hmm…I’m certain I’m guilty of this on some level, but I truly feel like a foreigner in a group of women. At parties I’d rather bullshit with the fellas, talk about cars/sports/outdoor activities, and cut up and laugh. And even though I know all woman aren’t Oprahphiles, I’m always worried that I’ll be outed for being insensitive, or hurt a woman’s feelings by not making reassuring noises at the right moment or something. The problem definitely lies with me, not the girls I’m uncomfortable around.
Your words though, they ring true. Very insightful.
I’ve almost always been a GWG. With a few exceptions, I feel that women don’t like me. And even with the friendly ones, it just doesn’t seem that we have lots in common.
I used to have no female friends, but that has changed over the years. In junior high and high school I had nothing but male friends. Somewhere during college it started to change, and now I have an equal number of male and female friends.
The reason that happened, I think, was a combination of two things. I grew up in a very rich area, and everyone around me was quite concerned with fitting in. I could not do that even if I wanted to since fitting in there = wearing the right clothes, driving the right car, etc, and my family didn’t have the money other people did. The girls all excluded me from their cliques because they didn’t want to be seen hanging out with me but the guys were much more approachable if you weren’t wearing the right brand of designer jeans. In addition, I had a love of science fiction which was Not Cool. It still might not be cool, but no one cares much about that anymore
As an adult I am able to surround myself with people of a like mind, male and female alike. My book club is all female - by design, not chance - and at our last meeting once we were done discussing the book we talked about real estate and politics. One of my other close friends is a professional chef and we jointly host a supper club for other friends, and he’s a guy. My partner in crime when I go to wineries? A different guy. I discuss serious topics with these male friends as well … and we go see movies together and attend craft fairs and go to museums… you get the idea. There’s no rhyme or reason to it so far as gender goes, it’s all about what people are into.
I’m sure there are tons of women around who as adults solely talk about reality television shows and fashion and things I have no interest in, but I have lots of female friends who I can talk about the latest GRRM novel with as well as asking them if this pair of jeans I’m wearing makes my butt look big. I have places in my life where I want to talk about serious stuff, and places where I want to discuss silly stuff… and I have friends of both genders who I can share with on multiple levels.
I feel supremely lucky to have such a wonderful, eclectic circle of friends.
Huh. I don’t have any memory of this thread back in the day when it wasn’t a zombie, but when I stumbled across my own post, I was amused to find that, ten years later, I’d post the exact same thing.
I have two friends who are girls. They are my confidants and the people I complain to (and they at me). We do go shopping but I think we do it differently than other women (our trips are mission focussed. i.e. one of them needs a new swimsuit and someone else needs to go with them and they cannot trust anyone else. There is no browsing or stopping for tea). Our relationships are based on sharing each others’ burdens and solving problems where possible.
However, if I am going to be ‘hanging out,’ I prefer to to it with the boys. We talk about any range of things but it seems that my particular flavour of humour is not appreciated by the fairer sex. I also would rather talk about politics and the idiocy of the world which the women I know seem not to be that interested in.
What I would really like to find is another girl around here like me. Who is direct, funny and intelligent. Sadly, it appears that there is not one here. (Actually, there are a couple but they still try to fit in with the girls which lessens them in my esteem.)
Old posts from persephone are still such a punch in the gut.
(for those who don’t know, she died suddenly at a young age. )
I always thought of myself as a GWG but when I think about it analytically, it’s not true. I’ve always had some close female friends that have remained my best and truest friends over the years. I just find it easier to get along casually with guys I don’t know well, compared to women I don’t know well. I have a lot of guyish, nerdy pursuits and outlooks that make it easier to make light chat with men, whereas women my age launch straight into kidTalk and I end up in an awkward exchange of vague nonassertions where I neither confirm nor deny interest in children. (I don’t want any but this can be rude/controversial to some and mostly I don’t feel like getting into it with aquaintences).
Whoa, zombie thread…I saw Persephone’s post and did a triple-take before looking at the original dates…
I’ve always considered myself a semi GWG in that, I do have girlfriends, but we’re scattered in different states and therefore seldom see each other (being in touch with them on FB isn’t the same, btw). Having actual girlfriends in my everyday life? Other than a couple of coworkers with whom I eat lunch, no.
I find I have very little in common with many women. I don’t have children. I’ve never particularly enjoyed the stereotypical “female” occupations like shopping, gossiping, etc. As a kid I was very much the odd-girl-out because I preferred either to go exploring with the neighborhood boys or read a book than play house with my Barbie dolls. C’mon – exploring places where you weren’t supposed to go is definitely more exciting than dolls, right?
The irony is that the older I become, the more I crave female companionship. I just don’t know how to break down those barriers.
So much misogyny in this thread. If you have a problem with an entire gender, the problem isn’t with that gender, but with you (or perhaps where you live). Most of the women I’ve met in person who complained about not getting along with other women and preferred men tended to be pretty narcissistic and liked to be at the center of the attention of the guys. I once met a lovely girl named Kat who, when drunk, said that her mother told her that other girls didn’t like her because she was both intelligent and beautiful, and the other girls were jealous. I’m sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that, if a man was around, she was trying to get his attention. So I can see why Cosmos would attribute it to low self-esteem. I know that some women find it difficult to meet friends or participate in cultures where women conform to stereotypes, but the vast majority of GWG(but male friends)s that I’ve met fit this mold.
Although I’m pretty masculine, into a lot of traditionally male hobbies, have a ‘male communication style’, and share no interest in most stereo-typically feminine pursuits, I still have female friends. In fact, my facebook friend list (which I keep pretty trim) has a slight female majority. Going to an all-girl high school cured me of my own misogyny. We had basically no drama and I’m now well-connected to powerful, fascinating women who have fascinating stories to tell about their exciting careers. Despite how far and wide I’ve traveled, I’ve never come across this ‘Alpha female’ and most the super-competitive people I’ve known are men. Occasionally I’ve come across individuals (of both sexes) who seemed interested in drama, so I just avoid those people.
I know the type :nodding: There is nothing more competitive than a group of women vying for the attention of a particular man. It’s much more common and backstabby the younger the women’s ages, but some women still has vestiges of it as they grow older.
If you can’t compete with them for whatever reason, be it physiology or not knowing “how to play the game” or not even wearing the “right” clothes (yes, it can get that shallow, IMO), you subconsciously devise a strategy. Mine was being “one of the guys” in that I hung out with them and such, but there was nothing ever sexual about it. Never mind that backfired when I suddenly wanted a boyfriend and, well…none of the guys I knew had ever considered me as girlfriend material.
Believe me, all this can do a number on a woman’s psyche without her quite realizing it at the time.
I don’t know in which circles you travel, but what you call “Alpha female” is very much present in my neck of the woods.
I feel like I have a more sterotypically ‘male’ outlook as well (although I have fairly femme presentation and many feminine interests). However all my close friends are women or gay guys, and I really like other women generally and get along with them better than men.
Since I can be ‘one of the guys’ in some ways, a lot of my individual female friends are similarly less typical, and also often have a history of not getting along with other women, and whose closer friendships are always with men. Usually I am the only female relationship they’ve been able to maintain long-term without drama. Let’s just say that IMO this has everything to do with them personally, and nothing to do with women generally.
So, you have a male outlook yet woman-like presentation and interests. You get along with women and gay guys better than straight men. Your female friends get along better with men than women and they always have drama with women friends but not with you.
Same here. I had maybe 2 girls as friends in high school, and one of them was my cousin. I made a few more women friends in college (an all-women’s college too). But I find I rarely communicate well with other women, and I just don’t seem to understand the way a lot of them think. I’m much more comfortable around men. Always have been.
I’m a guy who finds himself in female company more than male company, but I’ll admit I like girls into guy things more. I think part of it is even guy-interest females are (often) gentler and less competitive, which I find more into my personality tastes. That’s not to say I shun male friends, and I think at this point in my life I may have (sliiightly) more male than female friends, but typically it’s the other way around, and regardless I usually end up spending more time with and generally enjoying company with my female friends more, though there are of course exceptions.
Of course, playing Flute for most of my school life probably influenced my comfort level around girls… I was lucky if there was another guy in my section to interact with in a given year, and since most of my socialization happened in band…
I’m another GWG. When I was in college my best friends were the gaming club, which was 99% male, and of the three female members other than me, I only really got along well with one of them (who, coincidentally, also had a very “masculine” outlook and got along better with guys). I have a few female friends (see below) but I’m not particularly close with them.
I don’t have a lot of real life friends these days (I’m pretty introverted, and my spouse and I get along really well so we do things mostly together). Of the ones I do have, three are male and the other one is the girlfriend of one of those guys. My two best online friends are both guys (one married and I get along fine with his wife, but better with him), and my extended group of online friends are a bunch of mostly gay guys and one lesbian (my WoW guildies–I’m in a GLBT guild).
I find that I get along best with gay men and men who aren’t overly concerned with “macho.” I once read that there was a continuum between masculinity/femininity–if that continuum goes from 1 (very girly-feminine) to 10 (very manly-masculine), I’m probably about a 5 or a 6, and the guys I get along with tend to be in that area too. For that matter, so do the women. One of my other online female friends is a tomboy, enjoys fencing and shooting and writing stories with a lot of action and violence (as do I–the story part, anyway).
Every time I get around a group of women who are more “typical” (I realize there’s no such thing, but I’ll define it as women who enjoy talking about children, home, relationships, cooking, etc.), I feel like an anthropologist studying an alien culture. At least around guys talking about sports (I pretty much hate sports except for hockey) I can understand what they’re talking about. And as for women who are whizzes in the business world–I don’t really relate well to that in either gender. I like my job, but for me it’s something I do to finance my free time, not a 24/7 career obsession. So that’s really gender-neutral.
Quoted for truth. Back when I was new to college, I had mostly male friends. This was after coming out of a very abusive relationship with a previous boyfriend that was exacerbated by gossipy high schoolers (I went to a very, very small high school where any perceived indiscretion was turned into gospel, whether you did something you shouldn’t have or not).
I was pretty, thin and completely insecure. So I made a big deal about hanging out with only guys because “other women were so awful, I just couldn’t possibly relate. And why must they ALL go to the bathroom in groups?” Looking back, I was trying really, really hard to get male attention that didn’t have any strings attached, that didn’t hurt or result in getting slammed into the nearest locker like it had my senior year of high school. It smacked of, “the lady doth protest too much.”
Unfortunately, my bid for attention hurt a couple of really nice guys’ feelings. I knew they were interested in me, but I exploited that interest to make myself feel good because I knew they wouldn’t hurt me or force me. Now that I’m older, I have a lot of female friends. I can burp and fart in front of them, talk politics and make jokes just as easily as I can talk about where to get the best deal on school supplies and discuss what the baby did today. I can do the same with my male friends (although they don’t know where the school supplies are, but they do want to talk about their kids). I think a lot of who you relate to depends on your age, your stage and personal preferences.
The term, “just one of the guys” really grates on me. Why would I want to be one of the guys? I’m a girl, for cripes’ sake. And, regardless of my gender, I should want to be me. And, finally, I do.
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