Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

by Kayleen Schaefer

The words, and the corresponding texts we send when we do get home, are a web connecting us, winding through the many moments we spend together and apart, helping us understand that whenever we’re unmoored or terrified or irate or heartbroken or just bored, we’re not by ourselves. It’s a way for women to tell each other, I’m always with you. I won’t forget about you when you walk away. I am here when I’m standing in front of you or any other time you need me, no matter what.

It’s a way women are saying, through our care for each other, that our friendships are not what society says they are.

The women I love are like a life raft I didn’t know I was looking for before I got on it.

“A friend can take you out of the boxes you’ve made for yourself and burn them up. This kind of friendship is not a frivolous connection, a supplementary relationship to the ones we’re taught and told are primary—spouses, children, parents. It is love.”