Platonic relationships with girls?
Ok, so I didn't put this in the Love and Dating forum, since the keyword here is platonic.
Oh ya, I'm a guy just in case you didn't know. I have come to realize that I feel like I fit in better with girls for some reason. I haven't had much experience, but observing their personalities and from the little friendship experience I have, it doesn't seem too bad. But the problem is that...lets be realistic here...what group of girls would suddenly want a guy hanging out with them even when they are doing their designated "girls only friendship time" or "girls night out". Also, who's gonna accept having a platonic friendship and finding out that I don't have much friendship with guys? They will get suspicious of my motives.
So ya, I was wondering if it was actually possible to establish platonic friendships with girls. How would I start it?
Also, even if it does work out, it is still embarassing if they talk about exclusively girly stuff like girl's fashion and how they do their hair.
Oh ya, I'm a guy just in case you didn't know. I have come to realize that I feel like I fit in better with girls for some reason. I haven't had much experience, but observing their personalities and from the little friendship experience I have, it doesn't seem too bad. But the problem is that...lets be realistic here...what group of girls would suddenly want a guy hanging out with them even when they are doing their designated "girls only friendship time" or "girls night out". Also, who's gonna accept having a platonic friendship and finding out that I don't have much friendship with guys? They will get suspicious of my motives.
So ya, I was wondering if it was actually possible to establish platonic friendships with girls. How would I start it?
Also, even if it does work out, it is still embarassing if they talk about exclusively girly stuff like girl's fashion and how they do their hair.
Granted, you fit in better with girls but it doesn't mean you can engineer platonic friendships with girls. If it happens it happens, you will leave them to their 'girly nights out' and you won't mind stomaching their girly talk if you are their friend surely.
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"grrrrr"
Can you elaborate on this? Since you neither had male friends nor female friends, how can you possibly know whom you "fit in" better with? I am wondering that perhaps its a wishful thinking and the real thing is that you "like" girls better (even if you don't intend to date them or do anything sexual with them).
You didn't give a lot of details so I'm going to just start throwing ideas at the wall and see if anything sticks. So, this is what I know:
Gay men are often welcomed into a group of women. Straight men are often not, but can be considered great friends on a one-on-one basis. I have a number of straight guy friends, some of them are married, others have girlfriends and a few are single. There's flirting from time to time but it's discreet and within boundaries. I'm not sharing my deepest secrets or seeking advice from these men. But I have friends (women) with husbands who do have that kind of friendship with women. I'm not entirely sure what straight men get out of a friendship with a woman if it's not like what I've got. I've seen wives (my friends) become jealous because their husbands will actually spend money on these friends, which the wife views as "other women" instead of as friends.
Can you elaborate on this? Since you neither had male friends nor female friends, how can you possibly know whom you "fit in" better with? I am wondering that perhaps its a wishful thinking and the real thing is that you "like" girls better (even if you don't intend to date them or do anything sexual with them).
Well, its not like I never had any interaction with people. But from my experience, I seem to like some aspects of girl conversations.
I'm male and I have both male and female friends.
As you say, the motives problem can be troublesome, I've found it to be good whenever said female friend got/had a boyfriend/girlfriend or fiancé or husband/wife. That removed the motives problem, both for me (they weren't after more, as they (now) had a SO), and for them (I was happy that they found someone, thus not after more than friends). I was actually happy if they found a SO. I don't pretend, I don't like to pretend. HINT: Don't ask me what I think of your new hair colour, especially if you insist on getting the honest answer. True story.
This created another problem though, sometimes their SO got jealous over me talking (and nothing more) to the female. This sometimes resulted in the friendship ending. Unfortunate if it did, but I wished them well and I left it at that.
I think the recurring theme is me not flirting at all with them. Or at least, not initiating it. Sometimes they'd flirt with me, so I figured it'd be ok to tease them a little. Which is as wefunction said.
So no looking at them funny, no placing them on a pedestal, no flirting and such. I've made it a habit to treat everyone as human, regardless of whether they're male or female, young or old and so on. I value someone's opinion equal, regardless of what they are. And if they oppose my opinion, then that's fine as well.
As far as girl's fashion is concerned, they hardly ever discuss that with me. Same goes for how they do their hair. I'd be of little use on those subjects anyway.
If you're working, you could chat to female co-workers, especially if they're quite some years older. That removes any suggestion of you having motives, and you get to ask about their weekend and such. It's considered pretty normal behaviour in a work place. Plus, it can make work more enjoyable. I have AS, and I get along pretty good with people at work.
That way you could at least talk to girls, which might remove some anxiety for when you talk to girls who are around your age? It seems to be pretty rare to have friends that are 30 years older anyway.
It can be a little more difficult while studying or at some job with girls your age. I suppose being blunt and stating that you're just looking to make some conversation and nothing more can be effective? Maybe the others have some input on this one. If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that girls usually love to chat.
Except that I'm a little bit too shy to just walk up to girls my age in RL in random places. Oh, the irony.
I had a female friend who was dating another guy and so it was good. She is really nice.
Yeah, I think thats part of it. The other thing is that they don't mind chatting about random stuff whereas guys chat about a specific videogame or they chat about other specific topics like sports and cars. I really admire it when girls talk about random stuff. I seem to be too shy to go up to them and join the conversation for reasons that I have already listed.
I'm afraid I can't offer advice on how to join in on conversations. I usually miss the cues when people are done talking, which gets a little troublesome in groups.
(working on improving this though)
So I usually just talk 1 on 1 with my female friends / co-workers. Incidentally, most of my co-workers are female, and the one male one, is into video games as well.
As you say, all sorts of random topics come up when talking with women. From what we did last weekend, to politics or religion. It's great.
This is where girls differ from guys. Guys generally only want a girl hanging out with he and his guy friends if he thinks he is going to have non-platonic relations with her.
Girls, on the other hand, generally love having guys who don't want to have such relations with them, hang out and do girl things with them. Why do you think so many girls like having gay men as friends?
If you couldn't tell from all the posts of guys who complain about being stuck in the friend zone, girls, strangely enough are fairly dense when it comes to figuring out if a guy friend who is just acting like a really nice guy friend likes her or not. It usually doesn't cross their mind that he wants to be anything more than a friend. So for this purpose, you may consider most girls as having AS.
This is where girls differ from guys. Guys generally only want a girl hanging out with he and his guy friends if he thinks he is going to have non-platonic relations with her.
Girls, on the other hand, generally love having guys who don't want to have such relations with them, hang out and do girl things with them. Why do you think so many girls like having gay men as friends?
It's entirely possible and you would start it as you start any friendship.
I think what they talk about is going to depend on the specific group of girls. They're usually generally not going to be talking about sports or gaming, but society isn't as gender polarized as it used to be. My friend's nephew has an anime club and all of the members are girls.
