women who 'get on better with men'

[bejeezus]

I would have said this about myself into my 20's. I have 2 acquaintances who are women who 'get on better with men' 'have more male friends than female'

Neither of this women IMO have what it takes to be a good friend. They are both quite fickle and seem to lack empathy,I wouldnt trust them or rely on them. I can't really put my finger on what it is about them; they seem a bit fair-weather

On reflection, when I was younger I was less open and was probably emotionally immature (compared with peers) and didnt really have any great girl-friends when growing (not that I recognised). Since having made good female friends,that i do appreciate- there is nothing like it. I think girl-friend relationships are much deeper and enduring and there is nothing like it

Whats your experience of women who 'get on better with men'?
AIBU if I think they are a bit rubbish?

I too am wondering where all these women are who only talk about shoes/outfits/celebrity gossip/babies etc and not films/music/politics. I know many women and that does not ring true at all. Topics of conversations I have had with female friends this week include:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo books
Zombie Holocausts
A new outfit for a Christening
Whether District Judges should be replaced by robots
The price of petrol
Pneumonia
Dexter
Where to go on holiday this year
and many many more - so only one "girly" topic.

I really am mistrustful of people who will dismiss half of the human race on account of their gender.

I think sunshine's earlier post was spot on and said exactly what I feel but far more articulately than I could put. :)

I get on better with men as they talk about anything and don't generally judge. Women can be bitchy, boring and quite frankly too serious. I'll get flamed for this, but it's my experience. The women I do get on with are those who are non judgemental and fun, want to have a laugh. In my experience women tend to look for something to moan about in people and are much less tolerant, bitch behind back rather than to face.

OP - YANBU

The girls I know who say this generally find that they get away with more around men. Female friends tend to be difficult to manipulate and immune to flirting....There was one girl I used to work with who said that she was always bullied by girls who were threatened by her looks (admittedly a pretty girl) so she stuck to being friends with men. However despite concerted efforts from lots of women in our office, including me, to invite her out and get to know her she wasnt having it! It just feels very dismissive of your own gender to say that you dont really get on with other women, and that we only talk about diets and sleb goss - I for one also talk extensively about shoes and babies :)

I went to a girls school, so maybe that out me off. Anyway, I find men generally more entertaining, obviously with exceptions for my good female friends.

Forgot to say. Women are very good at being fake, men don't tend to bother.

I generally get on better with my male friends than female, as I find the conversation is generally less bitchy and gossipy, and more interesting.

I agree with this. I have two brothers and never seemed to bond as well with woman as I did men, far too bitchy when in groups.

chocobo those conversations sound really interesting, but sadly i am not exposed to such. Maybe it's the job i do. I think it's a bit luck of the draw and once you are mid 30's it's hard to meet women to be friends with. A lot have young families or close groups of friends of their own.

Conversations i've been subjected to this week; moaning about husband, who is fat in a magazine, what colour drapes to go for, what time children go to bed, how good stomp is, graphic plastic surgery, a tv programme about comparing weddings, wedding planning...and of course points in food (aaarrrgh the curse of January!!)

I am not saying all women are like this at all - after all i am not. And previous friends were not (however one of them is now living with my exH and the rest don't speak to me!).

As i said i would love some more female friends, i really miss great, witty, clever women's company. That's why i come to mumsnet - to remind myself there are loads of you out there.

I have more close male friends than close female, but I wouldn't really want it that way in an ideal world. Women just don't seem to warm to me for some reason :( I think it's because I haven't had that much in common with them up til now; a lot of my interests are quite 'male' and I work in a very male environment.

I'm a mum now and struggling to relate to other women, so I've sort of made a rod for my own back I suppose.

Looking back to school I had female chums up to being 16 who I found quite bitchy, then in sixth form my bezzies were fellas and I thought that was better.

In recent years I've had problems with male friends stabbing me in the back too though, so I know it's not down to gender it's just I've been a bit unlucky.

I'd love to have a close female friend but it just hasn't happened. I would hate to think other women judge me because I happen to get on well with males as friends - if this is the case then maybe that's why I don't have female friends and it's become a vicious circle?

I only have a brother too...

I don't know about men not being fake, I know loads of men who act in a fake way.

Don't think women are bitchier than men. IME men and women can be as bitchy as each other yet the difference is how it is perceived. If a man makes a bitchy comment it is written off as either banter/just having a laugh or the man being "straight-talking".

And the over analysing every comment you make is excruciating. Agree.

Something to throw into the discussion: immaturity. People do change, and some of them change quite late.

When do people begin to realise that the phrases routinely used by their parents, may to the rest of the world actually be shorthand for unattractive qualities and behaviours?

My mother has always "got on better with men". It took me many years to get over the idea that I was inadequate because I didn't have 7 boyfriends at once having punch-ups on the front lawn over me. It took me even longer to look clearly at the behaviours my mother described as normal and see them as manifestations of extreme insecurity around geneder rols, and indeed as manifestations of my mother having absolutely no idea about the basis for the rules, or how extremely odd and slapperish she would have seemed.

My sister took my mother's social rules as gospel. Looking back on my sister's teenage years, she would be a borderline case for intervention from social services in terms of extremely risky behaviour around men. She (and my mother) thought it was an indicator of how beautiful they each were... a bit like Marilyn Monroe. One person's 20th Century legend, another person's psychiatric case.

Similarly, my father "never tolerates fools". It took a long while for me to get to mix with people as an independent adult without my father's long shadow influencing things. Aged about 25 I discovered that people who are empirically far more intelligent than me or my father, will politely tolerate fools and indeed manage to find them interesting. I've tried to be influenced by these people ever since.

But certainly in my early 20s I would have appeared narcissistic, slapperish, arrogant and rude, and would probably proudly have described myself as "getting on better with men" and "not tolerating fools". I had no idea, and can only apologise to the world who had to put up with me....

I went to an all girls school them worked in male dominated environment. Men are much easier to get on with, that's a fact. They are more open and friendly, better at finding common ground.

I get bored with women who talk about their relationships with their husbands/partners/lovers/dogs/gardens/whatever but never draw breath long enough for you to reciprocate. I have come to the conclusion that for them conversation is some kind of verbal onanism. I have to get really tipsy to numb my brain under these circumstances. I still enjoy chatting with my DH after being together over 30 years and we still make each other laugh, TBH he is my very best friend and we share similar humour. I do have some women friends who are what I would term normal and I enjoy spending an evening with them.

Note I have not had sex with anyone else (with or without partner) or sought it, I just like talking bolleaux with the guys over a pint, (as long as its not football bolleaux which is totally dull).

Hi SpuddyBean I think I am maybe lucky in that I have a lot of very good female friends most of whom I went to school with and they are all lovely. Also work in an office with only women. I would be bored out of my skull if the only chatter we had was celebrity gossip/weight loss etc too. Not that I think there is anything wrong with talking about stuff like that but not to make up majority of the conversation.

Saying that I do have a lot of male friends too and don't find our topics of conversation differ too much other than more (but not all) of my male friends are interested in football which I have absolutely no interest in at all and they can talk about it for hours which I find incredibly boring.

I am just as happy in a mixed group/group of girls/group of blokes as long as they are nice, interesting people.

oh and I have both male and female friendships now. The female ones do tend to get down to the heart-wrenching details rather more quickly, and do more often involve amateur psychoanalysis of colleagues.

The male ones involve far more discussion of rowing technique, wine, mountaineering and surgical anecdotes. Particularly when it's obvious that there is heart-wrenching detail that is studiously being ignored ("sublimated").

They're equally fun.

If a man makes a bitchy comment it is written off as either banter/just having a laugh or the man being "straight-talking".

chocobo so agree

My friends daughter gets on best with boys - she doesn't have a bitchy side to her, doesn't get involved with vile girl bitchy behaviour (it's a nightmare at school at the moment with the girls being cows to eachother), has a real sense of fair play, is always up for a laugh and loves toilet humour! I wouldn't consider her to be flirty at all - just keen on straight forward relationships. She does get on with some other girls but only the nicer ones. Actually, it might just be that she likes nice people - regardless of their sex

I have always had male and female friends...but some of my best and closest friends have been male..including my DH and tbh some men have been easier to get on with... that's my life and my opinion...some women I have met are more like rivals than friends..I can't and don't act this way... I cannot and do not relate to them... in the same way I don't relate to idiotic misogynistic wanky males...my friendships are based on respect,loyalty and love..not gender

I agree choc i love the odd 'oo what a gorgeous pair of shoes' conversation but then i also like to say 'did anyone watch pmq's/read the article about x' etc.

I have had some nasty experiences of women bullying me in offices. Then male colleagues over compensating by talking to me more and inviting me to lunch. Then the women being worse and it all turning into a vicious circle.

My old work all the women spoke about were candles - seriously, 3 of them sat there talking about their favourite yankee candle 'flavours' and ordering them on the internet, then smelling them in the office. i thought i was going to go postal!

Don't think women are bitchier than men. IME men and women can be as bitchy as each other yet the difference is how it is perceived. If a man makes a bitchy comment it is written off as either banter/just having a laugh or the man being "straight-talking"

Iagree

IME men and women can be as bitchy as each other yet the difference is how it is perceived. If a man makes a bitchy comment it is written off as either banter/just having a laugh or the man being "straight-talking"

Sorry i have to disagree, i know some bitchy men and everyone recognises it as being bitchy - not one person has ever described it as 'straight talking'. I think women and men are the same on bitchiness scale. The only people i know who think ALL women are bitchier than ALL men are of my parents generation - and they also think women are better at housework etc!

I always found I had real trouble forming close friendships with girls after being bullied at school - I think I was left feeling I couldn't trust other women, and relied very heavily on a small circle of mostly male friends in my early 20's. (I was bullied by boys as well as girls at school but somehow it was the treatment at the hands of other girls that stuck in my throat).

It was only when I broke up from a long-term relationship at the end of my 20's I finally turned to other women for support and now have a few key female friends I can really rely on in trouble (say 2 or 3) and a further 3/4 I'm not quite so close to or see so regularly, but who I definitely feel I could confide in.

Having never had this when I was younger, it's something I've really appreciated as I got older. My male friendships have drifted somewhat, apart from one male friend who I know will stay close come hell or high water, but I do feel I'm finding less and less in common with male friends as I get older (especially the ones who are still single, I hate to say - they still have lifestyles like they're in their 20's, and I just don't want to live like that anymore).

artex

iminterested in what you were meaning by your post?