Don't Call Me A Bitch

Weird GenX female friend culture

Finding female friendships in your 50s feels stressful and elusive. Especially if you’ve lived an unconventional life like I have. I don’t have children, I didn’t climb the corporate ladder and I don’t have pets right now. None of the usual conversation starters can be used in a “get to know you” conversation with me.

I’m a GenX 1974 baby. I grew up with Buddhist parents and branched out into the world of New Age early on. I remember playing with my friends’ parents’ Tarot cards as a child. Incense, brown bread and prayer flags were commonplace (if you can believe it, no one in my high school circa 1987 came to school with brown bread sandwiches except for me)!

When I was in my twenties, loyalty was the greatest badge of honour. I grew up in a rough neighbourhood, so it was very important for self-preservation and safety. As I got past my teens, I felt the urge to change, grow and become softer, and more at peace; I felt increasingly out of place in my friend group. I couldn’t relate to my female friends the way we had always communicated: through aggression and the graphic focus on sex and female body parts.

It’s as if taking back our sexual power and agency over our bodies turned into a game of outdoing men who degraded us as GenX women (examples 2 Live Crew; Eminem). If we talked like them it was ok because we were saying it. My experience is that cringe is always cringe no matter who says it. I never want to call a friend a bitch or slut as a “term of endearment.” Hypocritical moment: At 16, I loved the music of my time and listened to it on repeat flying down the road in my boyfriend’s Chevy Impala. Also, I wore rage like a favourite jean jacket.

Although I love Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer for being strong, empowered women, I feel very cringe about their comedy. Can’t women be funny without resorting to lewd or salacious comedy sets? Is that just me? Where do we draw the line and step into our power without trying to best our male counterparts?

I have other hangups about making friends: feeling like a weirdo flower child still lingers. If I’m in a room of women my age (I’m 52), I immediately grasp for palatable topics like:

-Vacations
-Home renovations

In the past ten years I’ve become a little bit braver about expressing who I am. I’ll bring up Reiki, and I don’t get as many “what is that?” questions anymore. In 2008 when I first started my Reiki journey I got a lot of blank stares. Now it’s usually something like “Oh, I love Reiki!” or “I have my level 2”, which is so inspiring!

I also moved around a lot. I left my hometown and traveled around the world spending time in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Bali and Kenya. Eventually, I moved from my home base of Vancouver, Canada to Toronto and lived there for ten years. I lost touch with friends from high school and had to find new friends.

I went into holistic health and found my peeps in Toronto! I had a wonderful bunch of female friends from all walks of life. My thirties were the golden era of friendship for me. For ten years I had weekend trips to the cottage, nights out dancing and meetups for coffee. We took trips to Montreal and I went to Ottawa for a work trip. I felt fulfilled and happy with lots of warm fuzzy friend hangouts.

Then when I turned 42, I started having panic attacks. This went on for weeks with no improvement no matter what supplement I stuffed in my mouth or healer I went to see. By the way, it would take me almost 10 years to get a handle on what was the start of perimenopause! After it became impossible to work at the health food store or go out in public very much I made the hard decision to go back home.

Landing in East Van again (now called the East Village) was a culture shock I wasn’t ready for. Trendy coffee shops, cannabis shops and breweries filled every block of my old neighbourhood. And again I felt discouraged and out of place. I don’t smoke weed or eat gummies or vape. I hate beer. I was at a disadvantage again. Why did I always feel like I had to get on board the train of going unconscious to take the edge off? Don’t get me wrong, I still love wine and cocktails, but these trends seem like something you’re supposed to do every day at all hours.

I’m at a point in my journey where I want to be fully awake. I want to be in touch with my body, gentle with myself and loving who I am. I want to get to know myself more and more everyday. And you can’t do that with a handful of gummies and a beer chaser. Everyone has their own path and I understand the desire to zone out all too well. I don’t mean to sound judgemental or critical. I just want to find other women who are down to earth, want to know each other as they are and connect. Can anyone relate? Any other women out there who feel displaced, out of place or disoriented in their midlife power era? I would love to hear from you. Thank you for reading this surprisingly rambly confession as to why I’m so hopeless at making friends at 52.