I Don't Dream of Marriage. I Dream of Sisterhood.

How female friendships are the bedrock of my life.

Lately, every time I start scrolling, I am feeling almost instant regret. Every day is another 'breaking news' video and I quite literally can't take anymore breaking news. At this point, my brain is broken.

And the wild part is that nearly every issue flashing across my feed is a result of two things – white supremacy and end stage capitalism.

Yes, I am that friend, and unfortunately, I can’t even say that I’m sorry about it. Almost everything comes back to these two things.

And I’m feeling a little powerless lately to affect change so I’m really, really, really trying to scroll less and find daily micro joys.

One of those recent micro joys was watching Golden Girls with my sister, my first and longest lasting friend. While watching the show, I realized I don’t dream of marriage, I dream of sisterhood.

And when I think of all the overwhelming and difficult times in my life, the thing that has always saved me and continues to save me is my friendships with women.

Nearly 6 years ago, I was hobbling my way down a quiet street in Brooklyn with tears streaming down my face, blurring my vision. At that moment, I was positive I had reached rock bottom. How in the hell did I get here?

In less than one week after moving to NYC from Wisconsin and a short bout with a roommate that I'm quite positive was on its way to being a duplicate of the 1992 film Single White Female, I officially had no place to live, a badly sprained ankle complete with borrowed crutches, and three boxes of belongings being stored by a friend in her living room in Williamsburg while I tried my best to secure housing. I didn't know it yet, but it's really hard to secure housing in this city without a stable job and W2s to prove it.

Was this actually my life or just a fever dream? Because at this time last year, I was happily married (or so I thought), gainfully employed, living in a suburban neighborhood in the only city I'd ever known. And now somehow, I'm all alone, sobbing uncontrollably in NYC on crutches, convinced I will never be able to make it through this impossible situation. At the age of 33, I never imagined that I would be newly single (after a 14-year relationship), jobless, temporarily homeless, and fatherless. It's wild how much can change in a year. Divorce, the death of my father due to overdose, and a cross-country move really shouldn't happen concurrently. It's a terrible combination. Honestly, it should be illegal.

This also sounds like the beginning of a mediocre Lifetime rom-com. Like at any moment, a strapping, tall, handsome gentleman will come to my rescue. But it wasn’t a rom-com, it was my life, and no one in NYC gives a damn if you're crying while you're walking down the street or on the subway or anywhere really.

And spoiler alert, no man ever came to save me. But you know who not only saved me, but over the years, helped me through so many difficult times – my girlfriends.

After that failed apartment stint, one of my friends, Amara, let me sleep on her couch for three weeks in her studio apartment. She saved me. She is one of the reasons I'm still in Brooklyn actually. I was on her couch, in physical pain, feeling completely and utterly defeated, looking for flights to return back home, like a puppy with its tail between its legs. Amara noticed the defeat on my face and asked me what I was doing. When I sheepishly told her, she took my computer, closed it, and told me we were going to get bagels because carbs always help. She didn’t let me leave. She told me her couch was hers as long as I needed it.

And 6 years later, I’m writing this from my own couch in my Brooklyn apartment.

We often talk about having a village as it pertains to raising kids, but I like to push back against that narrative. Having a village is important for all of us, children or not. Your village is who you can lean on when things are challenging. It’s who you can count on when things don’t go according to plan.

One thing we don't talk about enough is that having community and deep meaningful female friendships requires being a villager, and being a villager often requires being inconvenienced. It sometimes requires going out of your way to do things when you would rather be at home on your couch. It requires adjusting your schedule to help a friend in need. And I fear in a hyper individualistic society that is quick to disregard many things in the name of 'boundaries' and 'self care', we have forgotten that having a community doesn't just materialize out of thin air.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, my friend called me and said, 'Hey girl. Are you busy?' I had literally just walked out the door to run to a store which was closing in exactly one hour to pick up some items I needed for a trip I was leaving for in 2 days. Before I told her that, I responded, "what do you need kween?" to which she replied that her and her partner had a mix up in communication and he needed to leave for an event and she was still in the city and wouldn't make it home for at least 45 minutes. She wanted to know if I could watch her daughters until she got back so her partner could leave. So what did I do? I abandoned my errand because my homegirl, my village, needed help.

Conversely, I could write you a multitude of examples of how she has been there for me — hanging bookshelves in my home, with her kids in tow, watering my plants while I'm on vacation, letting me sleep at her house when I was concerned someone may have attempted to break into my apartment, picking me up to go grocery shopping with her, borrowing me household items when mine are broken, and more. These friends of mine are a prime example of community. They frequently have their friends staying in their home (no small feat in SMALL NYC apartments) when they are in town visiting.

Having a village, a community and deep friendships you can count on, requires reciprocity. It requires giving and receiving. It necessitates that we do things even when you don't feel like doing them; when it requires energy that we would rather not use because we are exhausted. And to be fair, in late stage capitalism, whom among us is not exhausted?

In a time when more and more people are reporting being lonely, with people aged 30-44 reporting the highest levels of loneliness, I wonder how much of that is because we refuse the inconvenience that community sometimes requires. The event that we would rather not go to. The birthday dinner that we feel too spent to attend. The friend that wants to stay on our couch when we would rather not host. The friend who needs help packing for a move, and literally, who wants to do that?

But I would argue that it's not really about what we want to do. It's about showing up and also remembering that we will also be the one in need at some point. It’s also about priorities. Because while I have zero plans of remarrying – it’s not a goal or a desire for me – I do aspire to live out the rest of my life surrounded by my close girlfriends — Golden Girl style. And in order to do that, my female friendships, my chosen family, are a top priority for me.

Yes, we can all be entertained alone — endless streaming services, TikTok, and unlimited access to digital books — but none of that replaces the power of actual human connection.

And also, on that note, we need to bring back casual hang outs because sometimes leaving the house is expensive. One of the things I absolutely love to do with my friends is doing nothing together. We take walks with no destination. We sit together in the house with no plans but to yap, work on our creative projects, sometimes scroll social media next to each other, and yap some more. Community doesn't have to involve expensive dinners or $25 cocktails. We run errands together. We take impromptu trips to the park.

However, I fear the village is also outside your apartment. I know. I know. I hate it too. I love my apartment, especially when it's snowing or 95 degrees or raining. Really anything except for perfect weather conditions.

Some of us won't leave the house because we're tired or because it requires too much energy. And I'm not here to condemn anyone for being tired, because doing nothing is my favorite thing to do. However, if we are finding ourselves feeling lonely, I think we have to be honest about it. How much effort and intention are we putting into our friendships?

In a society that prioritizes romantic relationships over platonic relationships, I want to push back against that narrative as well. As a person who was previously married for 11 years, I don’t think romantic relationships are more important than platonic relationships. In fact, I think they are equally, if not more important, and even the research shows that friendships may be better for your overall well being than romantic relationships, specifically when it comes to depression.

And because of the value our society puts on the nuclear family, I think people sometimes forget that platonic relationships require just as much effort and care as romantic and familial relationships. It means showing up and making time for the relationship, not just when it’s convenient or when you need something. Just like neglect in a romantic relationship can lead to the end of a partnership, the same can happen in friendships.

And beyond that, third spaces, places outside of your home and work where people can socialize and build community, are rapidly disappearing and also becoming commodified. And in some ways, social media has become a third space, arguably not a good replacement for actual in person connection. While it’s easy to point to a lack of time for connection, a look at our screen time may say otherwise. That’s not to say it's just that simple to replace screen time with friendship and connection, because of course there are other factors at play, but like our parents used to say – it’s that damn phone.

The average social media user spends 2 hours and 23 minutes a day scrolling. Imagine my surprise when I did the calculations and realized I’m spending just over an entire month of the year scrolling. AN ENTIRE MONTH.

All that to say, there are a myriad of reasons why we might not be making developing and maintaining friendships a priority – and maybe an unpopular opinion – but meeting up once a month to catch up over drinks or dinner, doesn’t really constitute a close friendship. But with the world feeling like it’s collapsing around us, and with the data suggesting that people with the most friends tended to outlive those with the fewest by 22%, it’s worth the investment.

The women in my life, my female friendships, have quite literally saved me and continue to do so through every stage of my life. In the book, All The Single Ladies, by Rebecca Traister, perfectly encapsulates this sentiment:

Among the largely unacknowledged truths of female life is that women’s primary, foundational, formative relationships are as likely to be with each other as they are to with the men we’ve been told since childhood are supposed to be the people who complete us.

Female friendship has been the bedrock of women’s lives for as long as there have been women. In earlier eras, when there was less chance that a marriage, entered early, often for practical economic and social reasons, would provide emotional or intellectual succor, female friends offered intimate ballast.

Now, when marriages may ideally offer far more in the way of soulful satisfaction but increasingly tend to begin later in life, if at all, women find themselves growing into themselves, shaping their identities, dreams and goals not necessarily in tandem with a man or within traditional family structure, but instead alongside other women. Their friends.

My female friendships are paramount. They provide me with a deep sense of belonging, of connection, of intimacy, of true love. I could tell you story after story like the one above with Amara. And if I remain single or even if I find myself coupled up again, the priority of female friendship will always remain a constant in my life. My Golden Girl dreams will never die.

Thank you so much for reading The Liberation Collective. I’m eternally grateful to have you here. You can also follow along on Instagram and TikTok. And if you want to partner with me, you can email me at info@chrissyking.com

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