I get along better with guys than girls. Is this weird?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Straight female here, FTR.

All my life I’ve liked guys better. I can count the number of “real” girlfriends I’ve got on one hand, and I’ve known them all for years. Nearly all the mutual friends my SO and I have are male.

See, I can’t stand talking about/doing/watching:

relationship issues
weight issues
shoes
shopping
hair
clothes
romance

I love talking about:

medieval stuff
military stuff
guns
D&D
Star Trek
Star Wars
computer games
video games

(I admit I totally don’t see the appeal in sports, though).

In addition, many (but not all) girls I have known are bitchy, back-biting, gossipy. Most guys I’ve known are pretty nice, if a little shallow sometimes. I guess I can deal with guys’ faults better.

But only a few people understand this about me. My boss hates guys. My coworker feels the same way I do - that guys often make the better and truer friends.

Does this make me weird?

2

we’re all weird, really.

A neighbor says she 13 year old daughter has only male friends(no girls her age in our neighborhood).
The girl says its much better, the guys just tell you right to your face what they have a problem with so it can be worked out,no back-biting, as its put.

3

There are three or four females that I’m close to, and I’m quite close to all of them. The rest of the people in my life are male. Every last one of them. I work with all males, I spend most of my time with guys. I like most of the things you mentioned, but then again, I talk about clothes with my male friends. I don’t think that’s weird, as it would make me weird. Okay, I am weird, weirder.

4

we accept you
one of us

5

Your generalizations about the interests of the genders seems a trifle overbroad to me. There are women who like talking about ideas, etc., more than they like talking about relationships and clothes – many of them hang out on this board.

I have a lot of male friends at this point, but that’s pretty much circumstantial – I’ve been dating a lot over the last couple of years, and I’ve met several guys who didn’t work out as suitors but ended up as friends – and because they’re also single (i.e., aren’t home with an SO and kids), they’re available for dinner, a movie, whatever, even on a platonic basis.

There have also been times in my life when most of my friends have been women.

twicks, female, heterosexual

6

I’m a guy, and historically have always had more female friends than male. (Right now, I’m probably at about 50/50.) I don’t think it’s weird to have mostly opposite-gender friends – in my experience, relationships with your own gender are completely different than opposite-gender relationships. I think friendships within one’s gender are more likely to have a competitive element to them, which can make it harder to truly relax and be oneself.

7

No, you’re just a geek (I honestly mean that as a compliment) and the geek population is overwhelmingly male. It’s rare to find women who are into the same sort of stuff I’m into (which include several things on your list), but they do exist.

And I also think sports are overrated, at least to watch, but I’m in the minority on that apparently.

That’s somewhat of a generalization, but jibes well with what I see when I’m out and about.

Weird as in unusual, rare? A little, but there are more people like you than you would think. Weird as in something’s wrong with you? Hell no. I’d hang out with you any time. :cool:

8

Thanks for the compliment. I know you meant it as one.

twickster I am by no means saying that no girls like the things I’ve mentioned, or that all girls only talk about clothes and shopping. I am just pointing out that in general, this is the rule. There are exceptions (I like to think I’m a case in point!)

9

Another straight female here in the same situation. It’s been like this since high school at least. At my high school I didn’t fit in well and didn’t have many friends at all. In college, I majored in astronomy, physics, math, and computer science. That didn’t leave me much time for socializing outside of class, and almost everybody else in my classes was male. Now I work in computer tech support, and still don’t socialize a whole lot outside of work, except for email (I’d rather stay home and read books or message boards or play a nice computer game).

I don’t even think I’d know how to talk about most of those issues mentioned in the OP. Ummmm… shoes… I am wearing two shoes that came from the same pair today, right? If so, I’m doing pretty well…

10

So, Elenia28…how YOU doin’? :wink:

11

It’s always been a bit of a mystery to me why I know more women who say “Most of my friends are guys” than I do women who say “Most of my friends are women.”

I think I’m the one in the minority, because my friends seem to be a mixed bag. Plenty of men and plenty of women. Looking at just the women only, the most popular topics of conversation for us are:

Sports
Politics
Shoes
Star Wars
Computer games
Complaining about work
Theodore Roosevelt (you wouldn’t think he would come up in conversation that often, it amazes us too)

I’m going to weigh in and say that while the relationship between specific topics of conversation and gender is certainly familiar to me, it’s because those stereotypes are so frequently trotted out in sitcoms and teen movies, but that does not reflect my actual experience. Of course I talk about shopping with women, how else would I know where Star Wars costumes are on sale? :wink: That’s a conversation I have with the guys as well.

12

meh. In my experience:

  1. Tonnes of young women say they have trouble being friends with other women. Generally, they all grow out of it.

  2. I used to have trouble being friends with women. I grew out of it.

Teenaged, early-twentys women, are in many, many cases, a collosal pain in the ass. I wouldn’t want to hang out with the bulk of these women for any amount of time either. Generally, as women (and men) age, their interests diversify and they become more interesting people. Sadly, this doesn’t happne with all people, but most I think.

YMMV.

13

Well, I’m a straight male and most of my friends are imaginary.

14

We get a lot of ladies like that in the Society for Creative Anachronism, interestingly enough.

And yes, I’ve had more female friends than male (my Best Man at my wedding was a woman).

15

Straight guy here (of the cussin’, meat-and-potatoes, beer dtinking variety):

Probably had more female friends than male. Not sure. I find I need both, and sometimes will seek out the company of one or the other in times of stress. Sometimes I need the “do you want to tell me about it?” treatment, and other times the “fuck it, let’s go and have a beer” one.

16

Funny you should meantion the way people handle problems. My friend who sits me down and says talk or else about what’s bothering you is male. Granted my roommate, who is female, uses the statement “Boys suck, let’s through rocks at them. Eat ice cream, it cures all problems.”

17

Preferring the company of the opposite gender isn’t uncommon in my experience. Currently, I have about seven or eight people I’d consider really good friends and of those, only one is a guy.

Sadly, only one of them is offline though… such is the drawback of being an introverted geek.

Anyway, going a bit further and thinking about everyone I have considered a good friend in the past two or three years, I would say 90% of them are women and none of the men I’ve been good friends with have been what I’d consider a typical guy except one and he was almost a parody of the stereotype.

18

Straight female also. I’ve had one (1) really great girl friend who I knew for 10 years or so. She’s the only female I’ve ever considered more than an aquaintance, and she’s been dead for four years. I hang with my brother’s (now ex, I suppose) girlfriend a lot, but I know I can’t trust her because she talks shit about a whole mess of people to me so I can’t imagine what she might be saying about me. That’s okay though; she’s really the only person I talk to outside of my family and hanging out with her gives me something to do. I know she’ll never be someone I can really talk to (because, as I said, I can’t trust her with personal things), but that’s why I have a mom. :slight_smile:

I agree with alice on this. I’m in my early 20s and, while I don’t socialize much at all, I’m guessing if I decided to at some point, I might become better friends with more women. I can’t see myself sitting around talking about boys, clothes, gossip, etc., so as my peer group grows up and out of that “stage” or whatever, I might have more in common with them.

19

I find that the longer I live, the fewer “weird” people/situations/etc. there are. Barenaked Ladies is right: it’s all been done. :wink:

I’m another straight chick who tends to get along better with men than women (it’s still true, and I turned 33 twenty minutes ago). There are many of us; several have already posted in this thread. Welcome! Your toaster is in the mail (um, actually, that might be for a different club…never mind).

I think that you probably meet more guys who share your interests than women, but I also think that’s only part of it. Who knows exactly why some people wind up with more friends of the opposite sex. For me, I don’t think it’s my interests so much as my personality: according to all of that Men Are From Mars crap, my ways of talking about things and dealing with problems tend to be more typical of a man than a woman. I don’t like those generalizations because I think they can do more to hinder interpersonal communication than help it, but I think that they’re based in at least some truth.

One guy friend told me that he’d never met another woman who could be “one of the guys” yet also still feminine and attractive (all in the eye of the beholder, of course). In fact, every guy I’ve dated has figured out pretty early on that I’m not like “most” women – at least regarding whatever negative stereotype they’ve developed. I prefer to think that I’m not like most people, but whatever works. :slight_smile:

(Now, before people start wondering about the size of my head relative to the rest of my body, let me clarify that I’m not claiming to be – nor do I think that I am – “all that.” I think I’m a pretty cool person, but I definitely have flaws. I’m just saying that there are very few ways in which I’m a “typical” female.)

That said, for 16 years my best friend was a woman (well, I think she’s still a woman, she’s just not my best friend anymore). And of my four current closest friends, 3 of them are women (though one of them I met through the 4th friend, her husband). I’ve never had any on-line “friends,” so I can’t comment on that aspect. At work there are more guys I’ll hang out and bullshit with than women, but all of the writers are women and we get along quite well. So who knows. But it’s been fun to listen to myself type for these last 5-6 paragraphs. :wink:

(Added after seeing Silver Fire’s post on preview: I’m closer to my mom than my dad, but I actually get along better with him. I think that’s why, though mom and I also definitely have different communication styles.)

20

Add diapers and baby vomit to the first list, and you are me 30 years ago. When we’d go to a party, I’d be in the kitchen playing poker with the boys, getting evil eyes from the other wives. Never understood it and still don’t.