“Chicks before dicks”
There are a lot of factors that come into play. Women are more likely to stab other women in the back. Men are more likely to get caught up in competitive macho bullshit with each other, which they sometimes see as fun manplay (I don’t).
I have a very gentle personality, so I’m not like typical guys. If someone wants to invite me over for beer and a football game, I would dread it like it was a chore. Actually, I wouldn’t go. But if a bunch of women are going to hang out and talk and I’m invited, I’m there! If I ever get married, I want to skip the bachelor party and go to the bachelorette party instead. No naked dudes allowed, though.
I don’t know about that at all. I have had the same best friends I have always had, yeras and years and years, and its the women that seem to come and go. A lot of the women tend to end up in relationships and fall off the planet, but when the guys get married they are still around like always.
I think that we do talk less. I have a few female friends and they tend to mostly talk about themselves. Us cavemen dudes just tend to talk about stuff that entertains us.
I don’t think you can say one way or another.
I tend to have more women friends than men friends, and I couldn’t really say one sex makes better friends than another, but the quality is definitely different.
My conversations with women friends tend to be much more personal, centering on emotions, relationships, general philosophy. There’s a lot more commiseration, come to think about it.
By contrast, my best friend of nearly thirty years – when we talk, it’s all about media – movies, music, books, television, comedy. It’s very rare for us to talk about what’s going on in our personal lives. The last time I spoke to him on the phone, he related an anecdote about something that was going on with his wife, and he closed it with, “Oh my god, I’m talking about my family!”
That’s just a difference in the way I tend to relate to men vs. women, though, and I don’t think it says anything about the value of the friendship, or that there’s less emotion involved. He’s my best friend, and he’s closer to me than family.
On the other hand, I do have a few male acquantances that I just hang out with from time-to-time, mainly to party. I honestly don’t care if they live or die. I don’t have any female “friends” like that.
The difference is the nature and quality of intimacy - if there is any.
It’s pretty much apples and oranges. You know the old saying, “Men are like dogs…”? So are their friendships.
Male friendships involve a lot of non-verbal doing things together, even if the thing is only hanging out and drinking beer. On the other hand, male friendships are intensely loyal. You can put two college friends together 20 years later, and they’ll still enjoy hanging out and drinking beer with each other more than they would with a guy they had only known for six months. And when a male gets fired from his job, dumped by a girlfirend or whatever, all his male friends will make absolutely sure they’re there for him, hanging out and drinking beer until their friend gets over that particular crisis.
I know to a woman, that sounds completely shallow and nuts, but let me put it another way. We don’t have friends so we can hang out and drink beer. We hang out and drink beer so we can be with our friends.
I think men make better close friends. I have no female friends who would drop everything at a moment’s notice to help me if I needed her. I have several male friends who would help me with no questions asked. I feel like any woman who claims to be my “good friend” has an ulterior motive that she doesn’t care to share. I don’t question or analyze my male friendships like I do with women; it can be either a surface friendship or a deeper relationship, but it’s never a farce. I don’t trust women to be honest about the status of our friendship. Oh, wait… I don’t trust women. That too.
This thread inspired me to call one of my best friends that I had in college last night. We sat and drank beer together, 3500 miles away, for three and a half hours on the phone, both on our prospective front porches.
I hadn’t seen him in years.
Wow, I’m really glad my thread actually did some good to someone in the real world! I was only mildly curious when I started it, but it just goes to show that you never can tell!
I have both male and female friends. It’s all about the individual.
I’m female, and I have trouble keeping long-lasting friendships with many females because of the crazy behavior. I can deal with cattiness, but only so much, and if it’s tied to a lot of neurotic behavior, I’m not likely to continue the friendship. I’m also a lot more casual in my friendships and tend to be a bit more “masculine” in my behavior, so it makes it tougher to find women that I can relate to, let alone ones that I’d want to be close friends with. I don’t like a lot of drama in my life, and I find that women tend to have more drama around them than men at times. There are drama-free women and men who are drama magnets, but neither are the norm in my experience.
For me, it’s easier to be friends with a guy than it is a girl.
I went to an all-male college and was able to develop incredible friendships with other straight men there. Since we didn’t have many women around till the weekend, we were all comfortable with deep, meaningful conversations about everything under the sun - including our own relationships. Oh, sure, there were fart jokes, sports, and we drank way more than our share, but I’d pit those friendships against any girl-girl, girl-guy friendship for depth, meaning, and emotional support. In my experience, men can talk about things just as well as women, and the friendships are strong.
I’ve had close relationships with both men and women. It depends on the person.
Truer words were never spoken. I experienced this with virtually all of my friends from college, guys I’ve known at work, even my own brother. (That last one would smart less if I could stand his wife. At least they live on the other side of the continent.) What it comes down to is, if I want to do anything with a male friend that conflicts with what his woman wants, well, forget it.
I think kunilou is right that male friendships consist more of doing things together. For that reason, I find that I know very few men who interest me enough to want to hang out with them. Talking is what I want to do, and most men suck at it. Throw in that I’m am constantly reminded (especially by older male friends) that everything their wife wants requires them to drop or reschedule whatever we might be doing, and befriending a lot of men just isn’t worth it. Possibly it would be different around bachelors, but I don’t meet a lot of those around my own age. (30)
Most of my friends are women, although sexual tension used to get in the way quite often. I’m getting to an age where I just don’t give a damn anymore though, so I anticipate having even more female friends in the future. Most of the male friends I have now are way too old to care about women anymore.
Sisters before Misters
Translucent Daydream, that’s beautiful, and perfect. The only thing that would have been more perfect is if you had both been watching the same game on TV so you could punctuate your conversation with “Did you see THAT??? That was INCREDIBLE!!!”
It’s all about the bonds.
I’m not one of those fancy book-larned college boy sociologists, but I will say I know at least a dozen women who say “my best friends are all guys” and not a single man who holds the counterpart philosophy.
I have long-lasting friendships with both men and women, with the common basis being honesty, honour and just a relaxed, friendly atmosphere between us. There have been those from both genders that tended to turn things into a psychological mire – I try to get by, but eventually I do feel I have to let go and walk away.
I used to think that women were more flakey as friends than men, but these days I think the flakiness belongs equally to both genders. Just depends on the person, their background, how they feel about themselves, and sometimes just how bad the neurosis or other problems they have.
These days, I’m in contact with a lot of truly positive people, both men and women. The long-lasting ones have been able to tolerate me all these years, and take me as they find me. I thank them for that, all the time. 
Just to add: in my experience neither men nor women are better or worse at friendships in general. It all comes down to the person, and to what the friendship’s all about.
After reading more of the thread, I guess it’s not that women make bad friends–after all I’m a woman and I’m an excellent friend. Just ask me and I’ll tell you.
It must be that the women I meet aren’t willing to have the kind of friendship I like to have.
Ignorance fought.