Hey, hi, hello!

   This is my first time looking for a female friend and I'm not sure how to do this. Note that this post will likely be long and there is no TL;DR version, because I like to read and write long messages and so the post that is looking for THE one friend should be long as well. I'll be completely honest here even though it could potentially make me look bad (or cringey), but I want to find a real friendship and that comes with showing your 'bad' side as well. I will try to make it as short as I can, but I doubt I can go under one page. Also sorry for awkward formating, I never learnt how to format on reddit properly.

   Some history: I always longed for a best female friend. I'd read about them, I fantasized about a billion different things we could do together, about growing old together as friends and being each others' 'sister by choice'. I even had a few friendships that would look quite promising, but it apparently didn't go as planned, that's why I'm here. I had a best friend for a little less than 13 years and I had to end our friendship once I realized that person was a parasite and wasn't a good friend to me. For some time I grieved that friendship, then I regretted to ever give this much time and energy to someone undeserving and lastly I accepted what happend, accepted my share of blame and decided to move on. I've had a 'not like other girls' phase for longer than I'd like to admit, mostly through my teenage years and for my deffense – it was mostly rooted from the mild bullying I was getting from girls since kindergarten until college and I never felt like putting other girls down, no. It was more that I'd never fit in and I got tired and stopped trying to fit in with other girls and then other people all together. I'm working on myself for the last few years and even though the process is mostly slow, I really enjoy becoming a better person and I feel ready to find my best friend now as an adult, now that I know what I want and don't want. And I definitely don't want to pursue the 'two weird girls against the world' narrative, or 'other girls suck, let's suffer together' narrative. I'd just really like to be myself and since I've been told many times that I can be weird sometimes, I'd like to have a friend who also likes to be themselves, and understands what it's like to feel distant from their peers. I don't have any friends my age and that's why I'm sometimes awkward and don't always understand abbreviations or some lingo. I've been even called a boomer jokingly a few times because I can be a little old fashioned sometimes. 😬 Don't let that turn you off, I'm open to educate myself.

   Who I am and why you should want to become my friend:

I'm still 26, but I'm turning 27 next month. I can tell you more about myself later, but here goes some basic things.

   • I'm always willing to work on myself and I'm currently in a longterm and slow process of putting my life together. My mental health wasn't always great, but more about that in one on one conversation. I also value some alone time as I've been quite lonely for a long time, but I can put my friends problems up my priorities as long as communication works well.

   • I'm chronically ill which means I have some limitations when it comes to life and also relationships. I'm not always able to keep scheduled social plans, I can't go out too late in the evening, I can't do certain sports, sometimes I even struggle with regular walks when my health is worse. I live with my parents and don't have a driver's license yet. The pace of my lifestyle changes a lot, sometimes I need to rest and sometimes I'm active. Pointing this whole thing out because I understand being a friend to someone who are gojng to be ill for the rest of their lives can be a commitment and limiting and it isn't for everone and I'm ok with that and I need you to be ok with that as well.

   • I'm an eclectic, I love all kinds of music, movies, styles, aesthetics, hobbies and interests and I'm not always able to sort them by genre or make top 10 lists. It's much easier to name stuff I typically dislike than what I like.

   • I'm an outdoorsy person that has to spend a lot of time indoors. I love hiking, foraging, walking, gardening, travelling. Geocaching and all kinds of other activites, but since my health took a worse turn, my stamina and fitness got worse, I struggle to lose weight and I don't have as much energy even for my favourite indoor activites. Sometimes I lately spend time with the easy stuff and end up watching reality shows or listening to audiobooks instead of putting energy into stuff I like because I can't concentrate. 

   • I'm trying to better my health with alternative medicine and it seems like it's working for me so far. 

   • As I mentioned - I had and sometimes still have some mental health issues that I am working out. I'm trying to find a balance between working too hard on myself to a point when my positivity isn't honest and letting myself go to a bad place because I don't have energy to fight. I definitely don't want to be a toxic positive person but I also don't want to indulge in romanticizing mental illnesses. If you also struggle with mental health but want to become as healthy and happy in your life as you can, then we probably have a lot to talk about! 

   • I love animals and I am a huge dog person/dog mom. Can't live without dogs. I also love plants, even though I'm not the best plant mom. I still love my plants. Also I'm a vegetarian, almost theoretically leaning to flexitarianism.

   • It was always hard for me to judge my own character and positive traits, but I'm trying to work on my self-esteem step by step and I'll try to tell you some of my good traits here even though it still feels a little weird. I'm fun-loving (but can get serious), sometimes a bit crazy (hopefully in a good way), loving, caring and loyal, tolerant (but also opinionated), creative, responsible and hard-working, sensitive, practical, passionate and I was told I am a good listener, but I sometimes can't keep myself from pointing out a possible solution. I also tend to have two contradicting traits at once – I can be a pragmatic dreamer, old soul who can't adult, responsible procrastinator, chaotic perfectionist and all kinds of other things that don't always go well together. One of the best traits I'm very proud of is that I don't care what strangers think of me.

   • I think one of the most important things in a relationship of any kind is having a similar sense of humour. Hobbies, taste or even opinions change and can be tolerated, but having a different sense of humour can crush the whole relationship easily. I like people who can make fun of themselves, sometimes I like politically incorrect humour or a dark humour, intellectual humour but also random silly jokes or even childish memes. I like dadaistic humour that doesn't have to have a punchline. What I can never laugh at is dark humour including animals or children and I don't like american comedies where loud = funny / sex = funny, like American pie, Adam Sandler movies or We're the Millers and stuff like that. That isn't my cup of tea honestly. One of my favourite comedies include Little Miss Sunshine, Tais-Toi!, Monty Python, Big Lebowski, (british) IT crowd, Afterlife, Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?, many animated movies as well. I also like Rick and Morty, excluding the few jokes that were too much for me and I usually just skip or ignore them. Note that I was raised in a country where political correctiveness is mostly mocked. I have boundaries, but honestly I struggle sometimes to understand that I said something offending, I usually don't mean it. I'd enjoy exchanging memes sometimes even though that doesn't really define my humour, maybe we laugh at different memes, right? Let's see. :-)

   • If you are into zodiac signs, I am a libra and I feel like it kind of corresponds with my character. I don't get on well with gemini. Like literally never for some reason.

   • MBTI wise, I repeat the test on 16personalities every once in a while (like once a year probably) and my results are the same for years – I'm an INTJ.

   • My written english is much better than my spoken english, I have a strong accent and it can be hard for me to pronounce certain things. Note that I need to train my spoken english so if we start voice chatting, give me some time to warm up and have a patience with me, please!

   What am I looking for in you?

   • Since I'm a loving and caring person, I'd finally like a friend who doesn't just take from me but also gives back. If you are loyal and caring, I think you are already better than the friend I had. I also need tolerant and patient people around me due to my chronical illness. It would be really nice if you weren't either active to the point where you feel like spending a weekend at home is a lost time, or lazy enough to consider a trip into nature a tiring and horrible event.

   • A few preferences, not requirements: I'd prefer if you were around my age or between 25-30, single (you don't have to be) and from Europe, the closer to me, the better. I wish you were from Europe because of time zones and also eventual meetings in person. I don't believe we could grow a real life friendship in different time zones, I wouldn't even have money to visit you.

   • I would really appreciate if you loved dogs. If you hate animals or dogs especially or if you feel indifferent, I'm affraid we wouldn't get along.

   • I think that no relationship (of any kind) can be found. It's more that you find a person to build the relationship with. I'd like to build a friendship with you where we start out by writing long messages (e-mails?) to get to know each other and understand each other's experiences and likes and dislikes. As there isn't always a time to write such long 'letters' we could simultaneously keep chatting and exchanging less well written conversation this way. We could send each other's photos of our daily life, what we ate or what we were doing, photos of our pets, some memes, you know... stuff like that. Or we can talk about more current stuff, rant, joke, how we feel... you know, just about anything. If we build up to it, we could start voice chatting and video calling. I bet we can be creative with video calls and have a tea or coffee together, have a lunch and all kinds of stuff. And if we live close enough we could become friends in real life too. Occasionally meeting up, or halfway between where we both live, we could visit each other, have a weekend sleepover, depends how far we live. 

   • I wish we could build our friendship to the point where we could talk about anything, tell each other to shut up, support each other, accept our differences, hug without feeling awkward and really feel like sisters. I want to have a picnic together, bake all the sweets you love, go shopping together, go for a vacation, send each other care packages, postcards and snail mail letters, I want to go for a trip, have a coffee or tea over video call, chill in the garden and make a two person book club. I want to watch movies together (by screen mirroring for example), talk while we repot our flowers together or walk my dogs. I want to make a home spa, feel no shame in front of each other, hang out in silent, then talk for 3 hours straight, send best wishes to each other's family and mock reality shows together. We can play video games or board games, watch a sport, teach each other our language and culture, give each other pep talks and make each other playlists. I want us to be there for each other when we are in a bad place mentally, but also motivate each other not to stay there and be as happy as we can get! I want us to be slightly weird, non-toxic friends who honestly wish each other the best and likes each others' quirks. When we both have partners, we can go on trips together and if either of us has kids, we'll be aunts. (If you don't want a partner or kids, that's ok as well.) I want to get interested in your hobbies and include you in mine. I want to do all sorts of things plus all that you have on your mind! I want to be your best and most trusted friend, I want us to be each other's moms when needed and also 'partners in crime'.

   • For all this I think you should like to write and read, ask and answer questions and have a similar level of language, but you probably wouldn't read so far if you wouldn't understand me. Haha. I like to ask many questions, sometimes very random ones and it can feel a little off-putting if the other person never asks anything.

   • I need a brutal and complete honesty from my friend. If you know you are a person who struggles to talk about their physical and emotional needs, I know I can't deal with that, I'm sorry. I need you to tell me if I offend you, if you need alone time, or if you don't feel like talking about something or answering one of my questions. If I tell you I need alone time while you are struggling with something, you have to tell me you need me to postpone my Snufkin time. I just need a clear communication because I struggle to read between the lines and I don't even want to.

   • When it comes to politics, it can just happen that we might have different opinions. If you know you talk about politics a lot and it's important to you that we have similar opinions, please open it up right away. For me personally, as long as you aren't a religious fanatic or fanatically atheistic, a communist or a fascist, a homophobe, transphobe or old-people hating ageist, if you aren't a militant vegan but you aren't an irreformable carnivore either, then I don't need you to have the same opinions and I can live with not knowing who you vote. Politics is important to me, but it easily ruins friendships and as long as we get on well in our basic values, I think I can keep myself from talking about politics.

   If you read this far, I am amazed and if you feel like contacting me, I'd be very happy to start talking to you. Let's just make a deal: First – Let's talk very openly. If you don't feel like talking about something I ask, just let me know and talk about it if/when you are ready, and if you have a burning question that seems too personal, just ask away and if I don't feel like telling you yet, I'll tell you when I'm ready. Same goes with the pace of getting to know each other. If either of us doesn't feel like meeting in real life or even voice chatting yet, we just wait and send more memes, right? Or if you don't like memes, I'll send comforting pictures of aesthetics of your choice. Second deal – Let's start talking and if at some point in the first days or weeks of communication either of us feels like there are too many deal breakers and we aren't compatible for friendship, let's just tell each other and no hard feelings!

   Also when you write to me, please don't just write a two sentence message. I know investing time into something you aren't sure I'll even answer can be demotivating, but I also gave a lot of effort into my post and I rewrote it like hundred times, so... Not saying you have to go for a long reply, but give me something to work with, please. Include your age and country of living. Lastly – do NOT include a photo or a name yet (you can sign youself with an initial, if you feel like it), please. There's a lot of time for that, cheers!

   Looking forward for your reply, and then, hopefully, a lot of good times we'll have together!