To think having friends of all genders is healthy

[Annettte]

This occurred to me as I was talking to a friend who's son recently did his 1st year at college. I know the young man in question & he's really blossomed since going away. After growing up shy and not fitting in, all boys school, very male environments he's now got a good circle, female as well as male. I've met men in their 40s who are clueless about how to relate to women. Some of them honestly seem terrified of women. I don't know why. Wouldn't the world be a better, more empathetic place, if we all knew each other a bit better?

no one tell that poster about what people outside MN bubble think about the vagina/ labia debacle 😂

🤣🤣

Both my children (boy and girl, with a big age gap) have had friends of both sexes from an early age, I think it's good and healthy, ensures they see the other sex as people rather than stereotypes or adversaries.

It is.

I honestly cannot even comprehend people who just state

" I don't do male friends"
" I don't do female friends, I"ll NEVER have or want one"

unless there's a massive cultural background behind that segregation.

@Annettteits really quite sad your friends didn’t move their DS to a more appropriate school for him. Not all boys schools are very masculine, many have space for quieter shy students. It was clearly a poor fit for him and sad his parents didn’t move him, at least at 6th form.

I also wouldn’t presume this is a “being exposed to girls” thing - many a young man and young woman developed and blossomed when thrown into in life, having to cope with living independently but also being surrounded by people from a variety of backgrounds who all are interested in learning.

Hurray.

Idk if I’ll get flamed for this but I’m going off personal experience, but I think it’s more important for men/boys to have female friends than it is women. I have male friends, but they’re all gay. It’s not by choice, but when I’ve been friends with straight men they’ve always tried it on with me. I hope this changes as I get older, because I would like to expand my friendship circle. I don’t intentionally befriend gay men though, it’s just always happened. My two best friends from school both turned out to be gay, and when I was working I kind of just attracted gay men lol.

As for DP, he has female friends and I thought that was a green flag. Now I know him more though, I look at all his female friends and none of them are his type. He does have a pretty spesific female type, and if I’m 100% honest I might be a bit insecure if he suddenly got a female friend who’s his type even tho I trust him.

DS is 3, so early days, but he does seem to gravitate more towards girls but that could be because he has a sister. We do want to encourage him to have female friends as he gets older though.

If you mean both genders (in the old fashioned, polite way of saying sex), then yes.

I suppose having read all these posts this occurs to me. Some people have no friends at all. Perhaps that works for some,.I'd guess not for most though. I've certainly seen cases where the right friends, which will vary totally by person too, can really enhance someone's life. The young man I mentioned at the start was so shy at one point you could barely hear him speak, and he was so quiet. Not bullied that I know of, but clearly struggling socially. For some, the environment he was in would work OK, for him I don't think it did.
The best adjusted men I have come across have tended to mix freely regardless of sex. For women, it seems to vary more. Some are fine with female only circles, some mixed. I don't know too many women who have only male friends, and only encountered one man with a very heavily female circle.

Relationships (work, acquaintance, etc.) yes, friendships no. In my experience there really is no such thing as a male-female friendship because one person invariably is hoping for more.

Couldn't disagree more. Of course male-female friendship is a thing

I also manage to have lesbian friends, and they REALLY are not interested in anything more with me either 😂

Im on my way home from a weekend meet up with one of my male friends of thirty years standing. We met at uni. Never anything other than platonic and he's one of my best friends..the other is also male. I have v close female friends too. It's perfectly possible.

I think this is disingenuous. Most of us without male friends didnt do it on purpose by excluding men due to the fact they are male. EG I used to have two very close male friends in my 20s- they were like brothers to me. Since both got married they have both since ghosted me which was a great sadness. I suspect their wives no longer felt comfortable with them having long standing female friendships because of some veiled comments they both made at the time.

Since I am now in my 40s, you tell me where I can go to make platonic male friends because I'd love to know how to do that without 1. pissing their wives/girlfriends off, 2. Not giving them the impression I want to sleep with them

It's not exactly easy to make platonic male friends once everyone has gone through the life stage of settling down because no matter how platonic your intentions are, other people dont see it that way....

I'm very sorry to hear of the painful ghosting you experienced. Some would say making friends in general in midlife can be challenging. But it's not impossible. I suppose I'd say perhaps just be open to new friends in general. If they have to be male, that might suggest you're actually wanting your lost friends back, whereas new people will always be different from old ones. If rhe sex of the friend is truly irrelevant then fine.
That said, I have found work, paid & voluntary, evening classes, political & hobby groups good places to meet new people that are generally mixed environments.

I know one person, male, who has met a good few new people far and wide through short term letting rooms in his house. Understandably, many women doing this specify female or couples only.

I think so but I’ve found female friendships just happen a lot more naturally for me. One reason I really like having a brother is being able to have that nice platonic and uncomplicated brilliant friendship that can be difficult to find with other men.

Well thats the thing- I dont actually need any new friends- I have a very wide circle of close female friends. My point really was, if I already have a good circle of trusted female friends why would I need to go out and seek male friendships bearing in mind all the difficulties I would have to get past such as their wives getting the wrong impression about my interest (albeit platonic)/ them getting the wrong impression about my intentions etc

I am not "unbalanced" simply because my good friends are female and the hassle and time it would take to find new male friendships (given the potential difficulties I outlined above) just seems like a pointless waste of time to me. I have noticed in general that male friends tend to often drift away when they settle down whereas female friends tend to stay the course.

Both genders. You mean both genders, right????

Oh wow, you are the first person to make this observation, well done you eagle eyes!

Eh, I think as long as you are respectful of both men and women, that's all that matters, regardless of who you call a friend. Most of us have family or at least extended family of both sexes, and you grow up with peers and teachers/mentor type figures of both sexes, as well. I'd think that would be enough to teach anyone how to relate to both.

Do you normally go around stating your opinions as though they were facts?

Most people are not educated in single sex environments and so have plenty of exposure to the opposite sex. Most people have friends of both sexes, particularly when young, and most live with people of the opposite sex too. I can't see that the world is particularly empathetic despite the already extensive proximity we have to the opposite sex, so not sure what you mean really. In what way do the majority of us 'not understand' and lack empathy with the opposite sex? And do you think this is an equal problem with women's empathy towards men as men's empathy towards women?

That's quite a judgemental comment string.

Both sexes you mean?