Being truly seen and loved is something that, for a while now, was thought to only happen in romantic relationships. But female friendships, even though they’re platonic, have a pull of their own: they can deliver the same intimacy, connection, and support you’d expect from a partner through your highs, lows, and messy in-betweens.

“For a lot of women, the relationships with our female friends are actually the center of our lives,” Joy Harden Bradford, PhD, licensed psychologist and author of Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing in Community, tells SELF. “When we look at who’s really been for us when things were difficult, when we weren’t sure who we were, it really is our girlfriends who help us find our identities through the years to get stronger.”

So why do these platonic connections between women feel so different—and often stronger—than friendships between men? According to Dr. Bradford, these are the unique factors that set them apart.

1. Women bond by confiding, not just through shared activities.

“Even as children, girls are often socialized to interact with their peers through storytelling, secret keeping, and secret sharing,” Dr. Bradford says. From the playground to the dorm rooms, they’re encouraged to talk about what’s happening in their lives—confiding about crushes, work stress, or family drama—to narrate the small, daily moments that shape their world.

Boys, on the other hand, tend to form bonds around shared activities, Dr. Bradford explains—like video games, sports, and other collaborative hobbies. While these moments do provide solid common ground to build an organic friendship, they also leave less room for the kind of open, vulnerable conversations that foster emotional intimacy seen as the foundation in many female bonds.

2. Women are socialized to be more vulnerable.

For so long, toxic masculinity has made it feel unnatural, even embarrassing or shameful, for men to cry about disappointment, express their hurt feelings, or confront a friend about something that bothered them (like, repeated lateness or a passive-aggressive comment).

“Only recently are we coming around to discussing a healthier approach to masculinity: that it’s okay to be in touch with your feelings and cry,” Dr. Bradford says—something that has long been normalized, practiced, and encouraged amongst women.

3. Women pay attention to the small details.

Dr. Bradford has noticed that women, in particular, are great at remembering the small but meaningful details of each other’s lives—the big presentation you were nervous about, for instance, that annual checkup you kept postponing, the Tinder date you off-handedly mentioned during a happy hour.

“Women just tend to pay attention to these little things and make a bigger deal about them for their friends, which is a subtle but underrated way to make you feel seen, cared for, and loved,” Dr. Bradford points out. It’s the kind of attentiveness that may not really register in the moment. Over time, though, it’s what builds the trust, intimacy, and loyalty we usually only credit to romantic relationships—yet female friendships pull off just as naturally.

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