cross-gender friendship

Post Reply New Topic

I get along with males a lot better than females due to common interests eg. engineering, jazz, sports etc and style of communication (blunt, no small-talk). I have a few close male friends but am not romantically interested in either gender.
How do I convince the significant others of male friends that I'm completely uninterested in them romantically?

Wear a wedding ring. When people get to know you well enough to work out you're not married and ask about the ring, tell them you are tired of explaining to either men or their partners that you are not not looking for a relationship. Say it's your I-am-not-available ring.

I can't stand people like that. I've had woman want to beat me up because I dared to do things like speak to their boyfriend or glance in their direction. People like that must be very insecure and/or not trust their boyfriend.

Some women will be uncomfortable no matter what you do, but I've found it helps to have some exposure to the significant other. Be at the same gathering, talk a little, etc. There's a big difference between "some woman I've never met hanging out with my hubby all the time" and "Anne from the coffee shop a block from my work who seems okay". Knowing what you're like and being able to form their own opinions of you can get you off the threat radar, and you might get another friend out of it, too.

I have a couple of male friends.

The girlfriend of my friend came twice during the martial art lessons and kept staring at me.
Then the second time I heard her say "ha now I know there's no one I could be jelous of".
I guess she said it because I am unattractive, or so it seemed to her.

My friend and she broke up a week ago, and the other friend does not have a girlfriend so I don't think I'll see something like this in some time now.

I had the same problem when I was younger and tried to be more social. The males I associated with were into video games, anime, science fiction, and other things that I liked, so we got along well. Their girlfriends became so upset about me being friends with them (and at one point, living temporarily in their apartment,) that they began to spread rumors about me and even blamed me for things I had nothing to do with (stealing food from the fridge, cosmetics or clothing going missing, etc.) The funny thing about that is I have dietary restrictions that prevented me from eating the food in question, never wore makeup, and wore clothes two sizes smaller than both of them. All the while, they were using my things and being very rude to me. I ended up having to stop associating with my friends due to them sticking up for their girlfriends' rude behavior.

I am the same way. I work with mostly guys at a heavy duty truck dealership in the parts department and get along with them better than the women I had to work with during my practicum at the law firm or my college classmates who were mostly women in the legal assistant program. I have some friends in Calgary...they are male.....and luckily they have no wives or girlfriends to chase me away. Two of them are fellow shipper receivers at our Calgary branch. One is in his 20s and the other is in his 50s. He's a great guy and one heck of a fighter....he survived a heart attack and lung cancer. He has a great sense of humour and is considered quirky by many. I do have a few female friends too......

I started out making much better friends with males than females, until middle school, now I only have the male friends that I had before mostly, because many people are turning evil. So many people act like mimicking robots, and almost all robots turn evil at some point. People always accuse me of romantically liking my male friends, and I used to get irritated by it, but now I just don't really care.

I don't know what to do to stop it. I don't really care to stop it or not anymore much.
If I knew how though, I think I would stop it.

I suppose it goes the same for all ages with these silly little accusations.

Thanks for your replies.
I deal with it by trying to be kind/generous to both friend and partner, as well as being direct and saying 'I have no romantic interest in any gender'.
Even then, I have been told that 'all women are jealous', which I guess isn't really true since I'm not jealous and don't understand jealousy.
It is kind of sad because it's not easy making friends, and subsequently having to distance oneself from them out of consideration for their partner's feeling.
Furthermore, it's so much harder to make friends with women since they mostly want to talk about shopping/clothes/cooking.