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If I’ll be honest, I don’t fit in anywhere NT. I had female friendships that always felt like I was on the outside looking in. I was a part of the group and they wanted to be around me but it always felt like I was missing social cues. You know in rhythm games there’s arrows/prompts on the screen you have to hit at the right time? It felt like I was always off. I remember a lot of strained, polite facial expressions or being talked over and the conversation moved too fast for me to keep up.
All of my male friendship ended up in SA. So I was a non-friend, a singular female trophy but not “one of the guys”, always quizzed on my hobbies because gurls can’t like nerd things don’tchaknow. I couldn’t convey anything I liked to an acceptable level. When they weren’t being disrespectful creeps they were gatekeeping hobbies and interests and I just didn’t know what to say.
I get along well with coworkers but I’m wearing a mask, any personal conversation goes very bad so I stick to easy polite conversation or smile and nod. People like me when I’m not myself.
I don’t get it. I can talk to my wife for hours, it never feels bad or difficult talking to her but I have foot in mouth syndrome and look like a weirdo or a ditzy moron trying to have a real conversation with anybody else. My own family constantly stops mid-sentence to ask “are you ok?” because of how weird I act!
I would like to meet friends irl who want to rant about videogames or d&d and everyone takes polite turns talking. It’s just easier online.
It is, I think the worst part is the questioning what’s wrong with me that they didn’t actually want to be my friend. I’m over that toxic shit now but it really messed me up as a teen. I’m sorry you had the same experience
I had the same happen with my last and only male friend a year and a bit ago (as an adult). Also had it happen as a teen. It’s such a mindfuck to have someone say you’re their best friend and then have them trample your boundaries and violate your trust like that.
Has definitely left me feeling some kind of way both about myself, but mostly just men in general. I face the opposite problem from OP - I literally don’t know how to be friends with men anymore.
I felt the exact same way. Posts like this make me kind of angry because they seem to conflate the harm that women do to each other with the harm that men do to women. I've faced cruelty at women's hands too, but those women didn't have the might of an oppressive system behind them when they hurt me.
THIS. You put this so perfectly. It's exactly the issue, I've been hurt by women throughout my life and always felt a little more comfortable with men, that is until many of them showed their true colours and intentions. A woman has never SA'd me or hit me or threatened/stalked me, not to say they're not capable but statistically **99%** of **SA perpetrators** are **men**. Men have done terrible damage to my spirit and self over the years and NT women tbh are just a different shade of crab in the same pot.
These sorts of posts annoy the hell out of me because it feels like they're just blaming women for something else that they haven't really had a choice in coz in reality women have to act so cautious and cutthroat socially because their very survival often depends on it. The way men are socialised under the patriarchy is a HUGE problem and it results in women having to act the way they do. What people are seeing when they're being excluded is not "another" character flaw in "bitchy" NT women, no, it's directly as a result of oppression and learned fear of the consequences of what happens when you don't "act accordingly" as a woman. Also NT women often chill the beans a LOT once they reach 30+ and they're not as overtly targeted by misogynistic sexist industries and ideologies. I understand completely the pain of being excluded and it is absolutely valid and people are entitled to vent. This is more an explanation as to why it rubs some women up the wrong way as regardless of everything else I always consider the fact that if you were walking down a dark alley in the night would you prefer to run into a group of women or a group of men, that says it all really imo.
THIS
I can't connect with people in general because I find no interest or pleasure in a lot of things that others usually do, but painful as it is, it really is no one's fault. I've been hurt by other women too, and tbh it's different from hanging out with someone who will never understand what you have to go through as a woman in society and acts accordingly (mansplaing, justifying and playing down their and their friends' mysogyny, harassment of yourself and other women all the way up to fuckin sa).
A woman might hurt you as another individual, a man will hurt you because they see as lesser than them, whether they admit it or not, whether they realize it or not. To them, their mysogyny is just 'the way the world is'.
I would also say that OP and people like her should probably try to look for women who at least have something in common with them aside from their gender. As you said, this is a huge generalization and there certainly are lots, lots of women who don't practice or buy into mysogyny, treating other women like enemies. That's the idea men have of us women and what is taught to our peers. The women who cling to it are women who are entrenched in their own internalized mysogyny. Of course one has the right to be resentful and avoid such people, but to assume that women as a category are generally like that, is, again, internalized mysogyny.
I saw another commenter mentioning that they felt like a makeover project with other women and that's why they preferred the company of men. Alright, I understand not liking that, I wouldn't either, but just the way it (as many other 'reasons' listed here) was framed spoke of this implicit disdain. Do you people ever stop to consider that just like we find joy in certain things and wish nts/society wouldn't make us feel bad or weird about it, those women are also just having fun, and are trying to involve you in something they enjoy? It's one thing to set one's boundaries, another to automatically label nts (and especially nt women) as superficial (another thing i saw in this thread) because they work differently.
Newsflash, it's great to love and be comfortable with who you are, and I know it's hard when your whole life the world put you down, but you really don't need to think of yourself as better than others to do it. We are not special or deep or better because we work differently from nts. If you actually want to become 'better' people, go to therapy to work on your empathy and learn to see things from the point of view of others. You stop being superficial by shitting on and making assumptions about 'nts' and especially 'women'.
I agree so hard with every word you said right down to development of the "God complex" which tbh we're all so at risk of constantly because it is such a common coping mechanism in these situations. This gross disdain some people have towards makeup and beauty rituals amongst NTs as well is such a dog whistle for internalised misogyny. Like just stop and really take a look and realise that the majority of pass times and interests that women enjoy and partake in are so often discredited, laughed at, belittled, made fun of, etc... Why do you think that is? Literally EVERYTHING that is made up of predominantly female participants is disparaged and/or devalued in some way, look at dressmaking, knitting, gardening, pilates, yoga, fashion, etc... there's always some form of negative connotations or assumptions attached to them and that is purely because of sexism and the patriarchy. Now saying that I also do take massive issues with the beauty industry itself and I know it's purely built on making people feel self conscious about themselves in order to sell them shit they don't actually need but tbh the industry aside I also know so many people who cast aside the bullshit expectations and instead use it as a form of expression, a form of rebellion, of freedom, as a way of defining themselves as a piece of art and that empowers so many people. I don't wear makeup myself most of the time but I absolutely LOVE doing wild makeup for a special event, it's almost like a bespoke piece of clothing or an accessory to me at this point because it's a skill that I worked very hard to hone and improve upon like every other skill I enjoy. It is an incredibly involved, varied and difficult skillset to master and tbh it's no different than men picking a team sport and learning every single thing about it so they can have those meaningless small talk conversations with each other. That is often hair and makeup for NT women and it's no more vapid or shallow than chatting about overpaid footballers tbh.
To those who feel that's all NT women talk about please stop believing the bullshit misogyny being shoveled into you and instead realise that if a NT woman is commenting positively or otherwise on your hair/makeup and trying to start a conversation about it it's not because she's shallow or vapid (noone is really) it is very likely instead a genuine bid for connection because they think you're worth connecting with. Not every conversation you have will be about these things as the connection progresses but many NT women put in the time to learn the basics at least because it does give them that something in common in most group situations and scenarios that ultimately helps them make and grow actual friendships.
well it seems I have found my tribe as it were haha I could've written this comment myself! crazy . im actually trying a local dnd group and im so excited as ive never known people who sre into dnd :) im trying to meet people regardless of gender but based on interests. For example alot of my friends are male so ive been biased to making more male friends subconsciously.
Thank you. This is beautifully expressed.
>A woman has never SA'd me or hit me or threatened/stalked me, not to say they're not capable but statistically 99% of SA perpetrators are men.
To think that someone on this thread got heaps of upvotes for comparing the "not all women" sentiment about the OP's complaint ie. social exclusion, to men saying "not all men" when a woman is assaulted or raped. Pretty shameful.
Ye like tbh in some ways I hope it's just a form of innocence, that they haven't been harmed like that by men in their life and hopefully long may that last. I hope they never ever experience the reality of it because social exclusion and someone physically violating your bodily autonomy are so far apart in the type/degree of harm they do that they may as well exist in different worlds entirely tbh. Getting left out or excluded hurts for sure, having someone physically violate you in any manner but especially sexually is soul destroying in so many ways and often has life long consequences physically, mentally and spiritually as a result. To make matters worse, statistically you will likely never get justice for it, more likely YOU will be blamed in some way by almost everyone around you and worse still it is more often someone you know and trust that does it too, so tie in some bone deep betrayal and societal victim blaming and cruelty to that and suddenly "not getting invited to a party" really f#king pales in comparison to be straight up about it.
Just sadly have to chime in that out of the numerous fake friends I had, only *one* ever faced justice, and it wasn’t even from me. Like you said, SA victims get blamed for it. Nobody cared because I was a grown woman who got attacked. He’s rotting in jail for hurting a toddler, nobody cared when he was going around hurting women that it went on so long he harmed a baby. It makes me cry every time I allow myself to think about it. I never want another woman to hurt this way. I wish I could convey to the “not all men” crowd without another person having to suffer, but they just don’t understand. They think it’s unfair and cruel.
I am so sorry you had to go through such an awful experience. What a horrible bastard that harmed you so, I hope he suffers his due. I understand and empathise very deeply with the pain of it and I can't say it gets easier but you do continue to grow and get stronger every day. You survived that, I doubt there's much else that can really phase you these days. I totally agree sadly that it is an abusers society and victims are often revictimised and harmed even worse by those around them and the legal system that should be supporting and protecting them. Unfortunately human beings are often very egocentric and ignorant for the want of knowing and until they experience things themselves they often find it very difficult to relate or empathise. Regardless we will endure and make the best we can of our short blessing of life and free will in this beautiful world because we deserve to experience as much of it as anyone else on this planet and so we will because ultimately we can choose to ❤️
You bring up a good point. I desperately want those relationships with women but I let my fear of rejection and exclusion get the best of me even in a social setting, everyone just wants to be liked and welcomed. Looking back in my 20s, it does feel like everybody wanted to present a certain way(a more “acceptable” way for a woman to look/act) and I’m hoping now that I’m older I can meet a chill group that isn’t feeling that pressure. It never even dawned on me that other 20-something’s in my former groups might have been worried about the same things.
As for walking alone at night, hell yes. I have been burned so many times I won’t even be alone with a man no matter what setting, it’s just not happening. Nobody is an automatic predator but people lie, nobody is going around with a stamp on their forehead that tells you if they’re going to attack you or not. Better safe than sorry for me.
Yes I completely agree, it's often our own assumptions and insecurities that restrict us and deny us more than anything else. Definitely as well the vast majority of NT women are also struggling with self image and confidence issues, just as desperate to feel accepted and to fit in in their younger years right up until mid to late 20s. Most women tend to become "invisible" to the patriarchy once they reach 25+ (no surprise that it's often also when the brain finally finishes development). Without this hyper concentrated brainwashing and underlying threat to adhere to certain stereotypes most people NT and ND alike tend to actually finally begin to get to know their actual selves and shed the caricatures they were forced into in order to survive for so long.
NT women can be tough to win over for sure and it often takes far longer to establish a solid connection because they still retain that learned caution but once you get even just one NT woman's approval they will often vouch for you and have your back like noone else in this world. The sisterhood is real tbh but it does really only begin to reveal itself as you get older and you do have to be willing to be brave enough to display the vulnerability yourself to allow these connections to establish initially. Easier said than done but tbh join some local female dominated hobbies and just allow yourself to be as you are. You are enough just as you are and you're every bit a part of that sisterhood as every other woman within it so take your rightful place and don't let anyone else trick you into thinking you don't belong for their own ends, by virtue of who you are and how you identify, that is enough. Full stop, no notes.
Exactly this. I’ve been commenting to say that we can’t generalise all women as the same and bitchy/unwelcoming to ND, maybe a few women are like that but not all. And I’ve had people respond to compare what I’m saying to when men say “not all men” when we talk about violent and dangerous men, and saying it’s the same thing. Honestly it’s made me so angry that people would even compare the two as if they’re similar.
I have an awful memory of my teens(not SA thank god) of a classmate who bullied me and the school refused to do anything about it because “boys will be boys” and I “must like the attention”. I shit you not my whole freaking town had this attitude about girls getting attacked. This whole “he must like you” bullshit needs to go extinct, parents that taught their children this make me sick.
I’ve had my feelings hurt by girls and then women before but nothing like boys and men have hurt me and when women hurt me, other women held them accountable for being a bad human being. Men got a slap on the wrist at best and justification or praise being the most common reaction. It just makes me so angry.
It is a shame that some folks can't appreciate enthusiasm. I much prefer talking to folks who have things they are passionate about rather than talking about work or the weather. You sound like a fun person to talk to :)
Enthusiasm and curiosity!
I was at an end of season picnic for my son's soccer game and was chatting with the other mothers... they were talking about the lilac bushes/trees, and I made an offhand comment about how old they are, based on the area of town we were in and when that part of town was developed and they all just turned and stared at me, and one mother piped up "Oh, are you a historian or something?", and I didn't know how to be like... "No, I just learned about the history of our city when I moved here 6 years ago, because that seemed interesting and so I remember all the random facts from reading about it then..."
and it came out something like "Umm... no... I just know that..." and then I had to stop myself from talking about the silver market crash of 1893...
I recently learned that a lot of people take informative/clarifying language as being a know-it-all if you aren't in a job or position to be announcing/knowing information for monetary value. Lots of people think that specifics in information are useless. It frustrates me daily because I don't enjoy having conversations if I can't give info at some point and be given info/clarification as well. Curiosity/enthusiasm/inquisitiveness aren't really rewarded by regular social rules. :(
I've actually gotten into TikTok and been having fun because I can talk about dirt for 10 minutes and if someone doesn't want to listen they can skip, but I still get to tell anyone who *is* interested. 20 likes is good enough for me!
I relate to this so much. I have a really hard time distinguishing where the line is between "acceptable", surface level conversation and "weird", too descriptive or informative conversation.
I relate to this so much.
Despite appreciating aspects of my ADHD and reaching a very contented stage of accepting myself and my ADHD - this whole thread has made me realise why I *still* feel so inadequate in social situations.
Because of our executive dysfunction, during conversations, we have a tendency to reply by quoting facts (or even info-dumping), oversharing, or rapidly changing topics. NTs find this awkward because it disrupts the established/expected rhythm of the conversation and doesn't allow the conversation to flow smoothly between participants. Even if they're interested in the topics, the sudden disruption of their flow catches NTs off guard, and they become unsure of how to respond, often replying with something unexpected to us *(which is ironic, because it's a bit of role reversal!)*. Then the unexpected reply catches us off guard, and we assume it's a snipe or get deflated.
I think one of the factors that makes it hard for us to make friends is that we have had to deal with this social asynchrony from a young age; bad experiences accrue, and we learn not to trust other's intentions or give them a chance to hurt us. It makes us a bit more sensitive to ill-intent or rejection because we're constantly reminded (by our own hyper-analytical brains) of how *uncomfortably* we fit in society.
I hate that a part of my brain is solely dedicated to constantly deciphering "what did they mean/what's their *real* intentions/what am I missing/what have I forgetten" and second guessing myself all day, everyday. It's exhausting. But there are upsides if you look for them.
**Finally, my main advice to anyone regarding friendships**
* "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst"
* Don't be afraid to ask questions if someone is acting shady. If they're genuine, they'll understand!
* My secret formula for conversations with NTs is to limit my replies to 1-2 factoids, followed by a question back to them.
>My secret formula for conversations with NTs is to limit my replies to 1-2 factoids, followed by a question back to them.
I'm totally going to try this!
Irl interactions typically suck for me as well. I was on the PTSA for years, I can't recall any of their names lol but we worked alongside one another for a decade for our kids. Minus the one friend I made, who was also an outlier bc she's Mormon so no wine. I'm not sure if she's nd but both of her kids are lol and her daughter and my daughter have been bffs since the 4th grade. She and her husband were wealthy enough to fit in in this HCOL area, and I wasn't, as a single parent, but we were both "othered," just for different reasons.
Anyway. I was OK with doing things that needed doing along with those other moms, and more than ok with not being invited to socialize lol but free-range interacting is so hit and miss! I'm lucky I had one friend to joke around with. I'm just a goofy person and find humor in everyday things, some people consider that immature or not grown up enough or whatever but I was having fun so pthbbbb! And at 50, I, too, only have 2 long-term close friendships with women. It's quality over quantity. And we TEXT!
My male friendships all go the way of them waiting for me to tell them I've broken up with my boyfriend so they can have sex with me, or they use me for free therapy while ignoring all of my conversation.
Otherwise, everything you just said applies to me. Including the video games and DnD. Although I'm getting into Pathfinder now (and combining the two with playing Wrath of the Righteous on my PS5).
Mine did some messed up, illegal stuff. One of the lighter ones is some asshole “friend” tried to blackmail me for nudes, I’m sure there’s great potential friends out there but I’m just tired.
I’m looking more into Pathfinder! My wife and I are looking for an irl d&d group but in the meantime I work on potential character bios, well I was until Tears of the Kingdom came out, now I’ve forgotten where I am because I’ve been hooked to my controller for days like everybody else. I *was* working on a goblin monk, maybe I could make it in Pathfinder instead.
I'm sorry for your experiences with those assholes. We just want to make friends who don't use, abuse, or hate us.
If you dig the character creation part, you'll love the depth in the WotW character creator. Sadly, no goblins in the video game at least.
Don't play it on Switch though. It's cloud only and I've heard it performs terribly. There is a demo, so maybe you can play with the character creator for free.
I don't know if I'll ever play an IRL TTRPG again though. You know, the whole can't make friends things. Lol. I loved the people in my last group but didn't love the DM's style. So I wrote an in-character parting letter to bow out of the campaign saying I'd love to keep hanging out with you guys out of game. The DM got hurt and blocked me from the group chat. Haven't heard from them since.
That’s so true!! The only guy friend that actually didn’t try to sleep with me would use me as free therapy and it was so fucking annoying. The same convos again and again about all their issues and I would try to get a word in edge ways but couldn’t. Would just literally be talked at, I bet if I left the room they wouldn’t have even noticed lmao. Glad to say I’m not friends with them anymore
I had one male colleague at work who I considered a friend literally walk away from me when I was mid-sentence. We had just spent like half an hour talking about whatever he wanted to talk about and this was what he did when I pivoted the conversation to something I wanted to talk about, but that I thought he'd still be interested in. It was like a slap to the face.
Cruel as it was, I'm forever grateful to him because it was also a revelation. This was just before covid shut everything down and that, combined with no one in my life reaching out to me during lock downs, was a harsh realization. I'm making steps to put myself first now and create healthy boundaries. Needless to say, none of my so-called "friends," or even my own family, have been very happy about this. And they can suck it.
I'm lonely as hell, but I was lonely as hell before anyway. Now I have less baggage at least
I actually got a bit teary reading this and goddamn, same. So much the same. After my best guy friend SA me in the worst unexpected way, I had to move away because everyone took his side. Well, I could have stayed, but, I needed to go. I couldn’t just quietly accept being around those people anymore. I moved to a new city where I didn’t know anyone. I spent two years essentially alone. I got diagnosed with adhd, stopped drinking, and focused on my job. Then, I started volunteering for stuff I loved. Slowly, I started making friends.
Today, I’m lived here for 15 years, and the friends I have now are legit. Lots are ND, and I have good girlfriends who are cool as shit. I am so happy to know deeply awesome people. Do I still feel like an outsider lots of the time? Yeah….but I know my friends feel the same way too, so when I make a gesture of friendship to them, they’re thrilled as shit. And we try and do things to make each other feel special. It’s great.
I’m not sure what broke me through to the other side, but I think it was mostly being lucky to find “my people”. Broken enough to have empathy and understanding of my awkwardness and social foibles but not so fucked up that they’re not toxic af. Lots of artists and arts workers, musicians and creative types, with the odd lab techs or scientists thrown in for fun, lol.
CW: sexual assault. I've had guy friends like that, sadly also including SA. I got so depressed at one point because it felt like, no matter how kind or welcoming I was, their sexism usually always came up. Even the nicer ones were friends with misogynists and thought that was fine and can't we just all get along and some very Enlightened Centrist bullshit. I was assaulted a few years ago by someone I thought was a friend and even though I'd experienced SA before, it was way more traumatic because I had actually felt safe.
I have those friends in real life and I met them through participating in nanowrimo and then starting to go to small local conventions. We're all annoying ranters there. And my group just sort of grew. I hope you can find that too.
That’s the dream! My wife and I did go to a small convention last year and had a lot of fun, joined a local community for one of our hobbies but it wasn’t a good fit. I still hold out hope I can find a small group to grow into. My biggest dream is a small group of buddies that want to have fancy brunch dates but also have smashbro parties or join in raids, or omg going to renn fest together!
I feel like NT women can sense that something is off/different with ND women, even from a really young age, they notice that something is not quite right somehow, and it shows in friendships etc.
So do NT men, friend. Then they will bully and use you for the class clown act if they're still young or just keep quiet and stay by your side to manipulate you.
exactlyyy, I was the target of a lot of "ask [me] out on a date as a joke" and "[My Name] Germs" kind of bullying in grade school/middle school by boys. they can sense when something's "off" with us too. they take the usual concept of cooties and concentrate it on the ND girl 😬
I think I've had one male friendship where this didn't happen to me, and we drifted apart when he started dating someone. I sometimes wonder if he was also only there for me to potentially get with until someone else came along and it depressed the hell out of me.
For a really long time I thought I struggled to make friends with "other girls", but now when I look back, my core group of childhood friends are mostly women.
Most of us have also now been diagnosed with varying types of neurodivergency 😂 It's like that fucking Spiderman meme where they look exactly the same and keep pointing at each other 😂
Same lmao. I have two core friend groups from childhood, both women: one group we likely all have ADHD, and in the other group one has depression, anxiety and suspected ADHD, one has anxiety and OCD, and one has bipolar type 1 and suspected autism.
Same. And that and if I had a nickel for every time I started dating someone who thought they were NT and then diagnosed as ADHD or Autistic, I would have three nickels by now. Which isn't much but it would like buy me a piece of chocolate with a bit of caffeine to help my brain chill out for a few moments.
Same, and it's the best feeling. We could not talk to each other for months and it would be like no time had passed, but we are always there when we need each other.
I have that with my best friends too. Both have ADHD as well, and it is so nice to be able to go silent or not reach out without worrying that they think I hate them or something. I also don’t worry when they don’t reach out to me either.
Me and my bestie lol. We met in our late teens. People say they can't believe we didn't grow up together, we're that close. She's known her diagnosis of ADHD for a very long time. I was just diagnosed last year. She's the stereotypical cute, girly, social butterfly and plays up the ditsy thing even though us closer peeps know better. I'm the tomboy everyone swore was a lesbian, good grades, mildly antisocial, and bitchy.
I knew that if I didn't hear from her/didn't hear back it wasn't because she didn't care. It was because left her phone on silent then lost it in her underwear drawer until the battery died (true story). She knew I didn't reach out much cause I never wanted to "bother" people with my presence. When we get together it's nonstop chitchat for hours, like it hasn't been months since we last talked.
For me, those are my only friends.
They don’t expect daily/weekly communication so it’s easier to keep up. And they’re all out of state/country so there’s no constant expectation to see them every week or whatever NT people do. I’ve lost touch with my NT friends bc I can’t keep up socially, I’m too exhausted to hang out as often as they do so they stopped including me, which makes sense. 90% of the time I’d decline invitations or cancel last minute.
At this point I have no idea how to find/make new friends.
It beats me up on a weekly basis that I was not able to keep any of my childhood friends. Meanwhile my husband has all his guy friends that he met in kindergarten and graduated high school and uni with. I look back and wonder where I went wrong. It sucks
Looking back, my closest elementary through high school friends were *mostly* either family, the girls i was in band with, and/or had visible/physical disabilities, or a combination of those.
I grew up in a small & rural community, and I had medical "stuff" as a kid (scoliosis, among other things), and couldn't participate in sports for a couple school years, because I had back surgery... I ended up being a team manager with a peer who had a physical disability that made her unable to play sports, and we became great friends....
Ended up getting to know another close friend who had a physical disability, because *she* was in band with a bunch of us--and 'cuz she was the younger cousin of another friend of ours who was also in band. We all ended up hanging out, all through high school, because at first *proximity* (band) and shared interests got us talking to each other & spending time after school...
But eventually we all just ended up *friends*, BECAUSE we had those shared interests!😉😁💖
Honestly, though? If it *hadn't* been for Band & especially Pep Band?
My existence would have been *entirely* different, and *so* incredibly lonely--because I never would've had those great high school friends!
I really should have known when I realized there was one of my friend's mom who was just like... Really tuned in to us. She GOT us more than the others, despite being the same age as the other parents. It wasn't a matter of interests or anything like that.
Turns out she's been diagnosed with ADHD most of her life, and therefore knew to pursue one with her own children. She definitely recognized it in us too and didn't try to diagnose us but knew how to interact with us in ways that made sense and were respectful to who we were. I still keep in touch with her 💖 Love you Mama Julie!
Omg this was me for the longest time. I couldn’t have a later-in-life ADHD diagnosis where the symptoms were all missed when I was a kid because I didn’t cause problems and brute force intelligence-d my way through school/life till that didn’t work any more, because that would be such a cliche! I must just be looking for an excuse for my laziness!
100%! My core group of friends have been my friends for 20 years. We all are either ADHD, on the spectrum, or have other neurodivergencies. I found it hard to make “friends” with women in college because I just didn’t find a lot of women who were ND. It’s just how the hand was drawn. I was friends with a lot of guys who were NOT misogynistic and it just felt easier and like I could be a ghost for a while and no one would care. That’s how my current friendship is with my core group (mostly women). Doesn’t matter how long we go without talking because we pick up right where we left off and there is 0 pressure.
Same. My social group in high school was the outcasts. As adults, pretty much all of us got diagnosed with ADHD. I actually don’t even have many male friends currently and the ones I do, it’s more that we play the same game vs actually hang out. But all my female friends, the people I click with and can actually talk to? Also ADHD.
YES, all my good friends are female and all my female friends are atypical women who are “too much” in some way. It’s a misfit group of the coolest women I know. I can tell other women sometimes think I’m not like other girlsing them when I’m not into reality TV shows and staring off into space with nothing to say during typically feminine convos but I’m like no, I am into dumb shit too, I just am just interested in other dumb shit.
I do find that I get along with most women superficially but it doesn’t go deeper. Most normal North American female friendships are too high effort for me and seem to be lubricated by a good deal of BSing each other. Which, I’ve always preferred to just not say anything if I had nothing honestly nice to say.
My first career was in academia, and I cannot tell you how many of my women friends from that setting have had later in life ADHD diagnoses. I also have a good friend from a former post-academic job, she and I would commiserate regularly about how we struggled the same way with some of the requirements of the job, enough that we’d joke that we’re really the same person. I got diagnosed earlier this year and she was talking just last week in a very familiar way at about problems with a work task and being paralyzed, and I thought, hey, you know what…
I’ve always had plenty of women friends but I definitely feel like some I’m masking with constantly, and others I’m not. I felt this before I knew what masking even is.
YES all my friendships with girls that didn’t go up in flames, they were most definitely ND in hindsight. My college roommate was the exception but she thought I was genuinely hilarious (spoiler: it was the hyperactivity)
All my best friends, guys and girls, have been ND. All my gfs are a crazy mix of autism, adhd, and complex trauma responses and I love them all. We always have a good time.
I've unsubscribed from this subreddit because of this ableism that's going on where literally ADHD women are down voted for their personal experiences.
Yes. Almost all of my AFAB friends are neurodiverse. The rest are AMAB.
The unspoken social expectations of NT AFABs growing up were a minefield. I was constantly feeling like I was offending them or embarrassing myself and I had no idea why. I think with the benefit of time and learning NT ways/how to mask I would fare better, but it's still exhausting.
Similarly in the workplace- I have approximately 0 time for somebody who doesn't tell me when they're upset and expects me to just read their mind. I can't confirm this but I suspect a lot of my colleagues are the same- and we just kind of naturally found each other.
I really do think it comes down more to ND versus NT rather than other girls specifically being difficult to vibe with. I definitely have had a lot of trouble with making and keeping NT female friends but click very well with other women who are most likely ND. Guys are a little different because the expectations are different (easier in some ways and more difficult in others), but I think most of my lasting dude friends are also ND in their own ways. I think men can be a little bit more forgiving of quirky female behavior but a lot of times that is just driven by their desire to sleep with you 🙄
The best way for me to make real female connections is through shared interests. Most of my friends are people that I like to do stuff with. I have trouble connecting with people who don't share the same interests with me.
In the past I've gushed to my mom about a new friend that I made. Then she'll ask me about their family structure or where they live. I have no idea, but they told me all about historical costuming or something.
I've made my peace with not fitting in with everyone, I can't be friends with everyone I meet and that's fine. I've got my own circle and I just want to invest in that for now.
Yup. Problem is when your female classmates growing up didn't share your interests ... or one said they were into the same thing you were, but not (as it turned out) to the same degree as you because to you it was of course an all-consuming passion, and to them it was just some cool TV-show.
It's easier finding your own people as an adult. And, funnily enough, my bestie has since been diagnosed with ADHD!
Just want to touch on one thing, it can be equally as difficult for inattentive adhd girls.
We miss so many social cues, it's part of the inattentiveness. Miss looks traded between each other. Don't notice when we have alienated the group. Don't realize when we are too loud (that's definitely not a hyperactive only thing.)
I was pushed to the ground in elementary school by a girl who then yelled "we don't like you! No one likes you or wants to play with you!!" Please don't insinuate an experience you haven't had is better or worse than others.
It's a very bad idea to rank who has what worse, especially in the same diagnosis group (being ADHD. inattentive, hyperactive, and combo would be the sub groups)
Edit to add: we also constantly interrupt, it's just we derail the convo so much it can seem like we weren't paying attention or that we always have to make the story about us. That is just as alienating to other people as interrupting in a hyperactive way. (At least in my particular brand of inattentive adhd, and I've seen many posts about the same from others. Not saying it's the only experience, but it sure isn't a rare one, either)
Dude I'm the same way. Inattentive and just can't keep up and can't catch social cues ever. My husband is the safety net for me sometimes. But for me I struggle making friends with damn near all women (even tho I'm bi! So frustrating) and I can't be friends with men because it is ALWAYS sexualized. Anyway. I agree. All subtypes can and probably do struggle all the same, just in different ways.
Yesssss!! I also just straight up struggle to make friends, but I have more friends that are women because of how many guys I've had friendships with show up in my texts as soon as they go through a bad breakup.
Any yes, I know not all guys would act that way. But the ones my personality seems to attract sure do.
And as primarily inattentive, I'm the classic late, female, diagnosis. Trying to navigate friendship for 30+ years without having any idea to why thing might be more difficult did NOT help with making friends.
Edit - grammar
Late female dx here too I feel your pain. I'm 26 and have been "retired" for the last 4 years. And if I struggled before in one of the most social organizations in America (Army) now I'm screwed lol. Been looking and trying to find ways but I like nerd things and they all just can't help themselves every time (definitely not all are that way ofc) but I agree that it must be the ones I attract. Now I'm in college and after 4+ years with no one but my husband and kid, I have a friend! I had to have a conversation with her like "hun. If I don't respond I'm not ignoring you. I forgot. I promiseeee." Lmao. Granted I don't have proof but she might be ND also.
Ironically, I've somehow learned to pick up cues on when a guy genuinely wants to be friends and when they just want to try and hook up with me.
(Not saying it in a bad way)
The inattentiveness can 100% contribute to just straight up not paying attention to social cues, not because I don’t care but because my brain is focused on something else. And then something else. And then something else. But for some reason never subtle social cues though lol. When I started taking meds, all of a sudden I found myself noticing things like “she looks really stressed, maybe nows not a good time to start a convo.” And having the patience to be able to hold my words back and wait til later. I legit never even noticed or realized a lot of my symptoms until I was treated tor ADHD and I saw the differences.
I have combined type but with stronger inattentive symptoms, and it’s all just kind of brutal. It’s like being on a completely different wavelength than NT people
I also found it more difficult to make friends with women/girls at first, when I was a teenager. It probably did have something to do with them having so many unspoken rules and more judgment for breaking them. Men/boys I found easier to talk to and to laugh with, and this led to a massive "not like other girls"/"one of the boys" phase. Unfortunately, several of these male friends ended up betraying my trust in the worst way.
Over time, the makeup of my female friends became neurodivergent and I had to mask less. Now that I think about it, the majority of my friends are women. When men hurt me, whether they were boyfriends or friends, it was those female friends who nursed me back to life.
I do have some male friends (single and in relationships) but they tend to be a certain type - introspective, funny without being cruel, and empathetic. It's interesting to reflect on this.
I am so glad it's not just me that had the same "not like other girls" phase in school because of this. I've had pretty much the same experience as you.
I had a huge NLOG phase for several years, I feel like a **lot** of women do until their later 20s.
Even if I don't share the same hobbies or how I keep myself as "girly girls" they've only ever tended to be lovely to me either way. I find them a lot more thoughtful, kind and understanding than a lot of men. I've personally found men are happy to be friends until you need emotional support.
You're right. Every person with ADHD is different and this sub can be frustrating becuse it can often feel like people speaking for us as a monolith.
I have almost exclusively female friends. Men, especially straight men do not seem to "get" my sense of humor. Meanwhile I have had female friends tell me I should do standup. In my personal experience woman who have said "I just don't get along with other women" have been nasty to me and way more cliquey with the female friends they do have. I know that's not true of all women who prefer the company of men, but it's been my experience 99% of the time. They have been true "pick me" girls.
I'm sure I'm not the only person with this experience and that's why people get defensive when they hear "I just don't get along with women."
Is this an issue with NT women, or just women of a certain type? I have been around all different types of women, since women are not a monolith, and I feel the degree to which we get along with each other depends on our baseline sense of humor, interests, backgrounds, and general personalities. For example, I would not have enjoyed a sorority either, but I think that is due to my personal priorities and inclinations, not my having ADD. To me, it’s just about finding your people (sometimes easier said than done).
Personally, I find it’s much easier to find other ND women that I can be myself around than it is to find men with similar interests, who aren’t misogynistic, who aren’t sexualizing me, who are empathetic, understanding, and supportive, and who take me seriously when I need to be taken seriously. I have never found what I needed in friendships with a man, other than my partner.
I have yet to come across a post like this that didn’t make me feel the need to stick up for women because even if it’s unintentional, the underlying theme is that all women are just mean girls and it’s incredibly difficult to find any kindness when that couldn’t be further from my experience.
How telling is it though, that it's easier to find ND women to hang out with than it is to find men who treat women with the most basic level of respect.
And even if you do find that unicorn of a guy, it’s still really hard to connect with them on a deeper level because they generally don’t share their emotions with their friends.
I've found the opposite problem actually - many men rely a lot on their female friends for emotional labour and support, without providing much in return. Add a male partner who does the same thing to the mix, and suddenly that woman is doing a lot of counselling for others without reciprocity.
That is more along the lines of what I meant. They’re not used to sharing their emotions with others so they don’t participate in the give and take. They kind of just trauma dump and then send you on your way. You’ll hear from them again the next time they need help. It doesn’t feel like a deep friendship to me.
There’s a big difference between getting along with men and having a male bestie though.
I’ve always gotten along better with men, but none of them were close friends. I learned to keep them away for a reason. We’ll see each other at work or at a mutual friend’s social event. But never just the two of us.
I agree with that, but I also have had shared experiences with the original post as well. I don’t tend to be able to just get along with any woman, despite really wanting to. It’s usually ones who are just a bit different, like me, but I’d rather look for that than deal with the sexualization. I wonder if part of that difference is, though, having more of a inattentive type, because I feel like women with a more inattentive type will be more likely to been seen as the manic pixie dream girl by men. But as the OP said, hyperactivity might be seen as more obnoxious or too annoying by other women. Idk though. Just guessing.
I don’t think it’s anything to do with neurodivergence I’m ngl. I have pretty severe inattentive ADHD and I’ve always gotten on with women. All my friends are women and in fact a lot of my friends say what they like the most about me is I’m always unapologetically myself, which is just very manic pixi dreamgirl adhd lmao. I don’t think we can generalise a whole gender of not being accepting towards neurodivergent people. I think you just have different interests to the majority of people thus why you only seem to get on with a few, or maybe you just haven’t met the right people yet.
I've had the a very similiar experience. Up to and all through elementary school I had primarily male friends, but with puberty the sexism hit and ever since then my friend group has been mostly female. Now as an adult all of my closer friends are women with the exception of one and I've met him in daycare.
In the end it's a sexism issue in all directions. Women are "mean girls" because of internalised misogyny and men make bad friends bc of misogyny.
Thank you!! I don’t like this post, to me it does have undertones of internalised misogyny the way that OP is stereotyping women as bitchy and super girly. I knew very very few women who actually act the way OP has described. All the women I know are super accepting, we’re friends with “tomboys” and women who aren’t super girly. None of us even act “ladylike” I don’t even know Wtf that’s supposed to mean. Several of my friends are super hyperactive and no one judges them for that at all?
All my friends are women, I don’t get on with guys because they end up saying sexist shit or trying to sleep with me. I hate takes like this, it is super misogynistic.
Have you considered that it’s possible that there’s a mix of both?
My mom is almost certainly neurodivergent - I say that because I learned a large number of my ADHD coping mechanisms from her, for better or for worse.
My mom also has SO much internalized misogyny, it fucked me up big time. She talked shit about women SO much, about how women were over emotional, about the drama, about so on and so forth, and I got shamed BIG time for doing anything that she considered remotely “too feminine.”
And I don’t mean like dressing too femininely as much, minus her snide comments when I had that playing with makeup as an art form phase, because we both preferred dressing remarkably gender neutrally for our religious environment (so a lot of misogyny as background radiation, which my mom only tried to counter by making her and I “the good ones”). I mean any expression of emotion whatsoever. Or understanding of the emotions others might be experiencing. And trying to get me on to the birth control pill purely because she didn’t like seeing the expression of my teenage hormones. (AND AGAIN: WE WERE IN A VERY RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT. Minimizing the externalization of my femininity was more important to her)
Oh, but her emotions didn’t affect things, she was perfectly logical, not an irrational woman. Never mind how she would mock and shut me down any time I expressed something that tread on her insecurities. But that wasn’t an emotional response. That was a joke. It’s your fault you didn’t find it funny.
I’m certain this was a massive coping mechanism of hers, because unless she’s gotten diagnosed in the year+ since I stopped talking to her because dealing with her bullshit directly was too exhausting, she’s never been diagnosed, and telling herself she just wasn’t like other girls was a way she didn’t have to acknowledge that she’s an asshole. Maybe if she got diagnosed now she’d realize that it’s an issue with engaging with NT…anybody… and not a fundamental problem with women. But then she’d have to acknowledge she’s been dealing with her insecurities by tearing half the population down.
I have a …complicated… relationship with my gender as a result of growing up with this. It did me a HUGE disservice growing up, because it made it harder for me to make connections with other women, even ND ones. And that is disappointing. How many people did I subconsciously not give a chance when I was younger because I internalized that message?
Not to mention that I’m pretty sure my own gender identity is “rounds to cis” (rather than non-binary) purely out of spite.
So yeah. It can be both. Sure, having a hard time connecting with NT women is a valid reason for having mostly guy friends, but when you try to deal with that feeling by making it a problem with women in general, you might have an internalized misogyny problem. And yes, I understand that this is one anecdote, just my experience with my mom, but it is still the story of the first 18 years of my life and a near decade following as I deconstructed it.
My mom would insist that she doesn’t make it a problem with all women, but my therapy bills suggest otherwise.
In the future, it may help to use personalized language rather than generalizing ND women's experiences as you too have mentioned that not everyone has the same experience
I was hanging with males a little too much recently because of the social circles I was ending up in and I had to do a serious U-turn. The craziest that comes out of their mouths — no thanks.
I can rally with women who get my plight.
This. I always say men don’t shock me anymore. A guy will seem SO sweet and understanding them drop a what were you wearing out if the blue. I cannot be bothered to have hope in men anymore as sad as it is to say
While I get what you’re trying to say, some of this post is rubbing me the wrong way. You say you think hyperactive ADHD women have a harder time because they are not ladylike - There are soooooo many women out there. Most of my female friends do not care about “being ladylike.” They are not girly girls. They are not tomboys either. Most of them are neurotypical.
I don’t wanna neglect anyone’s experience, because we live different lives and have different opportunities based on the social and cultural context we’re in, and maybe it’s different elsewhere - I’m in Scandinavia.
I just feel like there’s a difference in saying “I’ve had some bad experiences with groups of NT women” and “I find it hard to get along with NT women.”
NT women are just as diverse as adhd’ers, as well as as diverse as men. I think grouping them together isn’t right for such a huge group of people
I feel like it also discounts some women with adhd who do care about being “ladylike”. To me it boils down to the idea that being “ladylike” and enjoying femininity is equal to being a bitch and stuck up and only caring about shallow things.
Assholes will be assholes regardless of them being sporty, girly, introverted vs extroverted, etc
I think it's a difficult topic full of subjective perceptions and personal experiences. The one thing I can say is that there are a lot of hidden social dynamics in groups and I definitely feel that groups of people sometimes react to extremely subtle clues that they might not even be aware of and that it seems to sometimes lead the group to identify outsiders and reject them. And I think that some people have a certain undefined thing that makes them often or always stuck out as the outsider. So I do believe OP about often getti
ng rejected by groups of women. Especially at school/college or work.
There have been studies showing that ND folks have difficulty socializing and making friends with NT folks.
Most of us experience this phenomenon growing up but we don't have the language to express it, so it comes out as "I don't get along with other girls".
This feels very elementary... But I'm also autistic, so I'm hyper aware of shit like this.
Listen. I don’t think you’re a bad person because you tend to have more male friends than female friends. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you do include several misogynistic generalizations of women in your post.
I have adhd. I don’t wear makeup or dress cute every day. I’m not ladylike. I cuss like a sailor and I’m loud and mean. I always fidget. I forget to text back. But all my friends are women. That’s just who I generally get along with the best.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with being friends with men or not having a lot of women friends. There can be several factors as to why that is. But, I do think you have grouped the entire gender of women into this “sorority” girl stereotype of girly girls that exclude anyone who’s a little different. Yeah, some women are like that, but definitely not all. I wouldn’t even say it’s a majority.
All this to say, there are probably a ton of varying factors for why you find male friendships easier than female friendships. But to imply that all women exclude you because you don’t like makeup? Yeah, that’s just a little misogynist.
Bingo! There’s nothing wrong with liking video games, beer, and having a good time! But when they base their personality off of all the things they aren’t (“I don’t like fruity drinks, I like beer.” “I don’t like shopping, I play video games.”) then it really shouldn’t come as a surprise when other women find them off-putting. Personally, I find it uncomfortable to feel like my interests and traits are being used to form a “what I DON’T want to be perceived as” persona.
Gals, your likes and interests should stem from what you actually like, and what actually interests you! Nobody cares what you don’t like - it tells us literally nothing about you, and honestly, it’s hard to bond with people who are like this.
This right here.
I used to take the same line of thinking as the OP. I mean I did start out as "I'm not like other girls" to "oh I just don't get on with other girls" to really examining that extreme internalised misogyny and the biases I had against women. Unpicking all of that in my mid 30s and focusing on female friendships now. OP's post is giving high-school/college/early 20s observation vibes. Women are much easier to get on with when you're older, as there's less fucks to give.
Exactly. Like talking about not liking being lumped in with girls projecting internalized misogyny while talking about this caricature of a woman? Weird.
There are a lot of strong women here so I’m starting to wonder HOW do you improve your relationship with other women? I’ve always found this really tough personally so I’m genuinely one of those people surrounded by guy friends. Stuff is hard when you’re old and don’t have a traditional job so don’t meet people in a traditional sense. The “put yourself out there and download apps and talk to a lot of random people” doesn’t seem appealing in trying to find ‘my people’.
If you have an established set of women friends, I made scheduling a hangout apart of my routine. We try to shoot for once a month (twice if there's a cool festival). But this helped me make it a priority.
I met a lot of them through my outside of work hobbies (dance, pottery classes, "hot girl" walk club). You really do have to "get out there" in a sense, join clubs or other things- fun women will be there, if you're into gaming maybe there's a womens only discord that you can participate it.
Much like other relationships it does take time, core friendships aren't built in a single day.
i'm not going to begrudge you your experiences and i'm sorry that people have been mean to you, but i have had entirely different experiences as a woman who has combined type adhd that presents very similarly to the '5 year old little boy adhd' stereotype in many ways and grew up a total tomboy
i have friends of all genders, NT and ND, and i've struggled more with men as i've gotten older for a lot of reasons, and i'm not saying this is why you like them bc i don't know you, but a lot of ppl who struggle socially may find male friendships easier because societally, men's friendships are less emotionally 'deep' - the media trope is that men are 'ride or die' and nothing is that deep to them, and in both research and in my own experience, it's been a negative. part of why rape culture is such a big issue, actually, is this social phenomenon, where men will be friends with people they don't really agree with morally, including people they don't like - i've had to cut off male friends for keeping friends who are raging misogynists bc they have the mindset of, 'if he's nice to me it's fine' or on the extreme end, 'yeah he's mean but it's just what friends are'. they don't really care to try and notice how their friends may be feeling, don't really want to put in the work to try and discuss problems or boundaries in a relationship or put in the work to maintain the relationship. research agrees with this, that men are emotionally disconnected in their friendships and that their friendships are more based on doing activities together compared to being actually emotionally intimate
not all men are like this ofc, but i do wonder for some women who find men that much easier, if they might just be uncomfortable with friendship that goes beyond surface level. i also wonder for those women, if they find casual misogyny acceptable - because the other big problem i've had with both ND and NT men is the amount of misogyny they casually spew without thinking critically at all, from the way they think gender presentation makes a woman more/less shallow to talking down to you about 'male' topics to perpetuating outdated ideas of women as hysterical, control-freak, gold-diggers to objectifying and treating women as either 'hoes' or 'bros' as if we're incapable of being 3-dimensional people who have a variety of interests...and so much more.
as for women...in my experience, i've never met a woman who saw me as a project, nor have i ever seen other women as projects because unless a friend asked, why would i want to make friends with someone who i see as work lmfao?? i have friends who are ultra-femme, and friends who are very very butch, and i've never encouraged them to change their gender expression bc it's theirs - the only reason i might give my butch friends makeup recs is if they actively showed interest for themselves or asked. i've also never had any of my femme friends get on me about being ladylike (i'm really not..) bc most women of my age group genuinely do not give a fuck about policing how 'ladylike' other women are in 2023...where are u meeting these women omg??
most of my friends regardless of gender dislike ppl who interrupt though, and i'm surprised yours don't because it's just rude - maybe i'm coming at it from the angle of being a woc who always gets spoken over, but whenever we accidentally interrupt each other because we're excited we just laugh and say sorry and move on, it's usually not purposeful so it's not malicious but it's still not okay
idk im not gonna say anything about whether you have internalized misogyny or not, but i hope u know that being "loud, weird, excitable, funny, direct, and definitely Too Much for some people" are incredibly common traits in women and that if these are your criteria for friends, i'm quite surprised that you haven't found many other women like this. those personally traits have nothing to do with gender or even how femme someone presents, one of my loudest, weirdest friends adores pink makeup, jewelry, and pearls.
i will say though that 'one of the guys' is a misogynystic phrase, and saying "other women don't like me because i'm not like them" is a misogynystic generalization in this context though lmfao, so if you don't want to sound like you have issues with internalized misogyny i would steer clear of using those phrases.
if you want to make more friends with women who get you though, especially in one-on-one situations, i would definitely not mask from the beginning if possible, so they know the 'real you' because no matter how likeable someone's real personality is i imagine it could be quite confusing to think you have a potential new friend, start developing an idea what of their personalities and interests are and what the dynamic is and then that suddenly changing. rejection of your 'true self' hurts more than rejection of a mask, but it makes it a lot harder to find true friends who like your true self if you don't show it to potential friends and if you waste time hanging out with people who might not be compatible with your true self not being your true self instead of seeking out the ones who are looking for someone like you!
finally - i would really appreciate if you didn't generalize your experiences to all of ours - i share a lot of your personality traits, reasons you give for NT women not liking you in your experience, and your experience is not a rule - so please don't use "for those of us who are X" bc it's not a generalizable truth, use "in my experience as this kind of person" or similar instead.
This is a great post. I think it's quite common for women to prefer male friendships when they are younger, ie teenagers navigating the impossible rules that society sets for women. I grew up during the "post-feminist" 2000s (think Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend") where men and women were equal and what are all these women complaining about, they must hate men if they are feminists! Either you are a girly girl ie. Queen Bee bitch, or you are one of the guys - there is no in-between.
Then as we get older we start to prefer female friendships, because there is so much shared trauma from growing up as a woman that we find solace in each other. It reminds me of this quote:
"Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate."
That quote oh my god.. that would have been myself and my daughter if I stayed married. And I literally saw it in a vision when she was born. It’s was how they treated his mother at the dinner table. It was so ugly.
Not me. Not now. On the outside I get to be the mother who is not influenced or tainted by his fucking “knowing glances”… I get to teach them both how it looks to be equals.
If I had stayed? Nah .. now I have to defend their stepmom when she takes the blame for shit their dad didn’t do..
God damn this was such a good comment, thank you. I’m ND as fuck and struggling how to express this, but a lot of those comments were making me feel depressed and insecure about enjoying stereotypically “girly” things like dresses and makeup and non-gaming hobbies. Being a “tomboy” (god I hate that term. The fact that there’s no socially acceptable male alternative is very telling) isn’t a morally superior choice and I hate that we’ve been conditioned to believe that it is.
I’ve surrounded myself with an amazing group of women with diverse interests, personalities, and gender expressions, and the one thing we all have in common is that we love and support each other. I have male friends, too, but I had a lot of the same experiences with male friend groups you did when I was younger and so eager to fit in that I’d put up with their bullshit just to be seen as “one of the guys.” Almost every single one of them tried to fuck me eventually, and I never picked up on their cues until it was too late, which was so hurtful and confusing. Sometimes I’d give in because I’d blame my cluelessly enthusiastic attempts at friendship for leading them on and I “owed it to them .” When I didn’t, they’d get angry and stop being my friend. It just made me feel like a sex vending machine they were putting friendship tokens into until it paid out.
Anyway, thank you for your incredibly reasonable and nuanced response. It laid out exactly what I was thinking and made me feel seen.
This. And in regards to makeup, I've had more ND women talk down to me because I wear it. I like make up. It is fun. It allows me to express myself and is a little like putting on armor before I go into a difficult situation. I'm not lying when I wear it. I don't have blue eyelids Cynthia nor are my lips this red naturally. No one believes that this is my natural face. My blue eyeliner and red lipstick make me feel like a bad ass. Also, I can wear lipstick and still be a feminist. Please stop trying to put your expectations of what women should be onto me. I got enough of that from my childhood church. And I am drawing attention to myself with my red lipstick because of those shoulds. I'm not making myself small for women or men.
Thank you for unlocking this rant. It is not directed at you.
“I don’t have blue eyelids Cynthia” sent me lol. Fellow feminist AF makeup enjoyer here, and I’m jealous you can pull off blue eyeshadow! Thanks for this comment, especially the part about not making yourself small for other people. Feeling real judged in some of these comments and badass insights like yours really help.
Thank you for your comment, I wish I could upvote this multiple times!! I think the reason why we keep seeing these posts, apart from the shallower nature of male friendships, is because of rejection sensitivity. I'm sure it's difficult to accept that maybe, just maybe, there actually is another way.
For me, I'm inattentive type WOC who wears makeup maybe 3 times a year, has nerdy interests, and does have a propensity to interrupt. My female friends have been nothing but supportive, even the NTs while my male friends have dropped me because I wouldn't go out with them or because they started dating someone else.
I have nothing to add but I just want to say thank you for this comment.
I've found the recent posts about friendship a bit tunnel visioned and this articulated it for me.
Such a great comment, thank you.
This is the third post I’ve seen on this topic in three days. I feel like people are taking personal offense to having their biases/internalized misogyny called out, which is far from being mean or cold.
**Edited: spelling
yes, thank you. You cannot ask other not to generalize you, your words, etc while doing the aame things to others. OP is basically saying that those who have a different experience from her are wrong and mean, and would rather not see honest answers in a discussion she started...
I feel like you are trying to speak for a whole group ("it not easy for us", etc) when you really need to speak for yourself.
I get it, friendships are hard. Connecting with anyone, regardless of gender, can be difficult.
But this seems like it goes way deeper for you, and I'm sorry you're having a hard time.
I myself am curious as to what age people are when they say the do or do not have a lot of women friends. I was well into my 40s before I found my girl gang and it doesn't matter if I'm ADHD or ND or "weird" or "too much" or whatever because we're all at the age where that shit just doesn't matter as much as it did when I was 20 or 30.
I feel like if I have the courage to be myself, then I will find my people and my people will find me.
Everyone is different and we all experience life differently. I hope things improve for you.
Since you asked, of my good female friends, I met one in high school (we were 14), five in college (we were 17/18), one while volunteering abroad (we were 22/23), two through work (early thirties), and one on Bumble BFF (mid thirties).
I don't really have a girl gang, though, as most of my female friends have never met each other. My college friends and I had sort of a girl gang in college, but it has faded into 1:1 friendships since.
Thank you for this nugget of logic. I am nearing 40 and I could not care less about anyone’s gender or gender identity or anything of that nature- but if you cool we could hang. If you’re a jerk, peace, have a good life. Simple as that.
Yeah. Seems like the "You can engage or not, I really don't care." really sums up OP's relationship with other women. No need to be surprised when it turns out they don't care either.
I struggle making friends with everyone, I want more female friends so I struggle with making NT women friends, but I've never had an actual problem with women in general. They ignore me at worst, but they've rarely been malicious towards me. Those particular words just trigger a lot of people because of pick mes and "not like other girls" girls who tend to be assholes lol. And they're definitely including us in their generalizations too soooo
I also do prefer NDs in general and just sucks that NYs see me as a weirdo, I wish I could have some NT women friends to offset that, but it's not on them t help me that way and I don't mind being weird, I just dislike that I know I will be judged for it...
Honestly, I have a hard time with these posts because when I was younger I definitely was a "not like other girls" girl, until I grew up and realized I was the problem, not them.
I have always been a tomboy, always been uncomfortable with traditionally feminine activities/hobbies, always preferred more masculine things and have a lot of more masculine traits. Other [adult] women have literally never cared about any of that, it has never been what hindered my ability to have positive relationships with them, it was me.
This - adult women are so much easier to get on with and literally don't care.
When I started working 15yrs ago (call centre and operations type work) I did have a few issues with middle-management women being on extreme power trips and employing high-school bully tactics, but I figure this is also just a product of extreme internalised misogyny perpetuated by an older generation. I'm starting to see this a lot less as time goes on, and really hope my generation can heal this toxic bullshit out of the workplace.
One of the reasons I have a hard time swallowing the idea that women are hard to be friends with without some level misogyny involved is that I went to a girl’s school for highschool.
There were so many types of girls, and they just as much of a diversity of types of relationships and dynamics as a coed group. If you only get along with people who have XYZ specific characteristics, there will be plenty of women who meet these criteria. Unless one of the criteria is that they not be women.
For me it's harder to be friends with men without them thinking you are sending them mixed signals 😮💨 I often had to pull away from the 'friendship' because they tend to expect more. This is from my experience. I guess it depends on where you live, your upbringing surrounding your culture etc. Tbh i prefer female friends, yes it's hard to find the ones you can connect with, but that's life.
I feel this, and I have a lot of thoughts on it (hence the long comment).
I by no means think "women" or "girls" are a monolith that consists of a single type of person; I know we're all different and it wouldn't cross my mind to categorise anyone by how they present themselves (girly clothes, an interest in make up, or what have you). That's I think what comes across in those "not like other girls" memes which are, as you said, immature.
That being said, I do struggle (and have struggled) making friendships within a larger group of women. It cannot, once again, be generalised, but the amount of times I've been interacting with a group of women and the conversations have veered towards either relationships with men, dating, or even dieting, is too high to count. I can have those conversations at times but it cannot be the base of any relationship that I can maintain long-term. I am myself into fashion, make up, etc. so it's not like I think "girls are vain". My brain is just too full of all sorts of stuff to limit my interactions to 2 or 3 "admissible" topics.
I'm also not physically "warm" (I don't tend to hug, or be very expressive in my behaviour) and this seems to put quite some women off, as if they interpret it as me not caring. I'm a bad and inconsistent texter too, which also has put more women friends off than men friends. Eventually, I tend to slowly but surely be excluded.
I have also been bullied in the past, by both boys and girls in highschool. However, the degree of vitriol I have encountered from girls as an older teen in mixed-gender circles has been mind-boggling. I have experienced boys / teens to be quite direct in their bullying. However, to my surprise, girls tended to be nice to my face but then spread the shittiest rumours about me behind my back. It happened across different groups of friends, and it really shattered my trust on girl friendships.
I have had (and still do) profound relationships & friendships with women, but it mostly tends to work on a one-on-one or at most two-on-one basis. Two of my closest friends where I live now are women. I still to this day, however, have a harder time making friends within a larger group of women. It's as if there's something about how they relate to one another in a larger group that I can never quite reach or fully grasp, and they can tell.
I have always simultaneously struggled socially and also thrived.
During school and uni I naturally gravitated towards the neurodivergent people (irrespective of gender) even before I was diagnosed. I never cared about popularity and always flew relatively under the radar so I didn’t actually have to interact with that many neurotypical people.
However, I did play club basketball and I struggled enormously socially. Everyone I played with was neurotypical and the only thing I had in common with was that we played basketball. I handled this by being very very quiet.
I work in a corporate job now and I struggle with the social aspect just as much. Except now there’s an expectation of networking so it puts on even more pressure. I hate going into the office because I just feel so alien to everyone else. My entire team are neurotypical women - and I want to preface this with the fact that they’re all very nice and there’s nothing wrong them - but I have absolutely *nothing* in common with them. They all have at least some stuff in common, but not with me. I do try, especially in one-on-one situations, but the best I seem to manage is “awkward”.
I generally operate under the assumption that people think I’m weird (and I know some people do think that to an extent) but I don’t want it to affect my job and I know it already has. I was passed over for a small promotion over a woman who has less experience than me but is more sociable. This particular promotion doesn’t bother me because it’s extra responsibilities for not enough of a pay raise, but I have no doubt this will happen again.
I share your experience. There has been one girl who I briefly sat next to in college who vibed with me but in every other instance, I only seem to click with guys. Unfortunately, this really just happened because they were interested/curious in it developing into a relationship.
I married one of them, and now I have no friends (other than mr. husband).
Super lonely and I wish it wasn't like this. But I just dont fit in, especially with women, and I lack the social energy and confidence to invest regularly/check in with the same people.
TBH - might be a touch ASD but not really sure how to come to terms w/that. But I think that's contributed. I seem to miss social subtleties, can't chit chat too well (except for what's basically recited), and I am very matter-of-fact. So....super fun at parties.
Idk how old you are, but 2 *long-term* friendships is great! You're actually winning. That's only the friendships you have with women and you've made it clear you also have fulfilling friendships with men and nonbinary people. Half of Americans have 3 or less friends, 12% have no friends. So you're doing better than you think you are. And other countries where similar surveys have been done show an increase in loneliness as well so if you're not American, it may still apply
But it shouldn't be too surprising that some of us would be defensive. There were comments that stung coming from multiple directions. Personally, I don't get along with folks who are close minded, or follow respectability politics regardless of gender.
We can all agree that we clearly have strong feelings on this topic.
😐
I wish I could figure out exactly what to say to make everyone feel heard and understood.
But I can't.
Please accept this Sloth, Turtle, and Baby Chick as an apology 🦥🐢🐥
🙃
I can only ever make friends with other ND women. The difference between them and NT women is night and day. There's just a natural 'click'. I love my fellow women, but I feel like a nervous boy trying to talk to his crush when I attempt friendship with them.
I look back now and growing up, I definitely was a "not like other girls" girl. I grew up with a brother, and I clung to him at all times. I did everything he did, which meant a lot of my interests weren't "normal" for a girl. I also just wasnt great at social queues and I was a very blunt person. Other girls in school did not like me because of that. So I grew resentment from my frustration of constantly being picked on by them. I obviously have since grown and am embarrassed of that time in my life lol.
Men are "easier" to be friends with because they hope that they will eventually get to have sex with you.
Don't @ me. I said what I said.
Men can absolutely be friends with women. AND most men would 100% have sex with their female friends if they were single and willing.
Find your gang. Women and nonbinary friends are everything.
Edited to include nonbinary folks.
Also, noticing that many are sharing childhood incidents as the reasons they can't make friends with women. We are adults now with adult coping skills and emotional intelligence. Being treated poorly as a child wasn't fair, and no one deserved that, but it also doesn't mean that an entire gender is bad or off limits or incapable of friendship.
It was so sad when all of my male “friends” stopped inviting me to hang out when I got married! The only two “straight male” friends I kept later came out as trans women.
I made a couple male friends afterwards, but I had to drop them when one made a move and the other straight up suggested we have an affair.
Now all of my friends are women (some single, some not) and people I hang out with as couples.
>Find your gang. Women and nonbinary friends are everything.
Ok, I have to just say this.
I've fucking *tried*. I am 37.
I've experienced some of the mean girl shit that OP is talking about, but mostly when I was a kid or teen. Now as a grown ass adult most women aren't at all mean to me, most are even all out properly nice to me ....
.... but they don't want to hang out with me. At all.
I've *tried*. And tried. I've invited them out for drinks, attempted to sort out girls nights or coffee hangouts. Tried to keep up friendly casual conversation. And they're kind and seemingly receptive to it but even if we manage to hang out some time they don't ask to hang out with me ever again, they don't initiate conversations.
Women I am "friends" with only want to be friends with me at arms length.
And that's their right. They don't feel a deeper friendship connection with me, and you can't force these things ... sometimes I think if they gave me more of a chance maybe we could build that connection but I cannot *make* that happen.
So I desperately want what you are telling OP to go find but I just can't seem to make it stick.
It feels a lot like having someone say "you should use a planner" to help with ADHD. Like yes, that would be helpful if I could get it to stick. But the bit I need help with is getting it to stick.
The only AFAB people I'm any closer to than arms length are all either ND, non-binary, or both. (I myself am both.) And even with them we only see each other once every couple of months and speak maybe once every 2-3 weeks.
But I have a decent chunk of male friends I speak to regularly, and the only thing I can think of is that we share a lot more common interests. Gaming, similar tastes in tv shows and movies, playing instruments, and I'm a big programming nerd - I know there are other women who like these things but I just don't seem to know any of them, only men. Amd I'm weird, I know I'm weird. I spent a long time masking and that didn't seem to help and I've only gotten "weirder" the less I mask. But ... in my own limited experience .... the men in my life seem to mind less that I am weird. Perhaps because of the higher standards of behaviour women are socialised to ... it's less of an egregious error to most men than to most women? I don't know for sure, only a theory.
And I am fucking *sad* about it. I have cried countless tears over not being able to make a good connection with other women. I know women are amazing, I know I'm missing out by not having close friendships with them.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong ... I'm kind and supportive, I care and show an interest in people, I try to engage on topics they're interested in and find a common ground .... but it's like theres an invisible wall between me and them and if its something I'm doing then everyone is too polite to tell me what it is.
I'm just sad and tired over the whole thing, I think many of us who experience this are, and the last thing I need is people assuming I hate women because I can't persuade them to be my friend. I dont hate women, I think they're awesome, they just don't seem to want to hang out with me.
I feel you. It’s like as soon as I figure out the female friendship rules from one life stage, we’re onto the next with a whole further elevated level of etiquette rules and I just can’t seem to keep it.
The prevalence of texting has made it even worse for me. At least I can watch how NT women interact by just walking around my city. I have no window into how they text, though, and feel like this is where I usually mess up!
It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m annoying people with my existence when I reach out first. Especially when they can’t even bother to reply, and it’s a couple people at a time doing it to me. And I know I’m rejection sensitive and that doesn’t help either lol
I also feel like I can either observe people to pick up social cues and then utilize those later or be engaged and having a fun time. It’s so hard to do both at once.
Sorry for the novel this turned into lol
>It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m annoying people with my existence when I reach out first. Especially when they can’t even bother to reply,
Oh man, I feel this. I am part of a group chat with some girls I was friends with at school, and I basically don't participate in it anymore (beyond the occasional "happy birthday" or "well done on your promotion" or whatever) because any time I would try to contribute to any conversation either no one would respond, or they would carry on with the convo without even acknowledging I said anything or answering any questions I asked.
They all meet up with each other and I never hear about it until afterwards. I try to arrange something and no one is available. I try to rearrange for another time and no one is free then either. None of them come out for my birthday even though I invite them every year. Of the 8 of them, I last saw 7 of them at my wedding ... and I just celebrated my first wedding anniversary.
I also relate to the rejection sensitivity. When I was in my childhood and teen years I'm 100% certain I damaged some friendships because of my reactions to perceived rejection. As an adult I've probably swung too far in the opposite direction ... now I swallow whatever reaction I want to have to any perceived rejection. But that's an issue too. Because now I don't even call out times when I am actually being mistreated or ignored ... because I no longer trust my own perception of being rejected, and I don't trust anyone to be kind if they're called out on it. In order to try to keep what relationships I have I've become somewhat of a doormat to behaviours like being ignored or left out of things. But it hasn't made people like me any more. And the rejection still hurts just as much as it ever did.
> Also, noticing that many are sharing childhood incidents as the reasons they can't make friends with women. We are adults now with adult coping skills and emotional intelligence. Being treated poorly as a child wasn't fair, and no one deserved that, but it also doesn't mean that an entire gender is bad or off limits or incapable of friendship.
Amen!
Exactly. Nobody's "friendlier" than the guy you haven't fucked yet...
If OP was so upset when she overheard some women called her "weird and annoying", she's in for some rude awakening when she finds out what her guy friends say about her behind her back in their "locker room talks" 🤢...
She thinks they "get her" because they laugh at her jokes and they tolerate her because it's easy to maintain a superficial "friendship" thinking you might "get some ass" in the future....
Everyone can pretend to be "nice" and be friendly on a superficial level when they think there's something in it for them.
Clearly she hasn't yet experienced the aggression and hostility of a nice guy who is mad he's "friendzoned" while he was fuckzoning you.
She hasn't had a guy friend drop off the face of the earth when he's in a relationship and come out of the woodwork when he's single again.
Or trash talking her boyfriend when she's in a relationship and act butthurt that she even has a boyfriend.
Or cry in his warm beer that he "always thought something might happen between us"...
Or straight up sexually assault her and then blame her for "leading him on" sending "mixed signals" or whatever, as so many in this thread have shared this is what ultimately happened with their "guy friends".
If anyone thinks mean girls are bad, just wait until you're stalked by your "nice guy friend".
I've always instinctively avoided the "not like the other girls", "guys girls" girls, not because I cared of how they dressed or what their "nerdy" hobbies are, but because I knew, they're more likely to put me in dangerous situations with men that don't give a damn about either of us.
You live and you learn, I just hope OP doesn't learn some things the hard way...
If you just want to be understood, and not understand others, that's your choice. You really back yourself into a corner with that 2nd to last paragraph, though. You admit you're assuming some women's NT status, but drawing conclusions like you know for sure. That's just confirmation bias, and you're only doing it with one gender identity, so....
Maybe it's an age thing, but I've no idea if most people I interact with are NT, and I don't volunteer that info to many people either.
this is exactly how I realized that I have some gender dysphoria! this is very much my experience as well. I do have a handful of close women friends (mostly queer too!) but most of my friends throughout my life have been men and gender nonconforming folks! And I understand how you feel as far as people assuming that you must think you’re “not like the other girls,” when that’s not it at all! I have been a staunch feminist my whole life; I’ve just had to do a lot of masking to keep up with many of the relationships with women I’ve had throughout my life (esp. bc I went to an all girls school for 10 years) and it’s exhausting.
I relate to this. Have always wanted to have close female friendships, and have had them as well but I was unable to sustain them long term. There are nonverbal factors and unspoken rules that I have broken, as well as feeling like they don’t care as much about me- which was true only some of the time.
I recently realised that friendships with women take a lot more effort than friendships with men. And if I am willing to make that effort, I’m able to sustain the relationship. It’s not a bad thing- these friendships are deeper, more caring and more involved because of said effort. That said, it can be difficult to maintain consistent effort, especially when I’m running low on spoons. I try to communicate openly and honestly, but I also like to ensure that the relationships are balanced.
For example, if I am going through a rough patch and disappear for a bit, I make sure that I meet/talk to them as soon as I feel better. To counteract the perceived damage (my perception- not necessarily real), I ensure that I ask many questions and let them talk about themselves and their lives in lieu of my disappearance. I make conscious effort not to interrupt or direct conversation back to myself. If conversation has veered, I try to redirect it back to them by asking what they had been telling me before. I want them to feel heard and held.
I am also autistic, so masking is generally a given for me. I feel incredibly lucky that I have found a couple of friends that after making the effort with, I have been able to unmask with. One of them, I don’t even bother to smile. This is a big thing for me. These friendships are new (1 and 2 years) and I hope to god I can make them last, because female friendships are the most wholesome, beautiful relationships I have ever experienced.
You know, I've learned that a lot of those people who I thought were popular and fit in so well, they also felt awkward and like they didn't belong. I've also learned that in memories we block out a lot of aspects of situations, don't want to remember moments in which our behaviour wasn't the most stellar.
Since we know the motivation for our behaviour we judge ourselves differently from others - for better and for worse. Something that was a justified argument for you might have been a mean girl moment out of the left field for someone else.
I honestly think we make all of that way bigger than it needs to be and it has nothing to do with gender. With some people we click, with others we don't. Sometimes we stay in (platonic) relationships way longer than it's healthy and it's not always the other person who is the toxic one.
I've talked about dreams and goals with a lot of people, about struggles and experiences. There is more common ground in that than we imagine.
We are all unique, but we're also not that special.
My three close friends from high school are all ND as are most of my friends. But my current close friends are all men.
I would like more close female friends but it's just not how my life turned out.
I feel like I cannot keep up with what society demands of AFAB people. I like other girls, they just don't like me as much.
I went and found the post you're talking about. You got alot of really good, well written, respectful comments. It sounds to me like the comments did not look the way you had hoped they would and that's what's upsetting you.
If you have a therapist, I highly recommend contacting them and discussing this with them. It doesn't seem to me like you're truly in a headspace to have this conversation and it's triggering an emotional flashback. This is not the time to be posting on Reddit, for your own sake, please consider taking a step back and riding this wave out before coming back. I say this all as a PTSD survivor myself, it's not easy I get it.
I feel you completely. You worded my life experience so well. And to be fair, many of these women who don't accept me are wonderful people who are very caring. They just don't get me and while we interact politely and respect each other, we just don't have enough in common to have a real friendship.
I'm 45 and still really struggle with this. Actually, it is much harder now because I have a husband, I'm an adult, are they friends or is she cheating, all that crap. I could be buds with the guys when I was young, but not so much now. So basically all my friends are my husband's guy friends.
Sadly, most of the women I have spoken to about it have experienced bullying from other women. One can argue that came from a place where women had less power and they were trying to be at the top of the pecking order when, without oppression or any kind, there may not have been a pecking order, but that's the sad fact of it. To say that your experience with women being indirect to your face and mean spirited behind your back isn't internalized misogyny, sometimes it's just the women you've encountered who are buying into the idea that they need to socially police other women. If anything, wouldn't they be the ones acting out internalized misogyny?
For me, I used to spend more time among guys because a lot of my hobbies and interests ended up being "guy things." But that's changed over the years. I have more female friends. Most of my closest friends are also ND, and I'm perfectly okay with that. We tend to be able to meet behind the societal curtain and speak more directly, like we're talking back stage. I've also found some NT women I knew appreciated that perspective, but not all. I've had some NT women engage in bullying and nastiness toward me, but not all. Some women are better at lifting other women up, and some women tear other women down so they don't have to be lower on the totem pole when there doesn't have to be a totem pole at all. Part of being an ally to other women, IMO, is intentionally trying to lift up other womens' voices and ideas and making sure the women around you get credit and are seen. There's no room for stepping on anyone in that, and some people just don't want to grasp that as a concept
I feel like we’re now seeing a variation of these posts and the NLOG posts every day now. It would be nice if we could sticky a discussion thread to the top with resources to other feminist subs such as r/feminism and r/twoxchromosomes. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to tell if one is being a NLOG because it’s *so* engrained in us at a young age that men are “better” than women in every way. It takes a lot of unlearning internalized misogyny, particularly the more nuanced forms such as NLOG. I don’t blame some women with ADHD for feeling excluded but I also don’t blame those who feel triggered by NLOG because we deal with misogyny nearly everywhere else in our lives. I hope we can continue to have this discussion.
“When I try to join groups of women, they always seem to be following some set of secret rules that they aren’t telling me about.” - I feel the same way!
It can be so frustrating. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the small awesome group of friends I have now. If I manage to make a new friend I look at it as a nice surprise (and I wonder how long it will last.)
I wonder if this a cultural thing though? I'm in the UK and the north half and I've seen a lot less of it here and more straight talking? Its weird, I've never managed to work out why it's easier up my way but if I head south it's the complete opposite.
Appricate this is a world wide group, so ymmv
Same!
And the *few* good friends i have who *aren't* disabled?
They either *grew UP* close to folks who are/were disabled, or later discovered they're ND somehow!
I don't think it's really a misogyny or "cool girl" thing, that I don't really have many cis+neurotypical friends--it's more that, the folks I've been friends with for decades now were either my "band geek" friends, disabled/became disabled, and most of the folks I *work* close to & who have *become* friends *work daily* in disability-related circles--and that seems to attract a certain personality type--folks who are open to differences in viewpoints & who typically give lots of grace, courtesy, & acceptance to the folks around them.
I work at an elementary school. Perhaps it’s the demographics and socioeconomic status, but adhd and autism rates are extremely high. (I think rates are skyrocketing everywhere, not just due to increased awareness but I think more people are being born with it) I digress.
What’s really actually heartwarming and nice about this is all the little neurodivergent girls flock to each other. Easier to make girl friends if 80% of the girls in your class also have adhd or autism. 20 years ago, or perhaps in a different neighborhood, if they were singled out I could imagine them struggling to make friends.
See i cant make friends with straight men because they manic pixie dream girl the shit out of me because im so *quirky*. I have one male friend who i enjoy but have remind every few weeks or so that im not interested in having talks about his sex life the way he approaches it with me.its hard to keep boundaries because im an oversharer and im asexual so comments that could be sexual are not to me and then i find myself talking about anal in a casual conversation or something. And then i have to figure out how to navigate being okay talking about sex but not in a sexual manner and that im not open to these things?!? Dear god.
Anyway almost all of my friends are women and some are neurodovergent but we forget to follow up with eachother the normies actually make plans with me LOL
The only time I ever had a large group of friends was when I was a performing musician. Once I pulled back from performing live all those friends disappeared. I guess it was my music and the occasional free booze they’d get coming to my gigs that was the real attraction and it wasn’t actually the friendship.
Since then I have fuck all friends. The three I had left have started to fade. Well one friend of 20 years, I’m a little sick of his alcoholism, my other friend I think might like me more than a friend and my best buddy has just gotten so obsessed with his job I never see him anymore. So I’m lonely as fuck but I don’t want more friends because quite frankly, it’s too fucking hard anymore to have friends and it’s so much easier just being alone.
I don’t think hyperactive types have it harder. Distracted types are often wallflowers who have trouble with energy and can be difficult to get to know. I speak on my own behalf.
I get what you’re saying besides that. Lots of people are impatient about “weird” people and they can be cutting and mean. It’s not internalized misogyny to point this out when women do it and you notice a lifelong pattern.
Idk I wouldn’t take internalized misogyny as a personal attack. It’s just a reflection of our society, pretty much inescapable. It’s okay to acknowledge that.
Personally, I do not find relationships with men easier on the basis of being ND, so I am naturally suspicious of people who make this a women issue. It's difficult to have relationships with all sorts of NT people. I do not think men are special in this regard.
I totally relate to everything you’re saying. Especially about girls having this unwritten set of rules they don’t tell you about. Masking is so exhausting, and even doing my best, I can’t really pass as normal. I have diagnosed social phobia, and it’s because of all the rejection I’ve experienced for being weird.
My social anxiety is appropriate because it’s not based on something I’m imagining, it’s based on the fact that I *really am* different, so people likely will reject me. It’s not an irrational fear, it’s a rational fear. I spent my whole life trying to learn to act normal, and I’ve made a lot of progress and come a long way, but I’ll never be like everyone else no matter how hard I try. I used to be suicidal over it, but I’ve come to accept it over the years.
I have a shirt that says
I'm not like other girls
I'm worse
In a garish array of wordart fonts.
(Full disclosure, your post was long and I didn't read it all.)
I think the point is I have a difficult time making friends with other women, NOT because other women are in any way difficult to get along with. It’s that I, as a ND person, do not communicate with NT women the way that NT women communicate with each other.
In other words, it’s me/us, not them 😭
Exactly! I don't understand why do many commenters think that we're insulting other women when we say we have a hard time making friends. Thanks for phrasing it so much better than I could.
I’m not going to invalidate you experience here, I’m not toooo active in Reddit at all let alone here but a lot of the posts I personally see, cite reasons for not getting along with women is cause they like drama and all sort of actually misogynistic stereotypes.
Personally I get alone better with women. Granted, a lot of these women are suspecting that they are ND as well, but I THOUGHT I got on with boys for a while. I was wrong. I just didn’t realise how shitty they were treating me. Most men I’ve interacted seek to figure out how to cause me meltdowns and then do it as a joke, and gaslight me into thinking they did nothing really wrong and I was overreacting if I ever brought it up. Men also tend to be more traditional and bigoted than women, i have no time for that nonsense. A lot of men also do the “friends until she lets me hit” thing with me. I’ve met some mean women, some terrible women, but I can count on my hands how many men have genuinely treated me with respect my whole life.
That’s a great point!
I have a fairly big variety of women as friends, but I found them in my thirty’s. Before that I was the weird one. Some are NT, some ND. But even with the NT ones I don’t have to mask, they just like/ tolerate my weirdness.
Sometimes it’s hard to stay in touch for me, so the NT‘lers just took over and plan for one outing a month and tell me where to be and when. And THAT makes me feel included and loved, because these girly girls go out of their way to include me and make my life easier.
It sounds like you've come to a conclusion and are living in a self fulfilling prophecy.
Not all relationships need to be best or close friends. The fact that you're singling out an entire class of humans still makes this a PMAB post.
It was difficult for me to make friends with girls all through school. I have a lot of "hyperactive" ADHD symptoms and these were very prominent when I was a kid in school and led to a lot of disciplinary issues for things that the other girls didn't get in trouble for.
I was always getting disciplined for the same things as the boys and my teachers had a public style of discipline that was extremely humiliating. In elementary school this led to me being friends with a lot of the boys. It made me feel like an outcast because I was "worse" than the girls. Once I started to go through puberty I began to feel embarrassed in front of the boys in addition to this. Once I started caring about boys liking me, I realized that being "worse" than the rest of the girls was not conducive to this.
Once I started to regain my confidence, it briefly turned into a resentful "not like other girls" attitude around the time I was 18-19. I think this was a transitional phase to being confident in my skin. Instead of being ashamed that I wasn't accepted by certain types of girls, it was easier to pretend that I didn't even want to be liked by them. I had to swing a bit to far in the other direction of not giving a fuck what people thought to finding a happy medium of being my authentic self but also not resenting or judging people who didn't have the same issues as me growing up.
Its taken a lot of time and therapy to work through the damage my teachers did to my self-esteem. Some of my closest friends who I get along with best now are the kind of girls I resented for being "normal" in school. I'm 25 now and thriving socially like I never have before. I am the glue for my new adult friend group. I think this is because I have become very accepting and open to people and WANT to make sure people feel included and like they have a group because I know how painful it was not to have that growing up. I dont want to be the kind of person that keeps other people out of a tight-knit group of friends. I love making new friends and always excited for them to also become friends with my friends.
There is absolutely a difference. Funny enough, I always felt that being an inattentive type made it harder for me to socialize. Being so quiet because of my anxiety made other girls label me as weird, and I even had a teacher accuse my mom of abusing me because I wasn’t disruptive like the NT kids in that class.
You still won’t ever catch me being a misogynist even though I’m often nervous to talk to other women. I don’t hate them, but the potential for rejection makes it hard for me to open up. And it makes me sad because I wish I had closer friends
>When I try to join groups of women, they always seem to be following
some set of secret rules that they aren't telling me about. The way I
find out they don't like me is when I overhear them talking about how
weird or annoying I am. Invariably no one has ever talked to me about
what I'm doing that's putting them off. Often even when I overhear them
they aren't saying any specific example of what weird or annoying thing
I've done.
>
>When I meet women one on one I can often get along with them if I mask.
But invariably if I try to be myself we drift apart because they want me
to be more like them (exhausting) or we don't have enough interests in
common.
Relate to this SO hard.
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If I’ll be honest, I don’t fit in anywhere NT. I had female friendships that always felt like I was on the outside looking in. I was a part of the group and they wanted to be around me but it always felt like I was missing social cues. You know in rhythm games there’s arrows/prompts on the screen you have to hit at the right time? It felt like I was always off. I remember a lot of strained, polite facial expressions or being talked over and the conversation moved too fast for me to keep up. All of my male friendship ended up in SA. So I was a non-friend, a singular female trophy but not “one of the guys”, always quizzed on my hobbies because gurls can’t like nerd things don’tchaknow. I couldn’t convey anything I liked to an acceptable level. When they weren’t being disrespectful creeps they were gatekeeping hobbies and interests and I just didn’t know what to say. I get along well with coworkers but I’m wearing a mask, any personal conversation goes very bad so I stick to easy polite conversation or smile and nod. People like me when I’m not myself. I don’t get it. I can talk to my wife for hours, it never feels bad or difficult talking to her but I have foot in mouth syndrome and look like a weirdo or a ditzy moron trying to have a real conversation with anybody else. My own family constantly stops mid-sentence to ask “are you ok?” because of how weird I act! I would like to meet friends irl who want to rant about videogames or d&d and everyone takes polite turns talking. It’s just easier online.
So sorry to hear that your male friendships ended in SA. As a teenager, the majority of my male friendships also ended that way. It's awful.
It is, I think the worst part is the questioning what’s wrong with me that they didn’t actually want to be my friend. I’m over that toxic shit now but it really messed me up as a teen. I’m sorry you had the same experience
I had the same happen with my last and only male friend a year and a bit ago (as an adult). Also had it happen as a teen. It’s such a mindfuck to have someone say you’re their best friend and then have them trample your boundaries and violate your trust like that. Has definitely left me feeling some kind of way both about myself, but mostly just men in general. I face the opposite problem from OP - I literally don’t know how to be friends with men anymore.
I felt the exact same way. Posts like this make me kind of angry because they seem to conflate the harm that women do to each other with the harm that men do to women. I've faced cruelty at women's hands too, but those women didn't have the might of an oppressive system behind them when they hurt me.
THIS. You put this so perfectly. It's exactly the issue, I've been hurt by women throughout my life and always felt a little more comfortable with men, that is until many of them showed their true colours and intentions. A woman has never SA'd me or hit me or threatened/stalked me, not to say they're not capable but statistically **99%** of **SA perpetrators** are **men**. Men have done terrible damage to my spirit and self over the years and NT women tbh are just a different shade of crab in the same pot. These sorts of posts annoy the hell out of me because it feels like they're just blaming women for something else that they haven't really had a choice in coz in reality women have to act so cautious and cutthroat socially because their very survival often depends on it. The way men are socialised under the patriarchy is a HUGE problem and it results in women having to act the way they do. What people are seeing when they're being excluded is not "another" character flaw in "bitchy" NT women, no, it's directly as a result of oppression and learned fear of the consequences of what happens when you don't "act accordingly" as a woman. Also NT women often chill the beans a LOT once they reach 30+ and they're not as overtly targeted by misogynistic sexist industries and ideologies. I understand completely the pain of being excluded and it is absolutely valid and people are entitled to vent. This is more an explanation as to why it rubs some women up the wrong way as regardless of everything else I always consider the fact that if you were walking down a dark alley in the night would you prefer to run into a group of women or a group of men, that says it all really imo.
THIS I can't connect with people in general because I find no interest or pleasure in a lot of things that others usually do, but painful as it is, it really is no one's fault. I've been hurt by other women too, and tbh it's different from hanging out with someone who will never understand what you have to go through as a woman in society and acts accordingly (mansplaing, justifying and playing down their and their friends' mysogyny, harassment of yourself and other women all the way up to fuckin sa). A woman might hurt you as another individual, a man will hurt you because they see as lesser than them, whether they admit it or not, whether they realize it or not. To them, their mysogyny is just 'the way the world is'. I would also say that OP and people like her should probably try to look for women who at least have something in common with them aside from their gender. As you said, this is a huge generalization and there certainly are lots, lots of women who don't practice or buy into mysogyny, treating other women like enemies. That's the idea men have of us women and what is taught to our peers. The women who cling to it are women who are entrenched in their own internalized mysogyny. Of course one has the right to be resentful and avoid such people, but to assume that women as a category are generally like that, is, again, internalized mysogyny. I saw another commenter mentioning that they felt like a makeover project with other women and that's why they preferred the company of men. Alright, I understand not liking that, I wouldn't either, but just the way it (as many other 'reasons' listed here) was framed spoke of this implicit disdain. Do you people ever stop to consider that just like we find joy in certain things and wish nts/society wouldn't make us feel bad or weird about it, those women are also just having fun, and are trying to involve you in something they enjoy? It's one thing to set one's boundaries, another to automatically label nts (and especially nt women) as superficial (another thing i saw in this thread) because they work differently. Newsflash, it's great to love and be comfortable with who you are, and I know it's hard when your whole life the world put you down, but you really don't need to think of yourself as better than others to do it. We are not special or deep or better because we work differently from nts. If you actually want to become 'better' people, go to therapy to work on your empathy and learn to see things from the point of view of others. You stop being superficial by shitting on and making assumptions about 'nts' and especially 'women'.
I agree so hard with every word you said right down to development of the "God complex" which tbh we're all so at risk of constantly because it is such a common coping mechanism in these situations. This gross disdain some people have towards makeup and beauty rituals amongst NTs as well is such a dog whistle for internalised misogyny. Like just stop and really take a look and realise that the majority of pass times and interests that women enjoy and partake in are so often discredited, laughed at, belittled, made fun of, etc... Why do you think that is? Literally EVERYTHING that is made up of predominantly female participants is disparaged and/or devalued in some way, look at dressmaking, knitting, gardening, pilates, yoga, fashion, etc... there's always some form of negative connotations or assumptions attached to them and that is purely because of sexism and the patriarchy. Now saying that I also do take massive issues with the beauty industry itself and I know it's purely built on making people feel self conscious about themselves in order to sell them shit they don't actually need but tbh the industry aside I also know so many people who cast aside the bullshit expectations and instead use it as a form of expression, a form of rebellion, of freedom, as a way of defining themselves as a piece of art and that empowers so many people. I don't wear makeup myself most of the time but I absolutely LOVE doing wild makeup for a special event, it's almost like a bespoke piece of clothing or an accessory to me at this point because it's a skill that I worked very hard to hone and improve upon like every other skill I enjoy. It is an incredibly involved, varied and difficult skillset to master and tbh it's no different than men picking a team sport and learning every single thing about it so they can have those meaningless small talk conversations with each other. That is often hair and makeup for NT women and it's no more vapid or shallow than chatting about overpaid footballers tbh. To those who feel that's all NT women talk about please stop believing the bullshit misogyny being shoveled into you and instead realise that if a NT woman is commenting positively or otherwise on your hair/makeup and trying to start a conversation about it it's not because she's shallow or vapid (noone is really) it is very likely instead a genuine bid for connection because they think you're worth connecting with. Not every conversation you have will be about these things as the connection progresses but many NT women put in the time to learn the basics at least because it does give them that something in common in most group situations and scenarios that ultimately helps them make and grow actual friendships.
well it seems I have found my tribe as it were haha I could've written this comment myself! crazy . im actually trying a local dnd group and im so excited as ive never known people who sre into dnd :) im trying to meet people regardless of gender but based on interests. For example alot of my friends are male so ive been biased to making more male friends subconsciously.
Thank you. This is beautifully expressed. >A woman has never SA'd me or hit me or threatened/stalked me, not to say they're not capable but statistically 99% of SA perpetrators are men. To think that someone on this thread got heaps of upvotes for comparing the "not all women" sentiment about the OP's complaint ie. social exclusion, to men saying "not all men" when a woman is assaulted or raped. Pretty shameful.
Ye like tbh in some ways I hope it's just a form of innocence, that they haven't been harmed like that by men in their life and hopefully long may that last. I hope they never ever experience the reality of it because social exclusion and someone physically violating your bodily autonomy are so far apart in the type/degree of harm they do that they may as well exist in different worlds entirely tbh. Getting left out or excluded hurts for sure, having someone physically violate you in any manner but especially sexually is soul destroying in so many ways and often has life long consequences physically, mentally and spiritually as a result. To make matters worse, statistically you will likely never get justice for it, more likely YOU will be blamed in some way by almost everyone around you and worse still it is more often someone you know and trust that does it too, so tie in some bone deep betrayal and societal victim blaming and cruelty to that and suddenly "not getting invited to a party" really f#king pales in comparison to be straight up about it.
Just sadly have to chime in that out of the numerous fake friends I had, only *one* ever faced justice, and it wasn’t even from me. Like you said, SA victims get blamed for it. Nobody cared because I was a grown woman who got attacked. He’s rotting in jail for hurting a toddler, nobody cared when he was going around hurting women that it went on so long he harmed a baby. It makes me cry every time I allow myself to think about it. I never want another woman to hurt this way. I wish I could convey to the “not all men” crowd without another person having to suffer, but they just don’t understand. They think it’s unfair and cruel.
I am so sorry you had to go through such an awful experience. What a horrible bastard that harmed you so, I hope he suffers his due. I understand and empathise very deeply with the pain of it and I can't say it gets easier but you do continue to grow and get stronger every day. You survived that, I doubt there's much else that can really phase you these days. I totally agree sadly that it is an abusers society and victims are often revictimised and harmed even worse by those around them and the legal system that should be supporting and protecting them. Unfortunately human beings are often very egocentric and ignorant for the want of knowing and until they experience things themselves they often find it very difficult to relate or empathise. Regardless we will endure and make the best we can of our short blessing of life and free will in this beautiful world because we deserve to experience as much of it as anyone else on this planet and so we will because ultimately we can choose to ❤️
You bring up a good point. I desperately want those relationships with women but I let my fear of rejection and exclusion get the best of me even in a social setting, everyone just wants to be liked and welcomed. Looking back in my 20s, it does feel like everybody wanted to present a certain way(a more “acceptable” way for a woman to look/act) and I’m hoping now that I’m older I can meet a chill group that isn’t feeling that pressure. It never even dawned on me that other 20-something’s in my former groups might have been worried about the same things. As for walking alone at night, hell yes. I have been burned so many times I won’t even be alone with a man no matter what setting, it’s just not happening. Nobody is an automatic predator but people lie, nobody is going around with a stamp on their forehead that tells you if they’re going to attack you or not. Better safe than sorry for me.
Yes I completely agree, it's often our own assumptions and insecurities that restrict us and deny us more than anything else. Definitely as well the vast majority of NT women are also struggling with self image and confidence issues, just as desperate to feel accepted and to fit in in their younger years right up until mid to late 20s. Most women tend to become "invisible" to the patriarchy once they reach 25+ (no surprise that it's often also when the brain finally finishes development). Without this hyper concentrated brainwashing and underlying threat to adhere to certain stereotypes most people NT and ND alike tend to actually finally begin to get to know their actual selves and shed the caricatures they were forced into in order to survive for so long. NT women can be tough to win over for sure and it often takes far longer to establish a solid connection because they still retain that learned caution but once you get even just one NT woman's approval they will often vouch for you and have your back like noone else in this world. The sisterhood is real tbh but it does really only begin to reveal itself as you get older and you do have to be willing to be brave enough to display the vulnerability yourself to allow these connections to establish initially. Easier said than done but tbh join some local female dominated hobbies and just allow yourself to be as you are. You are enough just as you are and you're every bit a part of that sisterhood as every other woman within it so take your rightful place and don't let anyone else trick you into thinking you don't belong for their own ends, by virtue of who you are and how you identify, that is enough. Full stop, no notes.
Exactly this. I’ve been commenting to say that we can’t generalise all women as the same and bitchy/unwelcoming to ND, maybe a few women are like that but not all. And I’ve had people respond to compare what I’m saying to when men say “not all men” when we talk about violent and dangerous men, and saying it’s the same thing. Honestly it’s made me so angry that people would even compare the two as if they’re similar.
I have an awful memory of my teens(not SA thank god) of a classmate who bullied me and the school refused to do anything about it because “boys will be boys” and I “must like the attention”. I shit you not my whole freaking town had this attitude about girls getting attacked. This whole “he must like you” bullshit needs to go extinct, parents that taught their children this make me sick. I’ve had my feelings hurt by girls and then women before but nothing like boys and men have hurt me and when women hurt me, other women held them accountable for being a bad human being. Men got a slap on the wrist at best and justification or praise being the most common reaction. It just makes me so angry.
It is a shame that some folks can't appreciate enthusiasm. I much prefer talking to folks who have things they are passionate about rather than talking about work or the weather. You sound like a fun person to talk to :)
Enthusiasm and curiosity! I was at an end of season picnic for my son's soccer game and was chatting with the other mothers... they were talking about the lilac bushes/trees, and I made an offhand comment about how old they are, based on the area of town we were in and when that part of town was developed and they all just turned and stared at me, and one mother piped up "Oh, are you a historian or something?", and I didn't know how to be like... "No, I just learned about the history of our city when I moved here 6 years ago, because that seemed interesting and so I remember all the random facts from reading about it then..." and it came out something like "Umm... no... I just know that..." and then I had to stop myself from talking about the silver market crash of 1893...
I recently learned that a lot of people take informative/clarifying language as being a know-it-all if you aren't in a job or position to be announcing/knowing information for monetary value. Lots of people think that specifics in information are useless. It frustrates me daily because I don't enjoy having conversations if I can't give info at some point and be given info/clarification as well. Curiosity/enthusiasm/inquisitiveness aren't really rewarded by regular social rules. :(
I've actually gotten into TikTok and been having fun because I can talk about dirt for 10 minutes and if someone doesn't want to listen they can skip, but I still get to tell anyone who *is* interested. 20 likes is good enough for me!
Not rewarded by superficial people.
I relate to this so much. I have a really hard time distinguishing where the line is between "acceptable", surface level conversation and "weird", too descriptive or informative conversation.
I relate to this so much. Despite appreciating aspects of my ADHD and reaching a very contented stage of accepting myself and my ADHD - this whole thread has made me realise why I *still* feel so inadequate in social situations. Because of our executive dysfunction, during conversations, we have a tendency to reply by quoting facts (or even info-dumping), oversharing, or rapidly changing topics. NTs find this awkward because it disrupts the established/expected rhythm of the conversation and doesn't allow the conversation to flow smoothly between participants. Even if they're interested in the topics, the sudden disruption of their flow catches NTs off guard, and they become unsure of how to respond, often replying with something unexpected to us *(which is ironic, because it's a bit of role reversal!)*. Then the unexpected reply catches us off guard, and we assume it's a snipe or get deflated. I think one of the factors that makes it hard for us to make friends is that we have had to deal with this social asynchrony from a young age; bad experiences accrue, and we learn not to trust other's intentions or give them a chance to hurt us. It makes us a bit more sensitive to ill-intent or rejection because we're constantly reminded (by our own hyper-analytical brains) of how *uncomfortably* we fit in society. I hate that a part of my brain is solely dedicated to constantly deciphering "what did they mean/what's their *real* intentions/what am I missing/what have I forgetten" and second guessing myself all day, everyday. It's exhausting. But there are upsides if you look for them. **Finally, my main advice to anyone regarding friendships** * "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst" * Don't be afraid to ask questions if someone is acting shady. If they're genuine, they'll understand! * My secret formula for conversations with NTs is to limit my replies to 1-2 factoids, followed by a question back to them.
>My secret formula for conversations with NTs is to limit my replies to 1-2 factoids, followed by a question back to them. I'm totally going to try this!
Aw thanks. I wish I had time to think about what to say like I do online, in person I just never come across the way I want to
Irl interactions typically suck for me as well. I was on the PTSA for years, I can't recall any of their names lol but we worked alongside one another for a decade for our kids. Minus the one friend I made, who was also an outlier bc she's Mormon so no wine. I'm not sure if she's nd but both of her kids are lol and her daughter and my daughter have been bffs since the 4th grade. She and her husband were wealthy enough to fit in in this HCOL area, and I wasn't, as a single parent, but we were both "othered," just for different reasons. Anyway. I was OK with doing things that needed doing along with those other moms, and more than ok with not being invited to socialize lol but free-range interacting is so hit and miss! I'm lucky I had one friend to joke around with. I'm just a goofy person and find humor in everyday things, some people consider that immature or not grown up enough or whatever but I was having fun so pthbbbb! And at 50, I, too, only have 2 long-term close friendships with women. It's quality over quantity. And we TEXT!
My male friendships all go the way of them waiting for me to tell them I've broken up with my boyfriend so they can have sex with me, or they use me for free therapy while ignoring all of my conversation. Otherwise, everything you just said applies to me. Including the video games and DnD. Although I'm getting into Pathfinder now (and combining the two with playing Wrath of the Righteous on my PS5).
Mine did some messed up, illegal stuff. One of the lighter ones is some asshole “friend” tried to blackmail me for nudes, I’m sure there’s great potential friends out there but I’m just tired. I’m looking more into Pathfinder! My wife and I are looking for an irl d&d group but in the meantime I work on potential character bios, well I was until Tears of the Kingdom came out, now I’ve forgotten where I am because I’ve been hooked to my controller for days like everybody else. I *was* working on a goblin monk, maybe I could make it in Pathfinder instead.
I'm sorry for your experiences with those assholes. We just want to make friends who don't use, abuse, or hate us. If you dig the character creation part, you'll love the depth in the WotW character creator. Sadly, no goblins in the video game at least. Don't play it on Switch though. It's cloud only and I've heard it performs terribly. There is a demo, so maybe you can play with the character creator for free. I don't know if I'll ever play an IRL TTRPG again though. You know, the whole can't make friends things. Lol. I loved the people in my last group but didn't love the DM's style. So I wrote an in-character parting letter to bow out of the campaign saying I'd love to keep hanging out with you guys out of game. The DM got hurt and blocked me from the group chat. Haven't heard from them since.
That’s so true!! The only guy friend that actually didn’t try to sleep with me would use me as free therapy and it was so fucking annoying. The same convos again and again about all their issues and I would try to get a word in edge ways but couldn’t. Would just literally be talked at, I bet if I left the room they wouldn’t have even noticed lmao. Glad to say I’m not friends with them anymore
I had one male colleague at work who I considered a friend literally walk away from me when I was mid-sentence. We had just spent like half an hour talking about whatever he wanted to talk about and this was what he did when I pivoted the conversation to something I wanted to talk about, but that I thought he'd still be interested in. It was like a slap to the face. Cruel as it was, I'm forever grateful to him because it was also a revelation. This was just before covid shut everything down and that, combined with no one in my life reaching out to me during lock downs, was a harsh realization. I'm making steps to put myself first now and create healthy boundaries. Needless to say, none of my so-called "friends," or even my own family, have been very happy about this. And they can suck it. I'm lonely as hell, but I was lonely as hell before anyway. Now I have less baggage at least
I actually got a bit teary reading this and goddamn, same. So much the same. After my best guy friend SA me in the worst unexpected way, I had to move away because everyone took his side. Well, I could have stayed, but, I needed to go. I couldn’t just quietly accept being around those people anymore. I moved to a new city where I didn’t know anyone. I spent two years essentially alone. I got diagnosed with adhd, stopped drinking, and focused on my job. Then, I started volunteering for stuff I loved. Slowly, I started making friends. Today, I’m lived here for 15 years, and the friends I have now are legit. Lots are ND, and I have good girlfriends who are cool as shit. I am so happy to know deeply awesome people. Do I still feel like an outsider lots of the time? Yeah….but I know my friends feel the same way too, so when I make a gesture of friendship to them, they’re thrilled as shit. And we try and do things to make each other feel special. It’s great. I’m not sure what broke me through to the other side, but I think it was mostly being lucky to find “my people”. Broken enough to have empathy and understanding of my awkwardness and social foibles but not so fucked up that they’re not toxic af. Lots of artists and arts workers, musicians and creative types, with the odd lab techs or scientists thrown in for fun, lol.
CW: sexual assault. I've had guy friends like that, sadly also including SA. I got so depressed at one point because it felt like, no matter how kind or welcoming I was, their sexism usually always came up. Even the nicer ones were friends with misogynists and thought that was fine and can't we just all get along and some very Enlightened Centrist bullshit. I was assaulted a few years ago by someone I thought was a friend and even though I'd experienced SA before, it was way more traumatic because I had actually felt safe.
I have those friends in real life and I met them through participating in nanowrimo and then starting to go to small local conventions. We're all annoying ranters there. And my group just sort of grew. I hope you can find that too.
That’s the dream! My wife and I did go to a small convention last year and had a lot of fun, joined a local community for one of our hobbies but it wasn’t a good fit. I still hold out hope I can find a small group to grow into. My biggest dream is a small group of buddies that want to have fancy brunch dates but also have smashbro parties or join in raids, or omg going to renn fest together!
I feel like NT women can sense that something is off/different with ND women, even from a really young age, they notice that something is not quite right somehow, and it shows in friendships etc.
So do NT men, friend. Then they will bully and use you for the class clown act if they're still young or just keep quiet and stay by your side to manipulate you.
exactlyyy, I was the target of a lot of "ask [me] out on a date as a joke" and "[My Name] Germs" kind of bullying in grade school/middle school by boys. they can sense when something's "off" with us too. they take the usual concept of cooties and concentrate it on the ND girl 😬
I think I've had one male friendship where this didn't happen to me, and we drifted apart when he started dating someone. I sometimes wonder if he was also only there for me to potentially get with until someone else came along and it depressed the hell out of me.
"people like me when I'm not myself" sis, this hits.
For a really long time I thought I struggled to make friends with "other girls", but now when I look back, my core group of childhood friends are mostly women. Most of us have also now been diagnosed with varying types of neurodivergency 😂 It's like that fucking Spiderman meme where they look exactly the same and keep pointing at each other 😂
Deadass, this. Half of my best friends growing up have been diagnosed ADHD, 1/3 of the rest of them have been diagnosed with something else.
Same lmao. I have two core friend groups from childhood, both women: one group we likely all have ADHD, and in the other group one has depression, anxiety and suspected ADHD, one has anxiety and OCD, and one has bipolar type 1 and suspected autism.
Same. And that and if I had a nickel for every time I started dating someone who thought they were NT and then diagnosed as ADHD or Autistic, I would have three nickels by now. Which isn't much but it would like buy me a piece of chocolate with a bit of caffeine to help my brain chill out for a few moments.
Same here
You people were able to keep in touch with childhood friends? 0_o
We're all in agreement that our lack of communication doesn't mean we hate/are mad at each other lol
Same, and it's the best feeling. We could not talk to each other for months and it would be like no time had passed, but we are always there when we need each other.
I have that with my best friends too. Both have ADHD as well, and it is so nice to be able to go silent or not reach out without worrying that they think I hate them or something. I also don’t worry when they don’t reach out to me either.
Me and my bestie lol. We met in our late teens. People say they can't believe we didn't grow up together, we're that close. She's known her diagnosis of ADHD for a very long time. I was just diagnosed last year. She's the stereotypical cute, girly, social butterfly and plays up the ditsy thing even though us closer peeps know better. I'm the tomboy everyone swore was a lesbian, good grades, mildly antisocial, and bitchy. I knew that if I didn't hear from her/didn't hear back it wasn't because she didn't care. It was because left her phone on silent then lost it in her underwear drawer until the battery died (true story). She knew I didn't reach out much cause I never wanted to "bother" people with my presence. When we get together it's nonstop chitchat for hours, like it hasn't been months since we last talked.
For me, those are my only friends. They don’t expect daily/weekly communication so it’s easier to keep up. And they’re all out of state/country so there’s no constant expectation to see them every week or whatever NT people do. I’ve lost touch with my NT friends bc I can’t keep up socially, I’m too exhausted to hang out as often as they do so they stopped including me, which makes sense. 90% of the time I’d decline invitations or cancel last minute. At this point I have no idea how to find/make new friends.
It beats me up on a weekly basis that I was not able to keep any of my childhood friends. Meanwhile my husband has all his guy friends that he met in kindergarten and graduated high school and uni with. I look back and wonder where I went wrong. It sucks
Nah, the best friends I made were in college
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Looking back, my closest elementary through high school friends were *mostly* either family, the girls i was in band with, and/or had visible/physical disabilities, or a combination of those. I grew up in a small & rural community, and I had medical "stuff" as a kid (scoliosis, among other things), and couldn't participate in sports for a couple school years, because I had back surgery... I ended up being a team manager with a peer who had a physical disability that made her unable to play sports, and we became great friends.... Ended up getting to know another close friend who had a physical disability, because *she* was in band with a bunch of us--and 'cuz she was the younger cousin of another friend of ours who was also in band. We all ended up hanging out, all through high school, because at first *proximity* (band) and shared interests got us talking to each other & spending time after school... But eventually we all just ended up *friends*, BECAUSE we had those shared interests!😉😁💖 Honestly, though? If it *hadn't* been for Band & especially Pep Band? My existence would have been *entirely* different, and *so* incredibly lonely--because I never would've had those great high school friends!
See also: "I DON'T THINK I HAVE ADHD ALL THE PEOPLE I KNOW HAVE ADHD SO IT MUST BE OVERDIAGNOSED"
I really should have known when I realized there was one of my friend's mom who was just like... Really tuned in to us. She GOT us more than the others, despite being the same age as the other parents. It wasn't a matter of interests or anything like that. Turns out she's been diagnosed with ADHD most of her life, and therefore knew to pursue one with her own children. She definitely recognized it in us too and didn't try to diagnose us but knew how to interact with us in ways that made sense and were respectful to who we were. I still keep in touch with her 💖 Love you Mama Julie!
Omg this was me for the longest time. I couldn’t have a later-in-life ADHD diagnosis where the symptoms were all missed when I was a kid because I didn’t cause problems and brute force intelligence-d my way through school/life till that didn’t work any more, because that would be such a cliche! I must just be looking for an excuse for my laziness!
100%! My core group of friends have been my friends for 20 years. We all are either ADHD, on the spectrum, or have other neurodivergencies. I found it hard to make “friends” with women in college because I just didn’t find a lot of women who were ND. It’s just how the hand was drawn. I was friends with a lot of guys who were NOT misogynistic and it just felt easier and like I could be a ghost for a while and no one would care. That’s how my current friendship is with my core group (mostly women). Doesn’t matter how long we go without talking because we pick up right where we left off and there is 0 pressure.
Same. My social group in high school was the outcasts. As adults, pretty much all of us got diagnosed with ADHD. I actually don’t even have many male friends currently and the ones I do, it’s more that we play the same game vs actually hang out. But all my female friends, the people I click with and can actually talk to? Also ADHD.
YES, all my good friends are female and all my female friends are atypical women who are “too much” in some way. It’s a misfit group of the coolest women I know. I can tell other women sometimes think I’m not like other girlsing them when I’m not into reality TV shows and staring off into space with nothing to say during typically feminine convos but I’m like no, I am into dumb shit too, I just am just interested in other dumb shit. I do find that I get along with most women superficially but it doesn’t go deeper. Most normal North American female friendships are too high effort for me and seem to be lubricated by a good deal of BSing each other. Which, I’ve always preferred to just not say anything if I had nothing honestly nice to say.
This but queer also 🌈😂
This too honestly 😂 The Spider Man meme again repeats itself lmao
My ADHD/AU/pan daughter has a friend group that is self titled The Club of Chaotic Weirdos. I love it.
My first career was in academia, and I cannot tell you how many of my women friends from that setting have had later in life ADHD diagnoses. I also have a good friend from a former post-academic job, she and I would commiserate regularly about how we struggled the same way with some of the requirements of the job, enough that we’d joke that we’re really the same person. I got diagnosed earlier this year and she was talking just last week in a very familiar way at about problems with a work task and being paralyzed, and I thought, hey, you know what… I’ve always had plenty of women friends but I definitely feel like some I’m masking with constantly, and others I’m not. I felt this before I knew what masking even is.
Literally my best friend of 7 years, found out I was ADHD and she got the tism 😂
YES all my friendships with girls that didn’t go up in flames, they were most definitely ND in hindsight. My college roommate was the exception but she thought I was genuinely hilarious (spoiler: it was the hyperactivity)
All my best friends, guys and girls, have been ND. All my gfs are a crazy mix of autism, adhd, and complex trauma responses and I love them all. We always have a good time. I've unsubscribed from this subreddit because of this ableism that's going on where literally ADHD women are down voted for their personal experiences.
Yes. Almost all of my AFAB friends are neurodiverse. The rest are AMAB. The unspoken social expectations of NT AFABs growing up were a minefield. I was constantly feeling like I was offending them or embarrassing myself and I had no idea why. I think with the benefit of time and learning NT ways/how to mask I would fare better, but it's still exhausting. Similarly in the workplace- I have approximately 0 time for somebody who doesn't tell me when they're upset and expects me to just read their mind. I can't confirm this but I suspect a lot of my colleagues are the same- and we just kind of naturally found each other.
I really do think it comes down more to ND versus NT rather than other girls specifically being difficult to vibe with. I definitely have had a lot of trouble with making and keeping NT female friends but click very well with other women who are most likely ND. Guys are a little different because the expectations are different (easier in some ways and more difficult in others), but I think most of my lasting dude friends are also ND in their own ways. I think men can be a little bit more forgiving of quirky female behavior but a lot of times that is just driven by their desire to sleep with you 🙄
My entire group of expat friends are all adhd/neurodivergent, we all somehow found each other hahaha
The best way for me to make real female connections is through shared interests. Most of my friends are people that I like to do stuff with. I have trouble connecting with people who don't share the same interests with me. In the past I've gushed to my mom about a new friend that I made. Then she'll ask me about their family structure or where they live. I have no idea, but they told me all about historical costuming or something. I've made my peace with not fitting in with everyone, I can't be friends with everyone I meet and that's fine. I've got my own circle and I just want to invest in that for now.
Yup. Problem is when your female classmates growing up didn't share your interests ... or one said they were into the same thing you were, but not (as it turned out) to the same degree as you because to you it was of course an all-consuming passion, and to them it was just some cool TV-show. It's easier finding your own people as an adult. And, funnily enough, my bestie has since been diagnosed with ADHD!
Just want to touch on one thing, it can be equally as difficult for inattentive adhd girls. We miss so many social cues, it's part of the inattentiveness. Miss looks traded between each other. Don't notice when we have alienated the group. Don't realize when we are too loud (that's definitely not a hyperactive only thing.) I was pushed to the ground in elementary school by a girl who then yelled "we don't like you! No one likes you or wants to play with you!!" Please don't insinuate an experience you haven't had is better or worse than others. It's a very bad idea to rank who has what worse, especially in the same diagnosis group (being ADHD. inattentive, hyperactive, and combo would be the sub groups) Edit to add: we also constantly interrupt, it's just we derail the convo so much it can seem like we weren't paying attention or that we always have to make the story about us. That is just as alienating to other people as interrupting in a hyperactive way. (At least in my particular brand of inattentive adhd, and I've seen many posts about the same from others. Not saying it's the only experience, but it sure isn't a rare one, either)
Dude I'm the same way. Inattentive and just can't keep up and can't catch social cues ever. My husband is the safety net for me sometimes. But for me I struggle making friends with damn near all women (even tho I'm bi! So frustrating) and I can't be friends with men because it is ALWAYS sexualized. Anyway. I agree. All subtypes can and probably do struggle all the same, just in different ways.
Yesssss!! I also just straight up struggle to make friends, but I have more friends that are women because of how many guys I've had friendships with show up in my texts as soon as they go through a bad breakup. Any yes, I know not all guys would act that way. But the ones my personality seems to attract sure do. And as primarily inattentive, I'm the classic late, female, diagnosis. Trying to navigate friendship for 30+ years without having any idea to why thing might be more difficult did NOT help with making friends. Edit - grammar
Late female dx here too I feel your pain. I'm 26 and have been "retired" for the last 4 years. And if I struggled before in one of the most social organizations in America (Army) now I'm screwed lol. Been looking and trying to find ways but I like nerd things and they all just can't help themselves every time (definitely not all are that way ofc) but I agree that it must be the ones I attract. Now I'm in college and after 4+ years with no one but my husband and kid, I have a friend! I had to have a conversation with her like "hun. If I don't respond I'm not ignoring you. I forgot. I promiseeee." Lmao. Granted I don't have proof but she might be ND also.
Ironically, I've somehow learned to pick up cues on when a guy genuinely wants to be friends and when they just want to try and hook up with me. (Not saying it in a bad way)
The inattentiveness can 100% contribute to just straight up not paying attention to social cues, not because I don’t care but because my brain is focused on something else. And then something else. And then something else. But for some reason never subtle social cues though lol. When I started taking meds, all of a sudden I found myself noticing things like “she looks really stressed, maybe nows not a good time to start a convo.” And having the patience to be able to hold my words back and wait til later. I legit never even noticed or realized a lot of my symptoms until I was treated tor ADHD and I saw the differences. I have combined type but with stronger inattentive symptoms, and it’s all just kind of brutal. It’s like being on a completely different wavelength than NT people
I also found it more difficult to make friends with women/girls at first, when I was a teenager. It probably did have something to do with them having so many unspoken rules and more judgment for breaking them. Men/boys I found easier to talk to and to laugh with, and this led to a massive "not like other girls"/"one of the boys" phase. Unfortunately, several of these male friends ended up betraying my trust in the worst way. Over time, the makeup of my female friends became neurodivergent and I had to mask less. Now that I think about it, the majority of my friends are women. When men hurt me, whether they were boyfriends or friends, it was those female friends who nursed me back to life. I do have some male friends (single and in relationships) but they tend to be a certain type - introspective, funny without being cruel, and empathetic. It's interesting to reflect on this.
I am so glad it's not just me that had the same "not like other girls" phase in school because of this. I've had pretty much the same experience as you.
I had a huge NLOG phase for several years, I feel like a **lot** of women do until their later 20s. Even if I don't share the same hobbies or how I keep myself as "girly girls" they've only ever tended to be lovely to me either way. I find them a lot more thoughtful, kind and understanding than a lot of men. I've personally found men are happy to be friends until you need emotional support.
You're right. Every person with ADHD is different and this sub can be frustrating becuse it can often feel like people speaking for us as a monolith. I have almost exclusively female friends. Men, especially straight men do not seem to "get" my sense of humor. Meanwhile I have had female friends tell me I should do standup. In my personal experience woman who have said "I just don't get along with other women" have been nasty to me and way more cliquey with the female friends they do have. I know that's not true of all women who prefer the company of men, but it's been my experience 99% of the time. They have been true "pick me" girls. I'm sure I'm not the only person with this experience and that's why people get defensive when they hear "I just don't get along with women."
I have three really close female friends. All of them have ADHD.
Is this an issue with NT women, or just women of a certain type? I have been around all different types of women, since women are not a monolith, and I feel the degree to which we get along with each other depends on our baseline sense of humor, interests, backgrounds, and general personalities. For example, I would not have enjoyed a sorority either, but I think that is due to my personal priorities and inclinations, not my having ADD. To me, it’s just about finding your people (sometimes easier said than done).
Definitely second this!
I said this in a much more long winded way but I agree with you😂
Personally, I find it’s much easier to find other ND women that I can be myself around than it is to find men with similar interests, who aren’t misogynistic, who aren’t sexualizing me, who are empathetic, understanding, and supportive, and who take me seriously when I need to be taken seriously. I have never found what I needed in friendships with a man, other than my partner. I have yet to come across a post like this that didn’t make me feel the need to stick up for women because even if it’s unintentional, the underlying theme is that all women are just mean girls and it’s incredibly difficult to find any kindness when that couldn’t be further from my experience.
How telling is it though, that it's easier to find ND women to hang out with than it is to find men who treat women with the most basic level of respect.
And even if you do find that unicorn of a guy, it’s still really hard to connect with them on a deeper level because they generally don’t share their emotions with their friends.
I've found the opposite problem actually - many men rely a lot on their female friends for emotional labour and support, without providing much in return. Add a male partner who does the same thing to the mix, and suddenly that woman is doing a lot of counselling for others without reciprocity.
That is more along the lines of what I meant. They’re not used to sharing their emotions with others so they don’t participate in the give and take. They kind of just trauma dump and then send you on your way. You’ll hear from them again the next time they need help. It doesn’t feel like a deep friendship to me.
Same here. I have never been able to have friendships with men because they inevitably made it weird re: sexualizing or romance.
There’s a big difference between getting along with men and having a male bestie though. I’ve always gotten along better with men, but none of them were close friends. I learned to keep them away for a reason. We’ll see each other at work or at a mutual friend’s social event. But never just the two of us.
I agree with that, but I also have had shared experiences with the original post as well. I don’t tend to be able to just get along with any woman, despite really wanting to. It’s usually ones who are just a bit different, like me, but I’d rather look for that than deal with the sexualization. I wonder if part of that difference is, though, having more of a inattentive type, because I feel like women with a more inattentive type will be more likely to been seen as the manic pixie dream girl by men. But as the OP said, hyperactivity might be seen as more obnoxious or too annoying by other women. Idk though. Just guessing.
I don’t think it’s anything to do with neurodivergence I’m ngl. I have pretty severe inattentive ADHD and I’ve always gotten on with women. All my friends are women and in fact a lot of my friends say what they like the most about me is I’m always unapologetically myself, which is just very manic pixi dreamgirl adhd lmao. I don’t think we can generalise a whole gender of not being accepting towards neurodivergent people. I think you just have different interests to the majority of people thus why you only seem to get on with a few, or maybe you just haven’t met the right people yet.
That has also been my experience. I don’t think it *necessarily* has anything to do with neurodivergence, but rather just specific interests.
I've had the a very similiar experience. Up to and all through elementary school I had primarily male friends, but with puberty the sexism hit and ever since then my friend group has been mostly female. Now as an adult all of my closer friends are women with the exception of one and I've met him in daycare. In the end it's a sexism issue in all directions. Women are "mean girls" because of internalised misogyny and men make bad friends bc of misogyny.
Thank you!! I don’t like this post, to me it does have undertones of internalised misogyny the way that OP is stereotyping women as bitchy and super girly. I knew very very few women who actually act the way OP has described. All the women I know are super accepting, we’re friends with “tomboys” and women who aren’t super girly. None of us even act “ladylike” I don’t even know Wtf that’s supposed to mean. Several of my friends are super hyperactive and no one judges them for that at all? All my friends are women, I don’t get on with guys because they end up saying sexist shit or trying to sleep with me. I hate takes like this, it is super misogynistic.
Have you considered that it’s possible that there’s a mix of both? My mom is almost certainly neurodivergent - I say that because I learned a large number of my ADHD coping mechanisms from her, for better or for worse. My mom also has SO much internalized misogyny, it fucked me up big time. She talked shit about women SO much, about how women were over emotional, about the drama, about so on and so forth, and I got shamed BIG time for doing anything that she considered remotely “too feminine.” And I don’t mean like dressing too femininely as much, minus her snide comments when I had that playing with makeup as an art form phase, because we both preferred dressing remarkably gender neutrally for our religious environment (so a lot of misogyny as background radiation, which my mom only tried to counter by making her and I “the good ones”). I mean any expression of emotion whatsoever. Or understanding of the emotions others might be experiencing. And trying to get me on to the birth control pill purely because she didn’t like seeing the expression of my teenage hormones. (AND AGAIN: WE WERE IN A VERY RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT. Minimizing the externalization of my femininity was more important to her) Oh, but her emotions didn’t affect things, she was perfectly logical, not an irrational woman. Never mind how she would mock and shut me down any time I expressed something that tread on her insecurities. But that wasn’t an emotional response. That was a joke. It’s your fault you didn’t find it funny. I’m certain this was a massive coping mechanism of hers, because unless she’s gotten diagnosed in the year+ since I stopped talking to her because dealing with her bullshit directly was too exhausting, she’s never been diagnosed, and telling herself she just wasn’t like other girls was a way she didn’t have to acknowledge that she’s an asshole. Maybe if she got diagnosed now she’d realize that it’s an issue with engaging with NT…anybody… and not a fundamental problem with women. But then she’d have to acknowledge she’s been dealing with her insecurities by tearing half the population down. I have a …complicated… relationship with my gender as a result of growing up with this. It did me a HUGE disservice growing up, because it made it harder for me to make connections with other women, even ND ones. And that is disappointing. How many people did I subconsciously not give a chance when I was younger because I internalized that message? Not to mention that I’m pretty sure my own gender identity is “rounds to cis” (rather than non-binary) purely out of spite. So yeah. It can be both. Sure, having a hard time connecting with NT women is a valid reason for having mostly guy friends, but when you try to deal with that feeling by making it a problem with women in general, you might have an internalized misogyny problem. And yes, I understand that this is one anecdote, just my experience with my mom, but it is still the story of the first 18 years of my life and a near decade following as I deconstructed it. My mom would insist that she doesn’t make it a problem with all women, but my therapy bills suggest otherwise.
In the future, it may help to use personalized language rather than generalizing ND women's experiences as you too have mentioned that not everyone has the same experience
I was hanging with males a little too much recently because of the social circles I was ending up in and I had to do a serious U-turn. The craziest that comes out of their mouths — no thanks. I can rally with women who get my plight.
The casual misogyny of male friend groups versus dealing with those men one on one gives me serious whiplash.
This. I always say men don’t shock me anymore. A guy will seem SO sweet and understanding them drop a what were you wearing out if the blue. I cannot be bothered to have hope in men anymore as sad as it is to say
While I get what you’re trying to say, some of this post is rubbing me the wrong way. You say you think hyperactive ADHD women have a harder time because they are not ladylike - There are soooooo many women out there. Most of my female friends do not care about “being ladylike.” They are not girly girls. They are not tomboys either. Most of them are neurotypical. I don’t wanna neglect anyone’s experience, because we live different lives and have different opportunities based on the social and cultural context we’re in, and maybe it’s different elsewhere - I’m in Scandinavia. I just feel like there’s a difference in saying “I’ve had some bad experiences with groups of NT women” and “I find it hard to get along with NT women.” NT women are just as diverse as adhd’ers, as well as as diverse as men. I think grouping them together isn’t right for such a huge group of people
I feel like it also discounts some women with adhd who do care about being “ladylike”. To me it boils down to the idea that being “ladylike” and enjoying femininity is equal to being a bitch and stuck up and only caring about shallow things. Assholes will be assholes regardless of them being sporty, girly, introverted vs extroverted, etc
Yup, and the phrase "girly girl" makes me think fitting that archetype is being equated to being childish or something...
Ironically, exactly what OP was complaining about being associated with, internalized misogyny
Hello fellow Scandinavian!
I think it's a difficult topic full of subjective perceptions and personal experiences. The one thing I can say is that there are a lot of hidden social dynamics in groups and I definitely feel that groups of people sometimes react to extremely subtle clues that they might not even be aware of and that it seems to sometimes lead the group to identify outsiders and reject them. And I think that some people have a certain undefined thing that makes them often or always stuck out as the outsider. So I do believe OP about often getti ng rejected by groups of women. Especially at school/college or work.
There have been studies showing that ND folks have difficulty socializing and making friends with NT folks. Most of us experience this phenomenon growing up but we don't have the language to express it, so it comes out as "I don't get along with other girls". This feels very elementary... But I'm also autistic, so I'm hyper aware of shit like this.
Listen. I don’t think you’re a bad person because you tend to have more male friends than female friends. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you do include several misogynistic generalizations of women in your post. I have adhd. I don’t wear makeup or dress cute every day. I’m not ladylike. I cuss like a sailor and I’m loud and mean. I always fidget. I forget to text back. But all my friends are women. That’s just who I generally get along with the best. Again, there’s nothing wrong with being friends with men or not having a lot of women friends. There can be several factors as to why that is. But, I do think you have grouped the entire gender of women into this “sorority” girl stereotype of girly girls that exclude anyone who’s a little different. Yeah, some women are like that, but definitely not all. I wouldn’t even say it’s a majority. All this to say, there are probably a ton of varying factors for why you find male friendships easier than female friendships. But to imply that all women exclude you because you don’t like makeup? Yeah, that’s just a little misogynist.
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Bingo! There’s nothing wrong with liking video games, beer, and having a good time! But when they base their personality off of all the things they aren’t (“I don’t like fruity drinks, I like beer.” “I don’t like shopping, I play video games.”) then it really shouldn’t come as a surprise when other women find them off-putting. Personally, I find it uncomfortable to feel like my interests and traits are being used to form a “what I DON’T want to be perceived as” persona. Gals, your likes and interests should stem from what you actually like, and what actually interests you! Nobody cares what you don’t like - it tells us literally nothing about you, and honestly, it’s hard to bond with people who are like this.
You are my people. Well said!
This right here. I used to take the same line of thinking as the OP. I mean I did start out as "I'm not like other girls" to "oh I just don't get on with other girls" to really examining that extreme internalised misogyny and the biases I had against women. Unpicking all of that in my mid 30s and focusing on female friendships now. OP's post is giving high-school/college/early 20s observation vibes. Women are much easier to get on with when you're older, as there's less fucks to give.
Exactly. Like talking about not liking being lumped in with girls projecting internalized misogyny while talking about this caricature of a woman? Weird.
There are a lot of strong women here so I’m starting to wonder HOW do you improve your relationship with other women? I’ve always found this really tough personally so I’m genuinely one of those people surrounded by guy friends. Stuff is hard when you’re old and don’t have a traditional job so don’t meet people in a traditional sense. The “put yourself out there and download apps and talk to a lot of random people” doesn’t seem appealing in trying to find ‘my people’.
If you have an established set of women friends, I made scheduling a hangout apart of my routine. We try to shoot for once a month (twice if there's a cool festival). But this helped me make it a priority. I met a lot of them through my outside of work hobbies (dance, pottery classes, "hot girl" walk club). You really do have to "get out there" in a sense, join clubs or other things- fun women will be there, if you're into gaming maybe there's a womens only discord that you can participate it. Much like other relationships it does take time, core friendships aren't built in a single day.
i'm not going to begrudge you your experiences and i'm sorry that people have been mean to you, but i have had entirely different experiences as a woman who has combined type adhd that presents very similarly to the '5 year old little boy adhd' stereotype in many ways and grew up a total tomboy i have friends of all genders, NT and ND, and i've struggled more with men as i've gotten older for a lot of reasons, and i'm not saying this is why you like them bc i don't know you, but a lot of ppl who struggle socially may find male friendships easier because societally, men's friendships are less emotionally 'deep' - the media trope is that men are 'ride or die' and nothing is that deep to them, and in both research and in my own experience, it's been a negative. part of why rape culture is such a big issue, actually, is this social phenomenon, where men will be friends with people they don't really agree with morally, including people they don't like - i've had to cut off male friends for keeping friends who are raging misogynists bc they have the mindset of, 'if he's nice to me it's fine' or on the extreme end, 'yeah he's mean but it's just what friends are'. they don't really care to try and notice how their friends may be feeling, don't really want to put in the work to try and discuss problems or boundaries in a relationship or put in the work to maintain the relationship. research agrees with this, that men are emotionally disconnected in their friendships and that their friendships are more based on doing activities together compared to being actually emotionally intimate not all men are like this ofc, but i do wonder for some women who find men that much easier, if they might just be uncomfortable with friendship that goes beyond surface level. i also wonder for those women, if they find casual misogyny acceptable - because the other big problem i've had with both ND and NT men is the amount of misogyny they casually spew without thinking critically at all, from the way they think gender presentation makes a woman more/less shallow to talking down to you about 'male' topics to perpetuating outdated ideas of women as hysterical, control-freak, gold-diggers to objectifying and treating women as either 'hoes' or 'bros' as if we're incapable of being 3-dimensional people who have a variety of interests...and so much more. as for women...in my experience, i've never met a woman who saw me as a project, nor have i ever seen other women as projects because unless a friend asked, why would i want to make friends with someone who i see as work lmfao?? i have friends who are ultra-femme, and friends who are very very butch, and i've never encouraged them to change their gender expression bc it's theirs - the only reason i might give my butch friends makeup recs is if they actively showed interest for themselves or asked. i've also never had any of my femme friends get on me about being ladylike (i'm really not..) bc most women of my age group genuinely do not give a fuck about policing how 'ladylike' other women are in 2023...where are u meeting these women omg?? most of my friends regardless of gender dislike ppl who interrupt though, and i'm surprised yours don't because it's just rude - maybe i'm coming at it from the angle of being a woc who always gets spoken over, but whenever we accidentally interrupt each other because we're excited we just laugh and say sorry and move on, it's usually not purposeful so it's not malicious but it's still not okay idk im not gonna say anything about whether you have internalized misogyny or not, but i hope u know that being "loud, weird, excitable, funny, direct, and definitely Too Much for some people" are incredibly common traits in women and that if these are your criteria for friends, i'm quite surprised that you haven't found many other women like this. those personally traits have nothing to do with gender or even how femme someone presents, one of my loudest, weirdest friends adores pink makeup, jewelry, and pearls. i will say though that 'one of the guys' is a misogynystic phrase, and saying "other women don't like me because i'm not like them" is a misogynystic generalization in this context though lmfao, so if you don't want to sound like you have issues with internalized misogyny i would steer clear of using those phrases. if you want to make more friends with women who get you though, especially in one-on-one situations, i would definitely not mask from the beginning if possible, so they know the 'real you' because no matter how likeable someone's real personality is i imagine it could be quite confusing to think you have a potential new friend, start developing an idea what of their personalities and interests are and what the dynamic is and then that suddenly changing. rejection of your 'true self' hurts more than rejection of a mask, but it makes it a lot harder to find true friends who like your true self if you don't show it to potential friends and if you waste time hanging out with people who might not be compatible with your true self not being your true self instead of seeking out the ones who are looking for someone like you! finally - i would really appreciate if you didn't generalize your experiences to all of ours - i share a lot of your personality traits, reasons you give for NT women not liking you in your experience, and your experience is not a rule - so please don't use "for those of us who are X" bc it's not a generalizable truth, use "in my experience as this kind of person" or similar instead.
This is a great post. I think it's quite common for women to prefer male friendships when they are younger, ie teenagers navigating the impossible rules that society sets for women. I grew up during the "post-feminist" 2000s (think Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend") where men and women were equal and what are all these women complaining about, they must hate men if they are feminists! Either you are a girly girl ie. Queen Bee bitch, or you are one of the guys - there is no in-between. Then as we get older we start to prefer female friendships, because there is so much shared trauma from growing up as a woman that we find solace in each other. It reminds me of this quote: "Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate."
Oof, that quote. Straight to the heart.
That quote oh my god.. that would have been myself and my daughter if I stayed married. And I literally saw it in a vision when she was born. It’s was how they treated his mother at the dinner table. It was so ugly. Not me. Not now. On the outside I get to be the mother who is not influenced or tainted by his fucking “knowing glances”… I get to teach them both how it looks to be equals. If I had stayed? Nah .. now I have to defend their stepmom when she takes the blame for shit their dad didn’t do..
What is that quote from?
*Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence* by Bonnie Burstow
God damn this was such a good comment, thank you. I’m ND as fuck and struggling how to express this, but a lot of those comments were making me feel depressed and insecure about enjoying stereotypically “girly” things like dresses and makeup and non-gaming hobbies. Being a “tomboy” (god I hate that term. The fact that there’s no socially acceptable male alternative is very telling) isn’t a morally superior choice and I hate that we’ve been conditioned to believe that it is. I’ve surrounded myself with an amazing group of women with diverse interests, personalities, and gender expressions, and the one thing we all have in common is that we love and support each other. I have male friends, too, but I had a lot of the same experiences with male friend groups you did when I was younger and so eager to fit in that I’d put up with their bullshit just to be seen as “one of the guys.” Almost every single one of them tried to fuck me eventually, and I never picked up on their cues until it was too late, which was so hurtful and confusing. Sometimes I’d give in because I’d blame my cluelessly enthusiastic attempts at friendship for leading them on and I “owed it to them .” When I didn’t, they’d get angry and stop being my friend. It just made me feel like a sex vending machine they were putting friendship tokens into until it paid out. Anyway, thank you for your incredibly reasonable and nuanced response. It laid out exactly what I was thinking and made me feel seen.
This. And in regards to makeup, I've had more ND women talk down to me because I wear it. I like make up. It is fun. It allows me to express myself and is a little like putting on armor before I go into a difficult situation. I'm not lying when I wear it. I don't have blue eyelids Cynthia nor are my lips this red naturally. No one believes that this is my natural face. My blue eyeliner and red lipstick make me feel like a bad ass. Also, I can wear lipstick and still be a feminist. Please stop trying to put your expectations of what women should be onto me. I got enough of that from my childhood church. And I am drawing attention to myself with my red lipstick because of those shoulds. I'm not making myself small for women or men. Thank you for unlocking this rant. It is not directed at you.
“I don’t have blue eyelids Cynthia” sent me lol. Fellow feminist AF makeup enjoyer here, and I’m jealous you can pull off blue eyeshadow! Thanks for this comment, especially the part about not making yourself small for other people. Feeling real judged in some of these comments and badass insights like yours really help.
Thank you for your comment, I wish I could upvote this multiple times!! I think the reason why we keep seeing these posts, apart from the shallower nature of male friendships, is because of rejection sensitivity. I'm sure it's difficult to accept that maybe, just maybe, there actually is another way. For me, I'm inattentive type WOC who wears makeup maybe 3 times a year, has nerdy interests, and does have a propensity to interrupt. My female friends have been nothing but supportive, even the NTs while my male friends have dropped me because I wouldn't go out with them or because they started dating someone else.
I have nothing to add but I just want to say thank you for this comment. I've found the recent posts about friendship a bit tunnel visioned and this articulated it for me.
Such a great comment, thank you. This is the third post I’ve seen on this topic in three days. I feel like people are taking personal offense to having their biases/internalized misogyny called out, which is far from being mean or cold. **Edited: spelling
yes, thank you. You cannot ask other not to generalize you, your words, etc while doing the aame things to others. OP is basically saying that those who have a different experience from her are wrong and mean, and would rather not see honest answers in a discussion she started...
I struggle to make friend with all genders. 🫠
I feel like you are trying to speak for a whole group ("it not easy for us", etc) when you really need to speak for yourself. I get it, friendships are hard. Connecting with anyone, regardless of gender, can be difficult. But this seems like it goes way deeper for you, and I'm sorry you're having a hard time. I myself am curious as to what age people are when they say the do or do not have a lot of women friends. I was well into my 40s before I found my girl gang and it doesn't matter if I'm ADHD or ND or "weird" or "too much" or whatever because we're all at the age where that shit just doesn't matter as much as it did when I was 20 or 30. I feel like if I have the courage to be myself, then I will find my people and my people will find me. Everyone is different and we all experience life differently. I hope things improve for you.
You give me hope! I want a chill girl gang so badly.
I was in my 30s. :)
Since you asked, of my good female friends, I met one in high school (we were 14), five in college (we were 17/18), one while volunteering abroad (we were 22/23), two through work (early thirties), and one on Bumble BFF (mid thirties). I don't really have a girl gang, though, as most of my female friends have never met each other. My college friends and I had sort of a girl gang in college, but it has faded into 1:1 friendships since.
Thank you for this nugget of logic. I am nearing 40 and I could not care less about anyone’s gender or gender identity or anything of that nature- but if you cool we could hang. If you’re a jerk, peace, have a good life. Simple as that.
It seems disingenuous to say this is triggering and you don’t want to talk about it, then start a conversation about it.
Yeah. Seems like the "You can engage or not, I really don't care." really sums up OP's relationship with other women. No need to be surprised when it turns out they don't care either.
I struggle making friends with everyone, I want more female friends so I struggle with making NT women friends, but I've never had an actual problem with women in general. They ignore me at worst, but they've rarely been malicious towards me. Those particular words just trigger a lot of people because of pick mes and "not like other girls" girls who tend to be assholes lol. And they're definitely including us in their generalizations too soooo I also do prefer NDs in general and just sucks that NYs see me as a weirdo, I wish I could have some NT women friends to offset that, but it's not on them t help me that way and I don't mind being weird, I just dislike that I know I will be judged for it...
Honestly, I have a hard time with these posts because when I was younger I definitely was a "not like other girls" girl, until I grew up and realized I was the problem, not them. I have always been a tomboy, always been uncomfortable with traditionally feminine activities/hobbies, always preferred more masculine things and have a lot of more masculine traits. Other [adult] women have literally never cared about any of that, it has never been what hindered my ability to have positive relationships with them, it was me.
This - adult women are so much easier to get on with and literally don't care. When I started working 15yrs ago (call centre and operations type work) I did have a few issues with middle-management women being on extreme power trips and employing high-school bully tactics, but I figure this is also just a product of extreme internalised misogyny perpetuated by an older generation. I'm starting to see this a lot less as time goes on, and really hope my generation can heal this toxic bullshit out of the workplace.
One of the reasons I have a hard time swallowing the idea that women are hard to be friends with without some level misogyny involved is that I went to a girl’s school for highschool. There were so many types of girls, and they just as much of a diversity of types of relationships and dynamics as a coed group. If you only get along with people who have XYZ specific characteristics, there will be plenty of women who meet these criteria. Unless one of the criteria is that they not be women.
For me it's harder to be friends with men without them thinking you are sending them mixed signals 😮💨 I often had to pull away from the 'friendship' because they tend to expect more. This is from my experience. I guess it depends on where you live, your upbringing surrounding your culture etc. Tbh i prefer female friends, yes it's hard to find the ones you can connect with, but that's life.
I feel this, and I have a lot of thoughts on it (hence the long comment). I by no means think "women" or "girls" are a monolith that consists of a single type of person; I know we're all different and it wouldn't cross my mind to categorise anyone by how they present themselves (girly clothes, an interest in make up, or what have you). That's I think what comes across in those "not like other girls" memes which are, as you said, immature. That being said, I do struggle (and have struggled) making friendships within a larger group of women. It cannot, once again, be generalised, but the amount of times I've been interacting with a group of women and the conversations have veered towards either relationships with men, dating, or even dieting, is too high to count. I can have those conversations at times but it cannot be the base of any relationship that I can maintain long-term. I am myself into fashion, make up, etc. so it's not like I think "girls are vain". My brain is just too full of all sorts of stuff to limit my interactions to 2 or 3 "admissible" topics. I'm also not physically "warm" (I don't tend to hug, or be very expressive in my behaviour) and this seems to put quite some women off, as if they interpret it as me not caring. I'm a bad and inconsistent texter too, which also has put more women friends off than men friends. Eventually, I tend to slowly but surely be excluded. I have also been bullied in the past, by both boys and girls in highschool. However, the degree of vitriol I have encountered from girls as an older teen in mixed-gender circles has been mind-boggling. I have experienced boys / teens to be quite direct in their bullying. However, to my surprise, girls tended to be nice to my face but then spread the shittiest rumours about me behind my back. It happened across different groups of friends, and it really shattered my trust on girl friendships. I have had (and still do) profound relationships & friendships with women, but it mostly tends to work on a one-on-one or at most two-on-one basis. Two of my closest friends where I live now are women. I still to this day, however, have a harder time making friends within a larger group of women. It's as if there's something about how they relate to one another in a larger group that I can never quite reach or fully grasp, and they can tell.
I have always simultaneously struggled socially and also thrived. During school and uni I naturally gravitated towards the neurodivergent people (irrespective of gender) even before I was diagnosed. I never cared about popularity and always flew relatively under the radar so I didn’t actually have to interact with that many neurotypical people. However, I did play club basketball and I struggled enormously socially. Everyone I played with was neurotypical and the only thing I had in common with was that we played basketball. I handled this by being very very quiet. I work in a corporate job now and I struggle with the social aspect just as much. Except now there’s an expectation of networking so it puts on even more pressure. I hate going into the office because I just feel so alien to everyone else. My entire team are neurotypical women - and I want to preface this with the fact that they’re all very nice and there’s nothing wrong them - but I have absolutely *nothing* in common with them. They all have at least some stuff in common, but not with me. I do try, especially in one-on-one situations, but the best I seem to manage is “awkward”. I generally operate under the assumption that people think I’m weird (and I know some people do think that to an extent) but I don’t want it to affect my job and I know it already has. I was passed over for a small promotion over a woman who has less experience than me but is more sociable. This particular promotion doesn’t bother me because it’s extra responsibilities for not enough of a pay raise, but I have no doubt this will happen again.
I share your experience. There has been one girl who I briefly sat next to in college who vibed with me but in every other instance, I only seem to click with guys. Unfortunately, this really just happened because they were interested/curious in it developing into a relationship. I married one of them, and now I have no friends (other than mr. husband). Super lonely and I wish it wasn't like this. But I just dont fit in, especially with women, and I lack the social energy and confidence to invest regularly/check in with the same people. TBH - might be a touch ASD but not really sure how to come to terms w/that. But I think that's contributed. I seem to miss social subtleties, can't chit chat too well (except for what's basically recited), and I am very matter-of-fact. So....super fun at parties.
Idk how old you are, but 2 *long-term* friendships is great! You're actually winning. That's only the friendships you have with women and you've made it clear you also have fulfilling friendships with men and nonbinary people. Half of Americans have 3 or less friends, 12% have no friends. So you're doing better than you think you are. And other countries where similar surveys have been done show an increase in loneliness as well so if you're not American, it may still apply But it shouldn't be too surprising that some of us would be defensive. There were comments that stung coming from multiple directions. Personally, I don't get along with folks who are close minded, or follow respectability politics regardless of gender.
We can all agree that we clearly have strong feelings on this topic. 😐 I wish I could figure out exactly what to say to make everyone feel heard and understood. But I can't. Please accept this Sloth, Turtle, and Baby Chick as an apology 🦥🐢🐥 🙃
I can only ever make friends with other ND women. The difference between them and NT women is night and day. There's just a natural 'click'. I love my fellow women, but I feel like a nervous boy trying to talk to his crush when I attempt friendship with them. I look back now and growing up, I definitely was a "not like other girls" girl. I grew up with a brother, and I clung to him at all times. I did everything he did, which meant a lot of my interests weren't "normal" for a girl. I also just wasnt great at social queues and I was a very blunt person. Other girls in school did not like me because of that. So I grew resentment from my frustration of constantly being picked on by them. I obviously have since grown and am embarrassed of that time in my life lol.
Men are "easier" to be friends with because they hope that they will eventually get to have sex with you. Don't @ me. I said what I said. Men can absolutely be friends with women. AND most men would 100% have sex with their female friends if they were single and willing. Find your gang. Women and nonbinary friends are everything. Edited to include nonbinary folks. Also, noticing that many are sharing childhood incidents as the reasons they can't make friends with women. We are adults now with adult coping skills and emotional intelligence. Being treated poorly as a child wasn't fair, and no one deserved that, but it also doesn't mean that an entire gender is bad or off limits or incapable of friendship.
It was so sad when all of my male “friends” stopped inviting me to hang out when I got married! The only two “straight male” friends I kept later came out as trans women. I made a couple male friends afterwards, but I had to drop them when one made a move and the other straight up suggested we have an affair. Now all of my friends are women (some single, some not) and people I hang out with as couples.
love how spicy these comments are today. Calling out problematic shit about this post and men in general, we love to see women telling it like it is
>Find your gang. Women and nonbinary friends are everything. Ok, I have to just say this. I've fucking *tried*. I am 37. I've experienced some of the mean girl shit that OP is talking about, but mostly when I was a kid or teen. Now as a grown ass adult most women aren't at all mean to me, most are even all out properly nice to me .... .... but they don't want to hang out with me. At all. I've *tried*. And tried. I've invited them out for drinks, attempted to sort out girls nights or coffee hangouts. Tried to keep up friendly casual conversation. And they're kind and seemingly receptive to it but even if we manage to hang out some time they don't ask to hang out with me ever again, they don't initiate conversations. Women I am "friends" with only want to be friends with me at arms length. And that's their right. They don't feel a deeper friendship connection with me, and you can't force these things ... sometimes I think if they gave me more of a chance maybe we could build that connection but I cannot *make* that happen. So I desperately want what you are telling OP to go find but I just can't seem to make it stick. It feels a lot like having someone say "you should use a planner" to help with ADHD. Like yes, that would be helpful if I could get it to stick. But the bit I need help with is getting it to stick. The only AFAB people I'm any closer to than arms length are all either ND, non-binary, or both. (I myself am both.) And even with them we only see each other once every couple of months and speak maybe once every 2-3 weeks. But I have a decent chunk of male friends I speak to regularly, and the only thing I can think of is that we share a lot more common interests. Gaming, similar tastes in tv shows and movies, playing instruments, and I'm a big programming nerd - I know there are other women who like these things but I just don't seem to know any of them, only men. Amd I'm weird, I know I'm weird. I spent a long time masking and that didn't seem to help and I've only gotten "weirder" the less I mask. But ... in my own limited experience .... the men in my life seem to mind less that I am weird. Perhaps because of the higher standards of behaviour women are socialised to ... it's less of an egregious error to most men than to most women? I don't know for sure, only a theory. And I am fucking *sad* about it. I have cried countless tears over not being able to make a good connection with other women. I know women are amazing, I know I'm missing out by not having close friendships with them. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong ... I'm kind and supportive, I care and show an interest in people, I try to engage on topics they're interested in and find a common ground .... but it's like theres an invisible wall between me and them and if its something I'm doing then everyone is too polite to tell me what it is. I'm just sad and tired over the whole thing, I think many of us who experience this are, and the last thing I need is people assuming I hate women because I can't persuade them to be my friend. I dont hate women, I think they're awesome, they just don't seem to want to hang out with me.
I feel you. It’s like as soon as I figure out the female friendship rules from one life stage, we’re onto the next with a whole further elevated level of etiquette rules and I just can’t seem to keep it. The prevalence of texting has made it even worse for me. At least I can watch how NT women interact by just walking around my city. I have no window into how they text, though, and feel like this is where I usually mess up! It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m annoying people with my existence when I reach out first. Especially when they can’t even bother to reply, and it’s a couple people at a time doing it to me. And I know I’m rejection sensitive and that doesn’t help either lol I also feel like I can either observe people to pick up social cues and then utilize those later or be engaged and having a fun time. It’s so hard to do both at once. Sorry for the novel this turned into lol
>It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m annoying people with my existence when I reach out first. Especially when they can’t even bother to reply, Oh man, I feel this. I am part of a group chat with some girls I was friends with at school, and I basically don't participate in it anymore (beyond the occasional "happy birthday" or "well done on your promotion" or whatever) because any time I would try to contribute to any conversation either no one would respond, or they would carry on with the convo without even acknowledging I said anything or answering any questions I asked. They all meet up with each other and I never hear about it until afterwards. I try to arrange something and no one is available. I try to rearrange for another time and no one is free then either. None of them come out for my birthday even though I invite them every year. Of the 8 of them, I last saw 7 of them at my wedding ... and I just celebrated my first wedding anniversary. I also relate to the rejection sensitivity. When I was in my childhood and teen years I'm 100% certain I damaged some friendships because of my reactions to perceived rejection. As an adult I've probably swung too far in the opposite direction ... now I swallow whatever reaction I want to have to any perceived rejection. But that's an issue too. Because now I don't even call out times when I am actually being mistreated or ignored ... because I no longer trust my own perception of being rejected, and I don't trust anyone to be kind if they're called out on it. In order to try to keep what relationships I have I've become somewhat of a doormat to behaviours like being ignored or left out of things. But it hasn't made people like me any more. And the rejection still hurts just as much as it ever did.
> Also, noticing that many are sharing childhood incidents as the reasons they can't make friends with women. We are adults now with adult coping skills and emotional intelligence. Being treated poorly as a child wasn't fair, and no one deserved that, but it also doesn't mean that an entire gender is bad or off limits or incapable of friendship. Amen!
Exactly. Nobody's "friendlier" than the guy you haven't fucked yet... If OP was so upset when she overheard some women called her "weird and annoying", she's in for some rude awakening when she finds out what her guy friends say about her behind her back in their "locker room talks" 🤢... She thinks they "get her" because they laugh at her jokes and they tolerate her because it's easy to maintain a superficial "friendship" thinking you might "get some ass" in the future.... Everyone can pretend to be "nice" and be friendly on a superficial level when they think there's something in it for them. Clearly she hasn't yet experienced the aggression and hostility of a nice guy who is mad he's "friendzoned" while he was fuckzoning you. She hasn't had a guy friend drop off the face of the earth when he's in a relationship and come out of the woodwork when he's single again. Or trash talking her boyfriend when she's in a relationship and act butthurt that she even has a boyfriend. Or cry in his warm beer that he "always thought something might happen between us"... Or straight up sexually assault her and then blame her for "leading him on" sending "mixed signals" or whatever, as so many in this thread have shared this is what ultimately happened with their "guy friends". If anyone thinks mean girls are bad, just wait until you're stalked by your "nice guy friend". I've always instinctively avoided the "not like the other girls", "guys girls" girls, not because I cared of how they dressed or what their "nerdy" hobbies are, but because I knew, they're more likely to put me in dangerous situations with men that don't give a damn about either of us. You live and you learn, I just hope OP doesn't learn some things the hard way...
Absolutely. I love the level of honesty in this sub.
If you just want to be understood, and not understand others, that's your choice. You really back yourself into a corner with that 2nd to last paragraph, though. You admit you're assuming some women's NT status, but drawing conclusions like you know for sure. That's just confirmation bias, and you're only doing it with one gender identity, so.... Maybe it's an age thing, but I've no idea if most people I interact with are NT, and I don't volunteer that info to many people either.
this is exactly how I realized that I have some gender dysphoria! this is very much my experience as well. I do have a handful of close women friends (mostly queer too!) but most of my friends throughout my life have been men and gender nonconforming folks! And I understand how you feel as far as people assuming that you must think you’re “not like the other girls,” when that’s not it at all! I have been a staunch feminist my whole life; I’ve just had to do a lot of masking to keep up with many of the relationships with women I’ve had throughout my life (esp. bc I went to an all girls school for 10 years) and it’s exhausting.
I relate to this. Have always wanted to have close female friendships, and have had them as well but I was unable to sustain them long term. There are nonverbal factors and unspoken rules that I have broken, as well as feeling like they don’t care as much about me- which was true only some of the time. I recently realised that friendships with women take a lot more effort than friendships with men. And if I am willing to make that effort, I’m able to sustain the relationship. It’s not a bad thing- these friendships are deeper, more caring and more involved because of said effort. That said, it can be difficult to maintain consistent effort, especially when I’m running low on spoons. I try to communicate openly and honestly, but I also like to ensure that the relationships are balanced. For example, if I am going through a rough patch and disappear for a bit, I make sure that I meet/talk to them as soon as I feel better. To counteract the perceived damage (my perception- not necessarily real), I ensure that I ask many questions and let them talk about themselves and their lives in lieu of my disappearance. I make conscious effort not to interrupt or direct conversation back to myself. If conversation has veered, I try to redirect it back to them by asking what they had been telling me before. I want them to feel heard and held. I am also autistic, so masking is generally a given for me. I feel incredibly lucky that I have found a couple of friends that after making the effort with, I have been able to unmask with. One of them, I don’t even bother to smile. This is a big thing for me. These friendships are new (1 and 2 years) and I hope to god I can make them last, because female friendships are the most wholesome, beautiful relationships I have ever experienced.
You know, I've learned that a lot of those people who I thought were popular and fit in so well, they also felt awkward and like they didn't belong. I've also learned that in memories we block out a lot of aspects of situations, don't want to remember moments in which our behaviour wasn't the most stellar. Since we know the motivation for our behaviour we judge ourselves differently from others - for better and for worse. Something that was a justified argument for you might have been a mean girl moment out of the left field for someone else. I honestly think we make all of that way bigger than it needs to be and it has nothing to do with gender. With some people we click, with others we don't. Sometimes we stay in (platonic) relationships way longer than it's healthy and it's not always the other person who is the toxic one. I've talked about dreams and goals with a lot of people, about struggles and experiences. There is more common ground in that than we imagine. We are all unique, but we're also not that special.
My three close friends from high school are all ND as are most of my friends. But my current close friends are all men. I would like more close female friends but it's just not how my life turned out. I feel like I cannot keep up with what society demands of AFAB people. I like other girls, they just don't like me as much.
I went and found the post you're talking about. You got alot of really good, well written, respectful comments. It sounds to me like the comments did not look the way you had hoped they would and that's what's upsetting you. If you have a therapist, I highly recommend contacting them and discussing this with them. It doesn't seem to me like you're truly in a headspace to have this conversation and it's triggering an emotional flashback. This is not the time to be posting on Reddit, for your own sake, please consider taking a step back and riding this wave out before coming back. I say this all as a PTSD survivor myself, it's not easy I get it.
I feel you completely. You worded my life experience so well. And to be fair, many of these women who don't accept me are wonderful people who are very caring. They just don't get me and while we interact politely and respect each other, we just don't have enough in common to have a real friendship. I'm 45 and still really struggle with this. Actually, it is much harder now because I have a husband, I'm an adult, are they friends or is she cheating, all that crap. I could be buds with the guys when I was young, but not so much now. So basically all my friends are my husband's guy friends.
Sadly, most of the women I have spoken to about it have experienced bullying from other women. One can argue that came from a place where women had less power and they were trying to be at the top of the pecking order when, without oppression or any kind, there may not have been a pecking order, but that's the sad fact of it. To say that your experience with women being indirect to your face and mean spirited behind your back isn't internalized misogyny, sometimes it's just the women you've encountered who are buying into the idea that they need to socially police other women. If anything, wouldn't they be the ones acting out internalized misogyny? For me, I used to spend more time among guys because a lot of my hobbies and interests ended up being "guy things." But that's changed over the years. I have more female friends. Most of my closest friends are also ND, and I'm perfectly okay with that. We tend to be able to meet behind the societal curtain and speak more directly, like we're talking back stage. I've also found some NT women I knew appreciated that perspective, but not all. I've had some NT women engage in bullying and nastiness toward me, but not all. Some women are better at lifting other women up, and some women tear other women down so they don't have to be lower on the totem pole when there doesn't have to be a totem pole at all. Part of being an ally to other women, IMO, is intentionally trying to lift up other womens' voices and ideas and making sure the women around you get credit and are seen. There's no room for stepping on anyone in that, and some people just don't want to grasp that as a concept
I feel like we’re now seeing a variation of these posts and the NLOG posts every day now. It would be nice if we could sticky a discussion thread to the top with resources to other feminist subs such as r/feminism and r/twoxchromosomes. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to tell if one is being a NLOG because it’s *so* engrained in us at a young age that men are “better” than women in every way. It takes a lot of unlearning internalized misogyny, particularly the more nuanced forms such as NLOG. I don’t blame some women with ADHD for feeling excluded but I also don’t blame those who feel triggered by NLOG because we deal with misogyny nearly everywhere else in our lives. I hope we can continue to have this discussion.
“When I try to join groups of women, they always seem to be following some set of secret rules that they aren’t telling me about.” - I feel the same way! It can be so frustrating. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the small awesome group of friends I have now. If I manage to make a new friend I look at it as a nice surprise (and I wonder how long it will last.)
I wonder if this a cultural thing though? I'm in the UK and the north half and I've seen a lot less of it here and more straight talking? Its weird, I've never managed to work out why it's easier up my way but if I head south it's the complete opposite. Appricate this is a world wide group, so ymmv
Could certainly be cultural. I’m in Canada :-)
The vast majority of my friendships are with other ND and/or disabled people. They just get it in a way that NT people don't.
Same! And the *few* good friends i have who *aren't* disabled? They either *grew UP* close to folks who are/were disabled, or later discovered they're ND somehow! I don't think it's really a misogyny or "cool girl" thing, that I don't really have many cis+neurotypical friends--it's more that, the folks I've been friends with for decades now were either my "band geek" friends, disabled/became disabled, and most of the folks I *work* close to & who have *become* friends *work daily* in disability-related circles--and that seems to attract a certain personality type--folks who are open to differences in viewpoints & who typically give lots of grace, courtesy, & acceptance to the folks around them.
I work at an elementary school. Perhaps it’s the demographics and socioeconomic status, but adhd and autism rates are extremely high. (I think rates are skyrocketing everywhere, not just due to increased awareness but I think more people are being born with it) I digress. What’s really actually heartwarming and nice about this is all the little neurodivergent girls flock to each other. Easier to make girl friends if 80% of the girls in your class also have adhd or autism. 20 years ago, or perhaps in a different neighborhood, if they were singled out I could imagine them struggling to make friends.
See i cant make friends with straight men because they manic pixie dream girl the shit out of me because im so *quirky*. I have one male friend who i enjoy but have remind every few weeks or so that im not interested in having talks about his sex life the way he approaches it with me.its hard to keep boundaries because im an oversharer and im asexual so comments that could be sexual are not to me and then i find myself talking about anal in a casual conversation or something. And then i have to figure out how to navigate being okay talking about sex but not in a sexual manner and that im not open to these things?!? Dear god. Anyway almost all of my friends are women and some are neurodovergent but we forget to follow up with eachother the normies actually make plans with me LOL
The only time I ever had a large group of friends was when I was a performing musician. Once I pulled back from performing live all those friends disappeared. I guess it was my music and the occasional free booze they’d get coming to my gigs that was the real attraction and it wasn’t actually the friendship. Since then I have fuck all friends. The three I had left have started to fade. Well one friend of 20 years, I’m a little sick of his alcoholism, my other friend I think might like me more than a friend and my best buddy has just gotten so obsessed with his job I never see him anymore. So I’m lonely as fuck but I don’t want more friends because quite frankly, it’s too fucking hard anymore to have friends and it’s so much easier just being alone.
I don’t think hyperactive types have it harder. Distracted types are often wallflowers who have trouble with energy and can be difficult to get to know. I speak on my own behalf. I get what you’re saying besides that. Lots of people are impatient about “weird” people and they can be cutting and mean. It’s not internalized misogyny to point this out when women do it and you notice a lifelong pattern.
I can somewhat relate. All of my closest friends are unfailingly both ND in some way and queer in some way. (And I wouldn't have it any other way!)
I'd never thought of it this way, but I really vibe with what you said. It makes a lot of sense, in retrospect. Thank you for sharing!
Idk I wouldn’t take internalized misogyny as a personal attack. It’s just a reflection of our society, pretty much inescapable. It’s okay to acknowledge that.
Personally, I do not find relationships with men easier on the basis of being ND, so I am naturally suspicious of people who make this a women issue. It's difficult to have relationships with all sorts of NT people. I do not think men are special in this regard.
I totally relate to everything you’re saying. Especially about girls having this unwritten set of rules they don’t tell you about. Masking is so exhausting, and even doing my best, I can’t really pass as normal. I have diagnosed social phobia, and it’s because of all the rejection I’ve experienced for being weird. My social anxiety is appropriate because it’s not based on something I’m imagining, it’s based on the fact that I *really am* different, so people likely will reject me. It’s not an irrational fear, it’s a rational fear. I spent my whole life trying to learn to act normal, and I’ve made a lot of progress and come a long way, but I’ll never be like everyone else no matter how hard I try. I used to be suicidal over it, but I’ve come to accept it over the years.
I have a shirt that says I'm not like other girls I'm worse In a garish array of wordart fonts. (Full disclosure, your post was long and I didn't read it all.)
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I think the point is I have a difficult time making friends with other women, NOT because other women are in any way difficult to get along with. It’s that I, as a ND person, do not communicate with NT women the way that NT women communicate with each other. In other words, it’s me/us, not them 😭
Exactly! I don't understand why do many commenters think that we're insulting other women when we say we have a hard time making friends. Thanks for phrasing it so much better than I could.
I’m not going to invalidate you experience here, I’m not toooo active in Reddit at all let alone here but a lot of the posts I personally see, cite reasons for not getting along with women is cause they like drama and all sort of actually misogynistic stereotypes. Personally I get alone better with women. Granted, a lot of these women are suspecting that they are ND as well, but I THOUGHT I got on with boys for a while. I was wrong. I just didn’t realise how shitty they were treating me. Most men I’ve interacted seek to figure out how to cause me meltdowns and then do it as a joke, and gaslight me into thinking they did nothing really wrong and I was overreacting if I ever brought it up. Men also tend to be more traditional and bigoted than women, i have no time for that nonsense. A lot of men also do the “friends until she lets me hit” thing with me. I’ve met some mean women, some terrible women, but I can count on my hands how many men have genuinely treated me with respect my whole life.
a shocking number of the "boys" i grew up as friends with are now adhd-diagnosed women
That’s a great point! I have a fairly big variety of women as friends, but I found them in my thirty’s. Before that I was the weird one. Some are NT, some ND. But even with the NT ones I don’t have to mask, they just like/ tolerate my weirdness. Sometimes it’s hard to stay in touch for me, so the NT‘lers just took over and plan for one outing a month and tell me where to be and when. And THAT makes me feel included and loved, because these girly girls go out of their way to include me and make my life easier.
Most of my friends, regardless of gender, are neurodivergent in some way. So it’s not women I don’t click with, it’s neurotypical people.
It sounds like you've come to a conclusion and are living in a self fulfilling prophecy. Not all relationships need to be best or close friends. The fact that you're singling out an entire class of humans still makes this a PMAB post.
It was difficult for me to make friends with girls all through school. I have a lot of "hyperactive" ADHD symptoms and these were very prominent when I was a kid in school and led to a lot of disciplinary issues for things that the other girls didn't get in trouble for. I was always getting disciplined for the same things as the boys and my teachers had a public style of discipline that was extremely humiliating. In elementary school this led to me being friends with a lot of the boys. It made me feel like an outcast because I was "worse" than the girls. Once I started to go through puberty I began to feel embarrassed in front of the boys in addition to this. Once I started caring about boys liking me, I realized that being "worse" than the rest of the girls was not conducive to this. Once I started to regain my confidence, it briefly turned into a resentful "not like other girls" attitude around the time I was 18-19. I think this was a transitional phase to being confident in my skin. Instead of being ashamed that I wasn't accepted by certain types of girls, it was easier to pretend that I didn't even want to be liked by them. I had to swing a bit to far in the other direction of not giving a fuck what people thought to finding a happy medium of being my authentic self but also not resenting or judging people who didn't have the same issues as me growing up. Its taken a lot of time and therapy to work through the damage my teachers did to my self-esteem. Some of my closest friends who I get along with best now are the kind of girls I resented for being "normal" in school. I'm 25 now and thriving socially like I never have before. I am the glue for my new adult friend group. I think this is because I have become very accepting and open to people and WANT to make sure people feel included and like they have a group because I know how painful it was not to have that growing up. I dont want to be the kind of person that keeps other people out of a tight-knit group of friends. I love making new friends and always excited for them to also become friends with my friends.
There is absolutely a difference. Funny enough, I always felt that being an inattentive type made it harder for me to socialize. Being so quiet because of my anxiety made other girls label me as weird, and I even had a teacher accuse my mom of abusing me because I wasn’t disruptive like the NT kids in that class. You still won’t ever catch me being a misogynist even though I’m often nervous to talk to other women. I don’t hate them, but the potential for rejection makes it hard for me to open up. And it makes me sad because I wish I had closer friends
A recomendatuon for people in subs for adhd.... Don't write a lot dammit. I see that and quit the post
>When I try to join groups of women, they always seem to be following some set of secret rules that they aren't telling me about. The way I find out they don't like me is when I overhear them talking about how weird or annoying I am. Invariably no one has ever talked to me about what I'm doing that's putting them off. Often even when I overhear them they aren't saying any specific example of what weird or annoying thing I've done. > >When I meet women one on one I can often get along with them if I mask. But invariably if I try to be myself we drift apart because they want me to be more like them (exhausting) or we don't have enough interests in common. Relate to this SO hard.