I realized the other night that over the past 6 years or so, my closest friends have all been gay men, then straight men, and any women I hang out with are friends with the guys. It's not that I don't get along with women, but I feel like I am most comfortable talking and hanging out with guys.
So who are you friends with mostly?
And another question, are your hobbies/ interests more masculine or feminine, or a mix of both? I think I'm into things that are neutral to masculine. I'm currently working set construction and will be crew for the show for a musical theatre company. (building things with powertools- M, Musical theater- super gay). I'm also into biking, and went for a 10 mile ride today to kick of my training for a triathlon this summer, and Photography (Neutral) and hopefully soon I will start horseback riding again after 4 years off from 10 years of competition (pretty neutral, but kinda considered Fem)
I'm not really friends with any sort of person as such, I don't have enough control of my environment to be able to do that.
I'm drawn to people I can have easy and free flowing conversations with, they tend to be a little arty - but are not heavy into the theory of it as much as the practice - have a sense of humour and trust a conversation to find it's own shape - but the fact is, at a pinch, I'll make friends with someone if we can argue about britpop and tell each other off-colour topical jokes - 'S'long as neither of us has to work too hard for the conversation. These people come in every age and gender.
As for interests, if it's free I can generally be interested in it.
I'm generally uncomfortable with women. No female friends.
All my other friends tend to be about my height, about my race and of course share interests with me.
Don't have many friends though, it's hard to find people compatible with my personality. I think I put most people off.
As for interests. . . I don't know, I think they're pretty gender neutral with some masculinity. Hmm. . . well, I like art, video games, blades, reading, running, not much else I can think of.
Like SilverFang I don't have very many (or really any) friends right now (just moved back here and haven't found any). Growing up my best friend was a fellow tomboy (she's now a butch lesbian) and together we had mostly guy friends although other tomboys joined in every so often. In high school I was friends with mostly lesbians but I really only hung out in groups that tended to be balanced male/female with most people being gay (which is weird because I identified as straight in high school-- I just never dressed or acted like a girl). In college I went to an all girls college (I'm hoping that doesn't affect my getting a letter later on) and really only had one close friend who was a straight girl but who was very masculine in interests and behavior, and all my other friends were women, but no girly-girls.
I guess my interests tend towards the masculine with some feminine things mixed in. When I was little I was into basketball, softball and karate but I also loved chorus, which was almost all girls. In high school I was completely obsessed with all things military and was way into Air Force JROTC and US Naval Sea Cadets as well as playing trumpet and tuba (usually male instruments) in band. In college I played tennis and swam but I also joined our all-female choir. As an adult I still sing in choirs when I get the chance and I picked up karate again. So I guess I have a mix with the majority being more male-oriented.
Hi..
Age here will be a factor , i was in the navy through school & in the band as a side drummer . plus choirs,in the 60 s so was both male & female .
interests , wood work & sewing a mix really . it was not hard & fast , of cause i did cabinat making & building plus a lot of other work as well .
sports were hocky & tennis & ice skating .
Most of my friends are women with a few men , in the many groups i am in . so we have contact quite a lot ,
camara clubs & our edwardian group we dress in that time frame,
& of cause those i know over a long time .
& if you put your self out there & become a part of those groups you can have many friends along the way.
...noeleena...
When I moved to my partner's town, I also moved into her circle of friends. The majority is female but there are also some males of which one I have a very good relationship with since we used to work together.
It's a rather 'dysfuctional' (both in the good and the psychiatric ways) group that likes to break into closed buildings and climb churches in the middle of the night, dress up as pirates to promote the Pastafarian believe, and fight kids over a hill since they want to go sledding. I love them, they make an uneventful life impossible and accept everyone the way they are. 8)
Peculiar somewhat, they are often labeled as 'gay' since they don't meet male/female 'standards'. I wonder if that's why I feel at ease with them.
As for hobbies... I like to read and write, I'm a gamer (PC and PS3), an art appreciator and part of the Alternate Reality Game-hive. I also love fitness, enjoy watching movies, and ocassionally visit a musical (and Cirque du Soleil). I'm not sure if those are masculine or feminine activities. Never really looked at it that way.
I have very few friends, which i believe is because of my personality, and because I can't fit in with men very well. I find them boring, actually, and they find me weird. Touche.
I get along with women pretty well, but about the only exposure I get there is via my wife's friends. They all think i'm cute :D
I also travel a lot for work, and that puts a real damper on meeting people. I don't hang out in bars and that sort of thing when I travel, not my kind of place.
My work role requires me to be able to get along with almost anybody, and I do that well, even when the person is being very disagreeable.
Hobbies - as i get older my interests have started to change. I did the usual masculine things with cars and so on when I was younger, but now not so much. My hobbies now would probably be cooking, reading, watching movies, and spending quality time with my family.
I don't have very many friends right now. I feel I confuse people and that dumbfounds them. I don't know about anyone else but my geographical location is rural. When I go to classes the girls there are very femme and the guys are just guys... and then there's three of us (that I know of) who are um... different? ::)
I'm not outting myself (being stealth and quiet... for the most part) but the people at school seem cool but that's not saying much. I did make one cool friend there who is GG. She's a very open person and she annoyed me at first but we get along for the most part. There are two trans in class who I don't really talk to, not because I don't want to- but it just hasn't happened yet. I don't want to force a friendship just because of our status if you get my drift.
I definitely like meeting new people and like riven1 I don't do bars as they are not my place either. I'm a pretty quiet person when I need to be. I like gaming, improving my tech skills, and school. I enjoy life and like my sig says VVV
Most of my closest friends are people I met in school. They are generally very open minded and they are all very artistic. They are mostly all women and a few guys. Over all I meet people all the time, whether they become friends or not is a very different story.
I guess not many hobbies have changed, but I love to cook a lot more than I used too, so I guess that counts...I still love my old MGA, but I don't like to get as greasy as I used to, preferring a good British sports car mechanic that loves her like his own :)
I am and have always been really uncomfortable around girls and women. All my close friends are men; I tend to be drawn to gay men, but relate to straight men just as easily. When I was in high school my group of friends could be best described as "band geek/gaming nerd," and in my senior year, 8 of the 11 guys in the subgroup I hung out with the most came out as gay. When I was in the military, though, all my friends were at least superficially straight men, of the cowboy/big truck variety. Now I'm back to hanging mostly with gay gamers.
As far as hobbies, mine are gaming, fixing computers, programming, reading sci-fi, working out, camping/hiking, off-roading, and I used to play trombone, baseball, and soccer. Mostly male-gendered stuff, I guess. But I also love cheesy romantic comedies and pop music and going out dancing.
Well, anyone who's friendly with me! If I may say so myself, I think I'm fairly easy to get along with so I've got quite a few friends, but I'm such an oddball that finding someone I can really engage in a conversation about a subject I'm really enthusiastic about is rare!
I was pretty non-discriminatory in my youth (boys, girls, snails, you name it :D) but most of my good friends at home now are straight males (though some of my best friends are anything, its pretty mixed), whereas most of my good friends at university are straight/bi females and gay males. It makes for an odd dichotomy because I'm visiting home a lot at the moment. :/ I don't know that I know any transpeople outside of the internet. Interests-wise, they're generally pretty childish, fond of Pokemon and don't talk about relationships all the time. As for the other stuff, I can't really be picky (for reasons why see my interests list)! I can say that they're all pretty eccentric though (and I love them for it).
I do find though that I can't really talk for long to very girly girls or really macho guys. They just baffle me! When I came back yesterday after a weekend at home my ultra-macho flatmates said "That weekend was awesome. 2 days, 2 fights!" and preceded to discuss the details of these drunken fights for the next half an hour while I wore this expression: :-\ I just don't understand them...
P.S. Hobbies/interests: bad sci-fi movies/books (eg. Yor: The Hunter From The Future, Turkish Star Wars and any book by Guy N. Smith), YouTube, animals (spouting about and care of), drama (as in acting and stagecrew, I prefer stagecrew), and I play basketball and/or nintendo games with my friends at the weekends I'm home. I can play guitar, but don't as often as I should. I'm also enthusiastically setting up my spare fishtank at the moment because my krib is picking on my corys too much and has given them fin rot... and if you understood that, you're as much of a fish geek as I am. :P
In the past I've also been extremely uncomfortable around girls, but I still tried to hang out with them and those I could get used to became my friends...not until I went to college in a male-dominated field did I discover that being friends with guys was twice the fun and none of the awkwardness. :)
My hobbies are pretty gender-neutral, I guess. I'm into physics, starting my Ph.D. work in the fall, and most physics students are men so I suppose that falls under masculine. Otherwise I play the violin and self-study languages and read books written for 14-year-olds in my spare time.
So a lot of the female-bodied people here feel uncomfortable around females. I think that's interesting because I went through a really dysphoric few months when I was 16 (long story) and during it I couldn't stand girls. I suppose I unconciously reflect how the person I am talking to moves and speaks, because whenever I talked to girls I could feel myself accidentally acting like them and couldn't stand it. I even quit A-level French because the class was all girls! (Bit of an extreme reaction and it's a decision I regret now.) I suppose this comes back to the implication of this topic: are the internal gender of a person and the gender of their friends linked? Very interesting. :P
over my life I've had very few friends that have been male and none of the males have I realy connected with. but recently I've found that the people I mostly relate to are transguys or the few cis females who have known me for ages.
I've always felt different to other males and have always prefered mixed company on the many ocations when i was the only Male bodied person with a group of girls. I'd feel more on the outer then if the group was mixed but not as bad as with all males
I am friends with nobody.
i am friends with people who are actually true friends. you know the ones that are there for you when the sh*t hits the fan and you hit below rock bottom. i think i have about three of those, and they are all female. i don't have any male friends, the one i thought i had was gay and once he fired me turned around and told me i was ruined his life. he has a nice house, three dogs, a husband, and makes about 30-40000 a year as an assistant manager, a degree from ITT tech and i ruined his life?? PUH-LEASE!!!!
Quote from: Fenrir on March 09, 2010, 12:27:37 PM
So a lot of the female-bodied people here feel uncomfortable around females....
At least for me, when I am hanging out with girls, it makes it more obvious how different from most female bodied people I actually am. I don't want to go to the bathroom in a group, and make sure I look cute. Or go to the mall and look at dresses and shoes. now im ranting... I guess for the most part I feel like I can't be my self as easily.
Quote
I suppose this comes back to the implication of this topic: are the internal gender of a person and the gender of their friends linked? Very interesting. :P
Interesting question. I didn't even think of that when I started this thread. I would have to say to a point, yes. I think that humans are drawn to 'sameness' when it comes to friends, so why wouldn't that draw include gender?
I used to feel really uncomfortable around cis men, and I generally only hung out with girls and very andro/effeminate boys. That's changing now, but I was that way for a long time.
Nerdy boys, nerdy girls. Not the most heteronormative bunch. ;D That simple!
Mmmm, nerds.
Yeah-- I'm pretty much with the nerds or the gay people. I don't like hanging around girls who talk about clothes and makeup and boys and stuff all the time (but then again, lesbians who talk about girls all the time annoy me just as much), but girls with more andro/masculine pursuits are perfect for me, as are guys who aren't macho men. They don't have to be effeminate, but I find that jocks tend not to accept me as much.
I'm friends with lots of people; most people who are openminded enough to be my friend are fine with me. I'm friends with more girls than boys, which is good because we can talk about clothes and boys (ha ha, Devin)! Also, as of late I'm friends with some other transgendered people at my school (one was a friend before, one sought me out; there's a third person whose commented anonymously on formspring, but who I don't know, so I don't know why I mention them), which is pretty cool.
I have a couple close friends that are all girls, but they're nerdy, not particularly girly girls. I like them because we can watch sci-fi tv shows and have weird in-jokes, and they take me as I am rather than caring about why I dress/act as a boy half the time. ^-^ Other than that, I hang out with guys quite a lot, mostly because of the sports/activities I do. (Whitewater canoeing, ice hockey.) I don't have any close guy friends as I'd really like to, but thanks to hockey I'm fairly well accepted as "one of the guys" by most of the school jocks. Other than that, I only really hang out with other girls in mixed groups, and again, it's not girly-girls. Me + very fashionable, feminine girls = doesn't work.
A lot of the time, I wish I could be better friends with the guys I know. It's definitely one of the reasons I started considering being transgender.
I grew up in a very small country town and spent my childhood hanging out with the boys and one other 'tomboy' riding motorbikes and playing sports...definitely not playing dress ups or with dolls.
Senior schooling was hard..I tended to hang with females and gay males. I think to some extent we all realised that we didn't quite fit anywhere else and that gave us all something in common . By this stage I was getting a lot of male attention (usually from the alpha males) and its hard to explain but it made me feel powerful in that I could attract this attention but at the same time it was uncomfortable because it certainly didn't make me feel giggly or go weak at the knees and I soon learnt that it was best to try and stay under the radar.
I then spent 6 years in the Air Force..what a blast!!! Male and like minded females, my personality soared. In my squadron, I was one of a handfull of females and I can honestly say that these were some of the best days of my life.
Now, a bit further down the road... given my location and situation (an expatriate), my closest friends are female (not girly girls tho). I still enjoy male companionship but often my friendliness is 'misread' by males and I certainly don't want to upset the wives! ;)
I still have good relationships (albeit on facebook) with males from my past which allows the 'maleness' to step up.
I figure it's probably safer behind a screen for now. :)
The one's that are on my MSN, Yahoo, and AIM.
Quote from: brainiac on March 18, 2010, 09:35:37 PM
Nerdy boys, nerdy girls. Not the most heteronormative bunch. ;D That simple!
This.
Geek first...girl second
All of them open-minded and just little bit wierd. No jocks and my best friend is a drummer.
Pretty much anyone with whom I can have an intelligent conversation.
To be honest I'm not generally to struck on either the ultra macho or ultra girly - but within the middle ground I'll be pals with just about anyone.
Now I'm being completely honest I will admit that I do fairly unashamedly bat for both teams as required. It's far more fun, and that way, to continue the sporting analogy, you get picked for first team appearences far more often.
So for example on a fairly regular basis I find that one night I will be invited to a female only chick flic night, or an ann-summers lingerie party by my girlfriends, while the next I will be out playing pool and having a few beers with a few of the boys! Neither group ever seems to have a problem accepting me fully as one of them which is just how I like things to be. :)
My friends are mostly girls and all pretty geeky in there interests. I have to say i did once have a very girly bestfriend and i got on with her like a house on fire. I found it was pretty easy to bring her down to my level, true i could never talk about video games and comics but we could find a middle ground. Of course occasionally she would babble on about men and clothes and perfume and the newest chick flick but i have an inner off switch so it was fine.
I did use to have quite a few male friends, some i still have i just don't see them as often as i'd like. I do miss the days of biking and playing football =[
Quote from: Minkle on April 14, 2010, 09:37:33 AM
... true i could never talk about video games and comics but we could find a middle ground. Of course occasionally she would babble on about men and clothes and perfume and the newest chick flick ...
Nothing wrong with any of those things I love chick flicks men perfume clothes AND video games and comics AND biking - I'll pass on the football though. :)
Wow thats a good mixture of interests, i guess you can find something to talk about with a lot of people?
sometimes i struggle when others are just not interested in the same things i am. You know its going to be hard when the dreaded 'hows the weather?' question comes into the convo.
I'd like to think I'm able to socialize okay with most people, but apparently with my now-friend who was in the same class as me thought I was really surly whenever she said hi to me... until she mentioned she liked video games, and I warmed up to her immediately and we became friends for years.
And I thought I was being friendly beforehand. :[
I have a wide range of friends now that I think about it. I like to believe that variety is the spice of life, however trite that may sound. In the past I tended to make friends easier with women and other gender neutral types, or the people that were just around me for whatever reason - I guess I am just lazy in that respect and randomly form friendships. But over time I opened up to more people regardless of what gender or social faction they may belong to. Lately I've noticed I've made friends with people all over the map in both gender, subcultural ties and age, though I usually feel closest to other androgynous or neutral people.
I think I have/had a typical array of androgyne-like hobbies. I love nature, outdoor activities, individual sports, cooking, art, writing, study, fashion, building stuff, DIY culture, technology, bargain shopping, cultural studies, & animals. :)