To get upset about women who judge me for being friends with their partners

[sugar88]

Just wanted to throw this out there as a different perspective.

I'm a woman who is working in a very male dominated industry and who studied a male dominated course at uni. I'm really not often around women.

Because of this, as you'd expect, most of my friends are men. I have 1 good female friend from school and probably 6 or so "good" male friends (to the extent you'd make an effort to message, catch up and meet up every so often etc) and my wider group of friends are mostly male.

I'd like some more female company as I do have a girly side who wants to dress up and go out which I don't really get to do with my male friends. I've found it hard to make female friends because 1) I don't meet many and 2) I seem to automatically get judged by women because I'm around men a lot of the time.

It also makes me reluctant to sustain friendships with some of my good male friends when they get partners as I never ever want to cause any problems or jealousy in a friend's relationship. I know for some women they are uncomfortable with partners spending time with other women. If I find out that this is the case I most definitely (but upsettingly) back away. It upsets me because I have lost great friends at no fault of my own. I even had a male work colleague admit his girlfriend despised me once and they've had arguments simply because she found out I was the only woman in his team. I never even met her, I didn't have her boyfriends number, I was in a long term relationship, I wouldn't even have considered him a friend and I never contacted him outside of work. It upsets me, imagine just turning up to your job everyday and working as anyone would and being hated from afar for it.

I've never even fancied any of my good male friends, and they've honestly never made moves on me. I've never had sex or even kissed someone who's not been my boyfriend. I've also only had 2 boyfriends in my entire life (I'm 26). In fact, I very rarely come across men I feel any more than friendship towards, I guess because I'm so used to being friends with guys.

I normally make an effort to get to know any male friends partners by inviting them to come to any meet ups we have as a friendship group to make sure they get to know me and I can get to know them/get a sense of their boundaries in an attempt to avoid any issues.

I sometimes go round male friends houses, they come round mine, have a cuppa, play video games, usual friendly stuff that a guy might do with another guy I guess.
I had a long term relationship which was mutually ended recently (not for anything dramatic, really nice guy it just ended up not working out) and he had no problem with this. I obviously did not have problems with him having female friends either. On a number of occasions he's invited over female friends (which I also knew quite well) while I wasn't there, sometimes he cooked them dinner and they ate and catched up etc etc etc. Some people think I'm crazy for "allowing" things like this but I wouldn't be in a relationship with someone I didn't fully trust and would be a hippocrite from stopping partners from having female friends and wouldn't think to do that anyway as it doesn't bother me.

I even had someone suggest once that I chose my career just to be around men (what?????)
I'm tired of being judged from the get go for this. At the same time I fully appreciate that there's many women out there that have been cheated on and find it hard to trust their partners completely. I don't get annoyed at women feeling like this, I just treat it as a sad reality of my life that I have to deal with, but I do at times get upset about it. I would love more female friends.

AIBU? And if you think you would be annoyed by me having the above sort of friendship with your partner, is there anything that the woman can do to make you more comfortable?

Do you WANT these women to be jealous of you?

Sounds like you do.

I bet most of them aren't...

@user1493759849 No I absolutely don't. I don't even understand how someone can be jealous of me to be honest. I'm a little bit of a hermit and like to spend my time at home (I live on my own) in PJs playing with raspberry pies and video games. Not exactly a desirable life to be jealous of really is it ha.

"Not exactly a desirable life to be jealous of really is it ha."

No, but if you're coming across to lots of us like you think it is, then maybe you come across like that in real life too and it makes women dislike you.

You see threads on here quite often from women who don't trust their husband's female colleague, whether or not they'very met, and sometimes, they are right not to trust their husbands, because there are somemen who seem to think they are God's gift and go after almost any woman in the vicinity - but in most cases, people are just people, and any issues are imaginary. That doesn't stop the perception that there might be a problem, though.

You do also get people in relationships who seem to struggle with the concept of a single woman, and that sometimes means you get left out of group invitations, which is also rubbish. Some people are just crap, but again, that doesn't change that it happens. Over the years, I have met quite a few colleagues' wives, and even parents in a couple of cases, but I don't think the ones I have met had a problem with me in the first case.

Whatever you do, you can't please everyone, so I probably wouldn't bother trying too hard. Do the things you want to do, treat people with the same respect you want to be treated with and people who don't fall in with that probably aren’t worth having around anyway.

I agree that being a woman in tech can be a great career, and it's always surprised me there aren't more (I've been a unix sys admin for the best part of two decades, and nearly always the only woman in the team.) I think employer and even departmental cultures can differ widely. Particular tech fields are wirse than othets, too, and I think gaming can be hard-going as a woman. There aren't many organisations which aren't trying to do more to encourage women into tech, but they seem to focus mostly on women already there, whereas what they really need to do is try and change the mindset of some of the men working there.

What it means is that you need to develop a thick skin, because sometimes, the cumulative effect of all the innocuous comments can get tiring ("it's unusual to see a woman in the datacentre," "are you the secretary?" "We don't usually get any women doing storage training," "Beware of men working behind doors.") Death by 1000 cuts. Developing a thick skin helps with people who think you are only working there to meet men and are just looking for an opportunity to jump on one of them.

I would second the suggestions to get networking with women in IT. Go on LinkedIn - there are a ton of women in tech groups, general and for specialisms. There's no problem going to events on your own - most women I have met at these things go on their own. That doesn't mean it's not scary the first time though! But it's also good to meet with women who face some of the same challenges and just get it. Also, if you have a women's network at work, that can be worthwhile getting involved with. I wouldn't have seen the need or relevance for any of this in my 20s, but it has definitely been great support for my career as I have got older, and I have learned things I would have found useful when younger.

Don't forget the first coders were all women, including some of those writing the first games. You're following on a long tradition, even if a lot of people have forgotten the history of computing. (This is the sort of thing people avoid me for at social gatherings. )