What would be your opinion of a guy with girl-friends?

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Lifeistoohard
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16 May 2015, 10:44 am

Not a girlfriend, I put the hyphen to empathize friendship. Because I'm the type of guy who doesn't like to flirt, play games, tease, etc.

I just like to be kind and tell a few jokes hoping the girl would like me for that. And if not, I move on. I'm not the "entitled" type of nice guy. Out of 100 girls I'm friends with, I figure at least 1 might like me even though I act friendly to them.

I mentioned "friendly" because in America touching a woman who's not interested in you is sexual harassment. It's nearly impossible for an Aspie to learn how/when to touch a girl on a date without her getting creeped out. Sexual tension is something I'll argue as not required on a date because first comes love, then sex (or for the religious: First love, then marriage, then sex).


As a 21 year old guy, this might likely be my future. Most guys like to make fun of other lonely guy by saying "Stick with your male friends, bud" which is not true as I have plenty of female friends.



Hyperborean
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16 May 2015, 10:53 am

It's a very good thing if men and women can be friends without the presence of sexual innuendo or expectations, because society will be much better for it. It's often said that males and females don't understand each other, that they think differently, but this is largely caused by the damaging social construct that insists that relationships between the sexes have to based on sex. So I think you set a good example to other men in this respect.



cavernio
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16 May 2015, 11:32 am

I'm not sure, depends on what you mean.

Are you attracted to all your female friends or are there some whom you think you could get involved with more than others?
If you are attracted to someone you should let them know at some point. If they are not attracted to you in return, that sucks but oh well.
I think it is not the greatest plan to place the 'first move' on them. Not because of gender roles but because if no one makes a move nothing happens.

My opinion of a man who has female friends is fine. My partner seems to get a long more with women than men and I seem to get along more with men than women. He has plenty of female friends. I think it has something to do with, once you are friends with someone, there are actually a lot fewer social 'rules' about what male-female friendships are like than same-sex friendships. Like, when I am with a group of women I often feel that there's this 'let's do female things' together, and my partner has expressed the same thing when being with a group of men, and that's not really either of who we are.
Not that that's always the case, but it seems almost that there's a standby for friendships within a gender, and if you fail at being friends on a more personal or at least unique level, there's at least the good ol' male bonding/female bonding things you can all do and appreciate.


I in fact think very poorly of men who have told you to stick to your male friends. That itself is a complete turn-off for me. I don't think very highly of women who do the same, but I think I just need to realize that a lot of people are fine with things like having only same-gendered friends and who am I to judge what someone else likes?


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jk1
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16 May 2015, 12:17 pm

I honestly feel very uncomfortable around guys that try hard to please girls to be liked by them (or those girls that try to act "cute" to attract men but they are not relevant here, I guess). I feel more comfortable with people that don't make distinction between male and female friends.



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16 May 2015, 12:41 pm

Lifeistoohard wrote:
Not a girlfriend, I put the hyphen to empathize friendship. Because I'm the type of guy who doesn't like to flirt, play games, tease, etc.

I just like to be kind and tell a few jokes hoping the girl would like me for that. And if not, I move on. I'm not the "entitled" type of nice guy. Out of 100 girls I'm friends with, I figure at least 1 might like me even though I act friendly to them.

I mentioned "friendly" because in America touching a woman who's not interested in you is sexual harassment. It's nearly impossible for an Aspie to learn how/when to touch a girl on a date without her getting creeped out. Sexual tension is something I'll argue as not required on a date because first comes love, then sex (or for the religious: First love, then marriage, then sex).


As a 21 year old guy, this might likely be my future. Most guys like to make fun of other lonely guy by saying "Stick with your male friends, bud" which is not true as I have plenty of female friends.



If I was on a date...well IDK always sort of figured it was a given there'd be some amount of physical contact from the guy I am on the date with. I always figured if they where going too quick or did anything that I wasn't comfortable with yet then I'd simply have to express that to them...rather than freak out on them because they didn't have perfect timing.

That said I do not think it is weird for guys to have girl friends they aren't particularly interested in...most my friends/acquaintances are guys and we're just friends there is no romantic interest there. Though I am not the most typical female to them I probably seem more like 'one of the guys' then a mysterious potentially datable woman...that is at least the straight ones I have gay, bi, straight friends and hardly any that really conform to gender stereotypes.

But yeah its not like the people I hang around aren't attractive....but dating one of them, would be like dating a family member because the friendship is kind of like having a second family with these other unrelated people. So it would be weird for me to date my friends or them to date me.


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16 May 2015, 1:44 pm

I don't think it's weird for men to have women friends. Where I'm from, almost everyone has mixed-gender social circles but the older generations tend not to meet privately. It just makes sense to talk to a wide variety of people and look for those with the best common ground, regardless of their gender, race, etc.

I generally assume guys I don't know who keep trying to make me laugh are trying to flirt that way.



C2V
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17 May 2015, 1:41 am

This gets into gender and sexuality politics. But to me a person's gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, disability, or any other difference is ordinarily irrelevant to whether or not I'm interested in them or want to befriend them. So I don't understand too well why this distinction exists so much among the common populace. To me, its the person I'm interested in. Maybe it was something they said or did, maybe the things they're involved with that give me an idea of their character. It's not if they're "male," "female." Thus it wouldn't seem odd to me if a man had female friends. I'd just see them as his friends and not read anything further into it.


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Suncatcher
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17 May 2015, 4:17 am

Hyperborean wrote:
It's a very good thing if men and women can be friends without the presence of sexual innuendo or expectations, because society will be much better for it. It's often said that males and females don't understand each other , that they think differently, but this is largely caused by the damaging social construct that insists that relationships between the sexes have to based on sex. So I think you set a good example to other men in this respect.


Depends,

My best female friend and i feel no sexual tension so a true friendship can happen. This is mostly (as in..90% of the time) not the case as most people generally start a friendship with sex as a goal. I hardly fall in love or feel attracted to someone. Me and my friend are both on the spectrum so i think we have some clear lines that will never be crossed. However, as soon as she enters a relationship my motives are very often questioned by her new boyfriend. They also try to score points by mocking me sometimes, showing off their dominance. I think neurotypical try to reflect their own 'typical' behaviour on me, thinking i operate on a similar level. I think this is due to the fact that neurotypical people are very (subconciously..) focused on social structures and status.

When in a relationship, they like to show their dominance to other males, and that when they think that the girl's best friend has only 1 goal in mind, they are usually right when it comes to NT people. I have observed this countless of times in my life; most NT guys DO hang around a girl, only trying to get them into bed.

I stopped trying to convice the paranoid boyfriend over the years that there are no hidden motives.. since there is no point in doing so. Every single one of those guys have read the ladder theory somewhere and see it as their bible.

They also like to play the 'ill try to ruin your friendship with your best friend' game in a relationship by trying to convince the girl that their best friend is only sticking around, hoping that someday he will get a chance..

I am not saying all NT's strife for dominance.. but it is just a pattern that i have observed.



C2V
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17 May 2015, 8:00 am

Quote:
This is mostly (as in..90% of the time) not the case as most people generally start a friendship with sex as a goal.

And -
Quote:
when they think that the girl's best friend has only 1 goal in mind, they are usually right when it comes to NT people. I have observed this countless of times in my life; most NT guys DO hang around a girl, only trying to get them into bed.

That's very true, and an interpretation I hadn't applied to this example. This used to cause so much trouble for me, especially how I used to look before I deliberately degraded my appearance to avoid it. They say autistic people don't understand that polite interest isn't actually an indication of romantic desire, but often I don't think its us who does this. People would always interpret my friendliness and interest in establishing a platonic connection as an invitation for sex, and get very hostile when I thereafter wouldn't have sex with them.
People also seem to insinuate that a man with a lot of female friends is gay - not sure about the validity of that argument.


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cavernio
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17 May 2015, 8:45 am

C2V wrote:
Quote:
This is mostly (as in..90% of the time) not the case as most people generally start a friendship with sex as a goal.

And -
Quote:
when they think that the girl's best friend has only 1 goal in mind, they are usually right when it comes to NT people. I have observed this countless of times in my life; most NT guys DO hang around a girl, only trying to get them into bed.

That's very true, and an interpretation I hadn't applied to this example. This used to cause so much trouble for me, especially how I used to look before I deliberately degraded my appearance to avoid it. They say autistic people don't understand that polite interest isn't actually an indication of romantic desire, but often I don't think its us who does this. People would always interpret my friendliness and interest in establishing a platonic connection as an invitation for sex, and get very hostile when I thereafter wouldn't have sex with them.
People also seem to insinuate that a man with a lot of female friends is gay - not sure about the validity of that argument.



This is BS, only a subset of the male population do this, befriend women to only try and sleep with them. And only a subset of the female population interpret it as such. I don't think the line gets drawn with 'is on the spectrum' for not doing those actions.


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