It’s interesting: I seem to have the rare case of the opposite problem. I’m male, pretty nerdy—though probably a standard deviation less than the LW median—but I have no close nerdy male friends. Nearly all my friends are women who are nerdy but not nearly nerdy enough to fit in at a Less Wrong meet up. I’ve been romantically or sexually entangled with a little over half of them at various times. I have the flirty friends-but-maybe-more thing down pretty good and have several very deep, very close friendships with women. But find it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to connect deeply and maintain a friendship over time with someone of my own gender. I’d really like to change that. But women seem to be both a) more likely to want to make new friends and b) interested in meeting me and talking with me under a framework of maybe-we-can-date that can turn into a friendship. People are often trying very hard to meet new people for dating, so it isn’t that hard for me to meet people that way. But men don’t seem to try hard at all to make new male friends, so I have no idea how to go about it.
I was about to reply “So does having no close X friends; I don’t think that’s such a big deal either” for a few other values of X (e.g. “foreign” or “non-nerdy”), but if I get what your point is correctly it only applies if you’re an X yourself, so never mind.
It’s interesting: I seem to have the rare case of the opposite problem. I’m male, pretty nerdy—though probably a standard deviation less than the LW median—but I have no close nerdy male friends. Nearly all my friends are women who are nerdy but not nearly nerdy enough to fit in at a Less Wrong meet up. I’ve been romantically or sexually entangled with a little over half of them at various times. I have the flirty friends-but-maybe-more thing down pretty good and have several very deep, very close friendships with women. But find it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to connect deeply and maintain a friendship over time with someone of my own gender. I’d really like to change that. But women seem to be both a) more likely to want to make new friends and b) interested in meeting me and talking with me under a framework of maybe-we-can-date that can turn into a friendship. People are often trying very hard to meet new people for dating, so it isn’t that hard for me to meet people that way. But men don’t seem to try hard at all to make new male friends, so I have no idea how to go about it.
Consider coming to LessWrong meetups! We’ll, uh, we’ll increase your male-to-female ratio?
Sigh...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/haz/meetup_washington_dc_books_meetup/8v1h?context=1#8v1h
Yay!
Why is the fact that most of your friends lack a penis a problem? I had that for years, but I newer saw anything wrong about that.
“Most” would be fine. But having no close male friends means I lose out on certain conversations, perspectives and experiences.
I was about to reply “So does having no close X friends; I don’t think that’s such a big deal either” for a few other values of X (e.g. “foreign” or “non-nerdy”), but if I get what your point is correctly it only applies if you’re an X yourself, so never mind.
Boardgames? If you live in a metropolitan area, there’s probably an active scene.