http://www.onbeing.org/blog/courtney-martin-new-friendship-is-the-last-great-romance/8367

While my oldest friends know who I’ve been, my new friends help me understand who I’m becoming.

This especially resonates with me because I feel it's the connection we seek through others that makes us feel like we belong to and with them, like the romance and magnetism of the unknown you describe with female friends.

“The real bittersweet aspect is young adulthood begins with all this time for friendship, and friendship just having this exuberant, profound importance for figuring out who you are and what’s next,” Rawlins says. “And you find at the end of young adulthood, now you don’t have time for the very people who helped you make all these decisions.” http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/how-friendships-change-over-time-in-adulthood/411466/

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/-em-girls-em-is-right-friendships-are-more-dramatic-than-romances/283874/

There’s no handy script in place for downgrading to just “friends” or “acquaintances,” so, often, you don’t cease to be someone’s best friend until they decree as much. That last part is what I think Girls is portraying so well. Marnie and Hannah, the central best-friendship of the show, are at a point where maybe their partnership has run its course, but there’s no established way to do the “polite friend breakup”—so Marnie’s trying to fix it, while Hannah’s just trying to duck out of it. This part, certainly, resonates with me. I’ve found myself in that position of awkwardly wanting to quit being friends but not become enemies in the process—just wanting to make the “slow fade” happen faster, then part ways and leave it at that. Is it a turning point in their friendship? That’s tough to say—but it’s certainly a turning point in how I as a viewer understand the show’s portrayal of their friendship. One thing I can’t stop thinking about is how Hannah says “It’s not like the four of us have had any real fun together in the last, like what? Two years?” Looking at the timeline of the show, we met these four friends in the pilot episode somewhere between one and two years ago. .. But even as a woman—and even as someone who strongly endorses supportive, patient, close female friendships—I say, for goodness sake, prune your friend tree rationally and often. Don’t let sentimental attachments keep you surrounded by people who stress you out. .. Girls isn't just about girls. It's about the strange, maddening evolution of friendships between young people who change. .. now, it's clear what’s been going on. She's “so fucking sick” of her friends, and she wants a new life.

respect:

it's frustrating to watch hannah steamroll over marine. hannah seems to feel that because marnie is so uptight, she doesn't deserve any respect - the only way hannah can deal with her is to ignore marnie's plans/needs, and steamroll over, because in hannah's eyes, marine is being so ridiculous, that there's no other way. Marine is so far in one direction, hannah acts completely the opposite. now, i see both sides here. marnie is ridiculously uptight and difficult to deal with. BUT, she planned this great, nice weekend for her friends, and she deserves the courtesy of hannah respecting those plans and the space of marnie's mom's friend. i don't think they will stay friends---- they are completely different! marnie needs to find friends who will appreciate weekends planned like that, and hannah needs to find friends who are OK with her self-involved ways.

http://therumpus.net/2012/01/transformation-and-transcendence-the-power-of-female-friendship/

This was a snapshot of what my own deep friendships could lead to: transformation. I saw, on that afternoon, that it’s possible to transcend the limits of your skin in a friendship. That a friend can take you out of the boxes you’ve made for yourself and burn them up. This kind of friendship is not a frivolous connection, a supplementary relationship to the ones we’re taught and told are primary – spouses, children, parents. It is love.