Any other women have no male friends? do you know why this is?

[LizLemon007]

there some women who have lots of male friends... why is that? I'm clearly not one of them. I have brothers, I went to a mixed school, I'm neither nervous around men, nor am I flirtatious or girly. I've no interest in sport though. I'm not beautiful but I'm not unattractive either. It's always been like this. I have lots of female friends. That's easy.

I'm a single parent, and I am seeing somebody at the moment, but although he's a lovely man and I'm a lovely woman I don't think our friendship is as strong as the friendships I have with my female friends. We are attracted to each other and respect each other and like each other.

I've always got on well with my friends' husbands, my x's friends, friends borhters etc.. so I am friendly with men but that's it. I guess at work I was friendly with some male colleagues but again, it was never a proper friendship. Why?

Some people say their partner was their friend first. That's what I'd really like, the kidn of easy companionship in a relationship that you get when your bf is your friend.

Tell me what sort of woman has lots of male friends. Are you one? did you marry a male friend? In which case, does that mean that all mixed sex friendships hinge on one party being attracted to the other anyway?

I do notice that beautiful /particularly attractive women would have a lot of male friends.

Well, I can't be beautiful/particularly attractive as I've not masses of male friends either . I think I just prefer the company of women though, I've noticed that I actively dislike quite a lot of my friends' husbands and partners...

I'm in no way beautiful! But I do have male friends more than female ones.

However they have to be a certain type of man, too - often a bit unusual, the sort who accepts me being how I am, not that I know what that is iyswim - but I am quite a lonely person and sometimes so are they. And they are usually single, too.

Most men who are happily married and 'normal' wouldn't be my friend though they would be polite and pleasant to me.

I would not try and move in on someone's husband. I see that as well beyond boundaries. But if a man is single, I might become close to him.

I think I'm the sort of woman other women see as odd or different (even the men say this but don't say why) and I have always been afraid of having female friends as my mother and sister and other female relatives never seemed very fond of me, while my Dad was always very sweet with me. I think that can affect you for life...when you anticipate or fear not being liked, you generally will give off the wrong vibe I suppose.

So I just hang out with a few odd men, have female acquaintances - I get on with them and have a laugh but we are never around each other much. I did have a best friend who was a woman but she died, and before that, she lived many miles away so that made it 'safer' for me.

HTH

I have more male friends and find it easier to get on with them.

I struggle with females sometimes.

I am not into sport but mentally I have more masculine type thoughts, however, I dress femininely.

I once did the online test which measures how me/female your brain is and I came out at the same level of masculinity as my male friends.

The analitics at the end explained that I'm am missing key female brain functions such as empathy and some other stuff, which I can't quite remember now.

I do tend to get fed up of females who ate OTT in their giggliness and girliness and can't stand it when women won't try something because they think its something a man should do.

I quite happily will get my hands dirty and fix the car, do the gardening, use machinery etc...

Btw I should add, I don't find women annoying or anything. I'm just really scared of them. I know it's irrational. I spend every moment thinking they are going to start hating me when they find out what I am really like - based on nothing, in particular.

I tend to assume men - well some men - will like me, also with no apparent reason. Just cos of how I grew up I think.

I have a lot of male friends although my best friends are female. I think it stems back to my early schooldays when I was picked on by a lot of the girls, found that whole 'best friend one minute, worst enemy the next' thing ridiculous and found the boys, by contrast, less complicated & therefore far easier to get along with. They were also much easier to manipulate than the girls which I rather liked.... call me shallow. :) DM tells me that I was often to be found organising theatrical productions in the back garden with all the local boys as my willing actors, happily doing any daft thing I asked. (A talent not wasted in my subsequent career!)

Did I marry a male friend? I thought I did until he walked out for someone else. Would I risk it again? Put it this way, I wouldn't entertain 'life' with a man that I couldn't get along with as a friend. But yes, I do think that in a lot of allegedly platonic relationships there is a sexual undercurrent.

A lot of laddy unnattractive women have lots of male friends too and I'm sure there are lots of types in between who do and don't have lots of male friends.

I have very few male friends and totally accept that I gravitate towards women more than men from a friendship perspective. Really good female friendships are awesome and I am blessed in that respect to have met some fantiastic supportive women at certain points in my life.

I have in my life had two close male friends (other than my DH) but think that this was more because they were the type of men to have female friends than because I am the type of woman to have male friends IYSWIM. In the case of one of the men I did over time become aware that he was attracted to me and we had a relationship which had the timing been better could have been something really special, as you say because of the long term friendship which went before it. In the case of the other man I am certain there has never been any attraction whatsoever. In the case of my DH we met on a blind date so no friendship there either but he is still now without a doubt my best friend and confidant so it does not always have to come from friendship first. I kind of made a decision to be more open with DH than I had in previous relationships - a leap of faith, I suppose.

I definitely have more male friends than female. Like someone else said further up thread they are usually men who are a little bit different. I am also aware that other women perhaps find me strange, i'm not sure why but i think they see me differently to other women. I also have a difficult relationship with my mum; growing up i always felt that she loved my brother more than me & i think this has affected the way i relate to women. I was aloso concerned about having daughters for this reason so was very happy to have 2 sons! Should add that I do have female friends but they are mainly lesbians, i bore very easily of girly giggly women. DP was a friend for 2 years before we got together; now he is my best friend

I went to a male dominated college at university and back then, and at law school/in my first job, I had loads of male friends. However over the years I've found the numbers have dwindled. I now have practically none - they have all dropped me (willingly or at their DP/DW behest) when they got into long term relationships/got married. Or they tried it on with me and I had to drop them. Or I realised I liked them and had to put an end to it for that reason. Either way I've never found male-female friendships work in the long run. Which is a shame.

That's interesting Cogito.

I suppose I have three or four close male friends - one is an ex who is now married but yes, there's still a sexual element to it - he always wants to hook up - we did have a child together and in some ways are still really close but I resist the sex, I just don't see the point to it if we're not together or committed. (yuck) Otherwise we get on pretty well...we have to really.

Second one is someone I can't afford to be intimate with, though he wants to be - he also lives with someone else, and it seems futile and pointless to get involved but we have a good chat and a 'working' relationship without that.

Third person I knew since school, he is odd, has a fascination for women - the more odd and stroppy we are the better - and I am one of many. He now has a girlfriend but still says stupid things like he loves me, blah blah blah. He doesn't. It's just a comfort thing. He's probably gay. Also lives many miles away.

Fourth friend is an absolutely smashing, very beautiful and totally out of my league guy who is resistant to marriage or commitment I think. He's divorced. We are very close at times - we hang out together, with all our children, he asks my opinion on things, we are like an old married couple but we don't have sex. We experimented with it for a while but he always said he wanted to stay friends and tbh it works best that way anyway. Though I do fancy him, I think we're too different for it to work out long term.

Thanks for all the thoughts. I'd never try to develop an inappropriate friendship with a married man btw! I would be very conscious of boundaries etc...

I guess what I feel is that I'd find it easy and natural to be the friend of men but that that is clearly not reciprocated. men do not want to be my friend. I am fine with my female friends but would like male friendships too. I guess just a bit of balance, a bit of mixed company sometimes (which I'm excluded from being a single parent)

I was chatting to a woman who is like Barbie, and a bit.... of a simple soul really. She has "loads of male friends". I bet she does.

It's taken me years to have even the number of friends that I do. It's pretty easy to have men fancy you but to have a relationship with one, that is a trusting and close relationship where you can talk, and do things together and respect each other is a bit harder.

Same with women I guess. I'm just so averse to that as I always think it will go horriby wrong, even if it is going well.

I doubt you are doing anything wrong - I envy women who are able to have close female friends. It sounds so special. I have never really had that.

I think I have a lot of 'inappropriate friendships' with married men unfortunately :) My side of it isn't inappropriate in the slightest - I'm a good girl I am - but I know for a fact that the DWs are unaware that we talk on the phone or meet for supper occasionally. I am nothing like Barbie and I don't encourage them to be secretive but, hey, if everyone liked the same thing & behaved impeccably wouldn't the world be a dull place?

I wonder why no men ring me up ?? I'm good company! I like men, but I like women too. I do prefer women's company I think, but I miss a bit of male friendship.

I did get close to a married man the other year - thing is he was the only person in the playground I felt safe with as we were new to the school, and both rather awkward.

I liked the easy conversation. I did develop a crush on him but never acted on it and it went away by itself in the end.

I would have felt weird doing anything in secret with him, and he never would have crossed that line with me.

I think if you are very careful not to let anything happen - even as far as an emotional affair - then it's Ok to have a passing crush on someone, as long as you recognise that's all it is and dismiss it and actively prevent it causing any damage, never disclose it etc. I far prefer his wife to him, now I know her

Why do no men call you? It's complicated. Most of my male friends are from way back so we first connected as kids when the boundaries between male and female are a lot more blurred and no-one has any expectations or baggage. Adult men meeting adult women is always such a loaded thing unless you're thrown together in some sort of activity like a job or a hobby. Even then, if everyone is single there's a lot of scope for misunderstanding. If he has a female partner of some kind, they may be reluctant to make a new female friend because they think there will be jealousy.

I was bullied by girls as a teen and it coloured my view of women. Ever since then I have had mainly male friends, and only a few select female friends who I have got to know very slowly and know inside out. Those women are friends for life, whereas the male friends tend to be a bit more transient, as their relationship status does have an impact. Single guys are easy to be friendly with, as are some coupled up guys. Those in a very new relationship or with a jealous partner will drop their female friends for obvious reasons.

It is easy to make male friends if you have something in common - work, the same gym, that kind of thing. It can be awkward if you are single as they may get the wrong idea. I also think that with all male/female friendships there is an element of attraction. Nothing to act on, just a vague pull, and friendly flirting.

To add, I find men a lot more reliable as friends.

It's my birthday (and I will cry if I want to), I asked all my closest friends over two weeks ago just to come for a loal curry and see some live music tonight.
All my girlfriends have let me down at the last minute, so it's just me and the boys.

Also: I was best friends with my DH at 12 years old. We were inseperable.

I think that's it cogito. I'm never 'thrown together' with men. Not any more anyway. Looking back to my mid 20s when I shared a house with a whole load of other people roughly the same age. Two of them were men. I managed to stay in touch with one for a fair while. We had worked together in Ireland, then met each other by chance in London, then both ended back up in Ireland again! We always get on like a house on fire when we met up, but each time I would text and be the one to say, lunch? and he'd text back and say *sur name, how are you!' He is a good guy. But I felt like I was chasing him because although he was happy to meet up, he never, ever initiated the meeting up.

In my experience most men do not want female friends. (Alot of men don't even want male friends!) They will stick around only if they are attracted to you & there is a vague hope one day you might shag them. As soon as you or they get a serious relationship they melt away and will only interact with you in an 'aquaintance' sort of way.

I know I sound bitter, but it's from experience - my own and female friends of mine.

That is my experience too tbh.

I wouldn't worry about feeling you're "chasing" someone, they might just be rubbish at getting in touch!

I was "friends first" with DP, but he isn't a friend in the same way a female friend is. I don't know how it's different - I mean, I've always been able to talk to him easily etc - it just is.

Dragon I think a lot of men think like that but definitely not all.

It's funny but my close friend does seem to really want a woman around.

I've met his folks, he always wants my opinion on things he's doing or planning, we cook and wash up together, look after each other's kids and when he has a social thing planned, it's always me he asks round to help him host, or get it ready so often people assume we're 'together', because I act like I live there - but then he doesn't introduce me to people, either. It's quite confusing.
And the sexual attraction goes both ways but we're both afraid of it getting awkward again so we steer around it.

Sometimes it's like he doesn't know me - he goes off somewhere, I on't know where he is or he doesn't bother to text for ages - but then he will initiate a lot of contact for a while. I think he feels kind of safe with me as I am so afraid of commitment too.

Used to have male friends but then went through maternity leave/children (obviously)/toddler groups etc and found for a while that all my friendships were with women as we quite simply had more to talk about and if I talked to my male friends at that time it was about gender politics, where they came off rather badly I suppose.

I tend to gravitate towards men as friends (not necessarily close friends, but friends all the same), simply because I feel like they judge me less than women. I have no proof if this is true, but that's how I feel. If going out in a large group of either men or women, I would always choose to go with the men.
I am generally quite a flirty, chatty, loud person, and often say what I mean without thinking. Not all of my male friends are close friends, but I have a couple of really good male friends, that I wouldn't want to be without.
I have female friends too though. Each friend brings something different to my life, and different views, whichever gender they are.
The things they all have in common, is that I don't have to put on a front with them, they all care about me, they don't judge me, and I trust them completely. These are the most important things, not their gender.
I have 6 really close friends. 4 women and 2 men.

I'm in no way amazingly attractive (passable IMO) but I have honestly found that almost every boy/man I became friends with wanted more than friendship.
I just got fed up in the end and stuck to female friends.
I do have male colleagues who I am friends with in a round about way, but again, they expressed more than a platonic interest so I was put in a position where I had to make myself clear and now it's fine.
I have never found men more honest than women TBH?
Women either like you or they don't, whereas men pretend to be friends but have hidden agendas ahem.
My hubby isn't particularly insecure but he has admitted he does feel threatened by other men ocassionally. Luckily he doesn't make a big deal out of it or be difficult with me.
I do find now though that what male friends I do have usually bring their relationship problems to me. Lol. x