When it comes to BFFs, there's really nothing like a girl

Growing up with two brothers, I was constantly
trying to fit in as one of the boys. I
despised situations that magnified my difference,
throwing tantrums every time my mother
tried to make me wear a dress.

Though my aversion to all things girly may
have been a nuisance to my parents, it gave me
even more trouble as I grew up.

One Christmas, in what my mother has
told me was her final attempt to bring out
my femininity, Santa brought me a Dress N
Dazzle a kit of pintsized dress-up clothes
complete with blonde wig and high heels.

I locked myself in my room and cried over my
other present, a journal, in which I wrote a thinly
veiled account of a girl named Wesley whose
brothers got all the good presents and she got
nothing she wanted. My parents later found
my brothers in another room, dancing around
in the wig and heels. But that's a whole other
column.

Throughout elementary school, I was only
friends with boys. I refused to go to birthday
parties where my little-lady peers made
their own jewelry and painted their nails. But
once puberty hit, and boys became more than
playmates, I found myself in a conundrum.

Not only did I act awkwardly around my
best friends, I also didn't know how to interact
with girls, either. Needless to say, in junior
high school, I spent a lot of time alone.

Luckily, a requirement for all seventh-graders
at my school was to play a fall sport. Soccer
a game I was already familiar with - was the
natural choice for me. But my older brother
informed me that if I wanted any chance at
popularity, I had to play field hockey. I knew I
had nothing to lose as far as friends went, but
the thought of wearing a skirt while playing a
sport was, to me, both ridiculous and repulsive.
I weighed my options and took big brother's
advice. When the coach asked for a volunteer to
play goalie a position that didn't require wearing
pleats I eagerly offered myself up.

After a season of cheers and tears, bus
rides and team dinners, I found myself with a
group of girlfriends some of which I'm still
close with today - and I couldn't believe what I
had been missing.

It's only with females that I can spend hours
on the phone picking apart relationships or
analyzing the dilemma of the day. Though I'm
not the first person my friends call up for a trip
to the spa for foot soaks and facials, I've found
my own place among women.

I've retained a lot of my tom-boy-ishness
into young adulthood. I still refuse to wear
pink and I never carry a purse, but those quirks
are things my friends accept, just as I do
theirs. And if there's ever a jar to open or
spider to squish, they know the girl to call.

Leslie Bridgers is a staff reporter
for the American Journal in Westbrook,
she is a graduate of Bowdoin College