My friend's male friend is obsessed with female company

[anamynous]

This is about a friend of mine who is not on mumsnet.

It's unbelievable. She has known him for a few years now and she reckons he wants female company all the time and nothing or no one is ever enough.

After he got divorced, he got close to my friend and they considered being together. But he would cancel dates with her in favour of meeting some other women. Desperate to understand the pattern, she had a look at his whatsapp one day and as she suspected, it was full of chats with women (nothing sexual but really long conversations about work, their holidays, life in America, yes, some of them were his colleagues in the US). When she asked him about it, he didn't deny any of it. He said he is a very nice man, loves being with her and wouldn't cheat on her but there is one thing - he loves hanging out with lots of women. He just loves female company. He finds emotional support in women that he could never find in a man. He loves getting hugs from them when he meets them and thinks it is never enough. To him, every woman is beautiful and would take anything he would get from them - a smile, a chat, a hug, some friendship. He has no male friends and doesn't want any.

She broke up with him eventually(after so many fights) but continued being his friend. Although no business of mine, this made me very curious. I took her permission to post it here and would want to know if anyone else experienced this seemingly weird behaviour from men.

Men that tell you that they're nice are often full of issues.
Genuinely nice people don't tend to go round telling people that they're nice. Big red flag

Some people just get on better with the opposite sex
He could have a more 'female' brain
Or lacking affection from his mum when a child

Oh please

My ex partner just said he felt more at ease with women as men he met tended to have limited topics of chat and he isn’t a traditional/stereotypical man and doesn’t like football or sports. He also has a few non traditional/stereotypical male friends but at school they were bullied for being nerdy losers so he thinks even though like minded men often want to connect with each other they often end up not connecting when younger because it’s not socially acceptable and then learn how to fit in with a generic crowd instead of stand out. I was never jealous as they were not inappropriate relationships with women they were just platonic. He just talked to them about mutual interests not emotional stuff. He said as a man in a social situation, men will pretty much always bring up sport and he either has to be honest he’s not sporty and lose their attention or pretend he does to keep the convo going. With women he says they ask more questions or are more open to a variety of topics

Ugh, sounds like one of those men that occupy women’s time and attention because they feel their entitled to it. You see it on here sometimes, men posting ridiculously long OPs that could be summed up in a paragraph but sort of do this emotional dump on women, and want women to then play mummy and fix it all for him whilst telling him what a nice boy he is. Some women are happy to provide it, others find it draining.

Well it would depend - he has.lots of things he likes about being friends with women, but does he give back? Is he there for them? Because if in a relationship he can't even commit to a date, I suspect all these women who think he's their friend find themselves disappointed when they need more than a hug....!

He just likes having his ego stroked.

He could be one of those guy friends that just usually get "friend zoned" & genuinely prefers female friends?

I have an ex like this, female friends and gay friends. Most of his female friends he had either been in a relationship with or had snogged. It smacks of wanting to be wanted.

@SavBlancTonight, I know what you mean. Though a lot of women don't mind having someone like that as their friend, I wonder if it's a good dating scene to have.

It’s hard to say without knowing him, but it really could be anything that has been described above. I knew a boy like this at school. Was a bit flirty and had a huge group of female friends. I bumped into him years later and not surprisingly found out his is gay. I have also known men that have a female best friend. Some of them were (from what I could see) having emotional relationships with them, some were genuinely just friends. and in one case it was just weird, I guess she was a pick me girl, that didn’t want to date him, but destroyed everything relationship he had by having to be his priority over a partner.

My stance on it was I wasn’t fussed if someone I dated had female friends. If they only had female friends or one specific ‘best friend’ (we are best friends nothing has ever happened between us, we have shared a bed and seen each other naked). KMN. It’s an immediate end to the relationship. No discussion.

I'm a (straight) man. All my friends are women. I house share with two men and I've male colleagues at work, but beyond polite chit chat over the weather or whatever I wouldn't socialise with them.
My women friends are all just that, friends, we chat a lot and go out, hug, there's nothing flirty about it, nothing sexual. Some are single, some have partners, and if the partners think it's weird or creepy then that's their imagination or trust issue causing a problem, not me.
I simply dont have much in common with the average stereotypical man. Sport, football, boxing, action films, pints, buffing up, gaming, I've no interest in any of that.
I'm more likely to watch reality TV, drink cocktails and comment on Mumsnet lol.
Maybe the op's friends friend is like me?

Well, women only talk about makeup, baking and laundry 🙄

I'd put my top dollar on your ex being socially awkward and choosing women as his "safe place". Nothing's wrong with that (as some young men really can be loud, crude and physical in a nerd unfriendly way) . But there's also nothing wrong with mens ability to keep a varied conversation.
At my workplace some women talk sports and fitness daily and some men will say that the last they cared about sport was the egg & spoon race in primary.

I also find that some men who actually struggle with establishing romantic/sexual relationships will surround themselves with female friends. A Friend Zone is better than No Zone.

I find it difficult to trust a man who can't hold down friendships with other men. And if a bloke I started dating only had female friends, I'd wonder what was wrong with him.

I quite clearly said women are open to a wider variety of topics, there was nothing I said that insinuated this was hair make up and baking. I also just told you what a man actually told me that it’s socially awkward at times as men of older generations are more likely to be socially conditioned to make ‘small talk’ about general interests like sport. He would probably agree with you that not all men are like this as he has some close male friends but they all felt socially awkward at school for liking science and not caring about their footwear choices or football, and got bullied for it.

As he’s an actual man, and this is his viewpoint and experiences I don’t really understand why you have psychoanalysed it all to skew it and invalidate it into something else. If we go with this interpretation then yes, aggressive toxic masculinity/boys bullying other boys for being nerds or not liking sport probably means guys grow up to be more inclined to view women as less threatening and more appealing conversationalists.

We went to a wedding once with him (as adults) and all the ‘lads’ stood round bragging about cars, money, gambling, women and talking about sport, ex DP is just not this kind of person and is more comfortable outside of toxic masculinity so he left the chat to come to talk to the women and we had more fun. Even my BIL and best friends husband tend to stick with safe topics of sport as small talk, they would always greet my ex with this, they are able to move on to different more interesting topics if you get to know them better which takes time and investment from both sides to find a common ground.

What Somewhere said

Also, depends on the power dynamic I'd say

I think being part of a mixed group for "whatever" reason in 2023 is fine.

Socislising "naturally" say at group events or shared interests is cool.

The chasing after people/potentially getting involved in drama triangles and toxic situations seems unbalanced and emotionally unhealthy.

It's not a "jealousy" thing, it's more the inability to set boundaries/vibe of desperation/potential for drama that is a bit "ick".

I have found female friendships harder for a few reasons, and find men easier?

I've learned not to "force" things though with men I get on with, and take a light touch, and keep it as a superficial/"as and when" thing rather than being a pseudo-date.

As if I'm not romantically interested in them, then (rightly so) they will or will be or should be prioritising their partner over me.

Tbh I havent found the modern image of men and women "socialising like equals" really that accurate or emotionally healthy for many people.

I'm aging now so "hopefully" wiser but looking back

• Many male "friends" I had were after some pseudo-relationship/certainly didn't have my best interests at heart/were generating a drama triangle with their ppartner and having me as "fall guy".

• A lot of so-called "we're just BESTIES" style interactions are often when one party is clearly secretly after the other person/or even they met on online dating and one turned the other down

• I think "ad-hoc" interactions can be fine (or if there's some genuinely super-specialised activity parties want to do together)

• but careful 1-1 planning and treating people like "social Plan Bs" or "fallback Girls/guys " has always turned out a bit weird? Like just "collecting" people inauthentically.

• If some social connection arises, then let it, but being actively 1-1 pursued by some guy is a bit weird.

• I agree it is hard to meet genuine people, but there's nothing wrong with focussing on family/work/life goals and having fairly light social contact or finding absorbing hobbies - loneliness is natural and we all have it.

• I do get the points made about interests/chat topics/emotional support but there's Reddit and chat forums now so if you're into some obscure topic you can chat with your fellow enthusiasts all you like!

• No need to be WhatsApping "someone" in particular.

Interesting discussion. I don't anve anything insightful to add, as I can see almost every viewpoint that's being suggested here.

Possibly slightly off topic, but @Naunet's post does put their finger on exactly why it is I often - not always - feel irritated by men posting on mn. It's clarified my feelings about it. Thank you 🙏

@Somewhereovertherainbowweighapie
Sorry, but what does KMN mean?
Know my ......?????

@Rogue1001MNer, kmn- perhaps it means Come on?

@Rogue1001MNer it means kill me now

I have no patience with women who say they prefer friendships with men because they are "more straightforward" and "talk about interesting things" either.....

Love it!!!!

Thank you.

Will use that going forward!!!

Why did she think it was ok to 'look at his WhatsApp'?