Outwardly I’m pretty much the stereotype of the girly-girl and could never be “just one of the guys”. It doesn’t mean I have a lack of guy friends, or can’t relate to girls who aren’t exactly like me - we either just get along really well, or have things in common (or else we wouldn’t be friends, right?) So with my girly female friends I can chat about clothes or make-up. With my sporty female friends I can argue about who’s going to win the Grand Final. With my geeky male friends I can debate the best Diablo 2 paladin build. I have layers, dammit! Like an onion! 
Happy birthday!
I used to feel the same way as the OP does, until I came to one realisation.
This is the crux of the matter: Most of the guys we know are pretty nice.
And you know why? Because we’re girls. Much as it may please us to think that we’re “one of the guys” (cue high-fives, backslaps, and beer-chugging), we’re not. There are almost always differences, whether really subtle or completely obvious, in the ways that a guy will treat another guy and his best-pal-buddy female friend. It’s well nigh impossible to divorce a person from their gender when you think about them, and this tells in any relationship, however platonic it may be.
Building on that, like it or not, the “women as fairer sex” mentality has not yet been completely erased from the social mindset. As a guy, if you’ve ever held the door open for a lady, you’ve subscribed to this principle. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or that you’re patronising women, absolutely not, but you’ve still treated her just that tad bit differently simply by virtue of her being female. And you know what this means from the female perspective? We can afford to be just a smidge bit socially lazy when it comes to our interactions with men. Because they’re just a teensy bit nicer to us.
So, am I saying that we’re selfish bitches who use men, or that men are easily manipulated idiots, or even that the OP gets along better with men because they all treat her like cut-glass all the time and bend over backwards to always accommodate her whims and fancies?
NO. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that there are certain socially-ingrained patterns of behaviour that occur very subconsciously and manage to colour our interactions with other people. They matter more than you’d think.
(This comes from a female who has had only male “close” friends all her life, and is but recently discovering the joys of female companionship.)
Count me in as another straight woman who’s got more good male friends than female friends. The number of good female friends, I can count on one hand. The number of good male friends is much greater than that. I get on far better with men than I do with women, and my good female friends generally share a lot of interests as my male friends, with the advantage I can go shopping with them. 
Maybe its a geek thing?
Elenia, I’m with you. I don’t find gossip interesting. I have no interest in kids or babies, and I’m glad I’m now to old to have them. I have little or no idea of what the latest fashions are, and shoes are an object of necessity, not lust, desire, etc. (that would be guys, preferably slightly geeky ones). I have one close female friend; she’s a lot like me, only possibly more so. Among other things, she didn’t own a single skirt while we were in college. I just prefer and enjoy the company of men better. I also hate to admit this, since I’m an unabashed feminist, but I tend to trust men more. I think that’s based on the old adolescent game of “Today you’re my friend; tomorrow you’re not.” On the other hand, one reason I became a feminist in the first place was because it seemed like the guys got to do all the fun stuff, and I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t just because I was a girl.
Oh, and Ethilrist, I was a member of the SCA, although Mensa takes more of my time now. On the other hand, the one SCA activity I keep a hand in is a traditionally male one – fencing!
CJ
Nope. Not weird at all.
Everything you wrote could have been about me, only I do like sports. Baseball and Hockey are my thing.
How many close female friends do I have currently? Does this count my sister? If not. Zero. I also prefer men as friends, over females.
See, that’s another thing. No diapers. No baby vomit.
Never.
Rapier combat is hugely popular with the ladies in these parts. It’s not a strength thing, and nobody beats you with a chair leg. If I had it to do over again, I’d probably have gotten into fencing, but now that I have all this metal junk I might as well use it…
Add another one to the: Female, hetero, and more male then female friends list.
I think I can trace it to 2 things.
- I can actually think of a guy as a friend, and not as a potential mate. (I’ve had female roommates that couldn’t understand that idea.) This means I can be me around my male friends, and not be trying to impress (consciously or sub-consciously) them all the time.
- My interested lie in areas numerically skewed to guys. Computers, roleplaying, engineering, sciences. Count me in the “I’ve got 2 matching shoes, that’s good enough” group.
Elenia28, I think you just haven’t met the right women yet. And you’re not likely to if you persist in believing that most women are bitchy, shallow gossips. I sure wouldn’t want to hang out with someone who thinks that.
I talk about relationships, clothes, and babies. I also talk about medieval stuff, Star Trek, politics, comic books, etc. I’ve known brilliant, intellectual, trustworthy, fun people and sleazy, stupid, backbiting jerks of both sexes. Stop painting with such a broad brush.
Add me to this list, and it’s nice to know I’m not alone. I don’t really have any close female friends (except a couple online, and they’re a lot like me as well). I’m a geek, a gamer, a hockey player, a cat lover, a writer of cyberpunk-type fiction and freelance game material, a motorcycle rider, an industrial-music fan, a martial artist, and a lot of other things that don’t have much in common with too many of the women I know (except the hockey part–my new team is almost all women and they’re great–and the cats). I don’t like babies or small children, endless relationship-discussing bores me, I’m not up on the latest fashions, I don’t like to cook, I’m happily married to my best friend (also a geek and most of the other stuff I mentioned above), my good real-life friends are all guys, and their wives don’t like me very much even though I’m zero threat because I’m (a) happily married as mentioned above, and (b) not interested in their husbands in the slightest except as friends.
Not trying to imply at all that there’s anything wrong with what I’d define as “the typical woman”–only that to me, most of them are alien species that I can interact pleasantly with but can’t see myself entering into a deep friendship with.
There was a time when I had both men and women friends, but for a long time now it’s been just women. (FTR, Aesiron, also most of my friends are strictly online and this Myers-Briggs style test has me pegged as an extrovert. Go figure.)
I see Lord Ashtar has already beat me to it.
Dammit, Lord Ashtar!
I’m a female, and have a very mixed bunch of friends. I rarely talk about clothes or romance with my female friends, and I don’t hang out with women (or men) who are bitchy or back-stabbing. Most popular topics with all of us are politics, science, and just general…stuff. Sometimes we talk about kids, too, but mostly because I and my husband are considering having them soon. The only time I’ve ever talked about hair, fashion or shoes with other women is if I’m actually shopping with them (I tend to be very miserly and need moral support to spend money on clothes, even when I need them), or am planning on shopping with them. Either way, I think you might be running into the wrong girls to hang out with. Only a very, very few women I’ve ever met have been of the back-stabbing, bitchy, ditzy, only-interested-in-feminine-topics variety.
Thanks! 
(Yes, even at 33 I’m still a child who felt the need to mention my birthday “casually” in a post. )
Agreed, and with an addition: I have found that some things that spring to my mind would “go over” perfectly fine if said by a guy to other guys, but would not go over well at all – or simply wouldn’t be the same – if said by me to a bunch of guys. I don’t know if it speaks to deep-down stereotypes that my feminist classmates would urge me to rail against, but it doesn’t bother me much…I just have to be careful to think before I speak, sometimes. I used to think “well, if a guy could get away with saying this, why not me?” but now I know that there are certain subtleties to interpersonal stuff that are sex- (or at least gender-) based.
Elinia28,
I would say that you hang around people who represent your hobbies. Hobbies change over time so your mix of friends will change also. At least that has been my experience.
I hear you loud ‘n’ clear!
I’m a sound engineer, female and straight. Most of my friends are guys because…
a. How many women do YOU know can talk about recording/mixing, non-linear edit video/audio systems, microphone techniques, wiring patchbays, aligning tape machines at 3 in the morning, computers’ in-depth workings, or cars (beyond the damn colour!), sci-fi, history, space, life-the-universe-and-everything-else?
…and…
b. Conversations about who’s-boyfriend-earns-the-most-money-and-aren’t-my-new-More-Expesive-Than-Yours-shoes-pretty-and-which-Z-List-celeb-is-dating-who bore me STUPID!!
And I HATE the colour pink…
Grrr…
I went to an all girls secondary school and I still can’t stand all female company. You can’t BELEIVE how bitchy 600 girls are together.
I worked in an office for 3 months with almost exclusively middle aged women and all they talked about all day, every day was Weight Watchers and babies and nothing else ( not even work, which is why very little was done and Ntl admin is so appalling) so I don’t think age really has anything to do with it.
My boyfriend OTH I swear sometimes is a girl, he loves shopping for shoes (he owns more than I do) and talking about relationships and stuff. All very odd.