Most of my closest friendships have been with femmes. These are a few women who I have felt comfortable enough to let in and talk about my feelings and things that are important to me and that are always there for me (and I for them), especially when the chips are down. The close femme friends that I have and have had- I do feel they get me quite well, even though they are not butch. It isn't a prerequisite that a person be a femme to be a close friend of mine, but quite a few of my closest ones are or have been. It is nice to have close friends that do get the gender aspects of butch (and appreciate it) and also being part of butch femme community, so yes it is nice and it some ways adds aspects to the friendship that wouldn't be there with someone not familiar with our gender nuances and community.

I do like having butch friends- it usually revolves around doing things rather than deep conversations. There is a nice camaraderie to that. That's not to say I couldn't have a deep conversation with another butch or group of butches. I just haven't really experienced it on any sustained basis. I don't feel there is some sort of butch language that we speak, the way I have heard described by some femmes (I have seen this in action and it is a beautiful thing, so I am definitely not putting it down or questioning it). Why have I not have any really close butch friends that I could talk in depth with? I don't know. Maybe I just haven't met the right butch, lol. Seriously though, the femmes I have gotten close with I think are ones who have taken the time to get to know me and reach out to me. However, I have very much enjoyed being around butches and have had real life butch friends when I lived in Portland. I do miss that.

Other friends not butch or femme, they get me fine as a person but don't necessarily know much about being butch. That of course isn't all there is to me, so it's fine if they don't really understand that part too well.

I forgot to answer the question as it pertained to me :P.

I'll have to admit that sometimes I am envious of the femme friendships here, to say nothing of the butch-femme romantic partnerships, and I don't know that I'll ever "get there". I know that there's a long history way before this site, and I'm relatively new. Still, it can be hard. I know I'm welcomed and hopefully well liked by most, but I'm not in the "inner circle". I don't have that sense of intimacy, yet.

Part of this is because I call myself "Bones Lite". The character on the TV show seems to exaggerate her awkwardness and lack of social skills for comedic effect, but I can be somewhat like her. Hopefully not rude or too outspoken as she is sometimes, but the kind of banter, openness, and intimacy that most women enjoy with one another (and that Angela in the show seems to want in her friendship with Bones) does not come easily for me. I'm not good at light teasing and joking, and am painfully shy with people I don't know well. I grew up in a very formal family, so the kind of verbal jousting in most conversations does not come naturally to me.
That's not to say I don't treasure the friendships I have formed here, with all genders and ID's. I'm sort of the "universal donor" of friends :D.

Off site, my best friends are twins (with each other), and we've been friends for 47 years! Both live 1,000 miles from me (and from one another), and months may go by before we call, but we pick up like we spoke yesterday. Both are married and religious, and well, I'm here, but it didn't matter. When I came out to one, she said "I knew that". I don't remember either of them getting on me about finding a boyfriend or dating in high school, even though both of them were usually in a relationship. I was accepted, even if I didn't know I was gay.

I wish I knew how to "do" friendship better, and maybe I can learn, but I can't be what I'm not wired for. Thinking about this thread, I believe the social roles I was driving at earlier play some part, but personality traits and ability to be open and intimate are probably way up there, if not moreso, than gender or ID.

So, what a great thing to think about: How do we build friendships, who or how we trend toward - in terms of friendship or how we cultivate friendship, our tendency or desireable method of communication, et al.

I identify as Femme and I count membership in this particular community as the longest setting of time devoted to my own character development, personal growth and cultivating friendship with others who share similarity within the context of Butch & Femme (and/or as a community of like-minded individuals who identify anywhere within the spectrum of Butch/Femme Identity).

I think it's healthy to participate in a social-media website that is specifically created for our own personal enjoyment but also because it's painfully clear that some (or many) of us do not have ways to establish friendships locally and find that cultivating and developing friendships with others in our online community, feels positive to me.

About communication preferences: I enjoy face-to-face communication the most, but don't always have a way to hang out with people I've known for years or even with those I have not known for as long as those I've known for better than ten years (20+ years, in one case).

I have 3 really close girlfriends: two of whom identify as Femme (they're members here) and one who does not; and of the three, two are married or are in long-term relationships. My closest long-term Femme friend is single and she lives out on the coast, she's also about five years older than me. She also identifies as Bi-sexual and Lesbian and she came out in her thirties (she's almost 60 years old now - so hard to believe!) We talk with each other primarily via email and talk by phone at least 4 or five times a year, but more if necessary - for example, a health crisis or work-related issue that need sorting out, but mostly we (my Femme friend who lives out on the coast) meet up at least once a year and spend a weekend in each other's company, just to enjoy one another, bond and have tons of fun. :)

And, since I am phone-less (right now), I couldn't be happier, I suppose because one time recently, maybe a year ago or so now, I was saying that I might end up using 'smoke signals'. *lol* And it's come to that, unfortunately, but not for long. So yes, having access to communicate via the interwebz is vital to my sanity... I like telephone conversations but for me to really benefit from cultivating and developing and maintaining vital friendships/relationship, I must say that hands down, Face-2-Face wins, pretty much all the time (primarily).

About whether I think gender is a factor in building/cultivating/developing/maintaining friendships:

Maybe. But for the most part I would say no. I think most people I am friends with I either met via a workplace setting or randomly at places I have been (the grocery store or places I frequent on a regular basis) or went to school with or any other number of ways in which we formed relationships with people we know fairly well. My circle of Femme friends is very small.... my circle of close family friends is small, too.

I would say that for me, it takes time for me to really know someone and I would think likewise, for them. I think I can agree that for me, it's an organic process - the idea on how friendships (any relationship, really) begin and flourish over time.

Oh good. I just read where Medusa made a reply and said we can have multiple answers.

Interesting topic! I will come back and do the survey but one thing is for sure. I hate a telephone when a conversation goes over 5 minutes. Sometime in the past year a butch bud of mine remembers how I would answer my phone back in the late 80s ... it was "speak and be brief" ... my bud spoke the truth about me.

I'm all over the map here. With my femme friends I can talk for hours on the phone..with my bitch/trans buddies its usually to the point..but it depends on the person.My closest friends are femmes.

I get what Martina was saying. My friends are my friends and I don't like gender labeling them. I did think this was great before I left for the UK, but once I got to a place where sorting people into "gets me" by gender didn't work (too much variance) it was really, really pointless.

I have extremely close friends that are: trans, intersex, femme (of the "meh" ID kind, meaning yeah, I'm femme, meh), butches (of the afore mentioned meh), some who are quite proud of their ID but other than when they are shouting it on the stage really never ever bring it up, some who call themselves "dolly mixture/liqourice all sorts", butch (of the strongly ID'd but not really into dicussing it too much as it seems a bit moot), bisexual cis queerdos, I can go on.

I just don't ever say "this is my femme friend" as tbh they would find it just as weird as if I introduced them as "my lesbian woman female friend".

I don't see femme as a point of pride. I'm not ashamed of it. It just is. kinda like my tits. It's there, it's what it is, it's perfectly acceptable and ... meh.

So although I don't cringe when people do it, it does seem "foreign and clunky" and not really something I can relate to much. I know I used to... but I don't really have that anymore.

My friends are more divided, to be honest, in my head, by introvert/extrovert scales. I can talk to my friends who are butch about fashion and politics just like my mates who are femme. And my cis straight bloke mates are THE BIGGEST GOSSIPS EVER, honest to fuck if I was going to base one gender trait on my own grouping... cis heterosexual men are massive gossips. and Unca ted (a ver old mate of mine) never shuts up. like, ever.

but he's an extrovert, like me.

I just don't see it reflecting my life, that's all. the diversity between anyone of them and another intersex man, or another femme or another post-modern butch, or another transwoman or another ... it is really... there are more differences intragender than intergender.

If I get asked that "well why do you come here then" my big answer is "I have no idea. cause I know people here?" cause a lot of the stuff I read sometimes makes me go "huh??? since WHEN?"

I tend not to date butches that are all about being butch and me being femme. or whittering on about "the dance"
I like sex with butches. b-f is my sexuality. that's about as far as it goes. b-f really, for me, all it is, is about the sex. I'm going to be totally honest. I like a female person who has a cock (in it's various forms, flesh and silicone) and sometimes it's nice if they have a vagina and a clit, though it doesn't have to be stated that way. that's kinda it.

I also like them to dress in men's/tomboy clothes, be sexually dominant and kinky dirty fukers, but that has nothing to do with gender.

so, like some people are lesbians but don't eat lentils or listen to tracy chapman, I'm b-f sexual but I don't dig the binary gender behaviour assumptions. I guess I'm not Old School American b-f. that's ok. I'm totally fine with that.

if someone finds me a chair, it's for me, and because they adore me and care about me, not because I'm a femme - or it bloody well better be for me and not cause of my gender grouping. I do things for people because I love and care about them. I don't care what gender they are. I got so confused with this when I got back... all the rules I forgot about during dating... I just forgot about how things are done here. I got used to just being Babs who happens to be femme. and we are friends because of our connection. I had close mates who were butch that I slept with in the same bed and cuddled with.
And talked about stuff. I still do. it doesn't *feel* like I'm talking to someone of another gender... I'm talking to another *person* independant from me.

However, if I'm talking to someone who keep gendering me, I really feel it. and I get annoyed. One of my friends always unlocks my bike for me. But she does it with such care that it doesn't feel like "Must Unlock Femme Bike" which coming home, I have to say I can *really* pick up on. And it feels weird to me. But a lot of girls like it here. Cool. If that's how you reach your bonna, Tally Ho! and all that.

But it feels clunky, odd and foreign to me. And I feel lonely when someone does that. I feel like a cardboard cutout of a femme unit. I feel erased as a person. I like being someone's *friend*. ME. then, later, you can, yannknow, look down my top. that's fine lol.

Gemme, I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that way, if you do, you do. I love my girly shit and I like have mates to dig my girly shit with me but here's the superise - sometimes that's a cis het bloke or even a butch. yep. I can sit down and go through an asian fashion magazine and talk about the photographs and styles with any number of my friends, regardless of gender. cause my friends are mostly pretty urban, artsy, alternative and metrosexual. all of us, regardless of out gender, if we need something fixed, call Ken or Y. Mainly cause he has a job that fixes shit. Or Y cause she's inclined like that. Y is girly (no ID) btw. Ken isn't girly, but he has some great fashion style.

I think it's who your friends with. I don't have friends who really play any sports. a few who watch them. Sonja (pansexual girly girl) is probably the biggest hockey fan. She goes to a cafe to watch the game and flirt with the italian barista cause when she asks if any of us want to watch is usually no.

Unca ted paints, sings in a band, Jess plays drums and fixes bikes and helps out at the boozecan (illegal drinking establishment that features new bands etc) and designs new stage set ups and room decor. Ken makes habitats for the vancouver aquarium and paints and is probably the biggest lesbian I know when it comes to girls (falls in love in four seconds, writes dedicational poetry, wants them to move in after three months, and gets deeply upset howl at the moon heart broken when it ends. he does my head in sometimes), Y works for people who do animal counts in the wild, she's often off on horseback for a couple of weeks. Em is a martha stewart clone that wears nothing but flannel and is an office manager. I could go on.
I miss my London friends for certain things but not because they got me more as a girl. they got certain things like... my exwife was *the* person to take shopping - she was a butch version of Gok Wan (English fashion consultant). although my freinds here are fashionable, they aren't as uber fashion minded as the ones in London and I miss that.
except I was the only one that didn't watch soccer and I bloody hated world cup years. Plus I miss the use of irony (sarcasm), vular humour and insults. I miss the peacocking.

yes I like having "girls night" cocktails and poker. but "girls night" is anyone female. I sometimes just want a penis free room. We swap stories of the biggest bruise we ever got, how many people with a bent dick did you see, have you ever tried X kind of sex, kerri usually bitches about her job (she's a grip for movies - cis straight girl) till we slip into a coma. JJ talks about their latest baking experiment (tgbutch) and we pretend to be interested.

that's kinda how my life is. I know people have really different lives from me. I'm well aware of that by now lol. But I'm also saying that it's not abnormal for plenty of us to just not see things that way. And I only describe people's gender trait "femme" as I would "blonde" if it was *relevant* to the conversation. But lots of people, I notice here, without relevance say "me and my femme friend went out for coffee ans talked about the movie we saw"

It's that I don't get. why is it relevant? I used descriptors here for point making. Otherwise I wouldn't have botherd. Why would I say "my tgbutch mate JJ talks about baking bread till they bore everyone" just generally? it just seems odd to me when I don't see the relevance. And sticks out like someone saying "big tit barb came over for coffee yesterday, we played monopoly" ???? y'know?

I don't get it. and it's not something I'm personally comfy with. But I get that a lot of you enjoy it. I just don't. that's all.

I don't know about friends but I have a lot of acquaintances. I think the queer to straight ratio is 50/50, never gave it much thought. Don't really do the girly thing - shopping, music, magazines, bar hopping. My interests I share with a variety of them, gender identity be damned. For what it's worth, I find I converse more with my queer family, particularly the butch and trans folks. The straight folks I talk to most, family aside, are actually some of my best guy friends - one I have known for 13 years since our highschool days. We communicate through FB and texting a lot.

Speaking for myself, it has been easier for me to make friends online throughout the last 15 years or so. Does that make me weird? Maybe, but I don't care.

I have made some really great friends from this site and the Dash site and so on. Some I have met in person and know personally and others I just know by their online names. Being the shy person that I am, the online "life" has made it a lot easier for me to actually connect with other Butches, Femmes and the like. Once you get to know me, I rarely shut up!

As far as how I communicate with friends, I love to talk on the phone. (See the part about rarely shutting up before you want to have a conversation with me.) I think it's important to connect on that level if your friend is far away. I have a few very close friends that I trust with all of my deepest darkest secrets and they are all on the femme side of the spectrum. I just seem to connect better with femmes for some reason. I do not need to talk with them daily but don't mind doing so either.

I don't mind texting either but I think sometimes or maybe a lot of times, texts can be taken the wrong way.

I don't!

When I think of the gender of my closest friends, it is often in context of seeing them as a complete being. i.e. My friend "Jessica" who is Femme, Jewish, Differently-abled, tattooed, a Mother, and an elder.

Because I may not want to base my friendship with them on whatever group they are in, but I definitely want to honor those parts of them if that makes any sense.

I stepped away from this thread for a few days because I got really irritated with my inability to be super duper crystal fucking clear that this thread was not meant as a "Femme friends are the best friends!!!!" or "All Female Friends Are GIRLFRIENDZZZZZ*#*#*#*!!!!" kind of thing. (as if!)

I felt like I was noticing a pattern of sorts. The way groups form. The way friendships are formed between Femmes. The way friendships are formed between Butches.
And I guess I've just been really, really lucky because I have the privilege of saying that the friendships I have formed with some of the Femmes who are in my life over the last 15 years have been by far the closest, most authentic, most loving friendships I have in my life.
And I hate to even use the word "most" here because I'm not interested in a hierarchy where Femme friendships are on top and friendships with straight men are on the bottom. I'm merely saying that for me, in my life, I connect with Femmes in ways that are magical and amazing and in ways that I do not connect with otherly gendered folks. And perhaps that's some of my own gender stuff (and I own it!) where some of the best healing of my life has come in the presence of other (mostly Femme) women.

It's been nice to hear about other folks friendships and ways of being here. :)

For me, I tend to bond better in small groups. I'm not shy, per say, but I'm reserved. I get overwhelmed in large groups, and it comes off as aloof. I've never had TONS of friends, and I used to feel a lacking because I didn't. But really, I'm just not build that way. I read somewhere that introverts see social situations as draining energy, and extroverts see them as filling energy. I'm definitely an introvert, so even if I'm having a fabulous time, I will wear out.

I love being around my friends because there's a common language and history. Whether they're work friends, childhood friends or bf friends. I get more excited when I see my bf friends because we're all kinda special unicorns and sightings are more rare.

I love to text and call, but in person is best, IMO.

I am totally different than most. I have had many a bad experience with people, and I am very picky who I let into my life. I am not good at following the in crowd because I fear there is a cliff at the edge!
Red and I have friends we hang with but they are all heterosexual couples.

So I snipped that I relate to :) For anyone on my FB, it goes without saying that I have moments when I just won't STFU :blush: If you've only seen me at Reunion then I am sure you are shaking your head in disbelief. True fact!

And Sleepy, I am so glad you said it first because I actually fretted over saying it, though it is reverse for me - I connect better with butch and trans folks. I think I can count on one hand the femmes I have in my phone, and it was due more in part to having numbers if needed at Reunion then it being anyone I actually text on a regular basis.

At Reunion, I confined in the wife that femme swap is a very awkward situation for me because I feel like the new kid at school - I do not have a group to take refuge at. Perhaps a lot of it is also the amount of people in one room that overwhelms me, but it is really sad for me. I can't go over and hug someone happily and chat and show off clothes to. Like Cajun said, I also have no femme bestie!

However, if femmelicious does come across this, you are not my friend lovely lady ~ at this point you are family, and I love you bunches, so exclude yourself from this rant xo

AND now that I finally read the OP - I love to text, talking on the phone depends who you are, lucky few Skype :) We as a couple only have two lesbian couples in the area, and outside of that is co-workers. I think we would benefit from more local people to hang out with, but I am not sure. We're pretty content with each other. I know myself personally I communicate often through FB statuses and comments, and there are a few folks from here I text roughly once a week or two if not more.

As for how people make friendships - I am not really sure. It has been a LONG time since I've made a friend in person.

:phonegab:

after reading jackhammer it just brings me back to common interests, like genme said. I don't have any mates who'd look at a pool pump or ac. they don't fish or four wheel drive.
its just not my friendship pool. I do have quite a few mates who ID as butch but they just aren't that kind. I did try dating one who was very.... truck, fishing, video games, steak, works in a hardware store, doesn't talk much... but other than sex there wasn't anything in common and I felt kinda lonely sometimes with h just not my world, really.
if I hung out with a whole bunch of butches like that and femmes who did old school feminine type stuff, I'd probably think there was a big difference between butches and femmes.
but although I'm pretty girly in many ways many of my pursuits are just general interests like science, museums, galleries, pubs, cafes, lounges, various events for political things and fund raising.
I'd prefer to talk on the phone but no one I know can afford to. its rare Skype sessions and some text. mostly email and the bulk of my communication is through Facebook.
or in person. my local mates don't seem to communicate via any other mode than text to arrange meet and then hang and talk.
everyone else, in the uk, Australia, south east Asia, Holland, Greece, France and the us, is Facebook.

I'm sincerely not an old school gal - well... american style one at least.
its great if one is, I just don't get exposed to it much because my own personal interests lay in other things. I've had old school type relationships but we shared the common interests as mentioned above. and we all shared a box mix up of friends.

that's why I think where one is might also co tribute a lot to the question asked.
I think gender lines seem stronger in certain types of backgrounds or environments or the way you express your gender attractions.

I can see why it might look that way if that's what your friend circle looked like. so at least I'm not baffled now.

so thanks.

but the world is a massive place and with many ways to do the things we all do. I don't think I'll have anything in common save one or two things just because some has the same ID as me. that includes communication. to me it strikes me as an individual thing. I communicate with individuals so... I don't see a trend. but it do think gemme is right. its because I bond through common interests and common values and goals. not ID. :)

I think it is interesting that the original question was:

Friendship Circles: Gender Differences in HOW We Do It?

but many response's were centered on WHO we do it with.


I'm not criticizing people who answered that way, I genuinely think its interesting that the conversation seems to have moved in that direction.

My friends are all over the map in terms of who they are (their personal identities), and my friendships are as unique as the people in my life are different from each other, and I love that.

How we do it is either very simple or very difficult to answer. This is probably why people respond with who they do it with. I mean "how" is either a very concrete answer like how do i keep up friendships - in person, on the phone, text messaging, online etc. Which is really rather short on content containing not much to elaborate on. Or it's a more philosophical answer like "how" do i conduct my friendships. And I think within that context it could arguably contain who do i do it with and why do i think that is.

Maybe?

Well I fish, I enjoy a good steak every now and again and I love my video games although as I age I notice I don’t put the time in like I used to. But the love is still there. I talk plenty, it just might not be subjects that hold anyone’s interest. The operative word is really hold because you might initially be interested, but I can talk about the same thing for hours examining it from every conceivable angle, reviewing it, using every possible scenario until you either want to cry or stick something sharp in MY eye.

If you are pressed for time or even just bore easily you might want to skip the long version and jump down to the end.

LONG VERSION

A little background to explain the difficulty in bonding with the handy butch.

I could look at a pool pump until the end of time and I really wouldn’t be any closer to understanding what I might do to make it pump if it didn’t want to. I would love a pool though.

I wanted to take our AC apart and run water through it to clean out any possible mold cause it’s coming on 3 years old and mold just happens sometimes. My wife talked me out of it because she believes I will cut myself on something sharp. I can understand her reluctance. I’m sure she still remembers when I put together a TV stand for her step- mother. I did something wrong, not sure what, except that it was uncorrectable (at least by me.) Apparently once screwed in, using these kinds of screws on this particular place on the stand, you couldn’t remove the screws. Because of that I was not able to attach the shelf and the doors. So she really did just have a stand. I mean I’m sure someone with the know how could have just pulled out the old power tools and found a way to attach the shelf and doors. But I only had a manual screwdriver and zero ability.

I put together one of those big white cabinets once. My gf at the time made sure to explain to me that this project would be mine alone as she had no aptitude for this kind of thing. I cheerfully assured her this butch had it covered. I laid out the directions and began what turned into a 5-hour marathon. At the end, after discovering that I had some how put the shelves on upside down or backwards or something and the cans would just slide off the shelf, my exasperated “I wouldn’t know a Philips screwdriver from a carburetor” femme took over and fixed the shelves so our food wouldn’t slide to the floor when we stocked the cabinet.

After purchasing a crib my very pregnant ex and I discovered there are a lot of pieces in that box. More tiny springs and screws and oddly shaped paraphernalia than you could ever imagine. I laid out the crib pieces and began studying the directions while my partner examined said pieces. Before I ever finished reading the directions she had most of the crib put together. She didn’t even need me to lift the heavy parts. She put the whole thing together and never once looked at the directions. She has an understanding of how things fit that I couldn’t hope to duplicate. I had a butch friend who lived in the apartment below us who kept trying to show me how to fix my car every time it would break down. My partner would hang around with my friend’s wife while watching peripherally trying to hear what was being explained. Finally I told my friend you need to tell this stuff to B, she will be able to do something with the information. For me it’s just so much gibberish.

One of my sister’s exes, M., is like me in some ways. She doesn’t naturally understand how to fix the car or put stuff together. I remember staying up all night with her one Christmas eve putting together my niece’s bike. We finally got the thing together just before sunrise. I’m sure the beers didn’t help, but the truth is neither of us has a natural aptitude for this stuff. But M. had something I don’t. A more practical intelligence. I’m smart sure, but in a very useless way. I am a good thinker. And really you’d be surprised how unnecessary it is to actually be good at that. You can easily get by being an okay thinker. Being good at it is mostly a handicap really. Anyway M.’s strength was in her ability to persevere. She would find out what was wrong with her car and then get books out of the library (the olden days before the internet put it all at our finger tips) and figure out how to fix it. It might take her hours, even days but she would get it done. I only recently learned how I too can do this. Thing is I don’t always want to. But I can. There isn’t anything I can’t read about and figure out how to do given enough time and margin for error. I mean if I was trying to defuse a bomb, we all explode, that’s a given. But normal stuff that is forgiving and flexible I can eventually figure it out. But that’s not always fun for me. So I may or may not do it. However, just knowing I can has given me a bit of confidence that I never had before.

Another of my sister’s exes, T, was a butch of a different type. He could fix anything. He was an electrician and very much a dude. He teased me about my inability to fix anything, my choices in swimwear and often told me what butches did or did not do (kind of like my mother did about what girls did or did not do). He ended up transitioning and now lectures on what men do or don’t do.

END OF LONG VERSION

My straight male friends, especially K., but all of them really, are like me. They don’t fix their own cars for fun or shoot pheasant and duck out of the sky. They like to spend a Saturday afternoon walking around Harvard Square talking and looking in bookstores or maybe taking in the Museum of Fine Arts or the Aquarium or a Science Museum. They are politically active. They enjoy getting together for a barbecue or a day at the beach. Maybe meeting after work to take in a Red Sox game at Fenway. Funny thing so do my straight female friends. Not much difference in what the guys like to do from what the girls like to do. I don’t see them much anymore since moving to Montreal, but they all had one thing in common. They were easy in themselves. The French have a saying here, Bien Dans Sa Peau, comfortable in your skin. That would define my straight friends. There was an ease of gender for them. There wasn’t the underlying frenetic apprehension surrounding gender presentation that I found present in many of my butch buddies. But then there didn’t have to be did there? They fit easily, their place in the world was solid. They walked through their life without suffering much anxiety surrounding their gender. So while I find them enjoyable as friends, I also enjoy my hyper gender aware butch buds. They may be a tad annoying with their crap about my v-neck t-shirt being too feminine or their merciless teasing at my insistence on wearing a woman’s bathing suit, but they have walked in my shoes and know my heart, they know something about what my life has been. We don’t share the same life, but we understand what it means to live differently.

HB mentioned American style butch femme. I wonder if it is cultural to a degree. There may be more emphasis on gender in general in the US than there is say in Europe. I’m not sure, never been. But it is possible. Certainly the people I’ve had as friends who were from European countries as opposed to the US or South and Central American countries seemed less gender concerned. There interests were more generic and less gender specific. But I don’t know if that was just my personal experience. But if it is true it might account for the more gender post traumatic stress symptoms found in American butches and femmes. Gender is so much more of a thing for everyone in America.

I do know that I have more in common with my straight male and female friends who like to go to museums or walk around Old Montreal, Harvard Square or Faneuil Hall than I do my butch friends who like to fix cars and walk around Home Depot. I also have butch and femme friends who find visiting museums enjoyable as well. The difference for me is that while I would have no use for straight male friends who only want to drink beer, fix cars, shoot cans and take in a grand prix or straight female friends who spend the day baking, shopping, doing their nails and talking about their men, I would be able to be friends with the butch/femme versions. They have something else for me even when we don’t share common interests. Without common interests straight people just don’t have anything for me. Not so with butches and femmes. They inherently have something in common with me. A shared life experience. Not a shared life. Not the same life, but a similar interaction has occurred between them and the world, at least enough so that they get where I have been because they have occupied similar space.

Still the truth of my life is that my best friends have been straight men or women. Can’t really explain it. It just is.

Completely. It boggles and hurts my mind sometimes when I come here. It feels at times like a kind of gender obsession. When I have had the company of butch/femme visiting from the states to London I knew that they were going to get very weird looks for the constant gender talk coming out of their mouths. I would get looks of "are they on crack??" from others. They insult people by saying things like "so, where are the butches?" at a table that has many butches at it. I wince and smile and make a joke and try to move the conversation politely on. But since they don't dress/act in an american masculine manner, they don't "catch" it. If they go up north, it's more recognisable to them, because of the factory work and mills history. Also, I think if any of my partners had been referred to as "bro" by another dyke they probably would have stared with complete bafflement and slight disgust.

masculinity is not a constant. it's expressed differently. but people seem to think where they are is the bog standard man. And yes, masculinity is based on male behaviour - it may not belong to them but they are the ones that set the bar that women and queers grade themselves against. Which is why many of my butch friends in the UK wanted their own word.

Pronoun use is mostly she. Except for the ones who are transgender. And I didn't really see too many people in relative comparison who considered themselves that way. I knew a very small smattering of people who used "hy".... and the rest wince at it and call it an "americanism." People don't do american masculinity (repair, hunt/fish, steak, etc) because that's a pioneer type background. And they have a church of england or atheist back ground, not puritan/calvanism. These things make a big deal in how people see masculinity.

I just left a b-f singles group on fb that is supposed to be global. yet when I asked privately, the members who aren't in the states, why they don't post, the answer was "there's no point." what they talk about will just be ignored or whoosh past people as irrelevant.

Canada winds up being somewhere between the two. I find canuck reserve to actually be more, in some ways, than english, but less in other ways. But we also have a pioneer background so in vancouver, every dyke and their 6 dogs wants someone to snowshoe-kyak with while bench pressing a killerwhale. It's not really my thing. I'd rather do the walks you describe, Miss Tick, that sounds fabulous. I like history.

Again, for me just depends on their background more than anything. I've been with femmes who do nothing but talk about butches, shopping, baking and how cute their shoes are and I frankly want to open my wrists.

I do want some butch and femme friends, of course. there are some political things - if they are wired that way - I like to discuss with them. But the ones that are gender talk (in a non analytical/deconstructive kind of way) I can't do. It drives me a little bit mental. I'm really not interested in talking about my gender and butches. I like most of my conversations to pass the bechdel test, in terms of males and butches.

Also, I can often talk about some of those politics with non-ID'd dykes. feminine lesbians who don't ID get the same stick I do about most things. Masculine dykes who don't ID still get policed in the bathroom. But they don't talk to me about gender qualifying.

ID, since going to a place where I was accepted, is not the issue it once was. Coming home was hard because that acceptance was yanked back to a degree and it really hurt, but I've also learned a different view that is far more relaxed. And when I talk to people in seattle, that gets hyped up even further. I have tried to date south of the border but the constant butch, butch butch, butches do this and femmes are that, that I get puts me in a bloody bad mood. And I just don't have the patience. I find it less so here, but even lesser still in the UK and Holland.

I was actually considered to be the extreme of my queer friends in the UK. I had the piss taken out of me for talking about it more than anyone else. So... !!!
Goes to show, hey? If I'm extreme, then...

I've enjoyed reading others' answers on this thread. I think what surprises me the most is just how much so many people hate talking on the phone and love texting. I LOVE talking on the phone. I often talk to my mom on the phone several times a day, sometimes for a few hours and sometimes for two minutes. I don't like phone "dates" or when every conversation has to be a long one. I really just like to hear someone's voice whether we are talking about nothing or something important. In fact, if you are reading this and enjoy off the fly phone conversations, please PM me so that we can exchange numbers. What's funny is that I'm not good at returning calls and may call someone else several times without a call back from them, while at the same time not minding at all if they don't call me back. I like to be very casual about the phone. Sometimes I resist calling friends because I'm worried they will think it's weird that I only have ten minutes and have nothing to say. Truth is, I just enjoy the connection, even if brief. It doesn't feel like the calls I do for work because there are no guidelines or expectations. I have this with a few people, though not many. This paragraph is part sharing and part advertisement for phone buddies :). If you happen to be someone who also connects over the phone, reach out to me. It's always fun to get to know new people from our community. Conversely, if you've been getting calls from me, and that's not your thang, as I'm realizing -gasp, not everyone's like me!- just let me know that too. And then keep in mind that at some point I will probably forget and need to be reminded again.

As far as texting, I am just not very good at it. I feel that I am slow and have difficulty communicating. I will engage in it a little bit and am sometimes cheered by the unexpected text, but in-depth texting is hard for me.

I like email alright but often feel I don't have much time to email. There is, however, nothing like a long email from a friend. The problem is that I'm inconsistent in responding. Still, I can type faster than text, so for real written communication (that isn't a few quick words), I prefer it over texting.

Private messaging is not my favorite form of communication because I'm lazy, and it requires that extra step that email doesn't for written communication. I'd much rather exchange emails and communicate that way. But on the other hand, it's prettier than email (at least my email!) and keeps things on the site, which has its own degree of comfort, so I'm cool with it for communicating with people I don't write with a great deal.

Well, of course this wasn't the question, but methods of communication did come up in the discussion, so forgive my rambling on the topic.

As to the question, I have a lot more phone and this-site communication with people than BB, and BB has a lot more Facebook communication with people. BB also sometimes talks on the phone but definitely not as much as I do. I am equally friends with butches, femmes, straight people, and trans people (or trans femmes / trans butches). I'm sure this description is not phrased right but I think you get the drift.

In person, I like to take walks with people. I think it's a nice way to talk. I also like to have people over to our apartment (if I trust them!) and chat and eat and just hang out. I have a group of BF friends that I get together with maybe twice a year. Life is like that. Much of life is taken up with work and responsibilities of one sort or another, and it's not always easy to fit in person social time in. I have friends from this site who I have not met or even talked on the phone with (you know who you are!) who I feel a deep bond with for years. I feel like if these people lived closer to me, it would be so nice to get together in person as friends. But, because of the nature of the geography of this site, it's just not possible.

There are also people who I may not be close friends with here but respect deeply on this site. They may not even realize how important they are to me, but I read their posts or see how they handle situations, and they end up holding a close place in my heart even if I don't tell them because it might sound weird. Hopefully that doesn't sound too stalkerish :D.

Anyway, enjoying this discussion and looking forward to more people posting. :)

I have friends who I'll go out with some times or especially if I feel like going out to a club, then I have closer friends that I see a bit more often. I don't talk as often as I'd like with people, though. Especially after moving out of community housing. I don't think that has much to do with being butch or a trans guy, though. I know a lot of really social butches and trans guys.

As for phones...I really hate phones so much. I get really anxious when I have to make a phone call and often end up putting it off even if it's really important. When I do I often recite in my mind what it is I'm going to say, or sometimes write it down so I don't forget. Part of it is also I find sometimes I have trouble hearing what the other person is saying, and since they aren't in front of me I can't read their body language or anything else to try to fill in the blanks. Then I end up asking them to repeat themselves a million times and it makes me feel like crap...so yeah...I hate phones lol

I don't know if gender plays a role in the way I am as a friend.

I can make some observations, but I'm not sure what they mean, if anything.

One is that I have a couple close straight male friends now and have had many others throughout my life, but I've never had a butch friend, and always felt a kind of wall with butch women especially if they were in a couple.

I've noticed that on this website, butches seem more open to friendships with femmes, and that makes the environment feel less rigid to me.

Off line, b-f couples I've known seem to gravitate toward other couples while two of my oldest dearest friends are a straight couple and I love them both a lot.

I do have one close femme friend who has friendships independent of her partner (not that I don't get along with her partner, but the femme and I are the ones with the connection).

My long-term friendships, except for the one femme friend I mentioned, are with straight people that I have things in common with. We met either in grad school or in the literacy or poetry communities in NYC.

Some of these are people I've had countless seders and Thanksgivings with, and when something bad or amazing happens in my life, I tell them right away.

Others are people I've seen at readings for 20 years, and we have a mutual respect and casual appreciation of each other, but we don't share anything personal.

Right now I'm getting close by talking on the phone with one of my ex's close friends. R broke up with me a couple weeks ago, as she lay in the hospital recovering from two strokes and heart failure, and was (is) waiting for a transplant.

Her close friend M was also banned from visiting her, for different reasons that are equally puzzling.

M, the ex, and I have been a huge solace for each other. We've talked and cried on the phone for hours and hours, and I am not generally a phone person. I feel very close to her, and we've shared our grief and sense of loss and bewilderment and anger and deep unrelenting worry about R with each other. I hope it's a friendship that continues beyond this crisis we've found ourselves in together. I've never had a friendship start that way. And it has nothing to do with gender.

I know *so* many phone phobic (really anxious about talking on the phone) people...

The worst for anxiety over the phone, imo, are phone interviews...who ever thought that was a good way of interviewing people? Ugh...

I was just on a search committee and we interviewed a guy in Atlanta, via Skype. He really appreciated that we were open to doing that, and it went well. I think we got about as much a sense of who he is, as we did of the people who sat at the table with us. It's a good option, especially since so many people are willing to relocate.

Also just wanted to say that while I described a good Skype experience in a post just now, I didn't mean to invalidate that for you, phone interviews (not quite the same as Skype but still...), are anxiety-producing.