New man "all my best friends are women"

[Calculuses]

I'm not generally the jealous type and as far as I know there's not one special friend, just that there 's something that just makes me wonder if this is a bit off. A bit like women who are "not like other women" and claim to enjoy the company of men more.

Or is it completely different in reverse?

He's a warm, caring, emotionally intelligent man who has spent his whole career in an industry where staff are predominantly women. He also doesn't enjoy football, which he says has excluded real friendships with the few men he's come across in his working life. He has a couple of male friends from school, but his main friendship groups are mostly women. He's 50, so from a generation when mixed friendship groups weren't quite as common as they are now.

I'm not jealous exactly, more wondering if this is a red flag? I'm being pre warned I'm going to have to accept other women, or.....?

What nonsense. I've always had male friendships and they're very much proper friendships. Why wouldn't they be? I'm meeting a male friend later for lunch. Been friends for over 20 years.

My ex-husband was like this. He had no male friends but many females.
I thought it was fine.
Turned out I was wrong. He was a huge charmer and an unfaithful fucker.

Another one a bit puzzled about the single sex friendship assumption. DH and I are similar ages and we both have male and female friends. DH makes an excellent friend to women as he is emotionally quite open and no chauvinism in him at all, and so he often ends up making new female friends at work. And my longest sustained friendship is with a man - I know and like his wife, he knows and likes DH, we have spent time as a foursome, but if there are two of us going for dinner, it’s me and him.

I'm always suspicious of people saying "I don't like my own sex I have noting in common with them". People are people, and these sort of generalisations are just wrong. You are not the only person around who does not adhere to gender stereotypes, I'm sure if you look around you will find plenty of guys who don't like football or girls who don't do girly nights out.

In my experience, people like this enjoy company of the opposite sex simply because they like the company of the opposite sex, for whatever reason. And I'm not talking just one friend, I'm talking the entire circle of friends they spend the majority of time with.

I would never date anyone who has a lot of female friends, or only female friends as I had shit experience in my life twice. One guy very casually slept with his "friends", the other was massively insecure and these friendships were his "boost", he loved being the only guy in a girl's company. Both these guys would do anything for these female friends, they were mega important to them - to the point they would prioritise them over me even after a good few months of being together. One of the guys even told me he cant take me to his female friends house as "she would get upset".

But I also dated a guy who had a best female friend and she was lovely, I became friends with her, too - but the dynamic was completely different. And, this guy also had a lot friends of both sexes and, on top of that, treated me as a priority. So you really need to look at the bigger picture.

My 24 yr ds has mainly women friends, they just seem to gravitate to him. He’d actually like a couple of good male friends, but doesn’t like sport etc, so finds it hard to bond, although he’s well liked generally. Just doesn’t like all the macho shit a lot of men still have.

Most of the women I've heard say 'I can't be friends with women because drama etc' ARE still friends with women. They just fall out a lot and say this on repeat. And continue to make more friends- and fall out with them again.

Bully for you! Aren’t women and their hen do’s and cocktails and tedious shrieky voices and inability to banter or care about sports just so tedious!

You’ve basically proved the MN stereotype to be true. There is no misogynist like a chill girl.

He's 50, so from a generation when mixed friendship groups weren't quite as common as they are now.

Why do you think this to be the case? He'd have been young/an uni in the nineties, mixed friendship groups were perfectly common.

@pikkumyy77

You feeling okay love?

tedious shrieky voices - I never said that - you did!

Inability to banter - I never said that - you did!

Inability to care about sports - I never said that - you did.

Misogynistic?! I am underpaid and over worked in a predominantly male occupation, I attend talks on improving prospects for Women in Construction. I would consider myself an activist against many anti-women subjects both in my professional and personal life.

The only thing tedious is people like you who fart out the 'chill' line time and time again, good god it's pathetic and so old now. Pick a different insult - it's laughable.

To be fair @FML83 I did think you were joking first when I read your post. Its great you have found your tribe but its not 'men' because plenty of men (even those who work in construction) think football is wank and are partial to an Old Fashioned.

Oh Im fine, thanks! I thought you loved a bit of bantz?

'Bantz' I love! Sanctimonious bullshit - not so much!

Partial to an Old Fashioned myself! Not a beer drinker tho, all tastes the same to me!

I think it’s fine. My best friend is a man as well.

Sanctimony, like banter, is in the eye of the beholder. I just call a spade a spade.

Well, I guess only time will tell, but I wouldn’t be too worried at this stage from what you say.

Both DH and I have always had a good mix of male and female friends (and we are both well over 50!) as does DS.

Me too. What's the big deal op?