To think female groups are hard work

[Peckhaminn]

I've found I perform much better one on one than in girl groups. All my life I've got along with men and find their banter much more enlightening and humorous than female banter.

I don't seem to stick well I'm girl groups, often the one push out or the one that's too 'open'. I just find men much easier than women and I was wondering if this is a common issue?

I'm with you. I love my girlfriends of course but I'm more relaxed in male company and I find the get togethers much more enjoyable when the husbands attend too.

Just adding in a random man's perspective - I think broadly mens and womens relationships are just different.

I've always found women's relationships much more complex and deep than men's. I'm sure this does lead to the bitchiness many describe but I also think it leads to significantly stronger bonds as well when it works.

With men, there's actually very little difference in the way we are between casual friends and actual friends other than the regularity of contact which means that loads of our friendships are quite basic, but also quite interchangeable over time - whereas many women I've known have almost unbreakable bonds with their friends and when they maybe cease being friends it's a big loss rather than just one of those things.

These are clearly generalisations and I don't think either way is right or wrong - but both types of friendships could probably learn from the other.

I love my gang of friends!
About 30 years ago I started with two close friends and over the years I met friends that they became friends with and the same with me meeting new people. Out of my group I have 4 close friends and I am really friendly with the others. I see my close friends a couple of times a week, whether it is at work, or we go cycling or walking together or go out with our partners, that kind of thing. With the extended friends we all go out for a big meal out about once every two or three months, meet up and go to Manchester or bump into each other in town. Sometimes I will go on holiday with one of my close friends and a couple of her friends.

I love having them around and pleased that I have a nice group of friends as I struggled making friends at school.

My female friendships have definitely improved as I have aged. I also have a few close male friends but I no longer see men as my preferred friends, as I did in my early 20s. Looking back I ended up having sex with quite a few of these completely platonic male friends or the friendship drifting away when they finally realised the relationship would never become sexual. In my fifties my female friends are everything to me. I didn't know any of them until I was 30.

I agree to a certain extent.

I am autistic though. I have never fully understood the rules of female friendship and conversation. IME large female friendship groups generally seem to involve some kind of game playing that I could never get to grips with.

Things like never actually saying what they want from someone 'because I shouldn't have to, it should be obvious'. It's fucking not, Sandra so just tell me!

But my best friend is female. But she is also autistic so I think we gravitated towards each other as the social outcasts TBH.

My work is about 50/50 male and female. Female best friend aside (we work together), I have happy to have little on the surface chats with my female colleagues, they like to be asked lots of questions. But it's the blokes I go to when I actually want to hold any form of meaningful conversation.

I'm fat, in my 40s, married with two kids and very much over the hill. I have no desire to flirt and the men don't flirt with me. Or maybe they do and I'm oblivious.

100%

I’m in a girl group of about 8. All friends from school, we are all late 20’s and early 30’s.

I love them all dearly and we have some great nights out, trips and holidays. But god, it can be hard work sometimes.

Trying to arrange things is hard work. There was a few squabbles over a hen party and wedding last year. (E.g what is a reasonable amount to all chip in for a hotel/transport etc)

But we always kiss and makeup and I wouldn’t change them for the world.

Perhaps you didn't know the women well enough to tell them all about your fanny fluids?

I work with an over sharer and I'd known her about an hour before she described the contents of her tissue, after she blew her nose.

Errrrm just no.

I haven't had a gang of friends since I was in school. I have 3 very close girlfriends and my sister's and I love them dearly. Never fell out and can talk about anything.

I have a 1 male colleague who I would consider a friend and I socialise with my friends and their husbands, but I think being the only female in a gang of men sounds a bit shit.

I agree with a pp who said you've picked the wrong friends.

Are you waiting for people to slag women off and agree with you?

How can you generalise like this? if you’re with a group of people that accept you, you’ll have a good time with them regardless of gender. There are lovely groups of women everywhere. You just didn’t find your people.

I wouldn’t discuss sex, vaginal fluids and periods with just anyone. I feel like certain people/personally traits allow for comfort in discussing these topics, whereas others don’t. You can’t assume everyone will be comfortable with that. Eg I like sex but I don’t speak about my preferences with all my female friends. It’s okay to have different friendships with people.

Not my experience.
I also find men can be incredibly bitchy in certain contexts so don’t know where the idea comes from that women are somehow bitchier 😄

No I've found the opposite. Never get it when people talk about groups of women being "bitchy" -I vaguely remember this in early secondary school but after that I've had loads of groups of female friends and have never had any of those sorts of issues. Also have several sisters!

Is it the group aspect thats an issue for you or having any close female friends at all? If the second I'm sorry but if you've never found any women you get on well with surely that suggests it's more of a you issue?

Is it the group aspect thats an issue for you or having any close female friends at all? If the second I'm sorry but if you've never found any women you get on well with surely that suggests it's more of a you issue?

Agree, very odd to find all women bitchy

It sounds like you are engaging with males and females in different ways.... How can you say one of the reasons you don't like females as much is because you can't tell them what's leaking out of your vagina and then admit you've never tried to tell a male friend that? I'm confused....
Anyway I agree with PP. It's very hard generalise this into a battle of the sexes. I've met some horrible males and horrible females. I also have some fantastic female friends and fantastic male friends.

The bitchiness stuff goes over my head a lot of the time. I struggle in big groups of women as well but I don’t exactly know why. I just feel I can’t relate and it’s an effort for me to put on the act of being like a normal woman. But I’m not sure if I do better in groups of men as I’ve not really experienced that since I was much younger!

I don't know, women are a mystery to me and I am one. Every time I just get it extremely wrong. I remember a midwife I got on with that came to visit me when I was in hospital (I worked there). At some point she bristled and have no idea what I did wrong. Like absolutely no clue, but it was visible.

This is my experience too. Honestly I have not as an adult encountered these groups of bitchy women. I enjoy the company of women both as individuals and in groups.

OP, When I was in my 20s I felt the same as you. Men are just so much more relaxed! They laugh at my jokes! We can talk about anything, including sex! When I hit my late 20s and had a baby, suddenly all those men stopped being so relaxed and bantery, and started treating me like they treated other men - or worse, as they treated middle aged women. In short, it was all good while they thought that they could sleep with me. What I then discovered by going to baby groups and just spending much more time in cafes with women was this amazing group of people - funny, intelligent, caring, multitalented, multitasking. People who laughed at my jokes because they were actually funny, people who checked in when things were rough or I had a big day at work because they actually cared and wanted to support me.

I'm exaggerating a bit, of course. I have close male friends and close female friends, but I have found that groups of men tend to always treat me as a woman. I am there to be flirted with, corrected, sometimes dominated, sometimes ignored, there as a stand in for the female perspective in general. But the fact that I am a woman and they are men seems central to how they relate to me. Meanwhile my women friends just see me as a person. I feel seen by them for who I am, person to person.

We cojld be friends. I'm far far too open 😂

I don't know about prefer but I definitely enjoy hanging out with the lads and I have tons of male friends.

I like them both for different reasons.

Are you a woman? If so, how can you say women are a mystery lol you will have shared experiences surely? If you “other” yourself like this, no wonder people distance themselves from you. Men do weird shit like that all the time btw!

There's an example of the bitchiness, unless I've missed some intentional irony.

Do you have reading comprehension problems?

Sexes are different in friendship

Women are drama! And sometimes it just goes on too long. And then it doesn't get resolved. Then there's another issue which is basically the same issue as before but has to be relitigated in a group

Getting men to notice a dramatic turn in a friend by contrast can be challenge. There's every chance of zero engagement unless you staple the issue to their foreheads

Is it bitchy? Actually seems kind of reasonable. OP says that she interacts differently with men and women. Seems like a reasonable suggestion that maybe women aren't responding well to her 'talking to women' mode. I must admit, if a woman was constantly having enlightened banter with the men, and then turned to me to try and discuss leakage, I would be a little bit put off.

If you think it's kindly meant to tell someone that there must be something wrong with them, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Of course it's bitchy. And it's not the only bitchy thing on the thread.

But of course, let's get into a discussion about whether my ability to perceive bitchiness is off.

On second thought, I do prefer male company to female. This conversation wouldn't be happening.

Not usually, no. Your bullshit threw me off.

With that attitude, no wonder you struggle to make friends with an entire gender. Women aren’t an enigma, you just lack social skills to the extent people ”bristle” with you.