3 ms·
I have quite a few female friends who have mostly male friends (just because of being interested in a particular technical field). And, to be honest, I have nev
by stared 14y ago
I have quite a few female friends who have mostly male friends (just because of being interested in a particular technical field). And, to be honest, I have never got idea why someone _needs_ to have friends mostly of the same gender.
Once someone has interest beyond cliche "gossip, fashion, diet & nail painting" or "football, cars, sports, binge drinking", well, then why to lock contacts inside only one's own gender? And if it turns out that most of people interested in X are of the opposite gender, is it wrong? (Unless it is them who make a barrier.)
Especially as when there is a heated discussion between two people interested in (say) the respiratory system of Drosophila melanogaster (a fruit fly, not to intimidate anyone), then the simplest social characteristics (i.e. gender and, to some extent, age) very often go away.
And, in fact, what I like _the most_ about people being passionate about their interests, is that very, very often it goes beyond social status (sometimes even if one is talking with a professor, who is 50 older than a teenage geek).
- ianstormtaylor 14y agoSorry, but you're arguing against no one. No one said she needed to make friends with girls because she's a girl. She clearly _wants_ to become friends with them. And it's unfortunate that she clearly wants to be friends with some people of her own gender, and yet has such a hard time of it because she's alienating the other girls and they're alienating her.
- stared 14y agoIt wasn't an argument, it was a side comment, supporting her approach (similar to one of many of my friends) and to some extent mocking the (culturally implicit) premise that one should align with one's own gender[1], see in e.g. "[...] and how none of the other girls in her class understood anything she was talking about". Would ever a tall person said "but none of tall people at my high-school can understand my jokes"? [1] And to some extent supporting also: "It’s funny because the evening started out with a lady giving a speech about how the IT industry is alienating women. But for some girls, it feels like women are alienating the girls who want to be in IT."