There is a type of group chat that every woman has. One where there are four or more women with varying levels of chaos. The type that at one point in your life, the group chat has helped you burn something down.
Sophia was sitting in her room, the constant buzz coming from her phone every few seconds. It was the conversation in the group chat. She had sent a screenshot of what her boyfriend had sent her at 11:30 pm. She was not sure if she was under-reacting or over-reacting.
A few minutes later, Phyllis typed: "Red flag, actually more like red carpet — please walk away."
Katherine typed: "It's not okay, he said WHAT? You need to let the guy go, I am serious."
Lara, who is like the Zeresh of the group, is already telling her about the restaurant Sophia was meant to have dinner at on Friday night and why it's trash, just like his personality.
The verdict from the group chat: Leave him.
Yes, looking at this it sounds like solidarity — your girls have your back and won't let anything happen to you. It makes you exhale because you feel heard and your friends have validated your feelings. Your friends tell you the other person is the villain.
Sophia stared at her screen as her friends passed harsh sentences on the boy. She did not tell her friends she was the one who had sent him five paragraphs of why are you like this? She did not tell them she was the one who had awoken a sleeping lion because she was bored and decided to be a little toxic. Instead she gave them the conclusion of the matter, and her friends handed her a death sentence for the boy.
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This is the part that no one talks about. Your group chat loves you, genuinely. The girls in your group chat are your soft place, the women who are there for you when things are hard. But in any given situation, your group chat only sees what you bring them. They do not know how you sounded before the call, or your face before anything was said. They were not in the room. They do not know the backstory you summarised in three sentences. The only truth they know is what you — hurt, activated — chose to tell them.
And they will build an entire case on that.
By morning, your group chat friends hate him. They will analyse his behaviour going back eighteen months — why he did not answer the call on March 11 at 2 pm. They will go on his social media page and become detectives looking for what is there or maybe not there. They try to remember something you once told them in passing that you had long forgiven and moved on from.
The group chat has not moved on.
By the time the group chat is done with him, he is no longer a human being with feelings. He is reduced to a scumbag. When Sophia decides to go back to repair things — because there will be reconciliation, because relationships are complex and one argument does not cancel everything — there is now a problem. The group chat girls still hate him. Mention his name and you will hear silence. At that point she has to defend her relationship in her own circle.
"Your friend will tell you, Sis you are a queen, while helping you burn the palace you want to live in."
This is the trap. We are so used to being strong women and main characters that we have created a circle of enablers instead of elders. Sometimes you need to ask yourself: am I looking for someone to tell me the truth, or a gang to help me commit the crime?
There should be people who can look at you without filters and slay energy and tell you: Sis, put the phone down and go to sleep. Pick up the conversation with him in the morning.
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There is a woman in the book of Esther called Zeresh. She was Haman's wife, and her role in every scene she appears in is to be the wrong voice at the wrong moment. Her husband came home offended, ego bruised, because one man at the gate would not bow to him. Zeresh did not question him. She did not talk him out of his offence. She told him to build the gallows — tonight — and in the morning, ask the king to hang the man.
She fuelled the fire. She gave him what felt like solidarity, and it led to his destruction. It was easy because she had his access, his ear, his trust — and she used all of it to confirm what he already wanted to do, instead of what he needed to hear.
Your group chat is not malicious. But it can function exactly like Zeresh.
The thing is, when you are hurt, you do not want wisdom. You want agreement. It is easy to get agreement from people who love you and are loyal to you. They will make you the main character and the one who hurt you the villain. The group chat will not tell you anything you do not want to hear.
Real counsel is slow. It asks questions before it gives a verdict. It has the maturity to say: I am only hearing your side — but what about the other party? The opinion is held loosely. Real counsel is when your friend, after you are done venting, asks what you did — not to hurt you, but to help you see the full picture before you make a decision you cannot unmake.
You are allowed to vent. You are allowed to have community. You are allowed to need people.
But before you outsource your most important decisions to women working with forty percent of the information and one hundred percent of their loyalty to you, ask yourself one question.
Am I looking for counsel — or am I looking for permission?
Those are two different things. And the group chat will hand you one without telling you which one it is handing over.