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Notes -
May be worth noting HereAndGone2 is a woman because - women as a group tend make poor friends per your definition (which I agree with). In all the women I've known in my life in school or work, they were all just acquaintances despite me putting in work on a platonic level, at least I think so. From my observation of all of my male friends, none of them have any female friends either (unless their wives count), and some of them are very social butterflies not posting on the Motte.
Almost all of the women who have put work in for me are mom and female relatives. I do come from a clannish family so that's probably not surprising. But no unrelated women, except maybe the wife of one of my social friends has ever given me any advice or help. I did not get a chance to befriend that woman unfortunately, as I ended up moving away from the area. I'm still friends with the husband, but we're too busy to socialize now.
Being a woman, I suspect it's difficult to make friends as other women are generally poor friendship material. Men might be difficult to approach as they would see friendship gestures as sexual interest.
I didn’t not know that, :o. Thank you.
Men and women are capable of being friends but in my own life I generally advise against it, especially if they’re in a relationship. I have many women friends in my life but the nature of those friendships is built very differently from the ones I have with my guy friends. (Yes, most of your guy friends want to fuck you; I don’t care how much they lie about it.) It’s also a major reason I don’t date women who keep male friends. Women aren’t stupid, they know what they’re doing by keeping men in the mix that play into the role of their backup plans “just in case.” In a relationship you’re either all in or not. A person who keeps one foot permanently out the door tells you much about the sincerity of their commitment.
Men often interpret women’s friendship as sexual interest because most men get zero attention from women. But I’ve seen it the other way as well, where women insist they’ve dropped every signal and the guy isn’t interested. (No. He sees it. He doesn’t want to risk interpreting your sexual interest as friendship, so he cautions himself not to press it. He’s not stupid either.) The problem is women flirt and express interest with full plausible deniability, and that’s why they lose out on so many opportunities. If you want to make a move, it has to be one that’s unmistakable and that you can’t back out of; you have to be able to bear risking rejection.
There’s only two women in my life (apart from my mother) that I’ve had an “I have to be careful about this person,” moment; who could read me very well; and it was eerie. I loved hanging with them though because they had an incredibly high powered perception and amazing situational awareness. It was very evident to me that they hid their intelligence from the rest of the group, but they were very confident people and just every “once” in awhile they’d drop the mask on purpose. Occasionally we’d be talking about something and look over at each other at the same time and smirk. They knew what I was thinking before I did and could see right through me. They were ‘incredibly’ sharp women and kept me on my toes.
Well said, I have had similar experiences. And I believe it is never good to be a backup man and/or piggy bank, but most men tire of it as they age and see the orbital relationship for what it is. My friend's female cousin is an absolute man eater, to the detriment of every man she lures in and to her own life. Predictably, she works in a strip club, has no dad, and was raised by grandma. She has many, many orbitals.
I agree. And I would never allow myself to be that guy or tolerate that kind of disrespect. If she’s prepared to accept that I’d never marry her I suppose I’d be content with “being a thing,” but I’m not under any illusion for even a moment about what kind of relationship this is.
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Some or most of what you describe is due to the distinct one-sidedness of male-female friendships, compared to male-male or female-female friendships.
Commonly, a woman will tend to expect a male friend to monkey dance and serve as a meatshield for her; spend effort and money on her; help, provide labor, and do favors for her; in ways she wouldn’t expect a female friend to do.
If a female friend asks for help or a favor, she’ll be more inclined to assist since you gotta help a sista out and everyone knows how difficult it is to be a woman. If a male friend asks for help or a favor, he’s being needy, entitled, and/or pathetic. Doesn’t he know how busy she is and how valuable her time and energy are? Ugh, stupid man-child.
This describes approximately 0 male-female friendships I've had, though some relationships may qualify.
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Think you meant female-female friendships in the end of your first paragraph. I may be personally have grown up around many self-centered women, because I noted the female-female friendships seemed shallow without much work put in either direction. Hard to tell though from the outside. This is mostly an observation of my female relatives and former classmates.
Indeed, I did. Fixed.
Or what if the women you grew up around are not unusually self-centered or their friendships not unusually shallow for women?
It’s pretty funny how female friendship groups tend to be self-selected for similar attractiveness levels, with perhaps the exception of a token fat/ugly friend as popular lore would suggest.
No, I think you are preaching to the choir here, I do believe female-female friendships are more shallow compared to male-male friendships. It's why I think HereAndGone2 has trouble finding friendships worth sustaining, there are too few fish in the pond worth the effort.
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