Easier to connect to opposite gender?

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Lately I've been thinking about how much easier it seems that I make friends and acquaintances with females. I have only 1 male friend. Is that unusual?

I mean, I'm a guy, but it just seems like I connect with women easier, like I have more empathy towards them. But in several threads, I've read about the difficulty some guys here have even talking to women.

I'm not effeminate at all, so what's up with this?

Is it an AS trait? Is it simply that I'm the kind of guy who is naturally more comfortable around females, but just happens to have AS? Is it something else perhaps?

i feel exacly the same way, i hate being around other girls, guys are much easier to be with (but lately no one has been easy at all

Though the three friends I hang out with most, are guys, I actually FAR prefer a female therapist, female teachers, female doctors, etc. I find them far easier to understand, more compassionate and they seem to respond to my sense of humor much better. I'm not sure if this is an Asperger's thing or just how I was raised, as I had a pretty domineering/controlling father.

I found I got along with girls better in meny lower grades in school, most of the boys bullyed me or did not connect/think much of me. The girls could not care less that I sucked at sports and could be beat up easily, infact most girls thought I was nice and friendly. I pefered to look at trees, birds and draw at play time and recess, same with some of the girls. Though from grade 4-10 this appeard to take a break witn noteable exceptions.

In high school shop class I often worked with the girls, they found me insiteful, respectful and comforble to work with, where is the boys bullyed and belittled me as I wasn't cool enough or tuff enough no matter how much more skilled I may have been. In short my aspie demeanor and personallity appeared to be a better match for most but not all of the girls. I think the boys were just liveing up to a different standard that I being aspie failed to understand and join in on.

Last edited by rapidroy on 10 Feb 2013, 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

I prefer girls, but somehow, most of my friends (nowadays) end up being guys. It's disheartening.

I am a female and I find men much easier to talk to. Women's emotions are so much more complicated and they are much harder to understand. Unfortunately, I go to an all girls school.

Girls are generally nicer to me, and while they often talk about inane stuff boys talk about just as much inane stuff.

I always found girls easier to get along with as long as sex did not get involved. I suspect the competitive attitude held by most guys as the reason.

But my daughter has mostly male friends and does well in fighting games.

I just don't know.

I don't think it's easier to connect to the opposite gender for everybody's cases. Just depends on what side you want to share with people possibly. I never had any friends that were female, and not very many friends in general. I never had to worry about the competition that comes with being a male cause most of the time I'm just competing against myself when it came to my strengths (i learned how to hide my weaknesses). I usually find it easy to get a reputation from my male peers for my talents or being helpful. With my female peers it truly is a different story (or at least where i live). They laugh my at quirkiness, tease me if I happened to even be paying attention, and they might view me a novelty. In group projects I usually try to get dependable male partners, and it worked most of the time. Guess i just find many females confusing, or it could just be fear.

Of course I'm speaking from limited experience.

I have more guy friends currently. But I think this is the nature of the environment in which I am (law tends to attract shy guys and type A females, who scare me, just like type A guys do). Normally, I connect with women better because I think more like they do, and I have the same submissive and agreeable mannerisms that they do (like head-tilting and rising tones at the end of sentences). However, thinking more like women than most guys means I'm more likely to get into girl-style petty conflicts with women, so I have plenty of women who hate my guts too.

If I didn't have such big hands and feet, even at 6'2, I'm pretty sure I would try to convert to the opposite gender.

I agree, but I don't know the reason, either.
And I'm also pretty sure that I'm male and heterosexual.

One theory might state: "You like talking to them because your orientation makes you feel attracted to them."
I can't completely deny that, but it's not a sufficient explanation, either.

My impression is that girls are usually able to make more sense of what I'm talking.
For making friends, I trained myself to be friendly and show interest to the other person.
But other guys are usually quite aloof. They rarely talk about each other, but rather about things that show how manly they are. Their way of making friends is far more subtle.

Another explanation that just occurred to me:

Guys don't verbally express what they think about each other. They often have this kind of "hard shell".
When they want to be friendly to another guy, the only difference is that the "core" is "soft".

This poses a problem to me, in both directions:
On the one hand, when I notice the "hard shell", I fail to recognize if the "core" is hard of soft.
On the other hand, I fail to build up a "hard shell" without appearing rude and unfriendly.

That's my observation of guy-guy conversation behavior.

Question to the girls: Do you have the impression that (NT-)guys communicate differently towards you than towards each other?
Do they still maintain their "hard shell"?

I went to a boys only school so from 11-16 my friends were obviously mostly male. When I went to college I eventually made friends with a girl and became really close. we hung out loads for about 3 years. Then I made friends with another of her friends and we became basically plutonic boyfriend and girlfriend for 5-6 years. I was straight, but valued her presence and mind more than anything, and she was a lesbian who valued my genuine ability to just be friends, and the lack of confusion she felt with other girls (who she usually only befriended because she fancied them).

Its my opinion that girls are the best and worst at understanding aspies. Blokes tend to either be a bit understanding or a bit of a pain, and if I rile them then they can get angry and violent of course, but I have found girls range from completely understanding and wonderful to completely paranoiac self-involved over-reaction towards the same behaviour in myself. As the Americans would say, go figure.

I imagine that their own sexuality may sometimes play a part, as people are very good at shaping their reality based upon such things. A girl may have an initial vague attraction to the aspie, which is often destroyed in short measure by goofyness. Nonetheless, in that short time they have made something of a connection and overall the interaction is pleasant. I suspect many such things are involved, but I do also think that lack of competition is important - because I'm so knowledgable about everything because I had an encylcopaedia instead of friends when very small, and continued learning instead of playing Halo when I was older and did have a few friends, blokes tend to think I'm trying to put them down all the time when in fact I'm trying to help them by giving them information. But many don't believe it - even friends - they think I'm trying to make them look stupid, which is ironic as that is precisely what they are doing to themselves! Silly NTs.

If you mean "connecting" as "having empathy for", I don't.
If you mean "connecting" as "socializing", yes, for me it's easier socializing with guys, because they look more similar to me than girls do. They're also funnier, and most of the times they're not drama kings, while most girls I met are drama queens.
My female friends luckily aren't drama queens.

I have more guy friends. However I find females MUCH more accomodating and friendly when it comes to doctors/therapists/sales assistants.

I don't know why I find it easier to talk to female sales assistants but I just do. I do notice that men generally pickup on my nervousness and I can see that they become on edge around me, whereas females don't become edgy. Perhaps it is that. This does not apply to superhot checkout chics.

I can’t say whether it is an aspie trait, but in my case I do agree that it is easier for me to connect with girls than with guys. Most of my life has been a series of acquaintances with similar interests as myself. Most of the time I and they would part ways. I was friends with a brother and a sister, and yet I hung out much more often with the sister. I often found myself talking with girls in University much more often than guys. Sometimes I wonder if some of these girls were trying to flirt or be more than acquaintances/friends and I just didn’t notice. My most recent and only friend/acquaintance is a woman (but married). She once told me I was shy but nice when I asked why she still seemed to want to be my friend when I disappeared and withdrew like I tend to with most people. I tend to listen way more to people than I talk to them. Maybe I’m just a good listener and that is what women need in a friend.