A reader struggling to maintain female friendships has written to Philippa Perry for advice. The reader, who grew up with three older brothers, says she has many long-standing male friendships but every woman she has befriended since childhood ends up ghosting her. She has supported these women through difficult times and is puzzled by the pattern.
Perry suggests the issue may lie with the reader, not her friends. She advises examining early relationships, such as with her mother, as they can become a blueprint for later interactions. Perry warns against reducing the problem to clichés about envy or equality, noting that human interactions are complex.
Perry speculates that the reader might unintentionally make others feel inferior. She emphasises that people are not defined by their jobs, possessions, or children, and that friends want to be understood, not fixed. The reader's description of helping friends seemed one-sided, lacking mutual vulnerability, which is key to close friendships.
Perry also suggests that the reader, as the only girl among brothers, may have internalised a sense of superiority or misogyny, which could be sensed by other women. She recommends reflecting on whether the reader seeks out friends she can feel superior to, and whether she accepts men as they are but expects women to change.
