I struggle with female friendships

[AmIJustCrapAtFemaleFriends]

I feel that I am crap at making female friends. But then again there are lots of women I get on well with.

I don't think I’ve got a lot of friends. I have a BF of 25 years and she is like a sister to me, but we only see each other every few months due to distance. We talk weekly.

Then I have 2 or 3 good friends I see for coffee or lunch where I live. I probably see one of them once a week.

At work I get along with all the women and have made some lovely friends there. We have a right laugh but I don’t see them out of work.

On the more negative side I don’t get on with my MIL and my SIL.

Also I was in a group of school mums and we all used to go out and do some things together but I’ve dropped out of it because I just think that the majority of them are horrible. There’s a queen bee in it and the others suck up to her and she can be quite bitchy. The other week I saw some of them out and I saw her literally cup her hand and whisper something and they all looked at me and laughed. I’m not offended but there and then I thought this is bullshit and I stepped back. We are all late 40’s FFS.

Even before this I thought that the majority of this group are actually quite horrible, selfish and unbelievably entitled. But then I still see pictures of them having a great time out together and I think, actually I’m the one at home and not out having a good time so perhaps the issue is me. I have a couple of friends in this group and they think a lot of them are awful, but they still hang out with them. Honestly it is like hanging out with Brooke from MAFSA.

I think the issue I have is that I just don’t like bitchiness and cattiness. I’ve had to step back from my in-laws because the women in my DH’s family basically scratch each others eyes out and tear each other down with the most awful comments, including to me. I’m just not used to that and I don’t like it.

AIBU to think that I just don’t know how to deal with female relationships?

Well if you think women are bitchy and catty then it's not surprising.

Lol. Women are bitchy and catty and before you all come for me, of course when I say this I don't mean ALL women. I dont think I know of a woman who wouldn't readily agree with this either.

I haven’t met anyone bitchy or catty since school. I have several circles of friends but never with any drama.
IME you just need to find the right people and expect that only one in 10 or 15 acquaintances will become a friend.

But then I still see pictures of them having a great time out together and I think, actually I’m the one at home and not out having a good time so perhaps the issue is me.

Yeah perhaps it is?

You basing your dislike of women on one group of school mums (who sound like a nightmare). A very small sample of 50% of the population, no?

Unless you are a pick me girl?

Women are the same level of bitchy and catty that men are!

Sounds like you get on fine with women who are your type of people.

I think that men are often easier to have a surface level relationship with than women, but if they were the same sort of people as the women you have struggled connecting with, then you wouldnt get that far with the friendship either

Women are just humans. Using words like bitchy and catty is your distorted view if the world

Op you sound like you do have friends and are fine with women you’ve just been unlucky that the ones you’re closest too aren’t logistically close enough, and Aldi unlucky that there’s a bitchy bunch at the school gates! I think keep going as you are x

Of course you're being unreasonable. Why on earth would anyone with a 25 year long best female friendship, a few additional women friends, and positive relationships with women colleagues think they struggle with female friendships? You're just a person who, like the vast majority of us, struggles with people who are in their life who they wouldn't have chosen and don't much like.
You're completely normal. You're not a woman who can't get on with women, and the reason you don't like these women is because of their personalities, not because of some 'woman' trait they share that you struggle with.

Strange post, as it starts with lots of examples where you clearly do get on with women and have close female friends as well as having a laugh with work colleagues. You just don’t get on with one group of women, which is the school mums. So you don’t fit in there, but that’s not the same as not having female friendships. Try another activity/class/sport if you want to branch out and leave the mums to it, otherwise it sounds like you have a good network of female friends already.

Your post is fairly ironic. Your title makes a sweeping negative statement about all women. You then describe plenty of women you get on with, and some that you don’t. You describe the latter as bitchy and catty. And, yet, isn’t that what you are being by lumping all women in one homogeneous mass.

Some of these response are just proving you right tbh. I agree, many women do tend to be quite bitchy and it's exhausting. Ive not got many female friends because as soon as I've not partaken in the bitching I've been dropped.

lol, again is this some kind of joke? Can you articulate how it’s ok for you to say unkind things ‘some of these responses are just proving you right’ (implication some of these responses are bitchy) and yet if someone also says something equally unkind, that’s bitchy?

I think it's your attitude. I've recently found myself at the point when I really needed to make new friends after the traumatic end of an emotionally abusive relationship. I've had to really put myself out there, and the women I've met have all been supportive, warm and friendly. I'm loving their company and it's made me realise how lucky we are as women to have each other.

Grow up, OP. You describe several functional, longtime relationships with women, then sweepingly dismiss half the human race on the basis that you don’t like some of the other mothers from your child’s class and don’t like your MIL and SIL. Those women, like the vast majority of the world, male and female alike, are not your friends. They’re just people you’ve been thrown together with by chance. There’s no particular reason why you would like them, any more than you’d like everyone who happened to be at the same bus stop.

Choose people you like as friends. Most people will remain acquaintances, and that’s fine.

It sounds like you have quite a lot
of friends and see them regularly! What’s the issue?

You're doing fine with your real friends though aren't you? Don't give these others any more headspace. It's not you.

Is it that you don’t have friends that you can do something in the evenings with?

There are lovely women in the world. There are lovely men in the world. There are also horrible men and horrible women.

you can’t gel with everyone - take every person for the individual that they are. Find your tribe. Find your people and you will have lovely friends.

every mum you meet on the school run is not necessarily going to be your type of person - but that doesn’t make every women bad or bitchy - yes some people are like this - but you can’t decide on this tiny sample that 1/2 world based purely on their sex is the same.

Sounding a bit bitchy and catty there.

I do not believe you were dropped for not bitching about people. Nah.

You don't know any women who don't think most women are bitchy and catty? How sad for you.

Tbf I don't think OP was saying that women are like that - I think she wants female friends and was just using that term to describe the particular issue with her in laws

Maybe they are? Why would you assume they are not and there is something wrong with the OP?

Why would you assume women (50% of the world) are not all the same?

Erm because that's sexist bollocks?