Tis the season to invest in your platonic relationships like it’s 2014 and your friend mentioned “Dogecoin”
A good friend is worth more than all the gold in the world, so why aren't we investing in platonic relationships more?
TLDR Highlights:
Rant about the importance of friendship and why I’m putting my besties in the front seat
A quick astro fun fact about friendship (duh)
Black educators to follow
A journal prompt
Classifieds (aka, companies who are looking to hire/pay people)
HAPPY 2023, Y’ALL!!!
Tis the season for rom-coms. For Hallmark movies about the city girl who comes home for the holidays and finds the small town hunk who’s also a single father, who does carpentry and charity work on the side, falls in love (with the help and guidance of some random and adorable senior in town who may or may not survive to the end credits), and remembers the true meaning of Christmas. It’s the time for holiday parties, introducing partners to families, aunties and uncles getting wasted, and truly hideous sweaters. Some could say that love is in the air. I also know that this is a very difficult time of year for millions of people.
Some people are forced to be around openly racist/ homophobic/ transphobic/ zenophobic (the list goes on and on) family members that you’d otherwise be able to avoid all year. People with religious trauma have to be around a lot of rhetoric and practices that may trigger them. In the midst of global tragedies and social injustices, it can feel like there are more important things to be sad about than being single on the holidays, but that sadness also deserves a space to exist.
Do I personally feel sad about being single this holiday? HEAVENS no. Arguably, this is the happiest I’ve ever been to be single, but I know that many people do not feel that way, especially this time of year. So I want to take some time to talk about the value in reprioritizing how high friendships are on our hierarchy of relational needs.
I know many people who got divorced/ended serious relationships during the pandemic and I can say that the women in those couples are doing much better than the men. Why? Because women, at large, invest more heavily into friendships and platonic relationships than men do even though, historically, women have been shamed away from communing for centuries. If you want to learn more about that, I strongly recommend listening to the Binchtopia podcast episode titled Gossip: Women’s Original Sin. While we (women and femmes) understand the value of friendships, active investment and honest communication in platonic relationships is something that we have to learn on our own because, in a patriarchal society, heteronormative pairings are more “beneficial” than any other kind of relationship. We are constantly being bombarded with fictionalized love stories, dating advice, “how to get a man” tutorials, “what to do on a first date” GRWM’s, “relationship experts” on TikTok, the list is never-ending. With that comes two questions:
Where are the hordes of people giving this kind of advice to men for the women in their lives?
Who is talking about how to navigate friendships?
There’s hundreds of articles and TikToks about how to work through a misunderstanding with your romantic partner, but I’ve seen little to nothing about how to do that with a friend. Simple misunderstandings have ruined many friendships just because no one was taught how to move through uncomfortable conversations outside of romantic relationships. What do you do when a friend has hurt your feelings, intentionally or accidentally? How do you let your friend know that you could use a specific kind of support (physically, emotionally, etc)? How can you learn your friend’s love language so you can be the best friend you can be? What are the green/red flags of friendship? And, why are any of these questions important?
If you want to see something so heartwarming it physically hurts, watch THIS
A few months ago I came across a video on TikTok that made me emotional. It was taken by the daughter of a 50+ year old woman. The mother had recently found out that her husband (the videographer’s father) was cheating and was leaving her to be with the younger woman he was cheating with. They were married for 20-ish years, had children, built a home together, and all of that was done. When the news broke, the mother’s girlfriends all came and took her on a girl’s trip and they brought the daughter along, too. Most of the video was of the mother and her friends laughing on a boat in the middle of crystal blue waters. They were drinking wine, dancing, and hugging, and the daughter explained in the voiceover that these were friends that her mom had known since high school. The daughter said that watching her mom go through this dark transition reminded her that friendships are probably the strongest form of relationship a person can have.
Familial: a relationship you’re born into
Romantic: people fall out of love all the time, and heterosexual relationships for women can be very dangerous
Platonic: the people you choose who also choose you; wanting nothing from you but you.
Yes, those elements that are essential to friendships can be found in other relationships but they are fundamental to the definition of a friendship. While I’m hopeful in possibly meeting a romantic partner to spend my life with, I know that I’ll never be alone. Not for the holidays, not in my old age, not for my life milestones, never. Because I have my friends, and my friends will always have me.
Astro Fun Fact
For those who don’t know, I find astrology fascinating. Personally, I don’t practice it as an exact science but it’s a science of patterns that existed long before Jesus (I mean, how do you think the wise men found him? They literally read the stars) so, here’s a fun fact that I literally just learned yesterday.
Venus entered the sign of Aquarius as of January 2, 2023.
What does that mean?
So Venus is the planet of love, beauty, and relationships. That one is pretty straightforward. If you happen to be one of the many people tend who have strong negative feelings about Aquarius energy and people, please suspend your rage for a moment. In it’s purest (aka, non toxic) form, Aquarius energy is all about community. In fact, Aquarius is known as the activist of the 12 signs. It doesn’t stand for injustice, it’s stubborn, and it’s all about building communities up, not the individual. So, what does ANY of this mean? It could be nothing, or it could be a gentle reminder that now, in this new year, is a great time to focus on our chosen community (friendships and other platonic relationships). There’s a high chance that if you do, especially during this time, that you’ll come to new understandings about the people you commune with that you never had before that will make you appreciate them even more <3 I’m not saying to ignore your spouse or partner during this time! I’m just suggesting that maybe your friends and platonic community are the main characters during this season. Do with that what you will.
Black Educators on Friendship to Follow
If you’re looking for content creators that talk expensively about friendships and deconstructing problematic societal structures that keep us alone and lonely, I strongly recommend following @ayandastood (she also has a substack and podcast!) and @ismatu.gwendolyn (go to her playlist titled “on friendship”, it’s a dragon’s hoard of gems).
Journal prompt:
What is your best friend’s love language? What is your love language? How do you like to show love in your platonic relationships?
NOTE: this does not have to be based off of “The 5 Love Languages”. Feel free to interpret “love language” however you like :)
Classifieds
This is going to be a new section in my newsletter where I share job and training opportunities for people of color. As we know, we can be turned down or not even offered a job because of the color of our skin, so I’ll be searching for and highlighting job opportunities where there’s evidence that they are actively and intentionally looking talent of color AND where the environment seems to be a safe space for us to grow and make some money! Here’s what I found this week :
The Door NYC is recruiting for their paid training programs! The programs include Certified Medical Administrative Assistant, Construction, Information Technology Support Specialist, and Solar One. This is an opportunity for people between the ages of 16-24 (sorry grown folk).
Art Crawl Harlem is looking for artists for their Residency Program on Governors Island! Along with a stipend, you also get studio and exhibit space, up to 4 months within the residency program, and more. The deadline is Feb 6 and I wouldn’t wait until the last minute if I were you.