You need to get rid of your best friend. Now

The idea of women having a 'Best Friend Forever' still dominates pop culture and scientific studies. But as a schoolgirl tragically kills herself after friendship problems, Radhika Sanghani explains why the concept is anything but healthy

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman must be in want of a bestie. Or a BFF, a #soulsista, a friend #forlyf – it doesn’t really matter what she’s called so long as every woman possesses a favourite chum.

Every young girl growing up is aware of this. Whether they learn it from children’s classics like Heidi and The Little Princess or from watching movies and TV shows, they subconsciously recognise that girls need best friends.

It’s then drilled into them by toys, broken heart necklaces and even their families who assume there’s nothing wrong with the concept – it’s good for a girl to make sure someone has her back, right? It then carries on throughout their lives.

Grown women are still expected to have these BFFs, only by then they’re called ‘maids of honour’, ‘godmothers’ and they tend to come with a plus one, making them perfect for couples dinner parties.

Society has turned the ‘best friend’ phenomenon into something of an institution. A new study shows that women will have their closest friends at the age of 26 - cue quarter life crises if you realise this isn’t you – and there’s endless research about women and their best friends.

_{Lena Dunham is one of Taylor Swift's best mates (Instagram/Lena Dunham)}
Every movie heroine has her wise-cracking side-kick, Taylor Swift is continuously praised by her equally famous pals for being a great best friend, and TV shows like Sex and The City or Girls go even further by suggesting women shouldn’t just have one the best mate; they need three.
Compared to all the other pressures out there for women – body image, sexism, gender pay gaps and cost of living to name a few – the pressure to have a BFF might not seem like much. If you don’t want to have one, you don’t have to. If it doesn’t happen, so what?
Except that’s really not the case. It can be incredibly difficult for a woman to accept that she might not have a maid of honour at her wedding, or that her bridesmaids don’t want her to return the favour at their weddings. For teenage girls bred on diets of Zoella and Gossip Girl, it’s even harder.
_{Elspeth McKendrick, 16, hanged herself (Cavendish Press)}
In some cases, it can have truly devastating results. This week it came out that 16-year-old Elspeth McKendrick took her own life back in 2012. The school prefect was excelling academically, but struggled to fit in at school and was upset at being diagnosed with mild autism.
Her mother Rebecca Jackson, 47, told an inquest: “She had told of problems socialising and making close friends. Although she had a lot of friends she also wanted to have a close best friend and she did not have that.”
It wasn’t just Elspeth’s friendship concerns that ultimately led to her tragic death - her Asperger's diagnosis played a part and her headmaster did say she had "a lovely small group of friends." But her suicide note suggested she wished she had friends she could share her problems with, and she had spoken to her mum about her lack of a best friend.
We will never know just how much that affected her, but it's clear that Elspeth was bothered by it. She's not alone - I know dozens of girls who have been seriously bothered by friendship issues, as well as grown women.
But this is the crux of it. The 'best friend' issue doesn't really affect men. In pop culture, they’re far more likely to be depicted with a group of lads (The Hangover, American Pie, even the retired men in Last Vegas) than having an intimate connection with just one other guy.
_{Three men and a baby (The Hangover)}
The only expectation they’re still subjected to is to have a best man at weddings, but even here they tend to share out duties such as chairing the event, ushering and being a groomsmen. Admittedly, these changes are slowly starting to happen with women too – some eschew the maid of honour title altogether, while others also ask female friends to MC the wedding.
It is all a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before girls are fully free of the need to have a BFF. It’s why we need to get rid of the term altogether.
Only when we stop viewing friendships in terms of rankings – from acquaintances all the way up to the highly coveted role of ‘best friends’ – will women be totally free to have as many mates as they want, whether that's none at all or all 1,050 of their Facebook friends.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11528037/Best-friends-We-need-to-get-rid.-Now.html