On TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram reels, one judgment keeps surfacing: If a woman doesn’t have close female friends, something must be wrong with her. She’s a “pick me.” She’s insecure. She’s not trustworthy.
But what if that idea says more about our cultural expectations than it does about her?
The “pick me” label, a phrase used to describe women who seek male validation by distancing themselves from other women, has taken on a new life online. And while some behavior warrants critique, it’s also become a catchall accusation aimed at any woman who seems to prefer her own company or claims she “doesn’t get along with other girls.”
“A 2021 survey showed that 59% of young women had lost touch with at least a few friends during the pandemic.”
For starters, the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on everyone, but women especially. A 2021 survey showed that 59% of young women had lost touch with at least a few friends during the pandemic, with 16% saying they were no longer in contact with most of their friends. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that TikTok, a primary means of social interaction during the pandemic, is full of videos about friendship, friendship loss, and female isolation.
In an interview with Psychology Today, Dr. Marisia G Franco discussed the nature and expectations around female friendship, saying, “ I think it comes down to the expectations we place on our close relationships. Research suggests that women have higher expectations of support and intimacy in their close relationships than men do.”
So where does that leave women today? Many women report higher levels of anxiety and depression than men, often linked to social media. It’s possible that women are just a little hard on each other, and that isn’t helping anything.
Even when women want strong female bonds, navigating them isn’t always easy. Curated content and social surveillance make things harder. And that’s just scratching the surface.
It’s possible that women are just a little hard on each other, and that isn’t helping anything.”
What gets missed in the “problematic woman” discourse is that some women genuinely struggle to form or maintain female friendships due to earlier relational wounds. Perhaps a woman’s first bully was her mother, and she never had a healthy example of female relationships or friendships.
We rarely make room for that nuance. Instead, we pathologize the absence of sisterhood: If you’re not surrounded by close girlfriends, you’re either flawed or anti-woman.
This framing leaves little space for introversion, boundary-setting, or nontraditional social structures. It also ignores the reality that emotional support can come from many sources—siblings, partners, therapists, or chosen families.
None of this devalues the power of female friendship. The emotional, hormonal, and psychological benefits are well-documented. But using friendship status as a moral litmus test reduces complex dynamics to a meme. A woman without close female friends might be distant. Or wounded. Or content. Or simply in transition. She doesn’t owe the internet an explanation.