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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

help me, what makes female friendships tick.

102 replies

ItsInTheSand · 17/09/2013 13:37

I am 40 and I still don't get the whole female friendship thing and it's impacting on my children.

Meeting for coffee, texting about tv shows, play dates, bbqs...

What are the rules and what does and does n't work. I seem to misjudge the situation over and over again, tips needed to cope and pass on examples of best practise to kids.

OP posts:
LeoTheLateBloomer · 17/09/2013 13:46

I'm not aware of any 'rules' as such. I've been lucky enough to find some mostly like minded people with similar interests and parenting styles.

We do children based stuff together but have also had a weekend away and do nights out. There is no alpha member of the group and we're all fairly laid back with plans so it just works.

How do you think we misjudge things?

MaKettle · 17/09/2013 13:49

Do you mean you find friendships with men more straightforward? (Am assuming you're a woman btw.)

Larrygogan · 17/09/2013 13:53

What do you mean 'female friendship'? I am a 41 year old woman, and I don't watch television, far less text about it, work full time, so don't have play dates, and live in the middle of nowhere, so few opportunities for coffee with other people. My closest female and male friends are scattered all over the world, so not people in whose pocket I live.

Model friendship for your children if and how you want to conduct your friendships with men and women. It sounds as if you are confusing essentials with inessentials. If you prefer meeting a group of friends to go caving once every few months to dailybcoffee mornings and discussing TV, then that's what you should demonstrate to your kids. There isn't a formula.

Original poster
ItsInTheSand · 17/09/2013 14:01

I am a Laydeee [hoiks ample chest] but work in a very male environment where we talk about World of Warcraft, Walking Dead and which bycycle pedals to buy. We don't celebrate each others birthdays apart from a quick pint if it happens to be on a Friday. At Christmas we mutter have a good one and shuffle off home, we don't give cards or decorate the office.

I'm now part time so am around to support the kids and make 'friends' in the local community. Turns out that Laydees don't express friendship through lending tools, helping out with DIY or going for a pint. If you go for a coffee, you go in a small select circle you don't mention it to anyone else who happens to be standing next to you.

So I've made some pretty fundemental mistakes and although I study MN for pointers (and Zoombie plans) in real life I'm just not getting it.

OP posts:
gordyslovesheep · 17/09/2013 14:05

Find mates who like pints, zombies and bike peddles then Grin plenty of women and mothers don't fit your stereotype

EldritchCleavage · 17/09/2013 14:07

It varies.

oranges · 17/09/2013 14:09

i think you just need more friends of both genders....

dedado · 17/09/2013 14:11

Well there's a whole load of stereotypes. Perhaps you should stop seeing females as a different species with different behaviours, and just be normal with everyone you meet. You'll click with some people and not with others. Some people will be open to inviting everyone in the vicinity for coffee and other people will prefer to invite a group of specific people that they want to get to know better. It's really not a gender divide.

sonlypuppyfat · 17/09/2013 14:13

You are right to ask questions I do think that women are a little odd and I've been one for 46 years! My poor DD asks me why the girls at school are so horrible and all I can think is just wait they grow up into horrible women too.

Sparklingbrook · 17/09/2013 14:14

I have no idea what makes female friendships tick. My best friends are nothing like me at all.So the things in common doesn't work for me at all. Confused

Chusband · 17/09/2013 14:14

Find something you can laugh about with them. You have your gender in common so start with that - moan about men, childbirth, finding jeans that fit. You might find you enjoy talking about something different.

geekgal · 17/09/2013 14:15

The same things that make any other friendship tick, it's not particularly a male/female thing, more a personality thing.

Although if you start the conversation with your new female buddies with "I just don't get what makes you tick" or the classic "I prefer the company of men because all women are bla bla bla" then it's no wonder all of them are ending the friendships before they begin!!

gleegeek · 17/09/2013 14:17

I'm watching this with interest! I would like more friendships where I live, but they just don't seem to happen for me. Everyone seems to be terribly busy all the time. I would love the occasional coffee etc but it seems to be drop kids at school and go to work/gym/housework.

I do have friends scattered round the country, so I don't think I'm that embarassing, but the school mums and dads thing just doesn't seem to take off...

WaspInTheHouse · 17/09/2013 14:17

Yep, find like minded friends!

I'm not good at general friendship, but that's because I'm an introvert. I find it easier to talk about geek stuff than regular stuff, but that's not gender specific. In fact my closest friends are not in the least geeky, but we have enough in common to be friends, especially the same sense of humour. They seem able to do the lots of friends & coffee thing, but it's not something I want. Do you actually really want it?

stubbornstains · 17/09/2013 14:18

We don't celebrate each others birthdays apart from a quick pint if it happens to be on a Friday. At Christmas we mutter have a good one and shuffle off home, we don't give cards or decorate the office.

Sounds like heaven. I'll come for a pint with you, OP!

MagzFarqharson · 17/09/2013 14:21

Who was it once said, and I incompetantly (sp) paraphrase:

'Friends are two people who both don't like the same person' Grin

Sparklingbrook · 17/09/2013 14:21

My 3 best friends are in no particular order-

A retired lady in her 60s
A single Mum ten years younger than me
A lady I met as she tutored my son 8 years ago
A lady I worked with from 1995 to 2005

None of the schoolgate Mums friendships endured past Middle/ Secondary school. I have no friendships that endured from my own school either.

Sparklingbrook · 17/09/2013 14:21

4 best friends even. Blush

WaspInTheHouse · 17/09/2013 14:23

How is it impacting your children?

Thesebootsweremadeforwalking · 17/09/2013 14:23

At nursery, having a big birthday party for DS was a good start in getting to know the other mums. Now about to do the same in Reception. In itself it doesn't generate friendships but it puts you in the same place for a couple of hours, which is a start.

DuelingFanjo · 17/09/2013 14:26

similarly to SparklingBrook I have few friends from school and university.

I have 3 very good friends

2 from my 20s and one who used to work with me and who I have kept in contact with beyond emails and letters. Most of the people I met through my old job are now just facebook friends. I have one school friend that I see for lunch every now and again - we have a past in common but we rarely share our present/future.

Now I have a two year old and I am a bit older than a lot of the new mums I know. I am part of an NCT group but my life is different to theirs - some of them are now on their second maternity leave while I work full time and so we just don't see each other much. The next 'stage' of my 'being a parent' life will be meeting the parents of my son's school friends. I read stuff on mumsnet about school gate mums and all that stuff and I assume it will mean very little to me as I will be working full time and won't have a chance to be a part of whatever the school gate clique is.

Really, I wouldn't worry about it. Just like the people you like and spend time with the people you like.

Sparklingbrook · 17/09/2013 14:28

I think I must be fickle Dueling. In the past i have developed very close friendships with people I worked with. Then once we weren't working together they just drifted.

DragonsAreReal · 17/09/2013 14:32

I'm quite lucky in that the last few years I've developed a really nice friendship circle. All our kids are different ages, were different ages some are single some are not we all parent differently and t shouldn't work but it does.

In summer we do lots of picnics bbqs and days out. Have been on holiday with some to although not all at same time. Now it's getting wintery we have started meals out at the local pub that has a soft play inside and trips to the park to burn off their energy on a weekend.

We also regularly go out without kids either clubbing/meals out/local pubs.

Actually writing t down alcohol and laughing seems to be the common factor and yes some do drink pints!

I'm not really sure how it happened though so I can't give you any tips. It was friends of mine and friends o theirs and friends of friends and we all jus gel nicely.

Dahlen · 17/09/2013 14:32

Men and women are a lot more diverse than our culture would lead you to believe. There are loads of pint-swilling, DIY-loving women out there (I am one), just as there are loads of women who love computer games and hate Christmas (I don't do either of those). And they're all around you, you just don't know it. They may not be as easy to find as a soap-opera-loving cake-maker, but they are far from rare, especially these days. And you may even find that that soap-opera-loving cake-maker also has a penchant for Call of Duty. It's a diverse world.

The key to meeting like-minded people is to talk to as many as possible about as much as possible. That's how you find out interesting facts about people that can lead to future friendships and further connections. Don't make assumptions about people just because they appear to be the archetypal school mum. Most people run a lot deeper than that even if that image is one they are deliberately cultivating.

A friend is a friend, regardless of gender. The only things that tend to separate my female friends from my male ones, are the shared experiences of pregnancy and childbirth and the difficulties particular to trying to work while being the primary carer (because that remains an uncommon experience for men).

Mogz · 17/09/2013 14:32

OP you sound like my kind of person, I find people (of both sexes) that want to chatter about tv, clothes and material things endlessly over coffee or wine very boring, and I find it hard to join in and judge what is wanted of me. But engage me in conversation about fixing something, natural history or show me you genuinely have a passion for something and I'll happily stick by you for pints in the pub (lemonade for me though, thanks) and pointers on circular saws.
I have very few close friends, and I don't see them as much as I want to as I'm very rural and have no transport at the moment, so new friendships with people I genuinely click with are hard to come by, but I figure as life progresses I'll go new places and meet new people and one or two of those might turn out to be great friends.

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