I don't have butch friends or femme friends of gay friends or straight friends. I have friends. Gender is irrelevant. I actually have a diverse group of friends. Most of my life, most of my friends have been guys, and most of those straight. But they are as different from one another as it's possible for people to be. What they tend to have in common is that they are decent, kind, and down-to-earth. And they tend to be smart and moderately to very well educated. I don't seek that out, but that's what sticks. I guess that's who I feel most comfortable with.
I have a very close femme friend. I do not interact any differently with her than I do with other friends. We are also very very different as femmes and date very very different kinds of butches. We talk politics, history, work (especially teaching), food, and just about the daily wonders and challenges of life. I talk those things with all my friends, except the one who is on the autism spectrum. He has flat affect and doesn't experience too much wonder (strangely, he is in an artistic profession). But he is funny as hell and incredibly well read (and remembers it all). And we do talk food (both being food addicts).
I don't interact any differently with female friends than I do with male. If people don't like to talk, we're not likely to be friends. And I have certainly found chatty friends of every gender. The three close straight cis-gendered men friends I have are the most feminist people I know -- and it's not affected. It's in the bones. They truly respect women. Good good people. Sane, funny, loving. Wonderful fathers. I don't have to occlude any part of who I am to be around them. If I did, I wouldn't waste time on the friendship.
The whole "femme friend" thing makes me cringe. I get being understood by people who are like you. But I don't think of femmes and butches in terms of the "girls" and the "guys." The ones I like don't really fit into those categories very neatly. And at my age, I am not exploring my own gender identity. I don't need to see others like myself to feel at home with myself. I don't decompress especially in butch-femme company or even in queer company. I do with close friends, many of whom are queer. But not all. I actually don't find that I have a ton in common with people who strongly identify as butch or femme, people for whom it is a primary identifier.
I don't behave differently around one gender than the other. In fact, I have been criticized for that by butches. There is sometimes the expectation that femmes will flirt with and flatter all butches. I am interested romantically and/or sexually in very few people. I do not treat an entire category of people like potential dates. They are not. A very few people are potential dates. Also, I do not need most butches to see ME as someone they'd like to date. How exhausting would that be?
I have a pretty good butch friend. She has more friends than I will ever have. She has a gift for intimacy, I always tell her. She's also beautiful -- and she works at it. She also loves to shop and CARES about clothes. She and I rarely talk about that stuff because I don't care about it, but that is very much part of who she is. She does not isolate or care about sports or vehicles. She is a hot smart butch, and she doesn't let anyone tell her what that should mean to her.
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