girls?

When I was younger, I had short hair. I liked playing sports and (trying to be) tough. There was never a moment where I didn't have bruises, scrapes, or scratches on my knees. I loved playing outside and making friends was pretty easy. Fast forward a few years. I'm no longer in elementary school and boys and girls are on a much different playing field. Most girls have already established who their best friends are from whence they were younger. I don't have anyone. Fast forward several more years, present day. Things are the same. I've yet to make a "best friend".
My whole life, I've wanted someone to call that. A girl, more specifically. I learned quite quickly that it is impossible for me to be "best friends" with guys. Every guy that I've called my "best friend" ended up having feelings for me at one point, and thus, the title had to be dropped. My only "best friend", essentially, is my younger sister. The only real girl that I feel I can connect with. Do you think that's pathetic...? Sometimes, I even fear that when I call her my best friend, she is denying it internally. 

Why can't I just make friends with other girls? I wish I knew. It's not that I'm super awkward around other girls or that our interests vary that much, but I just don't feel like most girls like me. I will meet someone, become friends with them, and I end up enjoying their company. When girls are nice to me, I feel like we could be friends. But, try as I might, we never really click in the way I had imagined. I'm 21 and never in any of those years have I been able to truly click with any of them. And it isn't just that, but I will reach out, tell them I miss them, tell them I want to hang out. But it doesn't happen. I feel like most girls in my life do not share the same interests in me that I have in them. I don't think other girls care about me. I don't think other girls enjoy my company. I don't think other girls like me at all.

Now, hear me out, I am a heterosexual female. However, I really like girls. Not like that, obviously, but I just really like their company. Being girly, talking about clothes and boys and whatever the fuck else. Just enjoying the company of my own gender for once. I've never really had the opportunity to do this. I don't ever have girl friends to invite over to the house or just go out to coffee to catch up with. I have far more guy friends than I do girl friends. Far more guys are willing to meet up and hang out as opposed to girls. Other girls are always busy either A.) With their own, more important girl friends or B.) Ignoring me (I assume). I get along with guys easier (At least with the nerdier ones. Attractive guys don't give me the time of day or even a second glance). I always have. Most of the time, I'm okay with that. But sometimes, I reflect on it, and in reality, there's a huge chunk of me that's missing. I'm so jealous of girls with other girl friends, girls with best girl friends. They get to hang out and enjoy each other's company. They get to understand a mutual liking for each other. I don't feel like I've ever had that. Sometimes, I even GET NERVOUS talking to girls. My face gets all red, all I can think about is how I suck at small talk with other competent females and how they probably think I'm an idiot. I feel like they're judging me, I feel like they know that I don't have other female friends. I feel like they can see right through me and get the notion that I'm much more of a tomboy than anything and that I cannot and will not ever connect with them. It makes me really sad. I fall back into feeling like a pathetic excuse for a girl.

I tell a lot of my friends that are girls that I miss them a lot. It's always true. Sometimes, they will tell me that they miss me, too. And that's when it hurts. Sure, they say it back, but they don't really mean it do they? They have other girl friends to miss. I don't. They'll say it as common courtesy, but it always seems so facetious. It always follows up with talk about how we should hang out soon. But it never happens. There are times where I try to reach out, only to get them to tell me that they are busy. Sometimes, there's no real response. It gets repetitive, I get clingy. Sometimes, I'm just too afraid to ask. I've faced empty plans far too many times to even want to try anymore. It may sound selfish, but for once, I would appreciate it if someone contacted me first and asked to hang out. Told me they missed me and MEANT it. So far, nothing yet. 

Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe I'm just too petrified by the fear that my own gender does not accept me. But then I return to thinking about how many girls there are around me that I could call up and ask to hang out. It is a small number. I've met a lot of girls via Tumblr and other social networking sites. They all seem like such wonderful people and I would love to be friends with them! But distance makes this impossible. And I still harbor the extreme fear that even if we were to live on the same street as each other, that they would repeat the same patterns of the people that currently live around me now. I fear rejection, I fear people laughing at me and how pathetic they may think I am. I fear that other girls are lying to me, constantly. I'm scared that they are telling me one thing, but really thinking another. Thinking about how much of a social pariah I am and how it suits me to not have any close female companions. 

I KNOW THIS ALL MAKES ME SOUND CRAZY AS FUCK But JESUS I cannot shake this fucking feeling. Is that so much to ask, to have a close, cool, female friend?? That shares SOME of my interests? ... Maybe. I believe that a lot of girls have already set their friend limits. That they already have someone close to them and that they don't need anyone else. I cannot be included. They have time for their close friends, but not for me. Why would they need to have time for someone like me??? Fucking hell. 

I try to be really nice to other girls. I try to make it known that I want to be friends. I try to let them know that I really do enjoy them as people and that I enjoy their company. But then, I am faced with the fear again.
"She's so friendly! She's so much prettier and cooler and so much more interesting, though. She has better taste in clothes and music too. But she seems like she would be so fun to hang out with! She has so many other cool friends, too! She's so talented and funny!

Oh, but why would she want to be friends with a nobody like me? 

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to stop thinking that.