Warning: This post will contain vast generalisations about the female sex. If you don't care to read such broad, sweeping statements, piss off.
The older I get, the more I dislike women. I know I'm being very disloyal, but damn, women are hard work. Growing up I was never the sort to have many friends, choosing to associate exclusively with a group of three or four female friends. I had a lot of female acquaintances, but our relationships never extended beyond pleasantries. The friends I was close to in junior high and high school remain my main "real life" friends to this day.
Since high school, I don't think I have made a "real life" female friend. Sure, I have lovely little internet friends who are women, but throughout college and jobs I've had since graduating high school, I have not struck up a friendship with a woman. I have made friends in that time, all males, gay and straight. The Dude is not too happy with the hetero side of this, as he mistrusts my male friends, believing that all they want to do is get up on it. As it happens, this may be the case with two of them, but c'mon ladies, who wouldn't? Uh huh. You know it. Err..anyway, these male friends know that I am (usually) happily married, so the parameters of our relationships are set. No big deal.
When I moved to the UK, I figured I would attempt to make female friends somehow. Women to go to dinner with, go out for coffee, have lengthy talks about books, celebrity gossip, movies, badgers, etc. Essentially, the sort of relationship I had with my small number of other real world friends. However, this is not to be.
I have found myself involved in a friendship by accident, one which by the time I realised I was considered a good friend, it was too late to escape. This has made me realise the very reason I do not befriend women -- they are far too needy. It is drama and histrionics all the time, and I do not have time for this. I have enough going on in my own life without having to shoulder the burdens of other peoples' lives, especially when I deem their problems far less significant than my own. I don't have the emotional resources to pretend that I care about issues the people should really not be freaking out over.
For instance, said friend has panic attacks over being in a room without clear access to a bathroom. Fine. Is there really a need to weep and wail over this though? Is it necessary to tell everyone how very serious this issue is and demand they not laugh at your perceived grevious misfortune? Must there be hand-wringing and whining? I do what any good friend would do in this situation -- I shrug and walk away. I am a bitch, aren't I? Men. No drama. Not from the straight ones anyway.
I'm not saying women can't have problems and vent them. Why else would all of us blog? I just think there is a way of going about it which is not so bloody melodramatic. As I've mentioned before, I've dealt with depression and this little thing called infertility, but the only place I talk about it is on my blog. In real life, there isn't much of a place for it. I think the more people go on about things and complain about them, the more trivial their problems appear to others. I don't want that to happen to me, so I pretend it doesn't exist. This may explain the rage, anger, and bitterness that is rife in the blog. Hmm...
Thank fuck for the blogging world is all I can say. Where are you ladies in my real life?? I'll take your drama, at least you all do it right.
22 comments:
Yep. I can relate. I skirted the fringe of this conversation the other day... I too have had mostly male friends... gay, straight, bi... whatever. I have a couple close female friends... but they are VERY low drama... I can't hack more than a couple of women close to me... drives me batty.
Eh. Michael and I talked about this last night actually. He's out of town, and said I should take it upon myself to "go out and have fun with people from work" since I was looking to "make friends" in the new city. The idea of sitting around with women I barely knew for the evening made me ill.
His response - go out with the guys from work, they'll be less needy - trust me!
I have pretty close female friends, but we don't seem to do the melodrama much. Perhaps because we've known each other for so long? But I tell you guys more than I tell them.
I love that you wrote this post. I was beginning to think I was crazy for not wanting to listen to one of my friend's crazy drama yesterday.
Thank god for bloggers. We keep it real.
I have only one good girlfriend and we live about 500 miles away from each other. She's moving a mere 50 miles away soon and I wonder if that will ratchet up the drama a notch or five. I have had to make a lot of "aquaintance" friends so that I don't go completely out of my gourd staying home with G. without adult interaction, but even those "friendship lite" relationships are a little too dramatic for my taste. Glad you posted about this!
And boy do I wish I'd never told my aquaintances here in our new city about our fertility treatment woes. Now I just try to change the subject when it comes up.
Who was it who posted about word verification names? I've got the best one here: "oogzeum" A museum of oogz?
Women can truly be tiring. Luckily, I've been surrounded by some pretty good ones, but I've ran into (and even lived with) the ultra-dramatic ones in my life. The crying, the long talks about feelings, the complaining about feeling left out of things, about no one caring about their point of view, about no guys liking them, etc. Ugh.
And I'll tell you where all of us ladies in your real life are -- THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY, on the other side of the freakin' Atlantic. MOVE!
Oh lord. I think we have the same friend. I am also currently going through issues with a "friend" whom I just can't stand to be around for more than 5 minutes. Her melodramatic attitude drives me batty.
I have 4 bff from HS, 2 are male and I stay in touch with them more than I do the females. The guys are just easier, much more laid back.
Some women can be real head-cases.
Badgers! We could sing the badger song all day long and piss people off. Most of my mates are men as well. They are just easier.
I feel the same way about female friendships. The one thing I have noticed though is that women who say they don't like other women usually end up being good friends.
Just something I've noticed.
I have a few close female friends, but don't discuss my IF much at all with them. I prefer to vent in my blog. I prefer staying home and aren't that big on social interaction, in fact one of my sisters used to regularly accuse me of being anti social.
My last best friend no longer talks to me. I have no idea why, she came to my wedding and then never returned my phone calls or responded to invites after that. I was pissed off and hurt for a while and then realised I was relieved as she used to over analyse every bloody situation that happened to her and go on for hours about it whilst chain smoking. So now i don't really have a best friend.
Oh, I can so relate. While I do have 3 or 4 good girlfriends, all are longtime school-age friends, and none live nearby. And my sister ... best friend. But as I'm entering my 30s, life is changing, etc., and I've been trying to make an effort to befriend more women.
One of my most recent attempts soured me on the whole effort .. apparantly I wasn't in tune with her needs, not being as good a friend as I was "supposed" to be, etc. Well, it's not like we were married.
Anyway, it's hard, as some of my husband's friends have grown to be my close friends as well, and they are so much easier to deal with!!!! And often, more fun!
one of my favorite lines is 'bunch o' bitches' - but I apply that to men and women. I love women, but so many of them are a bunch of fucking nutbags. The drama queens get up my back in a big way. I've posted recently about some whores (he he) pissing me off and kicking me when I've been down.
My best friend is a man and although he's sometimes cold, we have great fun and I never worry about him getting hurt feelings by my humor!
I hear that, Pru. In fact, a drama queen girlfriend was the reason I quit my public blog and moved over here with all of you. I have a few good female friends now and I try my very best to be as good to them as they are to me. Women who need to have thier emotional temperature taken every five minutes (especially over something trivial) really, really annoy me.
A few months ago, the woman I've been friends with since the first day of uni, who was my Matron of Honour at our wedding, actually said to me:
"I'm *supposed* to be your best friend. I want you to come over and whinge about your husband more."
Why? So I could help her validate her feelings about how fucked her marraige is? Puuhleeese. I pretty much kicked myself out of *that* gang. Then Monkey Boy and i had a great lauugh about how I should go round there and whinge about how considerate my husband is and how dare he not give me anything to whinge to my girlfriends about.
Chicks! Who needs em?
I only have one or two female friends. And they are either not having drama, or there drama is so silly I can laugh at in front of their faces. If I couldn't laugh at them, I doubt we'd be good friends.
My friends are carefully selected to be drama free. In fact, I pretty much require that people I associate with with to have gone through some sort of perspective-giving trauma. I just don't relate to women (or men) who've had everything given to them (and not just financially). So I guess you're all pretty much in.
I have been burned in so many female friendships, if you knew me in real life, I'm sure you'd describe me as stand-offish. I am friendly with many women, but not really intimate with any. As an adult, I have been a serial monogamist and have counted my man as the one I open up with and depend on.
But, I LOVE my women aquaintance/friends! No one is funnier or better to have a drink with! I have always been envious of the whole soul sisters female friendship Sex in the City ideal, but I'm not so sure it EXISTS!
Oh, and one more thing....As a special education teacher in a class for students with behavior problems, I always have said give me 5 boys over one girl. It makes me feel a little guilty, like I'm betraying my kind, but OH.MY.GOD! The havoc one imbalanced little girl can wreak! The drama, the manipulation. Boys just get mad and throw things, but girls have this amazing intuitive ability to find your weakness, your most sensitive button and push is ever so precisely.
Thank you for this post! If I did the same one I'd never hear the end of it. I met my issue person online and she has drove me totally insane ever since. Needy? She is the definition of needy.
I'm so low maintenance that I just don't get these high maintenence chicks at all!
It's really interesting that so many of us in the IF blogosphere would classify ourselves as not being drama queens.
It takes me a very long time to make friends. I don't open up to people quickly, but the friends that I have made that way are all still my friends. I seem to have picked up one or two from each stage of my life. They're all female though. I had a bunch of male friends in college, but I've never been *close* to a man aside from my boyfriends / hub.
I went to hockey camp a few years ago with a friend who turned into a total drama queen that weekend, although she'd never been one before. Her bf didn't call her when she was expecting him to, so all of a sudden it was "he doesn't love me..." over and over again. Then, at 2am she woke me up saying "there must be something wrong... he's still not answering his phone". OH MY GOD. I told her that the most likely explanation was that he went out drinkig with friends and was now passed out. This went on for the rest of the weekend, and got so bad that we didn't say a word to each other on the ride home.
And of course I was exactly right. I didn't talk to her for almost a year after that because it pissed me off so much that she was being such a GIRL!
What amazes me is the distance between me as a blogger and me as a friend In Real Life--In Real Life I am VERY taciturn when it comes to fertility related things--probably that is part of why I adore blogging so much in the first place--it gives me a place to be very forward about things I would never presume to go on (and on and on) to others about, because, like you, I have a low tolerance for the drama of female friendships...
Oh yes, RL friends are hard hard work. It was only when I discovered blogging that I fell in love with the camaraderie of women anew. but maybe that's because it tends to be a take or leave it kind of thing. What can I say? I am an anti-social bitch, generally. But would talk to you about badgers any day.
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