Wave Rider Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) This is a follow-up to my thread about whether you would be friends with your lover if they weren't your lover, wherein about half of you said that you would be friends and the other half said you wouldn't. If I look at my previous girlfriends and ask if I would have been friends with any of them if we were not romantic partners, the truth is that I would not have been friends with the vast majority of them because even though we shared common values, we shared very few common interests. If I am looking for a long-term relationship with high compatibility, it seems that we should be genuine friends, and that the friendship should be based on shared values, as well as shared hobbies, interests, and activities. I have usually been able to find women who share my values, but I have had much more difficulty finding women who share my favorite hobbies, interests, and activities. My hobbies and interests are stereotypically male hobbies and interests, including physics/engineering, sports, surfing, flying drones, and lifting weights. All of these interests are overwhelmingly dominated by men, with about 90% of people in these hobbies and interests being men. The 10% of people in these hobbies who are women get a tremendous amount of attention from those men. Hobbies and interests seem to be very segregated by gender - there are girl hobbies and there are guy hobbies; there are girl jobs and there are guy jobs. Even in the presence of shared values, it seems that many men and women would have difficulty forming genuine friendships with their romantic partners because men and women tend to have such different hobbies and interests. The ideal of egalitarian relationships demands that men and women be best friends in addition to being lovers, and it seems that a lot of men and women struggle with this because of the disconnect between men's and women's preferred hobbies and interests. Some of you may be very lucky in that you work jobs and have hobbies where there is a 50/50 gender split. But for those of us men who work in physics and engineering, and for those women who are nurses and teachers, the world seems extremely segregated by gender, with the men complaining that there aren't any women around and the women complaining that there aren't any men around. A few days ago I was sitting at my promotional booth for our UAV (drones, model airplanes, etc) club. Nearly everyone in my club is male, and nearly everyone who stopped by our booth was male. A short distance away there was the booth for the veterinary science club, which was staffed by an absolutely smokin' hot woman who was clearly passionate about helping animals. Nearly everyone who stopped by that booth was female, and all the other people who were working at the booth were female. Our two booths were very much gender-segregated because our hobbies are so gender-segregated. I wanted to go talk to this smokin' hot woman, but what would be the basis for a genuine friendship with her if I have no interest in veterinary science and she has no interest in UAVs? If I was just looking for a short-term conquest, perhaps I could get away with "throwing game" at her, but since I want a real friendship and real connection, how could I establish that given that we clearly do not share the same interests at all? If she is looking for a man who is passionate about veterinary science and I am looking for a woman who is passionate about UAVs, don't we both lose? More broadly, how can I establish a friendship with a woman if hobbies, interests, and activities are so segregated by gender? Edited January 13, 2019 by Wave Rider Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 You don't connect so much over hobbies, interests and activities - it's more about being able to converse over a broad scope of topics. It's about each being able to look outside their own interests and find connection. That said, it usually ends up complicated romance from one side and is therefore best worth avoiding. What's the gender makeup of your regular group of friends? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Wave Rider Posted January 13, 2019 Author Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) You don't connect so much over hobbies, interests and activities - it's more about being able to converse over a broad scope of topics. It's about each being able to look outside their own interests and find connection. That said, it usually ends up complicated romance from one side and is therefore best worth avoiding. What's the gender makeup of your regular group of friends? What do you mean about it being complicated for one side? My social group is supportive, fun, and pretty much 100% men. There are three of us that work in my lab (all men) and I am good friends with one guy and only an acquaintance with the other guy. My (male) boss is awesome, but he's more of a mentor than a friend. I am the president of the UAV club I mentioned before, and we usually have 5-12 people at our activities, and all of them are men, except for one woman who comes occasionally and has drone at her house that she keeps saying that she will build, but she never seems to get to it. So yeah, I like my social group and they're very supportive, but they're pretty much all men. I really like my life and I'm in a great place emotionally, but there is nothing but men men men at every activity I would actually want to go to. It's very frustrating. Edited January 13, 2019 by Wave Rider Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) Complicated on one side means that someone wants to make it romantic and the other doesn't. Or they get together and then break up. The result being a ruined friendship either way. The reason I asked about your friend group is because I wondered how and when you socialise with women. What do you three do on a Saturday night? Edited January 13, 2019 by basil67 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Wave Rider Posted January 13, 2019 Author Share Posted January 13, 2019 Complicated on one side means that someone wants to make it romantic and the other doesn't. Then the friendship is ruined. I am speaking about the hope of being both friends and lovers with someone, of being able to have feelings of friendship in addition to romantic interest, rather than of unrequited one-sided romantic feelings. The reason I asked about your friend group is because I wondered how and when you socialise with women. What do you three do on a Saturday night? At this point I haven't even been trying. Both the other guys in my lab are in long-term relationships (and the guy I'm good friends with admitted that he would't have the motivation to be friends with his wife if they weren't married because they don't have much in common.) I mostly just stay in on Saturday night and do what all the self-help gurus say I need to do, which is to be very independent and prove that I do not need a relationship to make me happy. Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 I am speaking about the hope of being both friends and lovers with someone, of being able to have feelings of friendship in addition to romantic interest, rather than of unrequited one-sided romantic feelings. Oh, I thought you wanted an actual platonic female friend. Not a friend with a view to relationship type friend. Sorry, can't help you. The guys I've had as friends are the ones I didn't want to date. Link to post Share on other sites
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