I think I blinked three times during the entire 147 minute showcase of Sex and the City 2.  I didn’t want to miss a single drool-worthy second of high fashion, I couldn’t stop fathoming how well Aiden had aged and I didn’t want to miss any of Carrie’s one-liner snippets of advice. And while soaking it all in, I noticed something else.

As we all know, each woman in SATC is incredibly different. You’ve got Samantha the sex-fiend, Miranda the serious one, Charlotte the traditionalist, and Carrie the un-traditionalist. They’re opposing forces, but they come together to make something wonderful and long lasting.

Without the extreme diversity of each woman, would the friendships embedded in Sex and the City be as interesting and strong? What if the show was based off of four friends like Samantha? Besides there being lots of ‘she-banging’ would it work?

Nope.

Think about your group of friends. If it’s anything like mine, you are all very different from one another. And that’s why you love them. We need diversity in our friendships because everyone brings a little somethin’ different to the table and you take a little from every single one. Knowing what every college girl needs in her life, I’ve compiled a list of the 6 friends every girl needs to keep around for the long haul:

1. The Motivated Friend
We all need a friend like this when you’ve been sprawled out on your couch watching E! Network all day.  You can spot this friend right away Freshman year of college. She’s the first of your friends involved in clubs on campus.  Sophomore year, she’s become the president of a club. Junior year, she has an awesome internship. Senior year, she’s landed a sweet job before you’ve even graduated. Sure, she’ll probably make you feel a little less than along the way, but she’ll also light a fire under your ass to succeed.

2. The Rock Solid Friend
She’s your BFF. The ‘go-to-gal’ you find to whine to, talk to, cry to, and who will love you and shove a bag of Doritos in your face when you need it most. She’s trustworthy and loyal.  She has so much dirt on your life you could plant a garden of your secrets (sorry, bad analogy).  You went to your first frat party together and shared your last. If all goes well (and she keeps those secrets to herself) she will be winking at you during her bridesmaid speech at your wedding.

Read More »

In the last year, it seems as though being single has been my specialty. While flings and hookups have come and gone (pun intended) and dates have left me with some less than desirable memories, my current single status has remained loyally by my side. I’ve learned a lot in the past year and I’ve discovered that single girls around the world are all in the same fabulous pair of shoes.

So if you’re sick of sitting at a table for one, eating a meal portioned for two, I cordially invite you to join The Single Girl Society, where being single is more than status, it’s a lifestyle. Of course, with everything in life, the single girl lifestyle comes with rules and I’ve picked up quite a few along the way. So kick back, grab a drink and let the lessons I’ve learned serve as your very own roadmap to transitioning to and enduring the single life

So it’s been a month and half since you’re best friend got dumped (in the douchiest way possible) and she’s still going on and on about how she’s “totally over it even though his new girl looks like a little too much like Shaun White” and you’re not sure how much longer you can stand to hear her relationship woes. We’ve all been there, thinking to ourselves, “Well if you’re so over it, why are we still talking about it?”

The answer is simple. She’s not over it. But you sure as hell are. So what’s a girl to do when her wingwoman’s stuck in a rut?

Lesson 9: Stand By Your Single Sisters

Look, I know it’s cheesy but as single ladies, we’re only as good as the girls we surround ourselves with and when one of us is down, we’re all down.

Of course it gets frustrating sometimes, watching your formally single and fabulous bestie go from taking names (and numbers) and kicking ass to sullen and sunken into a sofa watching “The Notebook” and screaming at Rachel McAdams to “get a job and forget men already!” (True story.)

Sometimes the single life knocks us down and out but as single soldiers, it’s our job to stand by our friends and support them, even if that means having the hear Taylor Swift ballads pump through your apartment on repeat. The post-breakup version of your girlfriend needs you now more than ever because you love her even if her ex didn’t. Right now it’s her in tears but someday it will be you (if it hasn’t happened already). Read More »

It’s the start of a new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back a fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like the first day of classes or trying to figure out if that boy is crushin’ too. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

The boy you love just broke your heart, so your girlfriends decide that drinking is in order. Because nothing numbs the pain quite like a few shots of SoCo. Together with your roommates, you pick out a super hot outfit (consisting of some combination of low cut top/push up bra), take a few pre-gaming shots and head out the door to either “show him what he’s missing,” or “forget about that jerk.”

The night is perfect: you dance, you drink (a lot), and you even find a cute boy to flirt with in the corner.

Then, obvi, the relentless craving for breadsticks and marinara takes over and you and the girls head home for the Late Night Special from your favorite pizza place.

You make your way to your room to change before the food arrives and are suddenly reminded of just how depressed you are. Why doesn’t he love me? you ask yourself. What is wrong with me? Maybe if I just send him an email and tell him how I feel he will change his mind and want to be with me.

You sit down at your desk. Read More »

It’s August, which means it’s almost that time of year: back to school. But unlike when we were younger and dreaded the first day, going back to college is exciting, enough to provoke countdowns on Facebook statuses (“Only 236 hours more days until I’m back at school!”), and overall giddiness. You can’t wait to pack up your rooms and your closets and get right back into the college atmosphere – crazy bar nights and frat parties, Wine-Down Wednesdays and Tequila Tuesdays, dorm room gossip sesh’s with your roommates, attempting to wake up for class, and making even more memories with your friends.

However, amidst all that excitement, there’s one gray cloud looming: you’ll be leaving your best friends from home behind.

No matter how much fun we have with our school best friends, it always sucks to leave behind your home BFFs – the girls and guys you grew up with, who know all about the times you made a fool of yourself in 9^th grade homeroom, and whom you can still go out with and have a good time. It especially sucks after a summer spent with them, when you’ve gotten used to seeing them on a daily basis, and you know that when school starts things will be different. Because let’s be honest: despite all of our best intentions to stay in touch with our BFFs during the academic year, it’s usually pretty tough. Between the parties and the actual work, it’s easy to start speaking only once a week or learning about one another’s lives through Newsfeed.

For those of you who are bummed about leaving behind your best girlfriends, don’t worry – you still have a few more weeks of summertime fun left, which means plenty of time to stock up on some serious BFF bonding sessions. So here is a list of things you should make time to do with your girls before you’re all back in school, back in the grind, and back to intermittent IMs. Read More »

Nothing makes me want to curl up and die faster than an invite to a group dinner. From start to finish it’s an intensive game of twenty questions. Where should we go to eat? Do they have vegetarian options? Can you be there by 7 or not? Did you seriously invite her? Can I get the barbecue chicken salad without the dressing, chicken, cheese, lettuce, or bowl?

The night always starts off on a bad note because no one can ever agree on a restaurant. The person who always wants sushi suddenly claims they’re craving Papa Johns and the person who always orders the side salad at every restaurant is claiming they’re craving chicken-fried-lard. And once everyone finally settles on a Mexican place, my roommate claims that the water there is too spicy.

And then I show up at the restaurant and somehow get stuck sitting at the end next to the one person I can’t stand. So now I’m spending the entire meal having forced conversation about the weather and frozen yogurt. I try a few times to get in on the convo at the other end of the table. They’re laughing, they’re crying, they’re pricking their fingers and becoming blood sisters. But my  biggest contribution to their conversation is “What? I can’t hear what you’re saying down there. A pact? I want to be in on this pregnancy pact.” Read More »

There are some unwritten rules of friendship we all know: Thou shalt hold her hair back when she is praying to the porcelain god after a long Friday night. Thou shalt never date her ex-boyfriend, brother or best male friend. Thou shalt never have to watch Say Yes to the Dress alone. Thou shalt risk your life to satisfy the drunken cravings of your BFF.

But that’s where the clear-cut rules end and where the giant friendship gray area begins.

How can you tell if you are in a toxic friendship? Do you know how to tell if your friends are talking about you behind your back? And that friend who always compliments a terrible outfit choice or lets you date jerk after jerk – does she understand that, despite your feelings, honesty is the best policy? That there are certain moments between friends that always require the truth? Read More »

I think I blinked three times during the entire 147 minute showcase of Sex and the City 2.  I didn’t want to miss a single drool-worthy second of high fashion, I couldn’t stop fathoming how well Aiden had aged and I didn’t want to miss any of Carrie’s one-liner snippets of advice. And while soaking it all in, I noticed something else.

As we all know, each woman in SATC is incredibly different. You’ve got Samantha the sex-fiend, Miranda the serious one, Charlotte the traditionalist, and Carrie the un-traditionalist. They’re opposing forces, but they come together to make something wonderful and long lasting.

Without the extreme diversity of each woman, would the friendships embedded in Sex and the City be as interesting and strong? What if the show was based off of four friends like Samantha? Besides there being lots of ‘she-banging’ would it work?

Nope.

Think about your group of friends. If it’s anything like mine, you are all very different from one another. And that’s why you love them. We need diversity in our friendships because everyone brings a little somethin’ different to the table and you take a little from every single one. Knowing what every college girl needs in her life, I’ve compiled a list of the 6 friends every girl needs to keep around for the long haul: Read More »

"And then he was all, 'I don't know if I wanna be tied down right now...'"

Yesterday, I had a Skype date with one of my old friends from high school. It’s always fun to catch up with random high school acquaintances, but as I hung up after our chat, I was struck by the realization that all we had talked about was boys. That’s it! I heard all about her new boyfriend and how cute he is, and she asked about all of my boy dilemmas. Now, granted trading boy stories and dilemmas is always fun – it is something that girls bond over – it is by no means the most important thing going on in my life, let alone the only thing! So why is it something that I feel like I am constantly discussing?

I feel like nearly seventy percent of my daily conversations with my friends revolve around men. To be fair, I seem to be everyone’s go-to person for boy advice (sometimes I feel like I should start charging by the minute or something…), but still, even taking that into account, we as girls spend too much time worrying and over-analyzing the male species.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I am as guilty of it as any of my friends! It is one of our weaknesses as girls, to examine every text, chat, and voicemail for the smallest inkling of information:

“Wait, and what did he say next.”
“‘Let’s talk soon.’”
“Was there a period? An exclamation point?”
“No, there was nothing.”
“Hm, that’s a tough one.”

While I understand this need to analyze everything under a microscopic lens, I am tired of talking about boys all the time. There is so much more to me than my relationship status, and sometimes it can be easy to forget that. Read More »

I was studying for my Calc midterm with one of my sorority sisters last night, and like good students (hey, we were studying on a Thursday night, cut us some slack) we were soon off the topic of derivatives and onto to the topic of boys. Anna and I were trying to figure out the strange tapestry of relationships that make up our lives, venting that life would be a hell of a lot easier if there were less gray areas in relationships and more “Okay, we are officially exclusively dating” talks.

You know, your typical late night girl talk.

When I finally packed up my books and left the library, the conversation stuck with me. Anna, who is currently single and never really dated anyone in high school, was telling me about how she had never understood all of the things that some girls put up with to be in a relationship.  “I just don’t understand why such amazing girls settle for some losers. There is nothing scary about being single until the right person comes along.”

Now, obviously, there are lots of great guys out there that she was not referring to. And, obviously, a lot of girls out there are single and enjoying it. Yet, Anna really made me think, and I realized that when I first got out of my crazy long-term relationship, it took months before I would let people call me single. Months! I was so scared of the term, of what it implied and of actually being single. Now I realize that Anna is right – that there is nothing bad about being single and nothing missing, either. Read More »

So, I’m dealing with a really bad breakup right now. No, my boyfriend didn’t dump me – that would require me to have had a boyfriend in the first place. But my very good guy friend did dump his very serious girlfriend and now I’m left in the middle.

They have been dating for nearly a year and in that time I’ve grown quite close to the GF. We hung out a lot as a group and as things got more serious, I began to hang out with her independently. We’d see movies, do girl dinners and spend long hours at the library studying and making fun of her boyfriend.

And then last week, he up and broke up with her. She was shocked. I was shocked. We were all left with a lot of questions, mine being what I’m supposed to do now. Read More »