Looking at my past experiences over my entire life, I am not sure if it is safer to say that girls/women do not like me as a friend or that I just prefer to have guys as friends. This is not to say that I have never had girlfriends in my life. I have. Many of them. Some of them for very extended periods of time. But they have usually been very destructive to me as a person, and while I am happy to and more than willing to essentially become a doormat to accommodate my friends and fulfill their needs I cannot seem to find another who does the same.
My first friendships in my early years were with other girls. I had a friend down the street who I visited constantly, and she was so cool because she was older than me. Unfortunately, this friend was also friends with a teenage girl a little further down the street and this teenage girl apparently was in the habit of telling my friend about sex and her having sex with boys. Not that this is inherently bad, but it ended up being bad for me in the long run. My friend would constantly make me take my clothes off and have me do things to her, often mentioning that the teenage girl told her boys do that and it feels good. If I refused she threatened to not invite me to her birthday party, which at that age for me was like threatening death. The next girl friend after that (also older while I was still fairly young, I think I wasn't past 10 yet, but my memory isn't all that great) liked to have me lay down with her and imagine that tiny men were messing with our lower parts. My relationship with girls did not start out great.
I befriended the girls that lived next door next, one my age and in my grade and the other just one year older. We had a great time together and it was a healthy friendship. When we started making more friends, though, that dynamic changed drastically. When I hung out with just them it was great, but when the other girls would come over to play (supposedly my friends as well) it usually ended up as a mass attack on me. They would gang up and insult me, passive aggressively pick on me, or just straight up lock me in a room and not let me out no matter how much I yelled and screamed. An instance I do remember clearly was in a tree house, the girls surrounding all the openings and any time I tried to move past one they would push me back. That group had a lot of infighting, where you were forced to pick sides and do all sorts of stupid friend politics. Can't imagine I stayed friends with all of them for probably about 5 years but I did.
That group introduced me to another girl, and as we became strong steadfast friends we slowly separated from that larger group of girls, recognizing how cruel they were and that we had more in common with each other than with them. So that started a (what I imagined to be) great 12 year relationship. We went through middle school, high school, and eventually roomies in college. We tacked a couple of other girls to us, but it generally was just her and me. While friends with her I never could see how destructive she was to me. She constantly needed attention from me, going as far as to tell our other friends (without my knowing) that they would not be invited to certain outings. She shunned my younger brother and was probably the biggest reason why I never did try to get closer to him and why we never developed a real relationship until she "dumped" me and I got out of college. She insisted on picking the places we went, loudly griped about any plans I tried to make myself, had to pick the songs that were played in the car and they had to be songs she could sing to, insulted our other friends right to my face (she particularly loved to call one friend weasel face and make terrible smacking noises), and the list goes on. It wasn't until we got an apartment with separate rooms in college when she started to get passive-aggressive enough towards me that I started to really notice. That was about the time my online boyfriend (who I'd been talking with for about 3 years but never told anyone because I didn't think people would respect my relationship with him since it was online and we'd never met in person) had moved to where I lived and we started visiting each other more and more and I wasn't around every weekend to hang out with her.
She never did try to work things out with me, just one weekend she, along with all my other girlfriends on campus, completely ignored my boyfriend and I (apparently after months of telling everyone behind my back what a terrible person I was because I had a boyfriend or something, she'd convinced all of my other friends on campus that I was a terrible person too). I may have visited my boyfriend a lot or talked with him on the phone whenever I could (this was my first real boyfriend, he is quite literally my other half and at that time he was working a 12 hour job were pretty much his 30 minute break was the only time we got to talk. I wouldn't move someone to live with me if they were not perfect in everyway for me, but she never made any effort to really get to know him in any way) but this was never a boyfriend over my friend thing. I was there for her when she really needed me. She was getting ready to go abroad which was really stressing her out, and those nights when she couldn't stop crying she had my shoulder. She would even tell me later how grateful she was and what a great friend I was. But I didn't realize that she actually thought I was purposefully dumping her for my boyfriend.
Thankfully I graduated a semester early. That last semester, when my friend came back from abroad, the campus was a very negative space for me. None of my friends even made a gesture to send me off that last week of the semester. I had several very major meltdowns, but after graduation I was determined to not be a doormat for anyone ever again.
I have had many guy friends over my lifetime, all of whom are still very good friends. They have never treated me like dirt or acted like what they wanted or preferred was better than what I wanted. Maybe it is because I have always been a tomboy and was used to holding my own and being forceful with boys when I was younger. Hell, I was the only girl during recess who bothered to play kickball and dodge ball with the boys instead of sitting around and talking on the play equipment. I single-handedly created the girls kickball team. I am very used to being one of the guys and the guys are used to it as well. And it's not that I have never had healthy relationships with girls ever. I had many friends on my girls soccer team, all the girls I played kickball with were on cool terms with me, the all girl programming team I had in college were good friends in class, female coworkers and I get along just fine. I guess I've just never had that Sex in the City type relationship with another girl or woman. I've never had that confidant that I can go to and just spill my secrets and problems to. I have had guy friends I could do that with, but no girlfriends. Now a days I tend to just hang around with my boyfriend. He is probably one of the few people on the planet I can talk as openly as I want with and he'll be there and understand.
I guess I want to understand why I cannot have these open relationships with other women or why other women seem to be so closed off to me. Do I just pick bad friends? Or is it because of all my negative experiences with other girls/women that I almost have a deep-set mistrust and instinctively won't let them get close to me. I've often felt like I'm some sort of freak because I seem to be incapable of forming close knit relationships with members of my own sex. If my rambling seems a bit scattered and doesn't always make sense, I apologize. I was just curious if anyone else has this problem or has had it? Sometimes I feel alone in a place where it seems like it's almost expected of me to have a fistful of close girlfriends with whom I go shoe shopping and have late night sleepovers where we dish on boys we've dated and have impromptu pillow fights, or I guess in my case have late night Gears of War runs and then sew a quilt together or something. As a feminist I also feel guilty about my apparent inherent mistrust and my lack of ability to form lasting friendships with other women. Any advice or comments? This is my first post on here so I am a bit nervous.
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Many of the questions you seek answers to are within yourself.
But as a man who has mostly female friends, I can say that I complete relate. The first female friend you mention may have been being molested, since she was preoccupied, to put it lightly, with pleasing men in a purely sexual context at a very early age.
Your story reminds me of the story of one of my sisters, who tried and failed to have a close female friend at every juncture in her life. She would beat herself up about it when drama forced them to part ways. Her poor self-image contributed to the problems but part of her issues were due to the fact that she had borderline personality disorder and rarely picked any relationship, romantic or platonic, based on a sense of lasting stability.
Clearly you deserve better than you have been receiving. No one deserves to be anyone's doormat, for whatever reason. I'm uncomfortable with telling you with some resolute certainty precisely what makes it difficult for you to have female friends because I honestly don't know you well enough to make that call. But what I see echoed in your piece is the fact that you put yourself last and that you are a giver who has been taken advantage of by those who are takers.
Rather than beating yourself up about not having female friends, I'd take a different tact altogether. I would strive to feel better about yourself and to recognize that you are a woman of great worth. When you reach that point, I know you'll be able to find a female friend who isn't a user and will appreciate you as more than someone to manipulate. I wish you luck.
Take care.
Always been a big giver. I dunno if this is inherently a bad thing but it definitely makes me a big pushover in any of my relationships. Most of the people I am around now are good enough people that they do not take advantage of it, which is great. The self esteem comes gradually. I took a big hit after college. Had to step back from all the friend drama and just kinda look at what's what. Most days I'm excessively happy in who I am and who I've become, but most of the time I keep most of it in worried that I'll ruffle someone the wrong way. Again, that putting other people before me thing, lol. :\
It's certainly a personality trait that sucks to have. If you give too much you wear yourself out and become ripe for abuse. If you try to hold back, people treat you as if you're being mean.
I can really relate to your experiences. I had a friend from grade 2 to 10 that really messed with my head. She would suddendly stop talking to me. She would insult me in front of other people. She was super pissed when I hung out with girls that were not her (and yet was ok with ditching me to hang out with other people). Basically, she treated me like dirt and I didn't really realize it until I was about 20. From grade 10 onward, I ended up hanging out with mostly guy friends and have never been really close to any girl friends.
And I don't really have any friends besides my boyfriend right now. But that is totally not a probably with me. It's just there aren't many people in my age group around for me to socialize with.
What you have to realize is that it is not your fault you were treated like dirt. And it is not your fault now that you don't have many friends. It's gets harder to make and keep friends as you get older.
I'm kinda in your place now too. Most just me and my boyfriend, and we occasionally go out and visit with other friends. And yeah, after college there's not a whole lot of times when you're just stuck with a large group of people and you're more or less forced to form relationships. Other than work. But unfortunately my work is pretty much me and my boss right now, lol. Not a lot of options for friendship making unless I wanna become bosom-buddies with him and that would just be weird. :P
I relate, too, and I lamented to my husband that I had trouble having and keeping same-sex friends. I think a big reason is my life choices. I had close and wonderful girlfriends until "boys" in high school, and I was afraid to date, and my friends were into it; then I befriended a group of mixed-gendered people during college;and there were close women friends, whom I still love, even though I moved away for work, during grad school. However, here, in the Midwest, the women at work are either at my level of education, after raising their families and then going for their PhD's or women who made the tough choice to put their families before their educations and are invested in spending time at home. I tried to be friends, but I am different from the women here, and it is hard to be childless by choice, career minded, and meet other women who understand. (Also, I'm not complaining about my life; I love it. I'm just saying that I relate to your situation.)
P.S. I'd love to be friends with most people who visit feministing. This is a great and energetic community!
Me too! I need more feminist friends in real life so I can talk about stuff that care about and have friendly debates. :D
Listen, those girls are effed up. I don't know how you managed to run into such a long string of them, but their behavior is THEIR fault, not yours. I think all you can do is be more aware of the destructive behavior of those around you and be ready to cut cords when you need to.
You deserve better friends. You deserve support and consideration. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
I always feel so sad when I see tv shows or movies like SATC that feature these close knit friendships with three or four women who love each other dearly.
I've never had that. And, never had a sister either. And it makes me feel very much alone.
I've had very dear male friends. And have even managed to find a few who didn't resent me for not sleeping with them. But I feel like its not the same as the bond between two women.
I think one of the main reasons is that women sort of grow up in a society that tells us not to trust each other.
All I ever hear young women say is how much they don't trust their female friends. How "catty" other women are. My own mother has told me a few times that women are their own worst enemies.
I've been hurt by some women that I trusted, but always have seen why they did what they did. And it seemed forgivable. I didn't personally deserve it, but I understood them.
I try all the time to make my female friends trust me, and love themselves enough not to be so afraid of other women. But its hard to undo twenty-five or so years of "women are awful" from friends, parents, and pop-culture.
Because several people responded with good responses, I feel that it is ok for me to say this:
I play a lot of WoW and am sewing a quilt. But I don't do pillow fights. :)
Rock on. :D I actually had an impromptu pillow fight once. My computer programming team and I were at a competition which, of course, was filled to the top with dudes. When we got to the hotel that night we were just like "Ah need girly vibes pillow fight!!!" Lol. It was rather enjoyable. :) At least I can say I was in a pajama clad three way girl pillow fight once in my life time. :P But yeah for sharing my joy of needle work and videogames! It is an odd combo one rarely finds.
Wait, you too? I usually crochet while raiding. And I've had friends knit during tabletop games.
Wow, you can crochet and raid at the same time? I thought raiding was more intense than that, lol. And if I'd been able to knit while I played DnD I probably would have enjoyed role playing more (battles took FOREVER with my group, boooooring), but my group was way too anal to let me knit while I played.
It's always so frustrating when people wait until their initiative to plan what they're going to do when it's a large group. It's as though their init surprised them.
On that note, next time I do play, I'm bringing some knitting.
Well, our raid leader takes along time to explain fights sometimes. Crochet is also better than some stuff in that it's really easy to pick up and set down, so I can get a couple stitches in while we're setting up pulls, or figuring out loot.
Take a look at Woman's Inhumanity to Woman by Phyllis Chessler.
http://www.amazon.com/Womans-Inhumanity-Woman-Phyllis-Chessler/dp/1560253517
Its definitely not some of the light weight stuff that is flying about in any genre.
...
i was sexually abused from about the age of five till about fourteen by a girl two years older than me.
i cant make friends with girls, when i spend time with them i become terrified that they will realise there is something deeply wrong and dirty about me. its a shame that has totally shattered my trust in female friendships.
anyone got any resources? most sexual abuse resources online are focused on adult-child abuse. child on child, and specifically girl on girl seems like an untouched subject.
seriously, anyone? i cant even express how lonely and sad it makes me.
(this is not a helpful comment but really i have no advice on this)
*hugs* I do know how you feel. I didn't start remembering what happened to me until I got much older and didn't really think about how it was affecting me until then. I think a lot of it was because people do not address child-child abuse and especially not girl child-girl child abuse. I never thought about it, especially never in terms of it being sexual assault, because no one mentions it as an option. There should be more resources for that kinda thing and more people talking about it. Never sure if it's just something that doesn't happen often or just something that no one talks about. I know I never talk about it mostly because I feel that people just won't think it's all that important or serious. I wish I knew of something that could help you, too.
Also keep in mind that not everyone has the same kinds of friendships, and that's ok. Sometimes I feel a little abnormal too for not having SATC-style "we talk about everything" friends--because that's what we always see in movies and on tv. Fictional women are either catty and hate each other, or they're in these really intense, close relationships with each other. But I don't think we real-life women should feel that we have to have one or the other. We can have good friends without necessarily having to share every single deep dark secret or sexual exploit with them. If that's the kind of friendship you want, then absolutely go for it (when you find other women who are generally good friend material--trustworthy and genuinely caring for you, etc). But if you're like me and actually aren't really keen on that particular kind of relationship, and just sometimes feel like you're supposed to be because that's what women friends are like in the media--try to step back and think about what YOU actually want in your social life.
I first read this post as soon as it was posted and since then have been digesting it, i guess. I have a very similar situation as you do and i really don’t like to think about it. However, since reading your post i cannot get it out of my head so i figure the least i can do is reply. Here goes:
Like i said, my situation is very similar to yours. I was sexually abused by some of my early girl friends.* when i was in kindergarten, so about five, i had a friend down the street. We used to watch each other use the washroom but once her mom found out, we would both go in her closet together and she would touch me and make me touch her. The second occasion was when i was in grade 5, 10 y/o. Her family lived in a big yard and they had a shop which offered a lot of..privacy. she’d always invite me over but never talked to me or played with me at school. Both of these were ongoing, and both of the girls were my age when they happened.
Then, in grade 8, i met a girl we became instant best friends. We were glued at the hip for grade 8, 9, and 10. However, our friendship was exactly healthy and she was often quite rude. If she did something “wrong” i would be the one begging for forgiveness. Then at the beginning of grade 11 i entered a depressive episode and she became distant and weird acting. Instead of being supportive she became awful. I found out that she’d been saying pretty terrible things like “i hope goes to e mental hospital spo i won’t have to pretend to be her friend anymore” and “i really hate her but i know that if i quit pretending to be nice to her she’ll kill herself and i don’t want it to be my fault.” If i hadn’t found out about the things she’d said i would have been back on my knees begging for forgiveness in a few days. And even as this was happening i knew that that was still a possibility: just pretend that i didn’t know what she’d been saying, out up with pretty bullshit for a while, and soon you’ll be “friends” again. But i had had enough. Of course at first i was sad, those are pretty terrible things to here even when you’re not in a major episode of depression. But after that i was furious! I ended the friendship immediately (totally ignoring any means of contact proved to be the easiest) and switched schools immediately. Since ending the friendship i became more and more ware of just how closely it resembled an emotionally abusive relationship. For example: I felt i needed her. I recognized that the friendship wasn’t always the best but felt like i didn’t deserve better treatment. That i should continue being friends with her because no one better, per se, would ever want to be my friend. I wasn’t allowed, or atleast heavily discouraged, to make new friend or try new activities. I was afraid to do anything without her, which meant i could only do things she wanted to. I was put down, my self-esteem was absolute shit. Looking at this, thinking about, comprehending it, it’s blatantly clear that this is emotional abuse but why hadn’t it occurred to me before? Sure, i knew what emotional abuse was but never had i been told that emotional abuse could happen outside of romantic relationships.
I think, perhaps, that because i was subjected to abuse in my earlier friendships with girls i was accustomed to it, so to say. Althought i hate to say that i allowed the abuse to happen, i was, on some level, purposely oblivious to it because i didn’t know much else. Actually, I think it is a bit of a combination of things. Because i had been abused before, and never really aware of what a good friendship was, i tolerated mistreatment. And think that, by initially tolerating mistreatment, i fed the power hungry mind of a potentially abusive person.
And by saying “allowed” i don’t mean that it’s my fault. It’s NOT my fault that i was treated like dirt, and it’s not your fault either. The only peoples fault it is are the ones who treated us that way.
* Yes, child on child and girl on girl molestation is still sexual abuse, even if there is no age difference. That being said, i do not blame my abusers. How the fuck can a five y/o girl now how to do those kinds of things unless someone else is doing them to her?
Yeah. It's taken me years to comes to term with the fact that I was in an abusive relationship that was not a romantic one. Even though when I would talk about it with people I almost always seemed to talk about in more relationship like terms. She "broke up" with me was something I often said because that's pretty much what happened. It scares me to think that if she had not completely cut the strings like that with me I would probably still be in that relationship. I mean, it had already been 12 years, I was so used to giving in to her demands and used to her passive aggressive bullying and used to taking all the blame. I guess it took so long because I didn't really want to admit that I had spent 12 years with such a terrible person, or that I allowed myself to stay in that damaging situation for so long. I always liked to think of myself as stronger than that, but I also never allowed myself (or was allowed) to kinda step back and take a look at what was really going on. Never thought I needed to. Hell, even after all that shit I went through with her I remember when she was studying abroad and we hadn't talked for months I sent her an email, just a casual hello email, trying to just kinda make things okay. Of course that backfired. She sent a book long email back describing every single little tiny thing I ever did to slight her. Had me crying and depressed for months. Eventually I went from upset to losing her to just pissed off that she could treat me like that at all. Now I'm at a place where I can talk about it without any sort of strong feelings, it's just the facts now. Which is good. Though I know I could step into another relationship like that easy as pie, which is scary. My personality just seems to lend itself to those kind of relationships, I'm such a giver that people can take and take and take and I'll honestly never notice. That kind of scares me from forming any really intimate relationships of any kind with anyone that's not my boyfriend.
I'm glad you got out of your abusive friendship early. Tolerating is easy for me, I understand that. I would often explain rude behavior or catty behavior that my friend did with a shrug and "That's (her name)." Like it was just who she was and she couldn't change it but I was gonna stay friends with her anyways because deep down she's a good person. I guess tolerating behavior isn't a good thing in any relationship. I guess these "friendships" have managed to teach us what a good friendship should be like, even if those lessons took longer for some of us.
I'm sorry you had such a rough childhood! Usually when someone has a hard time as a kid, blame is placed on the adults in the child's life. It seems that instances of child on child sexual abuse or bullying are de-emphasized, or made invisible.
I also have mostly male friends. As a kid I was emotionally abused by my best girlfriend. I was bullied in elementary and middle school by a bunch of girls. By high school I had had it, and spent most of my time hanging out with the boys I was in a band with or by myself. I did make one close female friend and we're still buddies.
Bullying from other girls was always an ambush. Often, it would start as an offer to be included in the group, but would later turn into something cruel (like getting locked in your room). I've had similar experiences and have just now come to terms with how this effects my trust in women. There's a part of me that questions whether closeness is a genuine offer of friendship or just a bait. With boys, there was never that pressure for closeness (unless it was a romantic relationship). Friendships with boys were always casual and safer.
There's nothing to wrong with having mostly male friends, especially if you work in a field that's predominantly male. It's also a completely different world outside of college. That insular and middle school like behavior quickly falls by the wayside when one has to deal with the "real world" and one realizes that genuine kindness gets them farther than cruelty.
It's true about the predominantly male field. I made most of my good friends while I worked at Gamestop, which of course was mostly dudes working there. I was one of two (eventually three) girls who worked there. And with an 8 hour shift in a practically dead store it was hard to not form really strong relationships. :) Most of my other guy friends are old friends from highschool.
And yeah, I never feel any sort of pressure from my guy friends. But I think this pressure for closeness is something I imagine in my head, since I'm afraid of closeness with other girls my anxiety may get the best of me and make me feel pressured when there's really none. I'm also a naturally flirty person, so I guess that probably works much better with guys than it does with other girlfriends. Who knows, I guess. Even with my one girlfriend (the one left standing as it were after the fall out with my 12 year friendship) I feel uncomfortable when we hang out. She's a great and wonderful person but I just can't seem to make myself comfortable when we hang out.
And being out in the real world I only wish I was in an environment where I was able to interact with people more often so I could possibly form friendships. At Gamestop it was easy to make new friends but damn if that company doesn't just try to kill you with their crappy wages and terrible district managers. At the law firm I work at (party of me and my boss thanks to the other two ladies just kinda up and leaving) it's a little bit harder to make friends for obvious reasons, lol. :)
I'm sorry to hear this, and I totally sympathize. It's for different reasons with me, of course, but I don't relate at all to most women.
First off, congratulations for not doing the "other women don't like me because they're too catty" thing. It sounds like you're really thinking about this, and that's quite refreshing.
The bulk of my advice is to please see a counselor. You experienced childhood sexual abuse that is affecting your ability to relate to people in adulthood. Your school's health clinic should be able to recommend some people who work cheaply. Some even let graduates use their facilities.
Well, I am out of college now. Only real life expensive doctors of me now. -_- And I don't think the childhood abuse is the bulk of the reason why I have problems forming relationships now. If anything I think the most damage came from the 12 year relationship and the prior abusive group dynamics. The emotional abuse of the later friendships was far more damaging than the sexual abuse I experienced, mostly because the emotional abuse happened during a period where I remember what happened, while the sexual abuse happened when I was really too young to remember much of it now. I remember it happened, and I'm sure that it kind of started the ground work for my all too giving and tolerant of abusive friends personality, but I think I have kind of worked through that part of my life a little better than the emotional abuse I suffered at the hands of friends later in life.
But while I was going through my "break up" with my friend of 12 years I did seek counsel because that was greatly affecting my ability to get through classes and function on campus. One was a campus counselor and the other was the therapist my mom uses. Both were okay. Mostly they just listened to me talk. Gave me kinda generic relaxation techniques. Shit I could have easily figured out by doing some internet research and talking with my boyfriend. My boyfriend was actually more helpful because he knew all the details of what was going on without me having to go over them with him to talk to him about it. So I don't know. I definitely do not have the money to seek counseling now. And I feel the relationships I have retained are healthy and good for me, so creating new relationships isn't a priority at the moment. I don't know what a counselor would even recommend for me to become more comfortable around other women other than I need to work on me before I can even start trying for more intimate friendships. Which will take time for me. It's been 3 years since the break up with my best friend, and it's only been this year that I've started feeling okay about it all. I think it's just gonna take me a lot more time to finally heal. And alot more time sticking just with my stable relationships before I try to start new ones. :)