# Women: as a girl, did you perceive boys as socially backwards? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2020, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749 "2020-10-24T09:21:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/1 "2020-10-24T09:21:14Z")
I’m thinking about my pre-teen years. I’ve long felt that I was playing catch-up as far as social skills, for most or all of my youth. Like I was maybe a year behind other boys of my age, and at least 2 years behind the girls. So now I’m wondering how the girls experienced those years. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/2 "2020-10-24T11:07:53Z")
Moved to IMHO (from GQ). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/3 "2020-10-24T11:46:08Z")
Pre-teen? While some children are relatively mature, I would hesitate to say any have what I would consider “social skills”. If we’re talking teenagers then there’s more of a discussion to be had. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/4 "2020-10-24T13:48:45Z")
Not backward per se. But slow on the uptake at times, yes. That said. I’ve always felt great affection for and acceptance of males who fall on the Sheldon Cooper-Leonard Hofstadter spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/5 "2020-10-24T14:10:19Z")
I’m curious as to what you consider “social skills,” because I absolutely disagree that children can’t have them. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/6 "2020-10-24T14:12:19Z")
I’m really curious to hear from our lady Dopers about this. I felt like a complete clod when interacting with every girl my age in my school years. Strike that, I _know_ I was a complete clod. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/7 "2020-10-24T14:45:31Z")
Gosh, no. I was way too socially backwards myself to notice whether the boys were or not. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/8 "2020-10-24T15:00:28Z")
I hung out with a lot of boys when I was a girl. I didn’t perceive them as socially backwards, but I did feel more mature than they were. This is partly because I had notions of love and they weren’t there yet. So every “relationship” I had was disappointing. In _Bob’s Burgers_, Tina Belcher’s relationship to Jimmy Junior is spot on. She spends endless hours fantasizing about him and he maybe likes her a little, but he is just not in the headspace to be thinking about dating. The contrast is hilarious, but hits way too close to home. I remember those days. Y’all have no idea how intensely a tween girl can love. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/9 "2020-10-24T15:30:51Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > I’m really curious to hear from our lady Dopers about this. I felt like a complete clod when interacting with every girl my age in my school years. Strike that, I _know_ I was a complete clod. Ditto. But in retrospect I don’t think many of those girls were more socially advanced than the boys in any important way. The girls may have seemed more _social_ in the sense of interacting with their words, but with no more substance than boys throwing things at each other. I’m too far from it now, but I sense things are quite a bit different now from that old world I grew up in. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/10 "2020-10-24T18:26:39Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Gosh, no. I was way too socially backwards myself to notice whether the boys were or not. Seconding. I had never heard of being ‘socially backwards’, but it certainly seemed to me that just about everybody was more popular and more accepted than I was. It didn’t occur to me to wonder whether gender made any difference. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/11 "2020-10-24T18:26:56Z")
I did not, but that’s probably because _I_ was socially backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/12 "2020-10-24T19:23:31Z")
I perceived most of them as assholes. That’s because most of them only saw me as someone to sexually harrass. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/13 "2020-10-24T20:02:04Z")
Fourthing me being the socially backwards one. I think I did perceive a difference, but not necessarily that the girls were more advanced. Just that girls and boys had slightly different interests. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/14 "2020-10-24T21:21:04Z")
No. Most of my friends were boys and I was awkward as hell so I thought however everyone acted was normal. I wasn’t trying to date or anything, either. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/15 "2020-10-24T21:21:55Z")
I was so completely socially backward, clueless, dumb, out of it, and did I mention clueless? that I was in no position to notice anyone else’s lack of social graces. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/16 "2020-10-24T21:32:50Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Y’all have no idea how intensely a tween girl can love. I’m reminded of a (possibly autobiographical) story about a white woman in India in colonial(?) times, commenting “14…why does everything (emotional) hurt so bad at age 14?” ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/17 "2020-10-25T01:53:22Z")
even though I’m male I ve assumed 98 percent of the world was a mix aND MATCH of dumb uneducated uncouth slobby assholes … I’ve since lowered that estimation to 90-95 percent but the general sentiment still stands and there’s not much currently going on to change that view of society ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/18 "2020-10-25T06:06:21Z")
That Jimmy Junior was me. I can recall girls showing interest in me, and my reaction was always to wonder ‘why in the world has she picked me of all boys?’ , and ‘what am I supposed to do with a girlfriend?’ ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/19 "2020-10-25T06:10:33Z")
I’m so sorry you had to deal with this. I suppose I should thank my older sisters for teaching me to respect girls/women. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749/20 "2020-10-25T17:52:07Z")
As a first and second grader I was one of the few boys who let girls hug and kiss me. The older I got, the more of a problem being “different” became. I morphed into a sympathetic ear for my female friends. I would say that socially backward and very socially aware at the same time. I was backward when it came to the dating/mating dance, but at the same time I always had plenty of female friends. I’m curious to know how many women out there have known guys like this. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-as-a-girl-did-you-perceive-boys-as-socially-backwards/923749.md?page=2)