To wish that I could find some like minded female friends?

[ApignamedJasper]

I'm a bit of a tomboy, always have been although I like some girly stuff too.

A lot of the things I'm into are traditionally more 'man things' and therefore all the people I know that do them/are interested in them are men. Not that I mind being friends with men, I quite like it in fact but sometimes I wish I had another woman to get a different perspective on some of the stuff I really enjoy.

I don't have a lot of friends anyway and the ones I do have are either female and not interested in the stuff I like, so we don't have that much to talk about, or are men who like the stuff I like but not a combination of the two :(

OP, where in the world are you?

I am a little girly but most of my interests are in cars, gardening, reading, science. I am also starting my degree this September!

I'm in a similar position and empathise entirely. I don't have many female friends of my own; those I do have I met through Uni so we're scattered across the country. My female friends now tend to be DH's friends but, if I'm honest, whenever we go out as a group I gravitate toward talking with the men because a) we just have more in common (gaming, sport, cars, etc.) and b) they tend to have more of a 'laugh' whereas the conversation between the women gets very serious, very quickly. They also gossip a lot which I don't like participating in!

Not all women like shoes/clothes/handbags. I'm with you on the whole hating shopping, baking and other traditionally 'female' pursuits; although I'm more than aware that there are plenty of men who are into baking and shopping too, and I prob wouldn't get on with them either!

I've just started maternity leave and I'm finding it very lonely at the moment as I don't have any female friends I can kind of 'bond' with, or meet up with for a coffee/advice. I've tried talking baby stuff with DHs friends' partners, but I find them all very patronising and twee whereas I'm more practical. I'm stuck indoors on my own most of the time. We went to NCT classes to try and reach out but it was clear from the outset that we were never all going to be great mates because they were all very 'girly' and would give me funny looks when I mentioned that I play on the PS4/Xbox (they were all moaning about their DH/DPs playing games) maybe I've just been unlucky but in the 10+ years I've been living/working here I've never found any other female friends with whom I share common interests. I'm sure they're out there (this thread is testament to that) but I've never found them.

I know that I could play along and pretend to feign interest in these things, but what kind of friendship is that? When DS is born of course I'll play nice with the other mums for his sake to make sure that he has some chance at a social life, but honestly I'm not looking forward to having to force myself into being someone I'm not (and I'm not entirely comfortable with the kind of message that sends out). But I'll do it for him.

(Sorry, that was a bit ranty, but felt good to get it off my chest!)

That's ok skeppers, I'm also a gamer although less so recently - it's awkward when you feel like you have nothing to talk about, I went on a hen do a few months ago, and one woman only wanted to talk about her child, the labour, the birth, etc etc. I get that she is excited and wants to talk about her baby but mine are years older than hers so I've done those conversations to death and I cba to talk about pregnancy, labour and birth any more - same issue at my niece's birthday recently! No woman was having a conversation that wasn't pregnancy/birth/childcare related.

Aramynta, I'm in the West Country :)