Female Friends

I have some female friends.

O.K. I have many female friends. As a matter of fact, if I were to enumerate my friends, they would be almost exclusively female. With the exception of one guy who was Wife's friend first, one who I met at work, and another I've had forever, the rest are all women.

I don't have a problem with it, but Wife is not too thrilled. She jokes about it, but I always wonder how she really feels. When she started reading my blog, one of the first questions she asked about the folks I 'blog with' was if any of them were cute women. She asked the same of the folks in my new office.

What's interesting is the fact that I prefer to read blogs by women. My blogroll here is almost exclusively women. Championable, Quarter Life and Blogfathers are the only exceptions. Men seem to write about tech a lot (as I do on my other blog) but they don't get into family, life, and themselves.

I enjoy that. I like to get inside of others, and I like to show what I have going on inside. That may be why I enjoy being with women. I like the deep conversations. I enjoy the emotional aspect. The candor with which they speak.

The women I am friendly with tend to have male friends themselves. Many of them. They don't have many female friends. They seem to get along better with men. Is that a thing with women?

I sometimes wonder if it's because of my background. I spent a lot of time in the arts when I was growing up. I was involved in theater, dance, and music. I'm not gay, but I suppose many of the things I did are the kinds of things that guys who ended up gay did as they were growing up. It sounds kind of weird. I'm not Frank from "Trading Spaces", but I am kind of artsy.

I worry that Son goes through the same things. He has a group of female friends that he clicks with. They are not classmates, because he has yet to fall in with a group of girls at school, but he has plenty of male friends at school. I worry that he is sensitive, he is into the arts, and he will suffer as a result.

I spent a lot of time as I was growing up being called "gay" and "fag." What was funny was that I was... active at the time. I knew I wasn't. Guys will be guys, though, and I was gay in their eyes. We didn't call them "beards" then, but I guess that was their thought. It wasn't true.

I know Son gets a lot of crap about who he is. He's not yet comfortable with the dating scene (he's 13!) and he doesn't have a girlfriend. Some of his friends do, but his best friend doesn't yet. I worry that they will leave him behind, and he will begin to endure the stuff I had to endure.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if THAT is the reason I do not get along with a lot of men. I'm not into organized sports, I'm not competitive, and I don't give a damn who you spend the night with. If you score, I'm happy for you. I don't care which goal you're shooting for.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I was in touch with 2 of my college friends, and both are female. I probably would not have spent the time if Wife were home. She's working, and I didn't have to feel guilty.

Maybe I do anyway.