To ask whether pps have a) male friends b)close male friends

[Carla786]

I was recently reading a thread about the pros & cons of single sex schools. Personally, I went to one and I felt it was a good model, since joint activities with the boys' school and other extracurricular activities meant I could still befriend boys outside.
On the thread, quite a few posters were saying that going to a mixed school helped them make friends with boys, rather than seeing them as alien creatures and that it's negative if people are mostly friends with their own sex.
I agree in theory that people should try to have friends of the opposite sex. But otoh how typical is this for adult life? Studies show fairly high numbers for people in their twenties, but these lessen for married people, and are less likely to be 'close' friendships. And ofc there's various reasons for this : worry about male friends having other intentions, jealousy issues if married etc

Interested to hear thoughts..

I promise I'm not! I just think it's an interesting topic .

That's unpleasant re trying it on... I think sometimes men feel that if the woman says 'no' they can continue the friendship, but in practice obviously a lot of women don't want to do that. And ofc it raises the question of whether they were only friendly for that reason..

I think a lot of men do genuinely want female friends for other reasons though. Sometimes because they feel they can be more open about emotional stuff than with male friends, though of course that varies.

I've got quite a lot of male friends. My best friend from University is male and though we live a long way from each other now we still meet up several times a year and it's like we've never been apart. I'm married and he's in a long term relationship. We have known each other for over 40 years and the relationship has never been anything other than platonic but I definitely consider it a close friendship.
I've also got a number of male friends through work and through a sports club I'm in. I wouldn't call them close friends but they're more than accquaintances. If I get on with someone and we've got shared interests it doesn't really bother me which sex they are.

I’ve always had lots of male friends.

When I was primary school age, all my closest friends were boys. I did have friends who were girls and I liked playing with them, but I tended to share more interests with boys, or at least certain types of boys.

I then went to a single sex comprehensive school, which I have mixed feelings about for various reasons, but I stayed friendly with boys I’d been at primary school all along. I did have a great group of friends at my secondary though; from the second year onwards I never really had those big friendship group dramas and fallings out that a lot of teenagers have, which was just luck I think.

As an adult I’ve always had close male and female friends, and I find it incredibly weird on Mumsnet when people insist that men and women can’t be friends or that if someone’s DH has a female work friend or something, it’s ’inappropriate’ and they must be looking for an affair. Really odd.

My brother basically doesn’t have any male friends. He used to when he was younger; he went to a boys’ secondary school and had male flatmates and so on in his 20s, but he’s in his 50s now and has told me many times that he generally finds women much better company. He actually has a lot of stereotypically ‘blokey’ interests but just tends to get on better with women. Maybe it’s because he only has sisters - he’s the middle one and me and my sister are the youngest and oldest.

I went to an all-girls school and, while it was a good school, it did make me a bit "boy mad." I didn't have any boys as friends, nor spent much time around them, so I wanted a boyfriend more than anything and didn't have the best judgment.
Now, one of my closest friends is a man. He is gay. I am not sure if this makes a difference. Certainly, my husband has no problem with any of my friends, but he is actually my only male one (and I have no problem with his friends, who include several straight women).

Went to a girls school. Had close male friends in my teens, twenties and some of my thirties. I am still in touch with them but I have to say after they/I got into committed relationships, the intensity of those friendships has reduced. I do try and sense the general vibe from their partners and with some of my male friends I knew I had to back off a bit, as their partners weren’t quite comfortable with our friendship. It’s a shame but I also think it’s a sign of maturity. I still know they would be there for me in the future as a friend if I ever needed them.

I went to a girls school and was very much a girls girl. Even at Uni my friendship group was primarily girls. I had a job from 16 so met teenage boys finally 😂 and met my first bf there. I'd say I struggled making real friendships with men until my early 20s with a handful of exceptions because all the men I'd got to be friendly with, I'd ended up dating! It took me a while to learn how to just be friends.

Now I'm married with kids, I have a handful of long term male friends that predates DH. One I see periodically for a hobby but we also do a full day out just us twice a year. The other one we're down to odd messages atm cos of kids etc but used to go to playgroup together. Never anything sexual with either. There's school Dad's I get on with, and males from my volunteer roles, there used to be work mates when I did paid work. I don't see really why it has to be much different to female friends tbh.

I’ve had one for 23 years. A treasured friend

the rest disappeared after getting girlfriends. Well I have other male friends but he’s the one close one.

I went to co-ed schools throughout. I didn't have male friends at school... but outside of school (I was in the Scouts), I always got on better with the boys, or girls who were tomboys. As an ex-teacher, I noticed that the children seemed to mix in Reception, and then split off into the separate sex friendship groups in Year 1. It was a bit depressing, to be honest, to find children cast out of friendship groups because of their sex, or being told that they couldn't like blue because they were a girl, etc.

At university, I had a few male housemates that I got on well with (usually better than most of the girls, unless they were tomboys). However, I got put off going on nights out because of unwanted male attention by boys whose sole intention seemed to be sex... and because I tended to be the target out of my friendship group, I faced a lot of jealousy from female friends.

I now work in a male-dominated field, and sometimes go for weeks without speaking to another woman in person. I'm cheerfully and permanently single, and in previous roles, this has led to unwanted male attention... but for the most part, as an adult, I tend to get on better with men, or women who are not overly feminine. Interestingly, they all work in male-dominated fields, too.

I went to a mixed sex school and had several close male friends, but now nearly two decades later, life and distance have meant I've totally lost touch. It was very clear at school just how many boys were utterly awful and used/abused girls or excused and enabled those who did, with the decent ones being few and far between.

I don't have any male friends now as an adult. What was true at school still holds true - decent men who don't view or treat women in some form of misogynistic manner are very few and far between.

On the whole the male of the species is pretty irredeemable, and I can't be bothered wasting my time being friendly with someone who's probably got a warped view of women hiding just beneath the surface.

Nope. It hasn’t worked for me. They always try to get sexual.

I went to single sex and became unhealthily obsessed with boys. I have sent my own children to co-ed I wouldn’t even consider a single sex school.
I am friends with both men and women.

I grew up in a largely female household and no close relationships with any males. I went to a mixed school but was only ever friends with girls.
my whole life I’ve struggled with men as I’ve only ever had close relationships with past boyfriends and my husband so other than a flirty type relationship I struggle to interact with men (sounds silly I know) The few times (when I was single ) that I tried to have male friends they ended up fancying me (I wasn’t attracted to them hence the friendship)
Now I’m middle aged. I no longer flirt with men as I’m married and don’t feel attractive as I use to. I have cordial relationships with bil, fil and dhs friends but no male friendships. I work in an all female environment too.

I've had mixed-sex friendship groups all my life. My best friend at primary school was a boy. The small group of bookish nerds I made friends with in secondary school was boys and girls. I've genuinely never been in any social group that defaults to "girls' nights out" or "lads' nights out" - gender-segregated socialising is deeply weird to me and I'm fairly sure almost everyone I'm friends with would agree.

I think that's because almost every social group I've been in has been centred around a particular interest or activity, like music or politics or clubbing, that's gender-neutral.

I have noticed that as some of my friends became parents, it's more common for the mums and the dads to socialise separately. It's not really gender-segregated though, more that the mums and dads socialise together less on account of childcare. The child-free in our group are free to rock up to whatever socialising is convenient for us.

I don’t though I was once closer with a number of men. My best friend’s other best friend is a man though. She plans to have him as groomsman of honour at her wedding. And my sister has a male best friend… he’s married with 3 kids and sis is single. They have 0 interest in each other.

I’m 31, married. I have male friends but generally because I’m friends with their female partners.

At school, I was part of a big, mixed friendship group. Went to uni to do a teaching degree and all of the boys/men disappeared because it was a female dominated course.

My best friends are all women from uni or school days. I have work friends who are mainly women but a couple of men. No close male friends which isn’t a deliberate thing - more that my careers have been female dominated.

ETA - I have never had a sexual interest in any of my male friends.

Middle aged here. I have several male friends, some of whom are gay (if that makes any difference) but some of whom are straight (and married / partnered up).

I was part of the wedding party of one of my straight male friends. I meet regularly with him alone and also with him, his wife, my husband, and our respective kids.

Of course you do. 🤣 If you don't want this to look like research you really need to make it not look exactly like research.

V interesting question. I had a very close male friend from uni and we've ended up together. I was in denial for years about actually being madly in love with him.

Lots of male pals but I gravitate more towards female friendships now I'm in my 40s.

Male friends that I talk to about my health and my relationships- no. I go to my female friends for that.

Male friends that I talk to about our kids of a similar age, about sports, holiday plans, the weather- yes.

I'm close to my male cousin, I do talk to him about pretty much everything. But I grew up with him so he's in a category by himself.

Im 46, single, and I have a lot of male (and female) friends.
As I grow older, I'd say I tend to bond with women more, they're the ones I'm going to see one to one for a brunch.

My male friends are excellent people, but I'm aware they're not the norm.

I would also say that I really don't enjoy spending time with people who don't have friends of the opposite sex. When I was dating, men with only male friends embodied the worst masculine stereotypes imaginable and I found they couldn't really see me as a real, equal human, just as a sex object or unpaid therapist (or both). To them, women were the "other" in their minds. Total red flag. By contrast, men who were friends with women (and also gay men) - green flag all the way.

Also found that when I've hung out with the kind of woman who only has female friends that the conversation tends towards excruciatingly stereotypical diet/weight loss/shopping/beauty subjects.

I went to single sex girl schools from 7 to 18. I have lots of close male friends from uni / work. However, my absolute closest friends remain my school friends. It depends on their personalities (they are only small) but at the moment I would prefer them to go to single sex schools (DH went to all boys and is very similar in friendship terms)

I agree about men with no women friends — to me it’s a red flag that they only see women in sexual terms.

I went to a girls school but i have lots of male friends and some close males friends.