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.