As the actress said to the bishop
Despite a habit of dressing on a daily basis as though female emancipation never happened (skirts, corsets, stockings, and tremendously impractical but gorgeous shoeage) and a floral hair clip consumption that matches a class of 7 year old girls, I’m not actually that girlie. Yes, I giggle like a naughty schoolgirl* and have a chronic hair twirling/pen in mouth habit, but other girl stuff I find baffling. Consequently there are large chunks of female friendship essentials that I’ve not quite got.
It is I think fairly understandable. Even as a teenager whilst my best schoolfriends were off pretending to be older than they were of a Friday night, I was hanging around with a bunch of nerdy blokes discussing the merits of different versions of the same song and arguing about Neil Kinnock.
I have no great interest in many of those essential female bonding rituals: I don’t care how crap your boyfriend is at housework, tell him, or shut the feck up whinging. No, I don’t fancy George Clooney/Brad Pitt/Jason Statham/some footballer I’ve never heard of/that boy-child from some hideous band/the bloke out of the vampire film. I genuinely don’t understand how long it takes you to buy a pair of jeans, nor indeed why they are an apparently essential garment that you must have, especially when you spend all the time wriggling to get comfortable. No I don’t want to watch a film where Hugh Grant and Renee Zellwegger hate each other and then unaccountably fall hopelessly in lust, nor anything where someone takes a whole film to die meaningfully*, or where four women in their forties tiresomely recall their childhood friendship.
But I do feel I’ve missed out on the not having people I can confide in about love/lust/sex. I certainly can’t do that full on girlie gang filthy talk that drunk women do at hen parties. I remember one of my old friends deciding that in the midst of Yates* was the right place to tell me all about her rabbit, and what she and her other half did with it. Which quite honestly made for some awkward following conversations when talking to him.
When M2 and I were still close there was an unspoken agreement that whilst she was with J1 there was no detail (bar knowing that I should never call her on Sunday night), and detail was okay* when she started dating J2, since he clearly hates me so we never spoke, but it was always in a humorous context.
When H and I were closer I knew a lot about her relationships, but her solution to any relationship woe of mine was simplistic at best: “problem is mate, you’re dating blokes”.
Thing is though it doesn’t extend well into friendships with men. I could never have spoken about that sort of thing with rocknrollbryan since I was dating his friend, and he didn’t exactly disguise his little crush on me. Awkwardness abound. Howard was disgusted by all things of that nature (his girlfriend lived 5000 miles away for good reason I fear), Mike was disgusted by all things heterosexual, Craig was like my big brother-with a tinge of incestual possibility and it so is not the conversation you want to be having with someone who is a bit like an uncle. Or your boss.*
I’ve tried having those conversations with Gavin. He is after all my best friend (of sorts). But honestly after living with the bloke I know enough that I could write up a medical history. Besides, though I don’t get a lot of those female communicative vagues in matters of lust and crushes on of those “did he mean X when he did Y” conversations are torturous but necessary, and those he doesn’t do. But then given that when we used to go clubbing* and stuff his approach to those he fancied was erm somewhat direct, shall we say. He doesn’t quite see where those kind of problems lie.
I do sometimes crave that kind of friendship though. Someone that I can over-analyse stuff with, who isn’t going to reveal their love life in detail (please, no), but just enough that you get the jist. I just don’t want to do all that other girlie stuff, like discussing what a character in a programme I don’t watch is thinking (clue: nothing they’re fictional), or what said friend should do with their hair (does it matter?). I don’t want to forfeit the ability to play an ad-hoc game of argue over drum intros, or I know more useless trivia than you*. I just want the occasional gossipy dissection of semantics, with a bit of toned down Cosmo column thrown in. That’s all. Not much (meh).
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* Greeting of beeb cameraman to me “You’ve got quite a little giggle there haven’t you?” To which I’m still not sure what the correct response is, I mean doesn’t everyone giggle?
* Exception that proves the rule ‘The Life of David Gale’
* If you have yet to come across a Yates’ then you’re not missing much. If you have come across them then Nottingham’s is possibly the cheapest (not price wise) about, which is a pity because the building is gorgeous. But it is a place where ladies are well advised to protect their assets from wandering hands.
*Though I’d have preferred not to hear that he wanted to shove a beer bottle in a place beer bottles shouldn’t go (and apparently a dildo would not do for this particular fantasy it had to be a glass beer bottle-safety people, honestly).
*Though my ex-boss who I have been helping out with his IT stuff does manage to implicitly suggest at every opportunity that I’m secretly Miss Whiplash or something.
*He still does 
. Though he’s now a student nurse so is legally obliged or something to drink his way through an entire bar once a week. It having been so long since I’ve drunk drunk that I’d pretty much be anybodies after one cocktail.
*Not one of my oop here female friends has got the point of these games, and maybe I’ve hung around with too many nerdy boys but I happen to think knowing what year and month a song came out, and where it charted, is damned cool. And it may not be something that will save the planet but recalling C64 peek and poke commands does impress me lots.
Tags: friends, girls, nerdy boys, peek and poke, sex
For some reason the 2 comments in this section aren’t showing up for me. Maybe my browser is being silly. Anyway…
I completely understand what you mean re not understanding certain girly rituals, I was like that for a very long time but I think as much of that is/was to do with not having enough meaningful friendships as much it is/was to do with not being “girly”. I find it easier to do superficial girly smalltalky stuff with someone so long as I know I can do the heavier stuff too. If that makes sense. (*remembers the time I did a makeover shoot with a very dear friend from university who’s a History PhD student….we were in the midst of a gaggle of 19-yr-old wannabe Jordans and she started going on about how much she loves the smell of second-hand library books…*)
Much as my Judith Butler-worshipping self tries not to pay lip service to gender stereotypes, the difference between a predominantly female office and a predominantly male one is astonishing. When I worked with mostly men, I loved the music/movie banter but longed for a bit of emotional literacy (like: instead of emailing me about a supposedly do-or-die issue when you’re sitting a foot away from me, then complaining I haven’t picked up your email, try opening your mouth and shifting your arse. Ditto for spying on my Twitter to find out whether I share your greivance with our boss. Ditto not asking how my holiday was when I come back from one). Going from that into an all-female office the other week was nothing short of terrifying….ohmygod, people actually ask how I am feeling! People actually expect me look at them rather than at the Mac screen while they’re talking to me! But ohmygod, they’re talking about shoes and not gigs!
The sex thing….it’s funny, because despite having next to none of it myself, people seem to want to talk to me a lot about their sex lives. Sometimes it gets a bit TMI but I’d far rather that than the alternative which is they clam up awakwardly and apologise for talking about it, as though sex is a relative of mine that’s just died. Apologise in general for rabbiting on about your love life, sure, but not as though I’m some special case who needs to be distracted from an esepcially-painful history. I carry that history with me every second of every day and the reality is what it is, so what you say makes not a jot of difference.
Blimmin’ eck, what a ramble. I meant to say, I really enjoyed our chat in July because it had just the right balance of fun and clever. It was mega-awesome
Beer bottles where beer bottles shouldn’t go? *gulp* Would a glass dildo do, do you reckon? I know where in Brighton sells those…
I assume that the other comments are spam and in moderation as they’re not showing either for me.
I don’t do the girltalk thing. Probably because, like you, I don’t really have anyone who I can have those sort of chats with. That would be, of course, if I actually had anything to talk about…
Glass beer bottles are just wrong in *that* sense. You should recommend that he finds that Kinga bird from Big Bro a few years back, I think she’s rather famed for that sort of thing…
Girls at work seem to confide in me about their relationships but never ask about mine (probably because it’s not as conventional as theirs and therefore should be avoided at all costs, lest I lure them into wicked ways). They are all aware that we are planning for a CP but not one of them has shown an interest in what we’re up to and what our plans are.
Yuz Zo is correct they’re in moderation. They’re pingbacks, but have sent me traffic so I’m in two minds…
It’s reassuring reading both your comments!
The glass bottle thing, apparently no the glass dildo wouldn’t do.
I honestly think part of it was a power thing, and not in a nice jolly subdom format, more in a “I’m utterly emasculated by this smart woman so I want to shaft her up the arse with a stella bottle so the bitch knows who’s boss”. But I admit I don’t like the man, so my cynicism may well be colouring my reading of the situation.
Zo-Oooh you sapphic tempter, I know those secret plans to convert all us straighties
. Seriously though I can’t imagine how a conversation about a CP is that different to a conversation about a girl/boy wedding. It’s spending lots of money and headaches over seating plans, Doesn’t matter what gender you are in-laws will cause some kind of last minute rearrangement/potential offence/sulk.
Max-I too enjoyed our chat
I think I prefer mixed workplaces for those reasons you outline, though it’s nice having people who register that other human beings have feelings and stuff I can’t survive without those anally retentive nerdy boy conversations too. Though I think there’s something to be said for working with blokes who have sisters (how one plans for this I don’t know), especially younger sisters. Since by and large they seem (mahoosive generalisation alert) to have a bit more ability with the caring and sharing and being friendly with colleagues maralky ( I read something a while ago that was saying men with younger sisters make good ‘mates’ for a similar reason). They can do the nerdy stuff and bad office jokes, but also give you a hug when the boss has been a bitch.