I don’t really understand what the problem is. Are you saying that she won’t say “hi” as she passes you in the hallway or acknowledge a greeting nod as you pass? Or is it that she won’t stop and chat for 10 minutes?
Even if she ignores you when you say hi, I don’t see that as the height of rudeness… slightly rude, yeah.
I am friends with more women now that I was when I was younger, but even now I don’t have very many female friends. I don’t have kids, and don’t want them, so I don’t have a lot in common with many women. Two of my best friends have kids, but they can carry on an intelligent converstation about something other than kids. I know a woman right now who is a perfect example of why I don’t get along with most women - she plays games with people. I’ll see her one day and she’s nice and friendly - then the next time I see her she won’t speak at all. I’ll have to find out from someone else whatever it was she thinks I did to upset her, then just let her get over it. One day will come along and she’ll be just as friendly as before, with no indication she had cut me dead for three weeks. And this woman is over 50 years old!
Most of the women I have interacted with on SDMB have not been the type of woman I avoid. Thank goodness!
Yes, this – and not just doesn’t answer, but makes it clear she has seen and heard nothing. She does this with every other woman who works here to an equal degree – but has plenty of time to chat with guys.
I was Just Friends with my current girlfriend for like 10 years before we made the leap into “more than Just Friends”. Its never a permanent category.
Have you ever tried changing the subject to something else? I can stand only so much “girly” talk myself so I’ll just come out with a “what do you think of <insert current event here>?” My female friends and I had some lively discussions/arguments about politics and current events.
Also, not all guys are more interesting. Some men are just as tedious with their conversations, too.
That being said, there’s no excuse for the OP’s coworker’s behavior. Everyone should be acknowledged and treated with at least a modicum of respect.
I have to admit, I generally don’t have very positive feelings about women who “don’t like women.” Mostly, this is because I AM a woman, and if someone is not going to like me, liking them back is going to be pretty hard, ya know?
Perhaps if I was a SAHM this would be different - if I had to sit around all day talking about nothing but baby shit, what I packed for my husband’s lunch and how I got a deal at EZ-shop - I would gouge my eye out with a stick. Even talking about clothing and makeup all day bores the shit out of me (which some may find surprising).
I suppose it really depends on what sort of women you have to interact with - women who have more varied interests are more interesting, period.
I think that women that are truly “woman haters” have some sort of pathology going on. Women that are “boring woman haters” on the other hand, just need to meet more interesting women.
Really, every avowed “woman hater” in this thread has complained about the boring conversation, as opposed to the boobs and vagina.
I’m not comfortable around other women. To the point that I seek out male-dominated workplaces.
I don’t “get” them.
Their social lives baffle me. You know that girl crisis thing that happens- when your at a party and suddenly one of the girls is crying in the bathroom and a dozen girls run over and flutter around like butterflies while everyone talks in hushed tones and then one boldly walks out and confronts someone and everyone has a good laugh and a good cry. Yeah. I don’t get that. And whenever I’m hanging out with a woman, I’m terrified that something like that is going to happen and I won’t be able to summon the proper “female” response.
And I’m never quite sure how I “stand” with a woman. I always feel like I’m being “ranked” against her other friends. I’m never sure when I’m being clingy or when I’m being too aloof or what. And I’m never sure what a female’s friendship responses mean. So I always feel like I have done the wrong thing. You can’t really be sure that a party invitation, say, from a woman only means “I like hanging around you so come to my party.” It could mean anything! I have a better instinctual understanding of the rhythms and workings of male friendships.
Finally, it’s hard to have conversations with women. I’m never quite sure what to say and I feel very awkward. We never “click” like I will with a man. I’m never able to find my comfort zone and I have no idea what it looks like when she is in hers. And so I try to avoid situations where my conversational lac kings come through.
Anyway, there could be any number of causes. I was raised by an occasionally uncomfortably close mother and idolized my uncles. I had a lot of social troubles with female cliques as a child. And sex is a factor- not so much that I want to use my sexuality to get ahead, as much as guys really like me. They are always pleasantly surprised to break past that “oohhhh girl sexual prospect” phase and find out I can be a good friend. And I’m comfortable in the position of “lone geek girl” in a group of guys- not for the attention it nets (it doesn’t after the first few times I meet someone) as much as it’s just one I know well and understand.
You can talk about whatever you want with women, just like you can with men. You just have to talk about things in a different WAY.
Some women aren’t comfortable with the oblique, implicit feminine style of communication and feel happier saying exactly what they mean and knowing where they stand.
Others like the fact that they can use their greater communication skills to manipulate men more easily than they can women, who see through their more obvious tactics.
Some have worked where the power lies and that being seen as “one of the boys” has advantages.
Some just lack basic respect for other women, seeing themselves as somehow “better” than them because they’re not as “girly”.
Whatever, it’s not an excuse to be rude.
Exactly. Or, maybe it’s just that nearly all the women I have known are chatty, backstabbing pains in the ass. The men I have known were certainly not princes, but at least their behavior is more understandable to me. With women, I frequently feel that I must keep my guard up.
On the other hand, how could anyone be rude to twickster? Bitch.
Hmm… how should I take this? At face value, I hope?
Although we are both female…yes. 
I don’t dislike women, but I can understand why a woman might feel weird about interacting with other women. There are many women that I like and respect, but I’m definitely much more comfortable socializing with men. I haven’t had a genuine friend who was female since elementary school.
It’s not because of anything sexual. My best friend is in fact gay, and I tend to enjoy the company of gay men even more than straight men. I don’t flirt with the guys or try to use my “sex appeal” on them for nefarious purposes. Since I used to be significantly overweight, I never learned to manipulate guys with sex appeal, frankly.
I guess the thing that appeals to me about men is that I feel they are usually less “complicated” in their emotional and social behavior. I can relate to even sven’s comment how mysterious social interactions with other girls can be, and all the hidden meanings.
I am a very blunt, straightforward person most of the time. For the most part, I perceive guys as being far more direct in their communication. In general, I perceive guys as saying what they mean and meaning what they say…no more, no less. So, I find it easier to relax around them knowing that they are not going to get upset with me for not being able to read their mind and pick up on some little hint they were trying to send me.
My tendency to prefer men might also have something to do with my current age. I’m in my early 20s, and my perception is that 20-something girls tend to enjoy “drama” a lot more than guys of any age do. I think of myself as being fairly mellow and drama-free (though I suppose most drama queens wouldn’t admit to being one 
), and I don’t like getting into all that emotional upheaval. I suspect as I get older I’ll probably enjoy hanging out with other women more as they calm down.
I’m pretty wonked on Advil (thank yeeeeeewww, migraine!), so I hope this post makes sense.
Only now, in my mid-to-upper 30’s, do I have more female friends than male friends. This is a surprise to me, when I think about it. I was never particularly girly, and always found guys to have a better sense of humor. I didn’t “get” alot of the stereotypical girly behavior/interests, either, and didn’t really trust girls when I was younger. I saw a lot of behavior that was just mean out of girls and women and that put me off, but as I got into young adulthood the one major reason I liked men better was because I just frickin’ HATE male-bashing and the victimhood attitude (of a certain type of woman, not all women) . I don’t think either gender has it better than the other, and I think male-bashing is a cop-out.
All my female friends will also tell you that they prefer men over women, and how the only women they tend to get along with are women who prefer men over women. We just want to have good conversations and meaningful experiences. We don’t want to compete with other women. We don’t want to have our sexuality be the most obvious thing about us.
Also, I have a very good friend who was a tomboy growing up but now is just stunningly gorgeous. Because she was a tomboy, she never really learned to use her femine whiles (sp?) to manipulate men. But you should hear about the shit she gets from women who assume she’s a b-i-t-c-h just because she’s beautiful. And it breaks my heart all the spite she endures. She is genuinely one of the kindest, most generous women out there. I hate that crap, too. Frankly, THOSE are the women who hate women, IMHO.
I feel the same way. My response when people ask why I don’t have many girl friends is usually that, when they ask me how that shirt looks, I actually tell them the truth.
I have a few “girly” girl friends who are able to remember not to ask my opinion if they don’t really want it, but most girls my age can’t handle that.
I’ve told myself that too. Most of the women that I really get along with are in their mid-40s.
I had a friend in high school: slightly-above-average looks, normal weight, normal proportians, level-headed, and confident. Every other girl in school hated her. I have no idea why- she never said a mean word to anyone. She wasn’t shy, but she also didn’t participate in the HS drama.
I think that a girl in HS who didn’t have any body issues or boy problems (she had a steady boyfriend all through HS) was just too alien for them to comprehend.
I gave this some thought because I have very few (as in less than 5) women who I consider valued aquaintances, much less friends. " Am I a woman hater?", I thought.
Then, I delved deeply into my psyche and realized that there are just as few men I would consider as friends. Clearly, I just hate people.
Strangely, though, I am much more suspicious of women’s motives when interacting with them than I am men’s. It’s hard to describe, though.
Great post. I was going to say something like this, but I wouldn’t have said it as well.
Both my mother and sister are “men’s women.” My mother finds most women to “be bitches” and when a man is around, her attention is pretty much riveted on him. (Sidenote: When I came out to Mom her response was: “But Jennshark, women are such bitches!”)
My sister is a big user of people and most women who meet her and spend even a short time with her seem more keyed into this than men do and quickly drop her. Could be the fluffy blonde hair and blue eyes that keep the men around longer.
I do have more guy friends than female friends, but I never flirt with them (IRL, I’m not just very shy, I’m faithful to my husband, too). I just always seem to have better conversations with them. Not all, no, but I seem to have more male friends than female.
All my old female friends stopped speaking to me when I moved out west, though I emailed and called as much as possible, it’s gotten back to me that I “think [I’m] so much better than everyone now that [I’ve] moved to the city.” Which isn’t true, of course. They turned on me the moment I was no longer around to defend myself. They seemed like such kind people when I was around them, but I should have seen it coming, since they did that kind of thing to everyone else behind their backs, too. A recent one I just heard, I’m adding here mostly as anecdotal (I found it knee slapping hilarious), but it does follow what most of my girlfriends have been like in the past and even today: My old “best” girlfriend is going around telling people that she always thought I was “evil”, and I even told her that my favourite type of humour was “non-secular”. Honey, it’s non sequitur humour. Non sequitur. Like Steven Wright, or Mitch Hedberg. :smack:
No, not all women are like that, and I’m glad. I can’t wait to meet women like that. I’d love to have a girlfriend, a real one. Someone I could have fun talking to. I am kind of girly. I like many girly things. We don’t always have to talk about the things I adore, like making beats, architecture, building shortwave radios, or watching anime. I’m not butch, I don’t think. I’m certainly not snobby, unless they mistake my extreme shyness as such, which could happen.
I have tried. And I will continue to go out and meet all kinds of people. But I mostly hang out with men. I don’t need them to make me feel good, and I don’t need to be one of the guys. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When I sit in a room full of other women, they glare at me like vipers, while I smile shyly with my cheeks burning, and try not to look conspicuous. I really hope that when I go back to school, I’ll meet girls who share at least one of my passions - they’ll be taking similar classes, after all.
Oddly, the people I get along with the most, who get along with me despite me being me, in all my dorkiness, shyness, and geeky pasttimes - gay men and transvestites. They seem to flock to me in droves and become my big sisters (or big gay brothers). In return, I love them right back. They set me free. Looking back on my life, my best friends in the whole world have been gay or transvestites, or transexuals.
I have a friend who will interact, talk with and occasionally even go on trips with other women; but most of the time she shows a distinct preference for men. She tends to blow me off along with another female friend of ours whenever we try to invite her over for something, or when one of us is having a birthday; but she makes a big fuss over the guys’ birthdays or events. If one of them asks her to do something even when she’s busy or exhausted, she’ll drop everything and go do it. But if we gals ask her several days in advance to do something, forget it.
She must get a lot of this from her mom, because every time they see some actor or some other fellow they like, they make a point of gushing over how handsome he is. They also seem mystified that some of us ladies actually don’t mind going out alone, traveling alone, etc., and that we don’t feel the need to drag a male along with us everywhere we go.
I’m generally more comfortable around women than men, but I’m very much not a “girly girl”. Nor do I talk about nothing but kids and men (I don’t have much experience with either). I just like female sensibility and being able to talk about things that I can’t with guys, without being made to feel like a silly little girl.
I’m wary of women who don’t like other women and always talk about it, like they think it’s a GOOD thing. Worked with a chick who was like this. Whenever she heard about someone being screwed by another female, she’d say, “See? That’s why I don’t like working with women!” Or if we got on the subject of friends, she’d loudly proclaim how all of her friends were guys. Whoop-tee-doo, honey. We don’t want your self-hatin’ ass anyway.
But as I write this, I’m thinking maybe it’s me who’s insecure. When I’m with guys, I always feel like I can’t quite measure up in their eyes (I’m not as strong or physically adept, not as smart, not as sophisticated, not as cool). When I’m with women, I always feel that while I’m not really one of them (not as good-looking, not as sophisticated, not as self-confident), my inner worth is still just as good as theirs. I don’t have to put up a front of strength that I don’t really have. When I’m in the company of other women, I can be weak, I can be silly, I can be smart or clueless, I can be funny without even trying, I can laugh without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Yeah, sometimes there’s a bunch of drama and pettiness, but men can be just as hurtful and confusing too. At least we women talk about our shit; men just keep it bottled up till they explode.