On Female Friendships & Scorecards

A few days ago I saw an old high school friend in a café and we started talking. We talked about our lives, our friends, their lives, and are plans for the future. The conversation itself was nice, informative and not very personal but what bothered me was that throughout our exchange my friend would bring out a mental scorecard and begin noting points according to my answers. I’m sure many women out there can relate when I say that we are too competitive with each other, but keeping score of who’s better off in what aspect of their lives is taking the competition too far.
I learned from this old “friend” that the newest social status for couples is to go on a vacation abroad with your partner’s family. Apparently being a part of their family vacation is the highest pinnacle of success in coupledom. This was news to me, I thought being together for a long time and being welcomed in their family’s intimate gatherings were enough proof that we were an accepted couple. If this wasn’t enough, I learned that entrepreneurship was also another social status. It seems that if you have not created your own business by age 25, by social consensus you are considered unsuccessful.
When did society gain the right to rule my life? Who gave everyone else the power to create social consensus and expectations and mandate that our lives be lived in accordance to these? When did I sign over my brain and gave absolute power to the faceless masses? I do not understand how people can go on living their lives simply going through the preset standards and fulfilling the expectations set by other people.
Unfortunately this “friend” of mine is the norm rather than the exception when it comes to my peers. Most females I know practice the cattiness, the gossiping, the scrutiny and judgment of other girls and they do not find anything wrong with this. They never outgrow their social circles; they merely expand it to accommodate more of the same kind of people. These girls never mature, they continue to have the intense desire for social acceptance and external affirmation. That’s why it is so important for them to keep a scorecard because it’s the only way they can keep track of their personal progress and their rank within their social circles.
How sad it is when one can no longer have a simple conversation with another girl without being slapped in the face with a scorecard to keep track of all the shortcomings she believes you have. How can real friendships flourish among such competitive people? And why must women always feel the need to be perceived as better off than the other woman? It could be the fault of our culture, the great pressure exerted on girls to be nice and to get along with everyone while at the same time excelling and being better than the crowd. This brings out the external camaraderie while creating the need for the competitiveness to be hidden. The currents of bitterness, envy, and cattiness are underlying in every glance, wave, and conversation.
I wonder if there is anything that can be done to teach the younger generations not to practice or condone this kind of female rivalry. I wonder even more if the older women can be taught to change their ways of dealing with each other. Perhaps it will take something big like a cultural revolution to alter these destructive behaviors, but I am hoping that through feminist literature and philosophies like objectivism women of all ages can transcend all this pettiness and move on to enlightenment. I hope that through literature and the influence of strong women with integrity we can all change our priorities and outgrow the behaviors that cause friendships to be such volatile and dangerous things. We need support not scorecards, we need real understanding and not mere actions mimicking this, and most of all we need real conversations not just the measuring and judging contests women usually have with each other. We need to grow up beyond what our culture has socialized us to be, we need to think with our own minds, set our own standards and create meaningful relationships that build instead of destroy.