Red Flags

[MissBee]

I don't have a lot of girl friends but I find it hard to deal with all the bs that comes with them too. I don't care for the drama, the backstabbing, and whatnot. My best friend in the whole wide is a girl, but she a lot like me. A lot of her friends are guys also. The drama that comes with women isn't worth the time.

 

I had a girl that I thought was a close friend and what did I get in return, her calling me names behind my back & talking about me. I had never asked her for anything and was there anytime she needed help. For what? So she could take take back her supposed bff that had previously talked about her so badly that she got thrown out of the boarding barn she was in & badmouthed her to everyone. When no one was there for her, I was.

 

It just isn't worth it to me. Most guys I know just say it and get it out. If they are in a relationship they won't but they will to their friends. Most women, they just want to gossip and stir sh*t. Me, I prefer to do my own thing and stay out of the way.

 

Maybe who you are attracts certain kinds of people. I don't say this to be insulting...but if I always meet a certain kind of person, then I start to wonder why? I realized this with men I dated....I always seemed to meet men who were a particular kind of way...I thought I was just unlucky. I wasn't....I attracted them because of things about myself.

 

To be honest, I've never had a female friend back stab me and haven't found that they stir up stuff etc more than normal and I've had tons of female friends. Then again, I've always been one who is friendly but my actual circle of trusted people is always close knit and consists of only a handful who have stood the test of time. Other people I'm only loosely associated with or we hang out casually...but I can honestly say that I've never been back stabbed or had drama with a female friend the way I hear some talk about it as if this is the order of the day. I have had the petty disagreements that come in all interpersonal relationships but no epic levels of drama that would lead me to conclude that women are xyz. After all, I am a woman myself. But yea, perhaps my personality type just doesn't attract those kinds of women and some other personalities do.

 

Edited to add that I did notice I would attract clingy female friends....I've changed and so for a few years now I've not attracted any more female friends who are this way, but in the past, it was noticeable that I'd always meet one woman who would be my friend who would be very clingy and want to be instantly bestfriends and be with me all the time and do everything I do etc. I don't know what specific thing changed, but GLADLY I don't meet such women anymore.

Edited June 11, 2012 by MissBee

[Radagast]

Someone made mention in another thread about their xMM having nothing but female friends and that was a huge red flag.

 

My xMW had maybe one or two female friends but a wide array of male friends and said she just got along better with males. I recall my wife and a few other females saying that a woman who doesn't have female friends has issues and is a b*tch. Ironically, her H seemed oblivious, even while she and I hung out.

 

Im curious to know what other women think about this issue, would it be a 'red flag' to you or no big dea?. And fellas, what do you think?

 

This would not be an issue to me. I choose friends by their personalities, their interests, their qualities, not by their sex. I would not be friends with someone who such silly comments as "a woman who doesn't have female friends has issues and is a b*tch" because I think that shows that the person making that claim has issues and is a b*tch and very insecure to boot and I would not pay any attention to that kind of statement. It's the kind of thing my ex-wife would say and she certainly has issues, is a b*tch and very insecure so I'd take that whence it came.

[Radagast]

I do not think the topic is addressing whether or not men and women can be friends. From what I've gathered Rick's post was talking about the phenomena where a man or woman only has friends of the opposite sex and esp women who do so who say the reason is because they can't get along with other women and other women are biaatches etc. That specific type of mentality is what is being discussed and how that attitude may be a red flag.

 

The OP did not say that the woman herself said she could not get along with other women or that those other women were btchs. He said that other people had ascribed that to the woman, had said she must be a btch and have issues since she did not have women friends. The OP nowhere stated why the woman in question did not have women friends or why she claimed that to be the case. It was other people's assumptions about her ascribing motivation to her, quite likely projecting their own insecurity and btchiness.

[woinlove]

I don't have a lot of girl friends but I find it hard to deal with all the bs that comes with them too. I don't care for the drama, the backstabbing, and whatnot. My best friend in the whole wide is a girl, but she a lot like me. A lot of her friends are guys also. The drama that comes with women isn't worth the time.

 

I had a girl that I thought was a close friend and what did I get in return, her calling me names behind my back & talking about me. I had never asked her for anything and was there anytime she needed help. For what? So she could take take back her supposed bff that had previously talked about her so badly that she got thrown out of the boarding barn she was in & badmouthed her to everyone. When no one was there for her, I was.

 

It just isn't worth it to me. Most guys I know just say it and get it out. If they are in a relationship they won't but they will to their friends. Most women, they just want to gossip and stir sh*t. Me, I prefer to do my own thing and stay out of the way.

 

Like with other posters saying similar things, I'm surprised that you, as a woman, have basically written most women off. Again, I see zero evidence that either women or men have an edge on bad behavior.

 

I'd encourage the posters who say they chose all or mostly male friends because women are bitchy, backstabbing, shallow, intellectually limited, drama queens, or some such things, to look a bit closer at their feelings toward women and toward themselves. A lot of good things result from having a kinder outlook on people in general, both men and women.

 

I see red flags in having such a negative view of one's own gender.

[Radagast]

Like with other posters saying similar things, I'm surprised that you, as a woman, have basically written most women off. Again, I see zero evidence that either women or men have an edge on bad behavior.

 

I'd encourage the posters who say they chose all or mostly male friends because women are bitchy, backstabbing, shallow, intellectually limited, drama queens, or some such things, to look a bit closer at their feelings toward women and toward themselves. A lot of good things result from having a kinder outlook on people in general, both men and women.

 

I see red flags in having such a negative view of one's own gender.

 

Perhaps it has less to do with one's view of one's own gender and more to do with social or cultural context or the nature of the people currently (or previously) in that context. For example, If I lived in a rugger-bugger culture I would seek friendships with women rather than men since I am not a rugger-bugger.

[Radagast]

I think some people are really missing the topic of discussion here. Simply having friends of the opposite gender isn't the problem, I'm sure we all have friends of the opposite gender. The issue here is when the person says 'I don't get on with my own gender therefore I only have friends of the opposite gender.'

 

That was not what the OP stated. The OP stated that his wife and other women had said that of the woman in question who had mainly male friends. The woman herself did not make that claim in the OP.

[woinlove]

Perhaps it has less to do with one's view of one's own gender and more to do with social or cultural context or the nature of the people currently (or previously) in that context. For example, If I lived in a rugger-bugger culture I would seek friendships with women rather than men since I am not a rugger-bugger.

 

I don't know - I've travel a lot and haven't come across a culture where the women are despicable as they've been presented in some posts here. More typically when someone puts down women, it says something about them, which may partially come from the culture they were raised in, but would also partially come from how they have chosen to respond to that culture. Often it has nothing to do with the general culture, and more just their own outlook and how they interact with others.

[woinlove]

I think we're just splitting hairs here. The OP said that the woman in question said 'I get on better with men.' Whether that means they have 'issues' or not is neither here nor there. However I do, now more than ever, think that if a woman has loads of male friends and hardly any female friends then it is indeed a red flag, which is what the OP was asking. Wouldn't mean I'd dump her straight away but I'd certainly pay close attention to her interactions with them and gauge her boundaries more closely than I would normally.

 

Yes, I think the statement "I get on better with men" is a key piece of information and one that we see reflected in a few posts here. It is not simply counting the number of female versus male friends, it is the reasons given for those numbers. One can think one's own gender is great and want to have more same-sex friends, but end up mostly with opposite-sex friends because of activities, location, etc. That is a different matter than what the OP is describing.

[Radagast]

I don't know - I've travel a lot and haven't come across a culture where the women are despicable as they've been presented in some posts here. More typically when someone puts down women, it says something about them, which may partially come from the culture they were raised in, but would also partially come from how they have chosen to respond to that culture. Often it has nothing to do with the general culture, and more just their own outlook and how they interact with others.

 

We've clearly been to different places as my experience is rather different from yours. I taught at a college which was overwhelmingly male because of the subjects it taught and the culture was very rugger-bugger and as a result I sought out friendships with women since I am not a rugger-bugger and had grown up in a culture where that was not predominantly how men were. So my friends were mostly women, or even all women (I can't remember any male friends from this time). When I moved on to a different job there was a wider spread of people including more males I could relate to and so I had men and women friends. One of my women friends had taught briefly in a college which specialised in home economics (she was a language teacher) and she hated it there because the women were petty and prone to gossip and mostly interested in celebrity culture and so she befriended the other language teacher who was male. My friend is neither insecure nor catty and has no issues with her gender, but in that context she found herself surrounded by women she could not relate to. So she chose to relate to others, that she could relate to, who happened to be men. I don't see how this signals issues with either her, or me, simply because of where we found ourselves at the time. (She and her husband are close friends of me and my wife. We are capable of friendships with both genders, though we are selective about which women and which men, and at times have had none of one gender that meet our friendship requirements. I think it is more important to have friends you can be yourself with than to have to conform to a gender stereotype because of who surrounds you at the time. But then authenticity matters more to me than conformity, and I recognise that this is not so for everyone.)

[woinlove]

We've clearly been to different places as my experience is rather different from yours.

 

Yes, everyone experiences the world through their own eyes. Even in very different cultures, in parts of Africa and Asia, for example, I've always found people of both genders who are kind and interesting. Since you were also in that same culture, I wonder what you might have found if you got to know more of the men better.

 

I think dismissing one's own gender (and not saying you do or did that, but some posters here have) says more about the person than about women or men in general. We can disagree on this.

[MissBee]

The OP did not say that the woman herself said she could not get along with other women or that those other women were btchs. He said that other people had ascribed that to the woman, had said she must be a btch and have issues since she did not have women friends. The OP nowhere stated why the woman in question did not have women friends or why she claimed that to be the case. It was other people's assumptions about her ascribing motivation to her, quite likely projecting their own insecurity and btchiness.

 

There was no specific woman in question. Rick's wife and her friends had a general theory about women who only have male friends, which is that they have issues and are biaatches.

 

I recall my wife and a few other females saying that a woman who doesn't have female friends has issues and is a b*tch.

 

My point in saying what I said earlier, was simply that I do not think Rick was asking people to discuss whether or not people could have platonic opposite sex friends, which seemed to be what some were trying to argue, but rather, the general theory of it being a hint of some type of issue or personality flaw when a man/woman only has opposite sex friends.

Edited June 11, 2012 by MissBee

[Radagast]

There was no specific woman in question. Rick's wife and her friends had a general theory about women who only have male friends, which is that they have issues and are biaatches.

 

Actually he did, if you read the OP:

 

My xMW had maybe one or two female friends but a wide array of male friends and said she just got along better with males. I recall my wife and a few other females saying that a woman who doesn't have female friends has issues and is a b*tch.

 

He was discussing his xMW having few female friends, preferring male friends, and his wife's response to that.

 

I think that's pretty clear. Not sure I can make it any clearer than that?

[Spark1111]

There was no specific woman in question. Rick's wife and her friends had a general theory about women who only have male friends, which is that they have issues and are biaatches.

 

 

 

My point in saying what I said earlier, was simply that I do not think Rick was asking people to discuss whether or not people could have platonic opposite sex friends, which seemed to be what some were trying to argue, but rather, the general theory of it being a hint of some type of issue or personality flaw when a man/woman only has opposite sex friends.

 

That's right.

 

And I think it is. Not ALL women are petty and simple. Not ALL men are competitive in status.

 

Ideally, we should all have many friends of both genders.

 

BUT if you see a woman who has decided NO WOMAN likes her because she is too hot, too pretty, a threat, and she, therfore does not seek out the company of woman, only men, doesn't that say a lot about her self-fulfilling projections?

 

Of course it does.

 

It is like the woman who walks into the family barbecue with too much make-up, too much cleavage showing and flirts with all the men.

 

All the women have her number. Pretty, young and hot has less to do with it than the fact she is seeking male attention for all the wrong reasons.

 

There are men who do this too with women, and other men can spot them fairly easily also.

[MissBee]

We've clearly been to different places as my experience is rather different from yours. I taught at a college which was overwhelmingly male because of the subjects it taught and the culture was very rugger-bugger and as a result I sought out friendships with women since I am not a rugger-bugger and had grown up in a culture where that was not predominantly how men were. So my friends were mostly women, or even all women (I can't remember any male friends from this time). When I moved on to a different job there was a wider spread of people including more males I could relate to and so I had men and women friends. One of my women friends had taught briefly in a college which specialised in home economics (she was a language teacher) and she hated it there because the women were petty and prone to gossip and mostly interested in celebrity culture and so she befriended the other language teacher who was male. My friend is neither insecure nor catty and has no issues with her gender, but in that context she found herself surrounded by women she could not relate to. So she chose to relate to others, that she could relate to, who happened to be men. I don't see how this signals issues with either her, or me, simply because of where we found ourselves at the time. (She and her husband are close friends of me and my wife. We are capable of friendships with both genders, though we are selective about which women and which men, and at times have had none of one gender that meet our friendship requirements. I think it is more important to have friends you can be yourself with than to have to conform to a gender stereotype because of who surrounds you at the time. But then authenticity matters more to me than conformity, and I recognise that this is not so for everyone.)

 

Radagast,

 

I don't think what you're discussing is what most have been talking about. You've given many wonderful examples of situational and temporary reasons where at that time you made friends with people of the opposite sex, based on circumstance. All of your examples, which I bolded the language you used, is about where you find yourselves in a certain context, at a certain time and at that time you happened to only get on with the opposite sex. They were all transient situations. I don't think most people were trying to argue that if at any point in life one finds that they have more opposite sex friends because of circumstance that they have issues, that would be rather silly for someone to argue LOL!

 

Rather, I think what is being chiseled at is those who seem to chronically do this and also exhibit hostility towards their own gender...where they themselves declare "women are xyz" so they choose as a rule not to befriend other women or "men are xyz" and choose as a rule not to befriend men. I think it is more the cases where it is not dictated by circumstances but a rule of thumb that one seeks to control with the added rhetoric that they cannot get along with their own gender because of xyz negative characterization they believe about it. Rick asked about whether or not it was a red flag and I think in the aforementioned cases it is, and that's what a lot of people's examples have been about, those types of people, versus circumstantial, happenstance cases.

Edited June 11, 2012 by MissBee

[MissBee]

Actually he did, if you read the OP:

 

 

 

He was discussing his xMW having few female friends, preferring male friends, and his wife's response to that.

 

I think that's pretty clear. Not sure I can make it any clearer than that?

 

Perhaps Rick should clear this up for us.

 

But I gather that the two sentences are completely separate...he brought up his exMW's situation. Then as a spin off of that, he brought up what his wife thinks about women who have only male friends...it did not seem to me that his wife and her firends were making a commentary on exMW specifically. He said he recalled it...which seems to be a separate thought, something he is recalling they said at some other time, and not in conversation about exMW.

 

My xMW had maybe one or two female friends but a wide array of male friends and said she just got along better with males. I recall my wife and a few other females saying that a woman who doesn't have female friends has issues and is a b*tch.

 

I don't think we need to nitpcik at this anyway...as I don't think Rick brought it up so that we could talk about his exMW in particular and what we think about her choice, but rather, he wants us to discuss that general idea brought up by his wife and her friends that ANY woman/man, who does this may have a problem. Rick can correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited June 11, 2012 by MissBee

[frozensprouts]

if someone only has friends of the opposite gender, and this is a "chronic choice", then i would wonder why this is. Do they feel somehow threatened by people of their own gender and prefer to have friends with whom the don't feel they have to 'compete" on some level, or is it that they simply don't relate to what they perceive the stereotype of their gender to be, even if it is inaccurate?

 

perhaps this could speak to their inability to look beyond the "stereotype" of their gender... a guy may feel that ( for example) most men are only into talking about sports ( or whatever) and hey have no interest in this. They don't pursue any male friendships. They don't take the time to look beyond that stereotype to find out that maybe guy who are interested in sports may also be interested in whole lot of other things that they can form a friendship around.

 

To me, this type of attitude seems pretty shallow and self centered, and would be a "red flag", as it speaks to an inability to see beyond and one particular aspect of a person...

[MissBee]

That's right.

 

And I think it is. Not ALL women are petty and simple. Not ALL men are competitive in status.

 

Ideally, we should all have many friends of both genders.

 

BUT if you see a woman who has decided NO WOMAN likes her because she is too hot, too pretty, a threat, and she, therfore does not seek out the company of woman, only men, doesn't that say a lot about her self-fulfilling projections?

 

Of course it does.

 

It is like the woman who walks into the family barbecue with too much make-up, too much cleavage showing and flirts with all the men.

 

All the women have her number. Pretty, young and hot has less to do with it than the fact she is seeking male attention for all the wrong reasons.

 

There are men who do this too with women, and other men can spot them fairly easily also.

 

People are perceptive...we all know when something is off.

 

The cases where nothing is wrong look very different from the cases where it is in fact a problem.

[nofool4u]

And fellas, what do you think?

 

That the red flag is they are married.

[Spark1111]

That the red flag is they are married.

 

And hugging and kissing and wrapping their legs around men who are not a close relative might just be the very big second red flag, dontcha think?

 

RickFox's wife thought so waaaaay before he embarked on his affair with his OW who told him he was hot one day.

 

Similiar to Rielle Hunter....and we know how that train wreck went down.

[RickFox]

MissBee is correct,

 

I'm not interested in whether men and women can be friends, but whether or not if you believe that women or men who have only friends of the opposite sex may or may not have issues. Would it/does it send up a red flag or maybe did it during your Affair or spouses affair.

 

In my case, and I see it now, it sent up huge red flags for my W. I'm simply using my 'experience' as an example. If I knew then what I know now, it should have set an alarm off in my head and maybe caused a 'whoa there moment.'

 

Also, my xMW said she had more male friends than female friends (looking back at it, her female friend was more of an acquaintance) because women were catty and she didn't like that (again looking back, she was more catty and talked more crap about women she didn't even know).

 

So again, would you/do you find this to be an issue?

[woinlove]

MissBee is correct,

 

I'm not interested in whether men and women can be friends, but whether or not if you believe that women or men who have only friends of the opposite sex may or may not have issues. Would it/does it send up a red flag or maybe did it during your Affair or spouses affair.

 

In my case, and I see it now, it sent up huge red flags for my W. I'm simply using my 'experience' as an example. If I knew then what I know now, it should have set an alarm off in my head and maybe caused a 'whoa there moment.'

 

Also, my xMW said she had more male friends than female friends (looking back at it, her female friend was more of an acquaintance) because women were catty and she didn't like that (again looking back, she was more catty and talked more crap about women she didn't even know).

 

So again, would you/do you find this to be an issue?

 

Re the bolded, yes, I would definitely find this to be an issue. As I said earlier, when people put down women (or men) in general like that, it is saying something important about themselves and, imo, that something is not positive. Sounds like your W had this woman's number from the get go. Too bad you had to learn the hard way. But you already know that, so you did learn and that is good.

[Stephanie]

Reading through this thread, it seems that this discussion is less about an extra marital relationship than it is a discussion about friends of the opposite gender. I've moved this thread based on where it seems to belong 'the most'.

[Spark1111]

I think Rick, it could very well be a huge red flag in a romantic interest, whether it be OW, or spouse, or girlfriend.

 

I'm not sure about other cultures, same gender friends, situational friendships, or what happens around the world, but AS YOU were expressing it in your OP, yes!

 

I agree with your wife.

 

I would be insecure to date or have an affair with someone who seems to need so much attention from the opposite sex that the opposite sex is all she or he hangs out with.

 

I do not care what excuses they would give me.

 

It would be a huge RED FLAG to me. I would have trouble trusting them. I would feel insecure that I would be dumped when they perceived they weren't getting enough attention from me.

 

I would always feel that they were trawling the waters to find someone better, whether in an affair partner, as you mentioned in your first post, spouse, or girlfriend.

[woinlove]

I think Rick, it could very well be a huge red flag in a romantic interest, whether it be OW, or spouse, or girlfriend.

 

I agree with this, and since the thread is now in friendships, would qualify that I don't see a red flag if the person is not a romantic interest. Most people have different kinds of friends, perhaps sharing some interests and not others. The issues one might have by dismissing their own gender are primarily of a concern for romantic interests.

[SpiralOut]

I'm not so sure that you need to be romantically interested in a woman to care about who her friends are. Whenever I come across a woman at school/work/male friend's new girlfriend, and she feels the need to explain that she gets along better with men, it brings up a big red flag.

 

It makes me wonder if I need to watch out for her. It feels like she is warning me (and the others) that she may not get along with us. She may be a perfectly okay person who ends up becoming a friend, but still. That's not something that I like to hear from someone I've just met.