857 upvotes, 35 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: What's something you never understood about the opposite gender?
I understand this doesn’t go for all women, but how come with some girls it seems like their entire friend group hates each other. They constantly try to one up each other and shit talk every opportunity they get. Like why are you hanging out with people if you don’t like them?
Comment by StronkWatercress at 08/03/2025 at 18:38 UTC
454 upvotes, 10 direct replies
Mix of:
1. Power dynamics. You may hate someone but doing anything explicitly can backfire on you. So you have to pretend to like each other or you lose the friend group. One situation I see is when two people in a friend group clearly hate each other, but they have to play nice because if they fight, it's not clear how the friend group will break up.
2. Insecurity. It manifests both in the chronic need to shit talk and one up, and in the inability to just walk away from that friend group. Some people, including women, have a really hard time being alone socially. They associate it with being a loser, I think, and because they've spent their whole lives clinging to bad friend groups, they don't realize it's better to be alone than to have shitty company.
3. Sunk cost fallacy. A lot of "We have been friends for 15 years omg" and valuing friendships for their lengfh even if they're shit friendships. There's a ton of nostalgia and whatnot wrapped up in that friend geoup.
Comment by Goatchan at 08/03/2025 at 19:54 UTC
50 upvotes, 0 direct replies
When I was a kid, I had a boy friend group and a girl friend group. Of my girl friend group, there was really only one girl who I ever felt like I had a friendship like I did with the boys. The other girls definitely gave a sense of a friendship heirchy where I was on the bottom or just flat out betrayed my trust and showed that they only liked me for something I could offer ( for example, access to boy friend group). I absolutely needed both because at times I just couldn't deal with the friend group all together at once and it was just easier to hang out with the guys, but I understood that if I ever wanted to really have friends, it ultimately would have to be with the girls.
As a girl, under NO circumstances would I ever be allowed to hang out with the guys without constant adult supervision. They used to hang out at a friend who lived next door to school until their parents got home from work and I would sit alone in the school lobby and be among the last to be picked up every day. The only time I ever got to go to one of the birthday parties after begging, both my parents were there like a third person POV camera in a videogame and I was the first to leave because my parents didn't want to watch anymore.
In addition to that, if I wanted any independence while doing things with girl group, at least 2 other girls had to be there. For safety we had to be all girls and move together in groups. And while I get that because it's a cruel world out there and even with these harsh rules I have had some unfortunate run-ins, pre and post girl herd, girls are ultimately conditioned more often that you are going to come across people that you don't like or don't like aspects of; your schoolmates, your co-workers, and sometimes your spouse after a couple of years but conditions mean you can't just shrug them off. You have to make do with it.
As an adult, I don't really interact with either friend group anymore. Never had that strong friendship that the bros built and didn't even really like the girls to begin with. Nice girl and I talked while we were in college for a while but lost contact when she started studying abroad.
Comment by AffectionateYam1574 at 08/03/2025 at 17:49 UTC
80 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Yeah, as a girl I don’t understand it either. Maybe it’s because some girls, or people in gneral only hang out with each other because they look cool, then absorb each other and then it becomes a little competition within the friend group on who’s better or not, I don’t know but that’s what I’ve observed on alot of groups
Comment by nocuzzlikeyea13 at 08/03/2025 at 19:30 UTC
42 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I've seen this happen with men friend groups too, but they usually have one guy (or sometimes a guy's girlfriend or a woman tangential to the group) who they just constantly dunk on. It's not like the whole group hates each other, it's like they all hate one guy.
When I ask why they stay friends with him if they hate him so much? They act like I'm the asshole for suggesting to subject him to social rejection. It's super weird like you are all adults, the bullying dynamic here is unnecessary.
Comment by Labradawgz90 at 08/03/2025 at 19:37 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As a woman, I refuse to have friends like this. I already grew up with 4 sisters and went through high school. I don't need that shit.
Comment by pissfucked at 08/03/2025 at 19:06 UTC
37 upvotes, 1 direct replies
i'm an autistic woman. this social standard has victimized me personally lmao. my friends are either neurodivergent women or men.
Comment by justnopethefuckout at 08/03/2025 at 20:06 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is why at my age I have 1 friend. I have acquaintances, but just 1 friend. Love that woman to pieces and we've been friends going on 10 years almost. I'd rather have just 1 real friend than a large group of fake ones like mentioned.
Comment by AberNurse at 08/03/2025 at 20:12 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This was my first thought. “Why are girls so judgemental, manipulative and cruel to each other”. I’m an effeminate gay man and I’ve spent my life in friendship groups made girls and I just don’t understand it.
Comment by Standard_Track9692 at 08/03/2025 at 21:48 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My mother told me a couple of times growing up that women have this unspoken competition with each other that never ends. Ever since then a lot has made sense. Even if they aren't in competition for the same thing.
Comment by ripcityblazers00 at 08/03/2025 at 17:47 UTC
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It's very important for most women that they have friends.
Comment by jensmith20055002 at 08/03/2025 at 18:16 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Somedays there are no other choices. Making friends after high school just sucks.
Comment by a-non-eee-mouse-turd at 08/03/2025 at 21:55 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Am a woman. I never got that either! Never been my experience personally but i see it and I’m so confused
Comment by Halospite at 08/03/2025 at 23:22 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don't do this any more but it's like leaving an abusive relationship, extricating yourself from one of these can be like playing with fire.
Comment by ToastyJunebugs at 08/03/2025 at 20:14 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have the same type of question about why men bully each other so much in their friend groups. Though I guess it's the same thing, really.
Comment by skippyuber at 08/03/2025 at 18:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
my guess is internalized misogyny, insecurity and comparison. That was my problem in high school st least. My "friends" felt like competition.
In my opinion, most people don't grow out of high school mentality.
Comment by citrineskye at 08/03/2025 at 20:21 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think this is quite a cultural thing. You see a lot of that kind of behaviour in American TV shows. I'm not sure if that's a fair representation or not, but in England (even on tv), it isn't like that.
Comment by itsbeenanhour at 08/03/2025 at 21:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Some people are just toxic.
Comment by chocotacogato at 08/03/2025 at 21:26 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I had a friend like that in high school but I didn’t know she was shit-talking me at first. She was the very timid shy type of person that would avoid confrontation or lie to make herself not sound like a bad person. She turned me against one of my friends bc she thought it’d be hilarious but that friend and I made up and we said fuck her
Comment by raccoonbelly at 09/03/2025 at 01:30 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As a woman I've never understood this either. I don't find it to be common, more like maybe 5% of women I meet, but still it baffles me.
Comment by Maximum-Vegetable at 09/03/2025 at 01:36 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I find this interesting because every guy friend group I know of is also like this, except they only talk shit about the other guys in the group to women
Comment by savant_idiot at 09/03/2025 at 01:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I basically explain the first half of why in my couple comments here (initial thought and then reply to someone)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/MsRb9c2adT
The other half of it... As far as why in god's name would anyone put up with that dynamic and stick around for it? If I had to guess, probably comes from some sort of evolutionary dynamic of safety in numbers.
Comment by GamerDude133 at 09/03/2025 at 02:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is a good one.
Comment by SiPhoenix at 09/03/2025 at 02:51 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I've also heard theory that it keeps a person's mind sharp.
You ever talk with an old person that will yap at you unable to tell that you are not interested?
The theory is that those people stoped exercising the part of their mind that predicts others. That simulates their mind. In psychology its called "theory of mind" and it develops around 3-4 years old. But can you lose it from disuse? Like say from having only yes men around you? On the flip side if you are part of a group of people that will social stab you in the back if the opportunity arises you have to actively use that part of you mind.
Comment by ReadingWolf1710 at 09/03/2025 at 03:36 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As a woman I don’t get it either- I have former friends like that
Comment by Spirited-Claim-9868 at 09/03/2025 at 04:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Luckily, I've never had to deal with this because I don't hang out in groups. My relationships are very much linear