Comment on Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?

confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

I’ve struggled my entire life with male friends. They all seemed to really appreciate how I would listen to them and their problems. Yet when it came time for me to open up, they would just turn the conversation back to about themselves or just skip past what I was trying to talk about.

I’ve never been competitive and rarely had the energy to make myself heard. It all felt so shallow and there was no depth to these relationships. It didn’t feel worth the effort to put up a with the fight.

I’m very fortunate that a number of women, who have come and gone in my life, were able to listen or guide me in so many important ways. Even with my newest friend, she has been showing me new ways to open up and feel safe.

It makes me a bit sad that I’ve never really had men in my life who could show me how to open up the same way women have. It would be so much easier to relate since we would have similar experiences growing up as men. With my female friends, I can only relate with them so far. They are women, I am not.

The hurtful things that men have said to me and the hurtful things they have done to me makes it incredibly hard for me to make male friends now. I wish that weren’t the situation. I absolutely crave variety, diversity and connection.

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