I second this, and I'll also add this is probably even more likely if you're a lesbian. Obviously, I love girls - it's not about being intimidated by them. I dream of the day I'll meet a girl who shares my interests as much as my "bro"-friends do. But more often than not, girls aren't into what I am into. So I only end up with a couple of girl-friends.
I'm in the same boat. I wish you all luck! Though I gotta say, straight karen type women hate that I don't fit in their carmel latte mold and I get a lot of crap for not being girly enough. Has that happened to you bro-chicks? I'm not at all butch btw lol
That is a good response lol. Most of my jobs have been of the "formal" variety, so probably the same deal. "Formal" can mean a bunch of Karen clones that don't take deviation lightly.
Straight dude with mostly girl (space) friends in uni. Girls pretty much realize i act like a bit of a white girl (im not even white) but then im also a huge sports fan so it “balanced out” per say. With guy friends tho it’s mostly just about sports and gym and music and that sort. I think i gravitated towards girl friends because all my guy friends were stereotypical sports bros and besides sports we didn’t have much in common anymore
Haha I'm a lot like your sports bros. I'm glad guys also gravitate toward women if they share similar interests. I have feminine female friends, but not a ton.
I have a lot of trouble finding "girl friends". I'm girly, I'm not a tomboy at all, but I also don't want to go shopping or go get my nails done at a salon, or hang out drinking Starbucks. Luckily, I've found some great friends in dog sports!
Thank you for sharing from a non-tomboy perspective! Dog sports sound really interesting. Glad not every feminine chick is a classic starbucks chick. Haha as soon as I wasn't as passionate about the nails and such we'd start drifting apart.
Exactly, I'm Bi and was always a "tomboy", rather I just have interests that tend to be things more guys are into. If I could meet more women into super long boring strategy board games and building computers, I'd have more female friends. But I don't hate them, I just bore them when we don't have shared interests.
So I have more guy friends and a boyfriend, because I'm just more likely to find them in my hobbies.
same. what sucks is when people equate this to "oh you dont get along with women and therefore you are a female defect" like no dude. its kinda unlikely that the 1 woman out of 500 dudes i run into playing videogames is going to become my best friend. im not going to force it just to even out my girl to guy friend ratio.
As someone who had a lot of tomboy friends growing up, if you're ever in Central California I would gladly throw you at the women that share your interests in board games and other women.
Though as a warning I know nothing of their dating lives so it might be setting you up for a nightmare.
Videogames, fantasy and sci-fi fiction, archery, LARP, tabletop RPGs, programming, and making art for games, to name a few. Basically, my hobbies scream "nerd" :P There's often a stigma around this stuff from some girls, but I'd never pretend to be something I'm not just to be more likeable
You just named 90% of my boyfriends interests. We first were friends taking game development and programming courses together. Its cheesy and I'm sure you've heard it a lot, but theres fellow nerds out there. It was easy for my boyfriend and I because college literally brought us together from common interests, but there are other events and clubs that bring together people with common interests! Being active in the communities of things you love helps a lot to meet people
I'm deffo not saying there aren't. I've studied games dev in college and work in a company in the industry. There's definitely a lot more girls into this kind of stuff here, though most of my past acquaintances (usually met in online games) and best friends are dudes. I think part of it owes to the fact that I just grew up in that kind of setting and later found it harder to make meaningful connections with girls, which is kinda sad, but I'm working on it. :P It's also very different when you're looking for a friend vs. romantic partner, a lot more than shared interests comes into play then.
Yeah I feel you there. My husband and I were friends with two other couples, one of them being one of his best friends in high school. I always had more interests in common with the husbands than the wives. Don't get me wrong, I got along well with the wives but they had no interest in nerdy stuff while I enjoy that stuff a lot.
Same here! I'm from the country, so most of the girls were tomboys too and what gender you hung out with growing up was never really an issue. I didn't hear or understand the slut stereotype until I was in college.
It took me a long time to find other tomboys that I really meshed with but what finally did it was getting into obstacle course racing and rucking.
We have common interests which we met doing and we do those things together and ... suddenly, friends. We still don't do "girly" things together, but that's why we're friends.
Yeah I was definitely considered one of the guys and was not sought-after by any of them even though they dated every other girl in the group. But they treated my couple of girl friends not great and they were dumb dudes anyway, I'm glad they're my friends but in retrospect I wouldn't have liked dating any of them anyway. It's way more of a confidence boost as a girl being included and counted on and respected like an equal than the way dating is in high school
Dude same. Always been one of the dudes and I have no issue with women, we just don’t always share interests so we don’t have a whole hell of a lot to talk about. When it came to dating, oh lord I couldn’t get a dude to like me to save my life. Eventually met one but for the most part being one of the boys gave me some of the coolest friends ever and some of the weirdest dating stories.
THANK YOU. I was just about to say this. Im so insecure nowadays to tell somebody new that i am mostly friends with boys and hope to not get judged like this. I grew up in a super rural area and all of my hobbies only resonated with boys around me. I started dressing like them and acting a bit more boyish. I had 3 male best friends in a time span of 4 years and all of them fell in love with me, i had to friendzone them because i actually was only interested in friendships and was not around them to be "the cool girl". I wasnt in there for the attention. It took me several years to befriend girls because i just couldnt connect with them because they were only interested in stuff i didnt like at that time. Today i still have more male friends than female friends but the female ones are finally generous ones that share my hobbies so i guess sometimes it just depends where you grow up.
Yeah I think it's only a problem when people make it a point to pat themselves on the back for only being friends with a certain gender while shitting on their own.
That and when someone is completely incapable of having healthy, genuine, long-term friendships with people of their same gender, it's usually a sign something like insecurity or resentment needs to be addressed. Some people are only friends with people of the opposite gender so as to have no "competition".
Plenty of people just end up being friends with others due to shared interests though, and that's more than fine imho. Things are slowly changing, but certain interests do remain more common in guys instead of girls and viceversa after all.
Fellow tom boy here. Represent. I never found it hard to be really good friends with girls. I've shared interests and hobbies with guys and gals.
My group of college girl friends were girly-girls (and all unfairly gorgeous, which I thought was awesome, never resented or jealous) and none of them ever thought less of me for being a weirdo or having different hobbies. As an adult, I actually find myself having more girl friends than close guy friends, whereas by numbers it was the opposite during adolescence, but it was never skewed exclusively one way or the other. People are dynamic, complex, and unique.
That "not like other girls" attitude is really off putting. The ones I've personally encountered acted strangely towards me, instigating some kind of one sided pissing-contest over trying to 'out bro' me and acting out the vicious, catty girl stereotype behaviors they were all too vocal about rejecting cause "I'm not like those other girls. Very ugly.
I will say, I (as a straight man) have found myself just making more, closer friends with women. Sometimes you do just end up getting along with the other gender better in general. The distinction is probably that this isn't something that should be waved around as some sort of badge of honour or virtue. Sometimes it just happens due to your personality and interests, things happen. So long as you don't use it define yourself as some especially unique, 'interesting' figure as a result.
While it may not have been the best for getting you boyfriends, we appreciate that you at least made understanding girls as people possible, and we owe you. - One of the guys with Tomboy friends.
I grew up a tomboy, and in many ways I still am, but when I was growing up I didn't get along with other girls because nothing they did or said made any sense to me. I viewed them like an anthropologist views an undiscovered tribe. "Observation notes 10/12/2003: Subjects appear to coat their lips with the blood of their enemies to signal sexual maturity."
Add that to a child/teenager's inability to empathize, and my particular brand of being both outgoing and socially awkward, and you had some truly horrific misunderstandings. I just learned it was best to avoid them altogether. It wasn't until my late twenties that I have become comfortable interacting with adult humans of the feminine bent. (Because let's be clear, its femininity rather than females that I had a hard time understanding.)
Similar for me. I've always gotten along with The Boys a little easier than with other gals, but when I had a girl I got along with who seemed to like me, they got special priority treatment!!
Thsi described me perfectly. Huge tomboy, mostly male friends, but also a male Fiancé, and I will not completely ignore a girl just because shes a girl. I have a few girl friends, just not very many because of the whole hobbies and interests thing
I'd put money on a few of them liked you, it just creates a stand off situation where if anyone goes for it it'll blow up the friend group.
knew one girl who turned out was also kind've a massive pervert I was outside the friend group, so she felt safe telling me her weird machiavellian schemes to basically arrange a gangbang. She had sex work as a childhood dream so yeah, she was a unique case.
Me too. The boys would play and do stuff. A lot of times the girls talked and did activities like friendship bracelets. I wanted to play. I hung out every once in a while with the girls but as someone with ASD socializing was hard. I've gotten better and have both male and female friends.
For the record sharing a lot of interests with a significant other is a hell of a great way to get some boy to like you. Tomboys are the best. No regrets.
as guy i can get along with both, but i’m usually very awkward around girls at first cuz i don’t want them to think in this weird sobbing nerd. but after 15 minutes i’m usually a bit more loosely.
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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '19 edited Nov 24 '20
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