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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not have any male friends

51 replies

tak1ngchances · 16/02/2013 09:37

I noticed at work recently that I am much more relaxed and confident when I'm with the women on our team. I am more quiet and withdrawn when men are present. Obviously I don't want this to be the case and I'd like to be myself around everyone, regardless of gender.
So I started thinking about how I am outside work and it struck me: I don't have any male friends. Not one. I socialise with lots of married couples (and am married myself), and DH has some lovely friends that I've got to know quite well... but I don't have any man-friends that I got to know myself, independently.

Is that normal? Do most of you have a more equal gender balance among your friends?

OP posts:
HeadFairy · 16/02/2013 09:41

I don't have many, one that I speak to regularly, one who now lives overseas. I'm not uncomfortable around men, but I grew up in a very female family (no boys born in the family for 36 years until my ds came along) and I went to an all girls school. In my 20s I was very much like you though, having had so little contact with men I had no idea how to speak to them, I was incredibly shy and awkward with men.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 16/02/2013 09:41

I don't know how usual it is but I shouldn't think it's worth worrying about in a social sense. Are you from an all girl, no brother family? If it's causing you work problems then more worrying perhaps.

Original poster
tak1ngchances · 16/02/2013 09:45

Yes I'm from an all-girl family! Apart from my dad. Just wanted a kind of survey to see if most 30-something married women have heaps of man-friends. Or if more are like me.

OP posts:
VelvetSpoon · 16/02/2013 09:48

YANBU.

At uni, women were in the minority in my college (3:1 ratio) so I had lots of male friends. In my first few jobs again, more men than women. I am quite girly BUT I also like football and stuff, so always used to get on well with men, and I quite like banter-y type conversations.

however what I have realised now I'm older and possibly wiser is that there's always an agenda with male-female friendships, and they always go wrong. I have been dumped as a friend by several guys whose wives/girlfriends didn't like their friendship with me. I have been used either to make men look more popular, or to help them in career terms. Or it ends up with them fancying me, me not being interested, and it all getting awkward.

I am currently working with someone who a couple of years ago told me I was his best friend. He now doesn't even acknowledge my existence.

I think I have given up on having male friends now!

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 16/02/2013 09:50

I'm slightly younger but have male friends (not loads but some) from school, college, university and past/current jobs. Did you go to a girls school? I do think sometimes that girls who grow up without brothers sometimes miss out on the crucial memo that there isn't really such a thing as "boys are like this, girls are like this" (likewise boys who grow up without girls around). IMO men and women are pretty similar so my advice would be talk to men as if they were women. They really aren't mysterious or a different species Smile

rollmopses · 16/02/2013 09:54

I always have preferred male company. My best friends are men.
Magnificent creatures and so much fun.

ENormaSnob · 16/02/2013 10:08

I get on fine with men but prefer women tbh.

Had a few male friends when I was younger but they all tried it on at some point Hmm

ifancyashandy · 16/02/2013 10:16

I have male friends. No hidden agenda. And I'm single.

ChestyLeRoux · 16/02/2013 10:20

I have lots of male friends they all met dh through me,and now they are good friends with him too.They all knew me first though.

mrsjay · 16/02/2013 10:26

I don't really have male friends now I used too but they were mostly gay

freddiemisagreatshag · 16/02/2013 10:27

I have male friends. Not gay. No agenda. Just friends.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 16/02/2013 10:27

All the male friends I have made independently of DH are gay.

Caladria · 16/02/2013 10:30

YAB a bit unreasonable. Be friends with whoever you want, but excluding half of humanity for having a penis is, well, limiting. As for the 'agenda' theory, maybe I'm just dim but I've never noticed it.

manicinsomniac · 16/02/2013 10:31

I'm more the other way. I have female friends but, especially at work, my closest friends are all men.

I don't think it matters either way though. You get on with who you get on with.

As long as you have friends I don't think it matters what they are!

ChestyLeRoux · 16/02/2013 10:34

I have lots of male friends they all met dh through me,and now they are good friends with him too.They all knew me first though.

ChestyLeRoux · 16/02/2013 10:34

Sorry about double posts my phones going weird Confused

GinAndT0nic · 16/02/2013 10:38

I would like a few more male friends but apart from one who I meet up with once a year (!!) I have none. I think this particular male friend only stays in sporadic touch because we were flatmates 20 years ago so we do have a bond. But, men aren't motivated to have 'faux friendships' with me because I'm not pretty &/or young. So therefore, nope. When I was young of course I had men pretending to be my friend, and then when I told them I was going out with x,y or z they just said 'see ya then'. Pretty much.

Some very attractive women delude themselves that they are great at maintaining friendships with men. Men just want to be around them.

bleedingheart · 16/02/2013 10:40

I used to have lots of male friends but now I work from home I find old colleagues and friends who bother to maintain contact are usually female as are the majority of the parents who are chatty at the school gate. I don't really think its a problem not to have any although the more friends the merrier.

bleedingheart · 16/02/2013 10:43

I also had more male friends when I had a very cool and handsome boyfriend;
men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him and some of my male friends thought somehow being friends with me would make them more like him!

(He turned out to be a bit of a dick so they probably succeeded).

mrsjay · 16/02/2013 10:47

yes when i was younger and loads coolerGrin I did have male friends non gay but we lost touch I have some of them on my facebook but not real friendship anymore

manicinsomniac · 16/02/2013 10:58

ginandtonic that's a very sad attitude to have! Do you really believe that all men are only interested in famale friends because they're attracted to them?! I have quite a few mixed friendship groups and both the men and women in them range from stunning to not at all pretty and from single to long term happily married. We are friends because we are friends, not because of age, availability or attractiveness.

GinAndT0nic · 16/02/2013 11:00

Well, it doesn't make ME sad. I know I'm capable of friendship with men. But they don't want it. I have plenty of female friendships. If I ever had a boyfriend it would be imperative to me that he was a friend, first and foremost. So, possibly it's a bit sad to have so few male friendships, but my attitude is not sad. I'm ready and capable of having friendships with men.

I won't hold my breath waiting though!

GinAndT0nic · 16/02/2013 11:02

Also, if you're married and you are friendLY with your husband's friends, then it's easy to say 'aw poor gin&tonic, what a sad attitude'. But it's just circumstance and convenience that puts in a group situation with men, and you're friendly. I could easily be in those shoes. But when you're single with no husband who has male friends, then, not so easy to "tick off" male friends and say to yourself oh yes well done me, i have male friends!

manicinsomniac · 16/02/2013 11:17

I didn't mean you were sad, I meant to believe that what you say of men is true is rather upsetting.

I am a single parent too and I have never held down a long term romantic relationship with a man. That is very sad but the issue is all with me (trust, own space, MH issues etc) and absolutely not the fault of men.

Men in general are as capable of friendship with anybody as women in general are.

SolidGoldBrass · 16/02/2013 11:23

I've always had male friends, though more of my friends these days are female, at least partly due to my main social scene being via an all-female dancegroup. Some of my male friends have been XPs or at least men I briefly dated, most have been work colleagues at some point. I have, annoyingly, lost one or two over the years when they took up with excessively whiny monogamist women (though to my amusement those relationships always ended badly and the man would reappear as a friend...)

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