Same-Sex Platonic Courting

How Girls Make Girl Friends in Manhattan

This past Friday night at Jones Beach, as Counting Crows played yet another relatively unknown and slightly depressing song from their new CD (*sigh* why didn’t they play Mr. Jones?), my close friend turned to me, her eyes teary, and announced that the official countdown had reached four weeks. She would be leaving for Israel in just one month (eek!), and would be staying there for at least a year. I have only been friends with this girl since January, but ever since meeting her, I’ve become aware of a new phenomenon, that is, the extremely methodical, seamless and slightly amusing (read: “ironic”) way that girls make girl friends in Manhattan.

In terms of this particular friend of mine, I remember seeing her from across the bar at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Manhattan.

We had gone to college together, and though I knew her name and had seen her on campus pretty frequently throughout my four years, I never felt the need to pursue a relationship with her. As far I could tell, she just wasn’t “my type.”

But Manhattan is a big city, and the key to not getting lost in a crowd is to be an active crowd participant—which we apparently both knew. A few beers, some casual chit-chat about common college memories (Really? That happened to me too!) and before long we were exchanging numbers and scheduling our first official…date?

Well, sort of.

Okay, so perhaps neither of us was interested in one another in “that” way, but still, this was more than a plan to hang out. You make plans to hang out with your friends, and you make your friends by having repeated contact and meaningful conversation with these people, thereby establishing a connection. But when most of the people you have repeated contact with are your co-workers or previously established (read: “pre 9-5 life”) friends, it can be difficult to forge new female friendships unless you’re willing to enter the well-known but seldom spoken about world of “fem-dating.”

Many women go through the fem-dating experience without even realizing it. They randomly get a text message from an old female friend asking to hang out, receive a woman’s business card at a bar one night, or find themselves engaged in long conversations that have an ironic way of ending in, “we should definitely hang out!” The process of establishing a fem-friend is usually so subtle that you don’t even realize it’s taking place until the second or third “date.”

Similar to the traditional world of dating, there are some relationships that are clearly just “flings,” where after a few brunches you realize that despite some common interests, this is not going to be a long-term relationship. Of course, there are other relationships that are built on what I’ve termed “fem at first sight.” In this scenario, things progress rather quickly, and in just a few weeks you are chanting Sanskrit at an Ashram together, meeting their mother, attending Friday night services at temple, and driving out with their friends for a weekend trip to the Hamptons. The best part about long-term “fem friends” is that you get all the benefits of a great friendship and can still “fem-date” on the side without breaking any rules. In the world of fem-dating, polygamy is actually encouraged!

I mean, let’s be practical here, if Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha all have plans one night (or decide to move to Israel), won’t Carrie wish she had been on more fem-dates?