to think you should NEVER trust a woman who doesnt have female friends?

[HallnotOates]

and wonder how they have not accrued any in their life - or what they have done to them to piss them off - or why they can ONLY relate to men?

I dont have ANY males who I consider friends (apart from mates H's who I dont count as MY friends).

What does that say about me?

I am assuming that people who say they don't have female friends because women are bitchy/manipulative/mean on this thread are all men?

Or are some of you women who believe you don't really fall into the category 'women;' you are somehow exempt? Or are you yourselves bitchy, manipulative and mean, which is why you make these claims about women as a group?

I do wonder if those women who claim not to like other women because we are all bitches are just judging based on their own standards i.e. they are quite bitchy themselves so just assume that all other women are?

I am not talking about women who just happen to have more male friends for whatever reason - more the women who appear to have no female friends through choice because they don't like women.

I just cannot understand why you would choose to write off a whole gender especially if it is your own gender.

I'm staggered by all this "women can be bitchy" stuff.
So can men.

Ridiculous.

Think it's a little sad that some women don't have a close female friend in their lives. I couldn't imagine it.

It is sexist as I have never heard a male friend/brother/husband/nephew say that he didn't want to associate with someone because they didn't have any male friends ... so why should it be okay for a woman to say the same??

yes the accusations of sexism by peopel who then say "i have no female freinds but dont make generalisations" etc

imo there is no way a female male friendship can ever have the potential depths of a good female female one.

I had one, Raffle, for 15 years but she died sadly...I have a few friends I'm getting to know now, through school but it's hard work for me.

it is harder the older you get.
certainly i would not tallk so candily about sex to mates i make now as i did a a student reddens slightly

It all depends on context. Some women are just in situations (usually work- or interest-related) that mean that most of the people they know are men, hence their friendships are usually with men. I wouldn't put women like that in the same category as those who proudly trumpet that they prefer male company because all women are bitchy and two-faced, and, and probably support Col Gaddafi and vivisect kittens in their spare time . That tells me already that they consider me to to be bitchy, two-faced, not as worthy as the men around them. That isn't what I want in a friend, not really.

I find that the whole men=straight-talking, salt of the earth non-bitchy types is a fallacy anyway. Men being rude about each other behind one another's backs is laughed off as "banter" or "making jokes". Men in a competitive environment can be very backstabby, but this is allowed and accepted. A man saying he doesn't like someone is telling it like it is - a woman would be being bitchy.

IJAFW, because men in general don't have cognitive dissonance. They don't generally walk around saying things like, "I really don't like men. Men are so mean. Men are nasty and I don't want to be around them."

Cognitive dissonance is something that generally happens in people who are in groups which have lower status. That is why gay people sometimes refer to people as being 'in the closet'; they cannot accept, even to themselves, that they are gay. It is cognitive dissonance that some women will avoid female relationships and say nasty things about women as a group, because in their head they don't believe they are truly a member of the group 'women.' Hence phrases like 'one of the boys' and tom boy.'

FGS HAllnotOates step away from the SATC boxsets ... next you will be telling us that everyone has a soulmate ...

(But aren't good marriages also built on the premise of friendship - my DH is my best friend)

Sorry Gloria, that must be awful for you. Clearly you have the capacity to make and maintain fantastic friendships, it is time for you to utilise that skill.

oh soul mate schmoulmates

Completely agee TheSmallClanger - what I was trying to say ony you put it far better :)

also please remember that some women LIKE other women and want to have a gaggle of female friends but just aren't very good at it and don't know how the dynamic is supposed to work.

These things are really complex and I bet a lot of you who hAVE this had a good role model when you were growing up? Like, your mum and sisters had good mates too and taught you (however indirectly) how to do it, what the subtle rules are?

If you didn't have that would you still know how to join in? My folks never had many friends, and weren't good at it...they just had each other. My sister had friends but she was naturally outgoing and I wasn't. She took her role models from others' parents, from our other relatives whom she got on with, and I never felt liked by them either.

Maybe it's just me.

Gloria I think alot of women are like that actually - hence why we all sit behind keyboards on MN.

YABU - I've gone through phases of not having female friends, not for any 'suspicious' reason but mostly because my study and work (and interests) have tended to be in male-dominated fields.

I agree men can be 'bitchy' and clique-ish as well, have seen this happen and it's not any nicer when men do it than women.

We're all basically just people, aren't we?

Thanks Raffle, sadly I'm not good at it - she was the driving force! Very persistent and lucky for me that she cared enough.

It took us a long time and was v hard going. (for me as it was such a foreign language to me iyswim). I've to start again now but it will be hard.

what I mean is, generally, I might not have many women friends but there's no way I'd come on here and say 'Oh women are bitches, women are crap, I don't like them as much as men' as that's ridiculous and untrue.

I'm just unable to comprehend the complex structures involved in F-F relationships very well...and I find them stressful.

With men I can say to myself, oh, it'll be ok. Dad liked you. it's just an alternative version of Dad. It gives me confidence, even if it doesn't work out.

sways singing this to epiphnys post

Then I guess I am untrustworthy.

But I can't seem to care.

Was I suppose to?

Ah, Gloria, that is sad. And I agree it takes a lot more effort as you get older.

Female/male friendships CAN be fantastic.

But from my observations of others, and from my own experience - with close one-to-one relationships between straight women and straight men (as opposed to larger groups of "mates" or when a couple is good friends with another couple) often have (or have had in the past) some kind of repressed romantic/sexual hope/expectation on one side or the other.

Which doesn't mean to say that the friendship isn't genuine, far from it, but does influence it.

oh tehres another thread for you - here you are : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1289978-FESS-UP-what-do-you-not-care-about

I'm just too goddamn attractive and sexually alluring to be 'just' friends with men, I've realised

they cannot resist you/us

akthough we have a good posse from twitter note cybbo