be hurt again.
Even the best friends – the ones who value communication, who are direct, who work on themselves – will still sometimes do things that hurt you.
“Am I going to be a person who sometimes does things that are hurtful? Yes, I will,” Danielle acknowledged. “Hopefully not intentionally. But I’m hoping that’s few and far between, and that I set a history in the context of our friendship that you’re like, ‘Danielle normally doesn’t do that.’”
That’s the margin of error. That’s the grace we need to extend.
The Experiment That Changed Everything
Danielle told me about an experiment she did this year that I can’t stop thinking about.
The American Time Use Survey shows that in 2013, we spent an average of six hours a week with friends. Ten years later? We’re down to just over two hours.
So Danielle decided: “I’m going to try to spend six hours a week with friends. I can do this.”
And for the first three months of the year, most weeks she was successful.
But it required some major shifts.
“I had to change my relationship with work,” she told me. “The day is over at four o’clock. I’m not answering emails at night or on weekends, because it directly impacts the time and energy I have for friends.”
She also had to enlist her husband’s help more. She has two kids under five, and she realized: “I need my community to rally around me if I’m going to make time for friends.”
And here’s the part that made me sit up: “I was doing that with people who I really enjoy. I was not trying to make time for women who I feel depleted by afterwards.”
If you’re too tired for friendship, look at what else is depleting you.
Are you being drained by work? By relationships outside of friendship? By obligations that don’t actually serve you?
And then ask: Who are the friends you’re too tired for?
Because if you don’t genuinely enjoy their company, if it feels like a performance, that’s important information.
Your friendships should energize you (at least most of the time). They should fill your cup. They should be FOR YOU.
In the full episode, we talk more about this concept of friendships being for YOU – not just in service to your other roles. This is revolutionary for a lot of women who’ve been taught that everything they do should serve someone else.
The Personal Journey That Changed How She Saw Friendship
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Danielle why friendship is worth the fight for her personally.
Her answer was so vulnerable and beautiful that I want to share it with you in full.
“I was so resistant to leaning into friendships with other women because I was not comfortable with myself as a woman,” she told me.
Let that sink in for a second.
“My ideas of womanhood – to be beautiful and smart and feminine and desirable to men, naturally nurturing – I did not feel personally qualified for any of that.”
She told me about being in college and actively saying she didn’t want kids. But in reality? She didn’t think she was nurturing enough.
People in her family had made jokes about her walking too clunkily, being awkward. She felt like she didn’t have that “smooth woman’s touch.”
“Being in the company of other women only amplified the lack that I felt I had,” she said. “Women see you. You can’t fool them. They can see the clunkiness, the awkwardness, the lack of femininity. They can smell it on me.”
So she avoided women altogether. She pretended she was rejecting them first.
But then something shifted.
“The more comfortable I became in my skin, literally and figuratively, the more I expanded my own definition of womanhood. I can walk like a pirate OR like a ballerina. The more comfortable I got with me, the more I expanded my ideas of womanhood.”
And here’s the beautiful part: “There were more friendships with women blossoming because I no longer saw myself as different from them. I was an extension of them.”
“I see other women and I kid you not, I feel like you are me. You are me. We’re the same. We’re both maybe insecure, we’re both strong, we’re both accepting, we’re both judgy. We’re all the things.”
“It’s allowed me to have permission to love on other women, because it is me loving myself.”
I’m getting emotional just writing this. Because I think so many of us feel this way.
We avoid deep friendships with women because we’re not comfortable with ourselves. Because we think they’ll see our flaws. Because we don’t feel like we measure up to some impossible standard of womanhood.
But the truth is: They’re just as messy as we are. Just as insecure. Just as human.
And when we can see ourselves in them – when we can extend to them the grace we wish someone would extend to us – everything changes.
Why It’s Worth The Fight (My Answer)
I want to close with my own answer to this question.
About a year ago, I went on a bachelorette weekend with some of my closest friends. We spent the whole weekend being silly, letting our guard down, relaxing.
There were these hours where we kind of forgot our age and our responsibilities. We were just… US. Playing. Laughing. Being ridiculous.
And then at night, we’d come back to the apartment we’d rented, and I’d be having a conversation with my friend while she’s pumping for her baby at home. While she’s cleaning and sanitizing the pump parts.
It was this reminder of all the labels we’d forgotten about for a few hours.
And then just as quickly as we were reminded of those labels, we crawled into bed. I can’t even tell you what we were laughing about. But we were laughing HYSTERICALLY. Crying about the things we’d done that day. About the mouth tape I put on as we got into bed.
Just laughing about the relief we had to be there. To be together. To peel back all the layers and just be ME and HER.
To be seen and accepted as such.
To me, THAT is one of the most beautiful things about female friendship.
In a world that tells us we have to be perfect – perfect mothers, perfect employees, perfect partners, perfect everything – our female friendships are the place where we can just BE.
Messy. Imperfect. Human. Real.
And still be loved.
That’s why female friendship is worth fighting for. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s always comfortable.
But because being truly seen – flaws and all – and still being loved? That’s revolutionary.
The Permission You Need
If you take nothing else from this article, hear this:
Your female friendships are supposed to be hard sometimes. That doesn’t mean they’re broken.
The narrow margin for error, the high expectations, the unspoken needs, the fear of conflict – all of that is NORMAL in the context of a society that gives us no framework for these relationships.
You’re not doing it wrong. You’re navigating an impossible situation as best you can.
But you can do it differently. You can communicate more directly. You can extend more grace. You can position yourself for corrective experiences.
You can expand your definition of womanhood to include ALL of you – the messy parts, the awkward parts, the parts you’ve been taught to hide.
And you can find other women who are doing the same thing. Who will see you and love you anyway.
It won’t always be easy. There will be conflict. There will be hurt feelings. There will be moments when you wonder if it’s worth it.
But I promise you: It is.
Because the alternative – going through life without deep, authentic female friendships – is so much lonelier.
And you deserve better than that. You deserve to be seen. You deserve to be loved. You deserve friendships that fill your cup instead of draining it.
You deserve to fight for your friendships. And to have friendships worth fighting for.
Want to dive deeper into navigating female friendships? Get Danielle Bayard Jackson’s book “Fighting for Our Friendships” wherever you buy books. You can also follow her work at betterfemalefriendships.com and listen to The Friend Forward Podcast.
For more on my personal journey with friendship and why I approach it the way I do, listen to Episode 19 or check out my founder story on my website.
What’s one thing you’re going to do differently in your female friendships after reading this? I want to hear about it – find me on Instagram @itsalexalexander or head to alexalex.chat to send me a voice message.
