I’ve got one coworker – in a different department, luckily – for whom other women are just totally invisible. It’s annoying as hell. I don’t like being invisible.
I saw her in a third department, involved in an animated conversation with a guy – who’s very openly gay. So – dangly bits trump sexual availability? Alas, neither of the lesbians I’m aware of who work here are out (there might well , so I can’t really test the converse of this.
Can anyone explain this?
I’ve met a LOT of women who claim that “all their friends are guys” because they “don’t like girls”. Now, that’s just retarted. Most of these girls are just the stuck-up and mean. Suprisingly, I’ve met quite a few girls like that who say that they like me even though they don’t like other girls in general. Maybe it’s because I’m nice to others, I wouldn’t know.
I kind lean towards the idea that girls like this are very insecure with themselves and feel threatened by the presence of other girls, so they choose to only hang around guys.
Damn, sorry – I started adding something and got interruped, then hit submit without rereading. The last sentence of the second paragraph should read:
Alas, neither of the lesbians I’m aware of who work here are out (there might * be other lesbians working here who I’m not aware of, but they, by definition, aren’t out, right?*), so I can’t really test the converse of this.
I don’t like girls and I am neither insecure nor stuck-up. I’d never act like the woman around me were invisible, though, that’s just rude!
I don’t like (most) girls because the topics of conversation drive me batty. I don’t want to talk constantly about guys or weight or girly-type things. In my experience, guys talk about real things and are far more interesting.
I do have a few good female friends, a very few. These girls of course I trust more than any guy!
I’m not asking her to be friends with me – I’m asking her to not look straight through me when she passes me in the hall. If she wanted to exchange pleasantries when we’re in the john at the same time, that would be gravy.
Any guy?
You can trust the guys so long as you remember they all want to sleep with you…every one that isn’t gay. So that means you can trust them up to the point that they actually say “hey come on now, you can trust me” then you gotta keep an eye open. :eek:
Hi,
While its no excuse to be rude or not to at least acknowledge the existence of other women- I also am not particularly comfortable with other women and probably come across as snobby (I’m working on it ). This is directly the result of two factors. Like Anaamika I don’t always find girlish conversation interesting and I rarely have anything to contribute to it. The other factor is that when I was in junior high I went to a very small, cliquish school where I did not fit in. Some of the girls were awful to me, and at least twice I became friends with girls who later went back on that friendship to be popular with the other girls. I have “gotten over it” and (twenty years later) not dwelling on it anymore, but it is my natural instinct to distrust most women or read motives into how they interact with me.
I do have a very close friend who is a woman- she had similar experiences (in fact much worse through high school) and we have almost identical interests and she was my first “real” friend when I left that small junior high. Neither of us are into girl talk, although some boyfriend bitching skills have evolved 
I’m also a manager, and most of my employees are female. I’ve been in a management position in different jobs for the last 10 years or so, and even when I do find common interests with another person, there’s a part of me that has to stay impersonal in order to keep my authority/fairness.
No, I think what she is doing is unspeakably rude and has no excuse whatsoever, and I’m sorry she treats you like that.
I’m not sure if you are joking, you must be, but I wanted to clarifiy my own point. I was just trying to show that I do have female friends that I trust deeply. Not a lot, but a handful.
I’ve known two kinds of women who don’t like (most) other women: the type who are not very nice people but who are flirtatiously manipulative, which works on (many) men via which they get company, cooperation, and victims as need be, but which doesn’t usefully work on women so they avoid them; and the type who are seriously beyond-tomboy stone ultrabutch, who fit right in with the loud-voiced barrel-chested guys chatting football and casually insulting each other in taciturn grunts and semicoherent phrases…the females who don’t wish to fit and don’t expect to be welcomed by high-heel wearing longhaired leg-shaving gals who they figure to be contemptuous of them and who probably laugh about them with the others.
Standard disclaimer about categorical typing, generalizations, approximations, et. al.
She’s actually kind of a weird combination of both: She works in an all-male department (the boxing and wrestling magazines), and apparently operates fine in that milieu – but she’s not butch, quite the contrary, she dresses very sexy a lot of the time (very short, very tight skirts, etc.), though she’ll also come in in Frankenstein boots and a wool hat. (Age – 30ish, maybe? she’s been working here about 10 years, she can’t be a whole lot younger than that.)
She’s really not flirtatious, though, from what I’ve observed – hell, I’m a bigger flirt than she is – (not in a hot mama kind of way, let me hasten to add – I’m just friendly and playful).
I’m one of those “women who doesn’t like other women” but I don’t go out of my way to avoid other women. I am not rude to ANYONE (like you say this lady is).
I’ve got one good female friend and she’s about as non-girly and antisocial as me. We’re both straight, thanks for asking 
There’s alot of reasons I don’t socialize with women but I won’t go into them here for fear that the women on this board might gang up on me. So that’s one reason haha
I would probably consider this a personality flaw in myself but it’s one I’m willing to live with.
I just don’t like people, for the most part, but women tend to do more of the things that annoy me, such as drone on endlessly about insipid topics.
I just find that I don’t have a lot in common with most women. I don’t have any kids to brag/bitch about, and I get along with and* like* my husband. I don’t like to shop (unless it’s for books), and I couldn’t care less about what Sara said about Laura behind her back.
Of course, men have their own topics that they yammer on about which cause my eyes to glaze-- football, for example, but they tend to talk less about domestic issues which is a plus.
I’d be interested to know anyone’s theories on men who don’t like other men. I sometimes think I might be one.
I know a few of these. And IMO, they seem to use their attractiveness to achieve their goals. Not outright sleeping with anyone, but manipulating guys with their charms, so to speak.
One of them routinely says to me, “This is why I don’t like working with women”–ie, she doesn’t SUCCEED with women the way she does with men. To her I say in my head, tick tock. There will come a day when she is no longer the cute young thing with brains–there will be another one to supplant her. I predict some type of midlife crisis for this particular woman.
All that said, I don’t think that women who prefer male company to always be insecure or competitive or even sexually aggressive. I myself prefer to talk to (some) guys-depending on the topic at hand. (note-there are women who do want to discuss issues).
Broad brush coming up: I noticed when I was a SAHM that the sexes were much more segregated than when out in the world. (sorry, but the community I live in so resembles a great big bubble, that I don’t consider it the real world). And the convos drove me insane. Hair. Potty training. Hubby’s Honeydo list. Scandal at 1. country club, 2. hollywood, 3. next street over. Personality issues, petty backstabbing. Where that sweater was bought, how much it cost. :rolleyes: Nowhere were issues of the day discussed–no politics, no religion, no global issues.
Now, I can talk potty training with the best of them (can’t do the hair and makeup talk for very long–just go DO something about it and shut up!), and recognize it as a legitimate concern. I just wanted more. Sadly, alot of men don’t want intelligent convo, either–sports, cars, women, sex. <yawn>
Guess I’m the woman who doesn’t like women OR men! 
But that woman at your work is being more than rude. If I felt ballys enough (depending on circs) I would confront her–step in her path and say loudly, why, good morning to you, Deborah! or whatever. See what she does.
I think its something to do with women knowing women’s faults and not liking them. About others or about themselves.
I’m a man, and my girlfriend will sometimes tell me stories about her friends and their crisises with their respective boyfriends/husbands. I’m not trying to suck up when I say “man, guys are fucking idiots sometimes.” This is because I’m a guy, and I’ve done the things she’s describing to other girls, and I regretted it and realized it was ridiculous. Saying “I hate guys” isn’t a huge leap from “guys are idiots”.
Anyway, it could be a similar thing. Women see other women doing stupid woman stuff and decide they want to separate themselves from that.
I have many more male friends than women. If fact the boys all call me George The Man Killer
None of their girlfriend’s mind when they say George is coming out on the boys night out. I guess I am just one of the boys.
The reason I like male friendship is simple. It’s easy. Friendships with women are not. If I don’t want to go out and cancel on the guys they are cool with it. If I do that with my few female friends, I never hear the end of it.
Most of the female friendships I have are with women older than me by 20 years. They tend to be a very maternal relationship. The one good female friend I have that is my age and I have a relationship that is like riding a roller coaster to say the least.
Just my $.02, not quite on topic but close.
Barrels
This is exactly how I feel about men. But I’m concerned it may put me permanently in the Just Friends category with women. Because quite a lot of the stuff I consider “stupid man stuff” is exactly what touches women’s primal urges.
That kind of attitude that a woman who didn’t like woman would give as an example of why she didn’t like women. :-p How many men would take offense at a co-worker making eye contact in the hallway? I’m sure some would, but as this thread evidences, deciding to avoid people based on gender is rife with generalizations.
I think you should just let it go. Certainly don’t try to force her to interact with you. Why escalate a lack of eye contact into open hostility? Does she get paid to smile at everyone in the building? If she does her job and doesn’t make it harder to do your job, then she’s a good co-worker in my book.
But, then, I don’t like women, don’t like people, don’t like making eye contact or smiling at people for the hell of it (at least not when I’m at work, busy and stressed out). When I’m in a professional situation I usually just want to be allowed to do what I’m being paid to do and left alone otherwise. If I want to socialize, I’ll do it on my own time.
Of course, if you’re in a situation where you have to engage in “teamwork” to do what you’re paid to do effectively, smiling and chitchatting is unfortunately necessary. But that doesn’t sound like the case here. If you do need to be working together on something, you could have a frank talk with her about it (“It makes me uncomfortable when you ignore me, and that’s going to make it more difficult for us to work together effectively on this projcect…”)
My beef with her isn’t that she doesn’t want to talk to me – it’s that she does talk to, and is friendly with, all of the men she deals with (including a gay guy who ain’t gonna be interested in her sexually). “Too busy to talk” is a legitimate stance at work, and one I’m more apt to cop than many of my coworkers – but choosing to only make small talk and pointedly not making small talk with one gender is just freakin’ weird.
And, no, I’m not planning to escalate or retaliate or do anything with her – this has been going on for ten years, and, as I said, we’re not in the same dept. and have no real reason to interact. I actually spend months at a time without thinking about her at all.
I was just reminded of how much she annoys me when I saw her chatting up the gay guy this morning.
OK, that’s understandable, but try not to take it personally.
If you understand “too busy to talk,” try substituting “too busy to talk to people who stress me out.” If she’s more comfortable with men than women, just because that’s how she is, then it would be a hardship and take away from her mental/emotional energy and “morale” to talk to you, making it harder to do her job. It has nothing to do with you.