Rollo Tomassi said:
Read more carefully. I'm not calling you your girl-friend's bítch. It's not that you are consciously acting like a woman, it's that women use their template for same sex friendships with their oposite sex 'friends'. They don't experience, nor do they have a common frame of reference for a male friendship template.
Women will never make attempts to engage in their oposite sex friendships on a male frame – men must play friends in their world and on their template. That doesn't necessarily make you her bítch, but it does mean she approaches an opposite sex friendship from the same frame that she does with her girl-friends, thus making you a girl-friend.
What do you suppose is more common, men initiating a friendship with a woman or a woman initiating a friendship with a man?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lh5fR4DMA
Interesting video.
I don't know if everything you are saying here is true. One of the female friends we have is more like a "guy" in the sense we don't and I don't, filter ourselves around her. We talk essentially or mostly the same.
DieHard -- Dude I honestly am not attracted to the women I am friends with. Honestly the idea of them even touching my penis is not very enticing.
The redhead at work I have a crush on...maybe a different story...but honestly I have no sexual interest in these women!
But I hear what people are putting down -- I do acknowledge there are difficulties in male:female friendships, ESPECIALLY when one party is involved in a relationship. I understand there are boundaries -- I understand people filter or distance themselves.
One prime example: Girl I work with is super cool -- I danced with her in town when I first got here and definitely felt her sexual attraction for me. However, she had been sexual with a friend of mine, I was turned off by this, was not interested in her. I none the less think she is a good person, very interesting thoughts, we have built a friendship. But she has recently gotten more serious with her boyfriend. Are there *real differences in behavior as her relationship has progressed?*
Yes of course.
Is it personsal?
No probably not at all.
There are differences in gender friendships I am not debating that in the slightest.
Do I sometimes say, "well what the **** is the point of this at all?" sure. But do these women sometimes surprise me by how they treat me, or suddenly some kind gesture given towards me? Definitely.
I am not a cold-hearted person and I don't want to be an @ss to some chick simply because she has a boyfriend -- and like I said, these girls do really nice things for sometimes.
Rollo you might be right about them trying to interact with you like a woman -- that's why you just can't let that happen -- you have to stand up in those moments that you are a muthafukin MAN -- more than anything I like to just make these women laugh.
There was a SS newsletter about being good with women...one of them denoted simply learning to love women for being women...not looking at the vicious examples in our own lives, or the negative experiences we've had, but rather just trying to embrace this **** rather than fight against it all of the time.
There are good points in this thread. Please don't misperceive my dialogue as any distaste for people on this site, rather I am always open to exploring new concepts and new ways of looking at things.
But you all may be right to some extent -- women definitely want to embrace male friendships, but truth, for most guys, their women friends are "crushes", and that just is a torturous sort of mentality to carry. Can never win that way.
I would advise people if they are going to have opposite gender friends, to keep certain understandings and boundaries in place -- people are just weird in general honestly -- and don't take distance or weird vibes personally. First of all women are lunatics half the time, secondly, any sort of romantic/sexual interest of theirs does often create distance in these male:female relationships, which may speak something in itself.