No more depression.

I was on the (delayed) train back to London today when I realised something incredible. For the first time in my life, I have more girl friends than boy friends. This might be standard for a lot of people out there, but it really is quite strange for me. I'm not particularly fond of the females of the species, and they are a lot trickier to negotiate than the males, so I haven't often bothered. I mean, don't get me wrong, all those years in convent school, I do know how to interact with girls, and I can say all the right things. It's just that until pretty recently, boys were a whole lot more interesting to know. Nowadays, I'm surrounded by women, and it is good. I'm starting to bond with my sistas!

I think it probably has a lot to do with how, beyond the age of about 20, girls seem to stop competing with each other. My girl friends at the moment are all girls who I have never once competed with for a bloke [or other girl, where relevant]. We sometimes go out on the pull [metaphorically speaking, boyfriend dear], play chat-up-line-bingo and all, but never actually directly compete for men. Maybe it's because we're so varied. When my Nottingham [where I went to uni] girl friends and I went out, we were like Baskin Robins, there was a flavour for everyone [imagine the impact we could have had on Craig David's latest single]. There were blond friends, black friends, asian friends, dizzy friends, intellectual friends, horny friends, untouchable friends, prick-tease friends... but maybe that's why we didn't compete?

The point of these musings is that while blokes seem to bond over everything they have in common - sport, clothing, hair loss, girlfriends, beer - girls seem to function best when among those they have little in common with, the way a man may see it. Like Carrie in SATC [great clothes, dodgy story], I'm left wondering. Do women judge themselves by men? Even when selecting their confidantes?