A blog post by Pepetoe.

There’s something about your early 20s that completely reshapes the way you see friendship. Suddenly, the people you thought you’d grow old with drift into the background, while the ones you barely expected to stay end up being your safest home. It’s not dramatic; it’s just life slowly revealing who is really aligned with the person you’re becoming.

For me, the friendships that stuck weren’t the loudest, the closest in proximity, or the ones filled with constant communication. They were the quiet friendships. The ones that didn’t need much to feel strong. The ones where you can sit on someone’s sofa in silence, scrolling through your phones, half-watching a show, eating snacks, and it still feels like love. The friends where nothing is ever forced.

These are the people I can go months without speaking to, then meet up and fall straight back into our rhythm. The kind of catch-ups where you collapse into laughter within the first five minutes. The kind where you hand over “the tea” like you’re offering sacred evidence. The kind where you talk about life falling apart, life coming together, and life making zero sense, and they don’t flinch. There’s no resentment, no guilt, no “Where have you been?” Just warmth. Just “I’ve missed you.”

In my 20s, I’ve realised I don’t need friendships that perform. I need friendships that feel like breathing.

Because the older I get, the more I value the friends who hold space for the whole version of me. Not the curated, stable, high-functioning version. But the messy one. The tired one. The recovering one. The one who has made mistakes, lost herself, learned painful lessons, and rebuilt. Over and over again.

A true friend, to me, is someone who gives you the freedom to be completely human. No judgement for who you were, what you’ve done, or the seasons that changed you. No scoreboard of effort. No silent expectations hanging between you. Just trust, softness, and safety.

And I’ve learned this:
Friendship isn’t about constant presence. It’s about consistent energy.

Some of the people I feel closest to right now are the ones who barely feature in my day-to-day life. But when we do speak, I feel seen. When we do meet, nothing feels out of place. There’s an ease to it, a mutual understanding that life is busy, healing is messy, and growing up takes time. And that none of that is personal.

The friendships that survived my hardest seasons (the breakups, the recovery relapses, the chaos, the self-rebuilding) weren’t the ones that demanded more from me. They were the ones that simply stayed soft.

They didn’t judge me for disappearing and didn’t punish me for struggling. They didn’t ask for explanations when I wasn’t myself. They let me be in whatever chapter I was in. And that, to me, is loyalty in its purest form.

Female friendships in your 20s are transformative. They teach you who you are, not by asking, but by accepting. They show you that connection doesn’t need noise, just sincerity. They remind you that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.

So here’s what friendship means to me now:
Someone who makes you feel safe to be exactly who you are, without shrinking. Someone who meets you where you are, not where they wish you were. Someone who never makes your humanity feel like a burden.

The right friendships won’t demand more of you.
They’ll simply allow you to be you.

And that, I’ve learned, is the kind of friendship worth keeping, no matter how many months it’s been, or how many chapters you’ve lived in between.