The Problem With Female Friends.

Today I had a female friend sort-of stand me up, again, and it's made me wonder about my relationship with women in friendships, and in general. I must begin by saying that I want to love women. I really want to. I want to snuggle up with them all and hold them tight and make them know that everything is all right and they deserve to be respected and loved. I want to fight tooth and nail for women to be treated as an equal, I want women to learn to love themselves, I want all that for them.


And yet I have hardly any female acquaintances that I get along with, nonetheless friends.


Why is it? There are a couple of reasons. One is that the majority of women don't see things like me. They aren't aware of the things that are influencing. They want to play dumb to get men's attention, talk about spending money on purses and the boob job they want, basically playing into every disgusting stereotype ever contrived of womankind. I don't exactly blame them for this; there are reasons women act like that, it's because it is rewarded in society. Women aren't supposed to be loud and have an opinion, women aren't supposed to question the status quo. Women are much easier to control when they talk bad about each other and preoccupy themselves with dieting and make-up. Defying this womanhood is to be a loud, demanding woman. To despise your body and to disown your sexuality is the only way women seem to know how to communicate with other women. In essence, most women talk about themselves like they'd talk about an object, completely internalizing the idea of a fetishized female form. Adornment and bragging seem the only way they can communicate themselves; they don't really seem to think in an organized fashion, they have trouble communicating. Theirs is the realm of playing dumb, for regarding their self-worth by the amount of male attention they get. Every day is a popularity contest and I can't stand it. It's not that I don't understand where they are coming from, but I am met with a hostile reaction towards my attitude. I am not flirtacious to get what I want, I demand it. I refuse to accept a lot in life that I find distasteful. I don't want to be a woman in its current manifestation. Other women don't agree with me on this point, and are downright hostile towards such an attitude. To demand satisfaction for yourself, to demand to be treated with respect is an affront when you have little self-esteem. It's easier in the end to criticize her as jealous of someone's looks or that she's cranky because she's not getting laid than to actually analyze your life and agree that it is in some degree lacking. At any rate, I don't know how to communicate with these people. I need something different, and even if I put myself out there, it's met with criticism. We are living in two different worlds, it seems.


Then, even when I find a woman I find intellectually appealing, one I admire and think has potential, she still seems in an irreconcilable way damaged. I see often a manifestation of the worst traits, often seen as "womanly": being conniving and desperate for attention, or being unable to disagree with others and assert her place in the world, or some other cliche of womankind. Hysteria, it seems, is common as well. I've suffered with depression my fair lot and I've had my down periods, but I don't feel I ever totally lost my voice because of it. But the women I meet, it's as though they're drowning and lost. They require so much time, so much of putting myself out there, only to reject or ignore me. I try to offer my unconditional love and support, I try to be there for them, but I feel like it's not reciprocal. I put myself out there, and I'm turned down. And then it seems like my "friends" are taking and taking, and my well of resources runs dry. I can put myself out there, again and again, at first 90%, but if they'll never meet even a quarter of the way, well what can I do? I can't give indefinitely, I can't let them rob me of my time and effort. I get the sense at times that I'm trying to save a drowning victim, but they're pulling me down with them. I want to be their friends, but sometimes it seems as if they're incapable of friendship. I understand where it's coming from, but it does make it much more difficult. It seems that with men, I at least get a straight answer; I know what's going on and how they really feel. I get a response to my queries, things aren't so complex. We hang out. We communicate. Things aren't up in the air so much. Yes, there can be a romance to a tortured personality, but there's little romance to a corpse. I want female friends, but it's just so much damned work, so much pain from being ignored and abused, I'm not sure how I can make it work.


It makes me feel almost misogynistic to say it. I don't know what it is. Do I consider myself man-like in my efficient and unemotional candor, and still feel that women are subpar? Or do I just refuse to accept women who seem to accept the stereotypical behaviors that propagate the idea that women aren't capable of certain things? I'd like to think the latter, but some traits much more common in women than men are off-putting to me. It's just still so hard for me to relate to most people in general, but especially with women, it seems. I wish it didn't have to be that way, though.