To be fed up of Male friends disappearing once they have new partners?

[Batsy]

Just that really.

I've always had a fairly mixed group of friends, but i get on with guys better than girls on the most part.. i've noticed that when female friends get new partners, they tend to join the group as a whole, but the guys don't, they just tend to end up ghosting us.

There are also a couple of guys that i was really close friends with (nothing funny, just friends), we'd go to each others houses, out to the pub, watch films together...etc.. and that also stops soon as they have girlfriends.

Now i get that partners want to spend time with each other, but when they only see their new girlfriend at weekends, and have all week free, including one whole day when they don't work, and we always used to meet for coffee when they were single... aibu to be ticked off that i'm suddenly 'persona non grata' for simply being single/female... its like they're suddenly banned from being in my presence unsupervised

i really feel like pointing out i was here/friends looooong before the girlfriend showed up.. if we'd wanted date/i'd been a threat we'd have been together already.

@tellmetologoffIamaMNaddict

Wow. Harsh replies. I have found the same, Op. It's really annoying. It isn't that the girlfriends are intimidated because the male friend never even gets round to introducing us. Like he assumes there will be a problem for some reason.

If your male friend drops you when he gets a girlfriend, it's because he wasn't that invested in the friendship in the first place. You were an ego boost while he was single, or someone he hoped to shag, not someone he saw as a proper mate.

Blame the bloke who's dropped you.

"If your male friend drops you when he gets a girlfriend, it's because he wasn't that invested in the friendship in the first place. You were an ego boost while he was single, or someone he hoped to shag, not someone he saw as a proper mate.

Blame the bloke who's dropped you."

that was the point of the op! Blaming the bloke! I agree! I don't know why posters are assuming hostility towards girlfriends. It's bizarre

Because, @tellmetologoffIamaMNaddict, OP references her male friends being “banned” from seeing her. Who do you think she’s suggesting is doing the banning?!

#ImNotLikeOtherGirls

I think this happens with both male and female friends. I had a female friend a few years ago who only really seemed to be interested in me when she was single. As soon as she got a new boyfriend I’d be dropped again, she’d barely speak to me. Some people just get extremely wrapped up in the new relationship, I don’t think this is gender specific.

Did you post this with the hope we’d all tell you how intimidated the new girlfriends are by you?

There's a germ of truth in what you say OP but this gives the game away.

You're one of a particular breed of females which has come to be known as "cool girls" but who adopt the idea that blokeish and fake platonic friendships always have to take precedence over adult relationships.

At the most basic level there's some truth in the idea that its sad when people have less time for their friends when they are in a relationship. But it is what it is. A significant other necessarily gets priority or the relationship will never advance anywhere really. You can't expect a partner to play second fiddle to a group of platonic friends indefinitely. You just have to deal with that.

But also anyone who says they prefer guys to girls as friends is suffering from internalised misogyny and in almost every case these girls ae privately threatened by the idea that their "platonic" male friends (who are often only semi platonic) are able to form proper intimate bonds with women which aren't mediated by them.

In the nicest possible way, you need to grow up a bit.

[quote SchrodingersImmigrant]@ChunkySloth woman was widowed and apparently it was no longer acceptable to be good buddy with her male friends as she was now essentially single. Like they wrnt to a cinema together, which became a no since she was "available"... Really fucking sad.[/quote]
Yeah that a bit pathetic really.

I just think that if your male friends were genuinely so close to you, they'd remain so. It sounds like to them you're more of a casual mate. It's normal for your friendship circle to get a bit tighter when you're coupled up. When they're out of the initial lovebuzz you'll probably see them around again.

I get on better with men too OP, mainly because my favourite things to do socially are watch football and drink real ale and my other main interest is a competitive sport which I'm quite good at (at a local level) so, to find people of similar ability to play and train with, it will usually be men.

However I don't think preferring the company of men makes me something special, if anything it's a pain. Like it or not, those friendships are more difficult negotiate than female friendships because there's always a risk someone sees the relationship differently to you do and of course, any new girlfriend is going to have times when she feels threatened by her boyfriend's close relationship with another woman (I would too), even if she does her best to be "cool" about it.

I also think men "fall in love" in an all consuming way more quickly than women do and actually, despite what you might read on MN, in many cases men aren't determined to control their own lives or their partners, they're quite happy to let the GF do all the legwork go along with GF's plans, even if that excludes friends, especially in the early days.

You need to recognise that your friends lives will evolve. You also need to try harder to make female friends. I joined a gym to help with my sports training and doing classes there is almost exclusively female. That's been an in for me.

I used to think my male friends were being banned from seeing me. I know realise that despite being platonic, I was fulfilling a girlfriend role in their lives and that was no longer needed for them. We used to go to the pub, cinema etc but now they had a girlfriend to go with! I also had some that admitted to fancying me while we were friends and I suppose because they had found someone else, I again wasn't needed

@tellmetologoffIamaMNaddict

"If your male friend drops you when he gets a girlfriend, it's because he wasn't that invested in the friendship in the first place. You were an ego boost while he was single, or someone he hoped to shag, not someone he saw as a proper mate.

Blame the bloke who's dropped you."

that was the point of the op! Blaming the bloke! I agree! I don't know why posters are assuming hostility towards girlfriends. It's bizarre

The OP literally blames the bloke's behaviour on them being 'banned' from seeing her by their new gf.

It's never happened to me, though most people (male and female) tend to spend less time with friends when they meet someone special, it makes sense. You and those guys are the problem, OP, not their girlfriends.
Have you considered that, especially since they were there to help you after your break up, they were only interested because they thought you would date them afterwards? And when that didn't happen, they moved on since they weren't really interested in being your friend long term?

I am not interested in having a boyfriend/partner for a long long time after what he put me though.

This is your problem. You are not interested in having sex with these guys, whereas their new girlfriends are, so they now prefer to spend time with them.

It's your friends that are the problem. If they don't want/need you when they're loved up then they're not great friends. Tell them how you feel.

I think it’s because fundamentally most men don’t bother hugely with friendships and social activities, and once they have a girlfriend who’s happy to do all the heavy lifting around organising a social life, all the bloke has to do is follow along and turn up when asked.

You see it all the times at school - mummies form a clique and the partners trail along. There are dad groups in our playground (mainly around cycling, quelle surprise) but the dads don’t seem to feel the need to organise social events with their partners. They just bugger off to the pub.

Also there are a lot of women who want to control their DHs friendships.

The acid test is whether the other men see the newly coupled up men, ie perhaps everyone in the friendship group has been ditched

I am not interested in having a boyfriend/partner for a long long time after what he put me though.

You'll probably find though that although you don't want an officially recognised partner or sex, you are using them in some situations to fill a partner shaped gap, which will look odd to the GF.

Mostly though it will just be time. I can see my DS dropping his friends currently because he has fallen heavily for a new girlfriend. He works, gets 2-3 evenings a week off. He simply doesn't have time to have a meaningful relationship with her and see much of his friends.

Men seem to be more forgiving of this behaviour though. Women are offended by their friends dropping them for a new relationship, men joke about it and are ready to pick the friendship up again when the relationship allows.

I think men in general have different types of friendships than women. For example my DH and DB don't feel the need to call their friends or to meet up with them one on one often. They seem to prefer fewer group meet ups. DH can't even be bothered to have his best friends round for his birthday! However, when he does see his friends, it's like no time has passed and they click together straight away again.

I find most women to be different in that they like to have closer, more time-intensive friendships, where you speak on the phone or meet up one on one.

I think your male friends didn't have much to do when they were single so were happy to meet up as their form of socialising, but once they've got a partner they are kept busy enough and see another person enough that you then get put in the "general friend" camp, which means they don't fall out with you and will be happy to pick up where they left off with you, even if it's ages later, but they can't be bothered to make an effort to see you as they are getting their socialising needs met by their gf. This is a big reason why I prefer female friends!

PeoplePleasingWayTooMuch
The issue isn't getting on with men.

The issue is when people start saying "oh I get on with men better" they tend to show their colours and it usually means doing something similar to what you've just done here:
I don't think that's such a heinous terrible thing to say? I have lots of female friends too, my best friend is female but on AVERAGE, of all the men and women I have met, I have usually gelled a bit better with the guys as I have less in common with the women (i.e. not traditional so not into weddings, or engagements, not gonna have kids, etc.)

You're creating this idea that there's you (not traditional, not into weddings and kids) and then other women (who must be all about weddings and kids).
That's what the "I'm not like the other women" do. It's insulting.

Where women have a range of friends and some happen to be men, they almost never feel the need to point out how they are so different from other women, they're down with the men unlike other women, the men get them but the other women don't, they have all these male-friendly interests but other women love weddings and babies.

Maybe the reason you struggle to click with many women is because you're assuming they're all about weddings and babies, and so invest your time and effort into talking to men more. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Feminism. You need feminism.

if we'd wanted date/i'd been a threat we'd have been together already

Are you sure about that, OP? That's a very big statement to make. And very telling.

I know youre type op...i avoid like the plague!

i really feel like pointing out i was here/friends looooong before the girlfriend showed up.. if we'd wanted date/i'd been a threat we'd have been together already.

That's a very odd thing to say about someone you're "just friends" with. Why would dating them even cross your mind?

@BunnyBerries

OP you said, "but when they only see their new girlfriend at weekends, and have all week free, including one whole day when they don't work, and we always used to meet for coffee when they were single..."

That's a very specific person you're talking about, who has a full free weekday and who also doesn't want to see their girlfriend during the week.
How do you keep up with what this guy does during the week, are you sure he is never with her? Are you texting him almost daily? Perhaps they are coffee-ing together and don't want to hurt your feelings or he doesn't want to text you as much at the weekend while he is with her.

Yes i got the feeling that OPs post was triggered by one situation in particular.

Generally I'd say that there will be one or two jealous GFs in the mix, people can be quite jealous (i'm one) but i'd be surprised if EVERY time a bloke dropped out of your friendship group it was because of pressure from a GF behind the scenes.

What alternative explanations can you think of for the times it's NOT the girlfriend pulling strings OP? Not that hard to come up with a few now surely?

Unfortunately, what we females see as friendship, males see as "a reserve fuck". That doesn't mean he doesn't care about you, or that you haven't had nice times together. It just is what it is. So no he's not going to hang out with you when he's with a woman he's really into.