To think having friends of all genders is healthy

I’m nostalgic for the days when ‘gender’ was connected in my head only to the foreign language nouns - M, F, N - I had to learn.

Yes to both sexes, no matter their orientation.

My DS1 was a shy young man and had to change schools to do the A levels he wanted. Best thing he did, he was suddenly friends with 8 girls who looked after him and, eventually, he started dating one of these girls. His confidence grew and, as a result, his male circle of friends also grew. He’s now a senior manager and, I’ll always be grateful to those lovely girls.

YABU - if you'd said both I'd agree with you.

First post nails it.

I've met men in their 40s who are clueless about how to relate to women.

I've met plenty of both sexes who have an immovable "men are from mars, women from venus" mentality.

They tend to be very small-minded in lots of other ways too. Not very interesting to be around, quite honestly.

Yes, I think it's healthy to have all different kinds of friends, not just mixed sex, but also friends from different backgrounds to you.

My friendship group is mixed sex. I think its really healthy.

Th we re used to be a guy in the lab in college who couldn’t look at women, it was horrendous the lengths he went to to not talk. He was otherwise a funny lovely guy and a few of us used to try to get him to talk but no luck. Also in the country you get a lot of eg male mechanics who don’t know how to talk to women, it’s scaryI personally think all schools should be mixed, but I’ve known a few mums who send their girls to girls only because of distractions. Ours go to all boys and I think it’s be so much easier for them in a mixed school, especially when not sporty, the quiet boys definitely are disadvantaged

And did you comment on each one??? 👏

Hahaha good one, no one's mentioned that yet.

Both sexes you mean?

That's quite a judgemental comment string.

Most people are not educated in single sex environments and so have plenty of exposure to the opposite sex. Most people have friends of both sexes, particularly when young, and most live with people of the opposite sex too. I can't see that the world is particularly empathetic despite the already extensive proximity we have to the opposite sex, so not sure what you mean really. In what way do the majority of us 'not understand' and lack empathy with the opposite sex? And do you think this is an equal problem with women's empathy towards men as men's empathy towards women?

Do you normally go around stating your opinions as though they were facts?

Eh, I think as long as you are respectful of both men and women, that's all that matters, regardless of who you call a friend. Most of us have family or at least extended family of both sexes, and you grow up with peers and teachers/mentor type figures of both sexes, as well. I'd think that would be enough to teach anyone how to relate to both.

Oh wow, you are the first person to make this observation, well done you eagle eyes!

Both genders. You mean both genders, right????

Well thats the thing- I dont actually need any new friends- I have a very wide circle of close female friends. My point really was, if I already have a good circle of trusted female friends why would I need to go out and seek male friendships bearing in mind all the difficulties I would have to get past such as their wives getting the wrong impression about my interest (albeit platonic)/ them getting the wrong impression about my intentions etc

I am not "unbalanced" simply because my good friends are female and the hassle and time it would take to find new male friendships (given the potential difficulties I outlined above) just seems like a pointless waste of time to me. I have noticed in general that male friends tend to often drift away when they settle down whereas female friends tend to stay the course.

I think so but I’ve found female friendships just happen a lot more naturally for me. One reason I really like having a brother is being able to have that nice platonic and uncomplicated brilliant friendship that can be difficult to find with other men.

I think this is disingenuous. Most of us without male friends didnt do it on purpose by excluding men due to the fact they are male. EG I used to have two very close male friends in my 20s- they were like brothers to me. Since both got married they have both since ghosted me which was a great sadness. I suspect their wives no longer felt comfortable with them having long standing female friendships because of some veiled comments they both made at the time.

Since I am now in my 40s, you tell me where I can go to make platonic male friends because I'd love to know how to do that without 1. pissing their wives/girlfriends off, 2. Not giving them the impression I want to sleep with them

It's not exactly easy to make platonic male friends once everyone has gone through the life stage of settling down because no matter how platonic your intentions are, other people dont see it that way....

Im on my way home from a weekend meet up with one of my male friends of thirty years standing. We met at uni. Never anything other than platonic and he's one of my best friends..the other is also male. I have v close female friends too. It's perfectly possible.

Couldn't disagree more. Of course male-female friendship is a thing

I also manage to have lesbian friends, and they REALLY are not interested in anything more with me either 😂

Relationships (work, acquaintance, etc.) yes, friendships no. In my experience there really is no such thing as a male-female friendship because one person invariably is hoping for more.