When I was 17, I signed a made-up contract with my two best friends which declared that we would be housemates for life. The agreement stipulated that any and all male visitors—current or future boyfriends and husbands—were to be “treated like tables or chairs and would have to sit quietly in the house”. These men would have limited visiting hours so as not to disturb our peace or our very serious and important lives together.
Five years later, we’re still the greatest of friends, but our conversations sound different now. We talk about our jobs, degrees, partners and our plans for the future. We sign real contracts, make real money, have real lives which are evolving in different directions, universes expanding away from one another.
I often think about how casually we all accept that friends drift apart—as though it’s a prerequisite for adulthood. And it’s not that women stop prioritising others as they grow up, it’s that life is structured in such a way that women ultimately end up deprioritising friendship. Friends—at least for Indian women—are expected to remain secondary, coming after the “real”, primary relationships: husband, children, in-laws and parents.
When I look around me, I see countless examples of women uprooting their lives, leaving behind everything familiar for these ‘top priority’ relationships. My aunt, for instance, moved from Mumbai to Delhi when she got married—even though she had never been there before—because her husband and his family lived there. I’ve seen friends move abroad to pursue higher education, cousins move for job opportunities and acquaintances move simply because city life had become too exhausting. By that logic, why aren’t we moving cities to live near or with our friends? I knew I wanted to do that. My friends wanted to do that.
Julia Fox, I found out, has been living with her best friend Richie Shazam since 2023. Under posts and reels about friend communes or women living together—many of which rack up millions of views these days—I saw the comments filled with people, including young Indian women, tagging each other and asking, “When are we doing this???” News about groups of friends in America and Europe building homes next to each other so they can live or retire together circulates constantly on social media. It’s strange how we romanticise this online, or when it happens in TV shows, books or movies, but don’t dare to imagine it for ourselves.
Growing up, I was told that the idea was immature, something acceptable only when you’re in college or on the cusp of your career. I think the reason for this is that it simply doesn’t serve the patriarchy. When women start making life decisions based on what they want rather than centring their lives around men, it stops benefiting the system. Why is moving cities for a man—your fiancé, boyfriend, husband, partner or even your son—seen as legitimate, but moving for your friends seen as a childish fantasy?
As Kayleen Schaefer writes in Text Me When You Get Home: “Devoting ourselves to finding spouses, caring for children, or snagging a promotion is acceptable, productive behaviour. Spending time strengthening our friendships, on the other hand, is seen more like a diversion.” I genuinely believe that being around my friends, living with them or near them, would make me deeply, consistently happy. And yes, if it were possible for me—financially, professionally, practically—I would one hundred per cent choose to live that way.
We live in a world centred almost entirely around marriage and romantic love, which means we’re rarely allowed to assign too much value to friendship. In a piece by the American Psychological Association titled The Science of Why Friendships Keep Us Healthy, psychologist Marisa G. Franco, PhD, is quoted as saying, “When we view behaviours that create intimacy—being vulnerable, buying gifts, taking someone out on a date—as only appropriate for a romantic relationship, we end up limiting the potential of our friendships. Many of us could really benefit from blurring the lines between the two.” Women are raised to believe that a soulmate is singular—that you must find the one—while friends come and go like an inexhaustible resource. But anyone who has loved a friend knows how untrue that is.
To me, friendship isn’t only about living separate lives and catching up occasionally. It can also be about building and living a life together. These questions and conversations about moving in with your friends aren’t new, and neither is the longing for it. The only difference now is that we haven’t chosen yet; my generation still has to decide for itself. To answer the age-old question—what do women want? The current answer, I think, might simply be to do things a little differently.
Also read:
I didn’t need friends in my 20s. So why am I searching for my girl squad in my 40s?
3 reasons women’s friendships are stronger than men’s friendships
Do you even love your friends if you’re not debriefing with them?
