@Atom Smasher has certainly emphasized from time to time about this place being toxic to women because it gives too much perspective and can warp the way a woman perceives men. I certainly can understand and respect that view.
I’d make the argument however that because I was socialized by my father predominately rather than my mother, who was emotionally bereft, and the fact that my father had 4 daughters but always wanted a son? So I grew up hunting and fishing and helping my father with cars or whatever he was building. In addition all the kids in my neighborhood were boys except my sisters and I…so we played sports, built forts, bikes, skateboarded and caught tadpoles in the creeks while playing in the woods.
I played football with the boys before school. I sat around to hear my father’s friends swap hunting stories. There were no Barbies, no cookie baking, no tea parties. Men were my vernacular growing up, and I grew up heavily socialized in male ways because my dad wanted sons and tomboys were his only alternative. And this never bothered me either. It just was the way of things.
The funny thing was that when jr. high & high school came around, nobody had taught me the ins and outs of female behavior, and suddenly I was that weird tomboy who the boys wouldn’t hang out with because I wasn’t a girly girl and the girls didn’t know me. For years I didn’t understand the appeal of the girly girl. So I ran track and played soccer and studied hard & didn’t really date, although I had become beautiful.
In time I did make close girlfriends, many of whom I am still friends with.
I joined a sorority in college where I became an officer. I did student senate. It wasn’t until college that a group of my girlfriends literally sat me down & explained that a “buddy” wasn’t what young men were interested in & how to be a woman. I mean I knew how to dress & have manners of course but social interaction as a female? I had no idea and was socially awkward for some time. I’m not awkward any more obviously, but I still have to consciously NOT gravitate to chatting up the men at parties because hanging with men is effortless for me, and I have to be aware that it is expected for me to socialize more with women or they get jealous & it creates issues (if women think I’m moving in on their man) so I can’t just hang out with the guys talking cars & Baseball & business, lol. Even though that’s what I’m more interested in.
So trust me. This place isn’t going to make me toxic or too male oriented. My childhood already did that & Ive already equilibrated from that over a long period of time.
But my upbringing has given me remarkable ease and relatability toward men, which makes me a sought after partner because innately I understand male speak and male perspective but now I also embrace my girly girl, which is a powerful thing
So men feel understood and at ease with me, in addition to getting an objectively attractive female specimen.
So I like you guys & I feel comfortable here. But I respect it’s a male space & I have always made effort to interact gracefully here & not engage in too much silliness.
