In a world where girl squads exist, it is very important to teach young girls the importance of having a true friend and confidant. Someone that sees past the Instagram posts and the cute fashion statement that goes with being trendy, especially now, where friends are seen as accessories rather than someone that is a fundamental part of your support system and of who you are. Thanks to social media, we lose the significance of what it is to have actual relationships. Many of us have hundreds of friends and followers, but we do not know who they are and they do not know who we are. Relationships today are measured by whether or not your friend is willing to do the impossible to take a stunning photo of you for Instagram, not in how loyal or supportive they are to your persona. People today have lost the significance of true friendship and it affects the way we teach the youth around us about friendship, specifically young girls.
Celebrities along with the media have set unrealistic standards for friendships. Girls are more interested in having a large group of friends to match and copy Taylor Swifts squad rather than to make a deep connection with a significant person that will be there through thick and thin. someone that they can stay up late and talk on the phone, someone they trust unconditionally and that trust them in return, someone that they can cry ugly with because it is this person that will be there during the toughest times, as well as the best times.
True friendship goes beyond being able to take good pictures together. It is about being able to take ugly pictures and see the beauty of one another in the picture. It is about being able to be miles away and still talk every day, even if for just a moment, talking about each others day. Friendship is not about what you can give each other, or about how many like you get on social media, it is about who is willing to stick around when you are at your worst.
There is so much pressure on our youth to live life as big and as fast as they can, that they forget to stop to create real relationships that will last a lifetime. People that you are friends with for 10 plus years, and that no matter where life takes you they still make time for you and act as if no time has passed. There is more to friendship than just being #SquadGoals.
In a world where friendship has been commercialized by social media, it is important to teach the value of making connections and having someone that will be our friend even after true friendship stops being trendy.
