Why Men Are Easier To Befriend (And Why That Scares Me)

Sunset’s make me sad, but in a good way.

Around this time last year, I was getting ready to move states again.

I had just finished my degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences while playing collegiate volleyball, and honestly, sports had always been my entire social ecosystem. Every friendship, every schedule, every built-in community revolved around being an athlete. I never really had to learn how to make friends outside of that environment because I always had a team.

And I definitely never had a real job.

My parents always said, “As long as you’re playing a sport, you don’t need to work.” Which, looking back, I’m grateful for. But sometimes I wonder if that also delayed me from learning how to build relationships outside of convenience and proximity. Especially female friendships.

Since moving home and retiring from collegiate sports, I’ve had the weird, uncomfortable, eye-opening experience of trying to make friends as an adult. Real adult friendships. Not “we have practice together every day” friendships. Not “we travel together every weekend” friendships. Intentional ones.

Most of the people I spend time with now are in two mostly male friend groups. One of them is basically my brother’s friend group. Most are my age, a couple are older, and for the sake of this story, we’ll call one of them Clay.

Clay and I had a very brief situationship. And I mean brief. Barely enough to even label it that. But somehow we stayed friends afterward, which honestly never happens. Usually, those things combust, and everyone pretends the other died.

Anyway, every once in a while, Clay brings girls around, and I get genuinely excited because I always think: Maybe this will finally be a girl I click with.

Someone my age. Similar interests. Someone I can text to grab coffee, go shopping, or complain about life with.

One night, Clay brought a girl. We’ll call her Olive.

We all went over to watch UFC fights. I hate UFC, by the way. Hate it. It makes me physically ill watching someone get repeatedly elbowed in the face while everyone around me casually eats wings and discusses “good ground control.”

One fighter was getting absolutely destroyed, so naturally, I kept asking questions.

“Why is he just letting him hold him down?”

“There’s no way he can’t get out of that?”

Apparently, I was talking too much because another girl there looked at Clay and said, with the nastiest little look on her face, “Maybe you should talk to Olive more.”

Immediately, the vibe shifted.

She and Olive got up to go to the bathroom together and came back somehow even more irritated than before. Clay and Olive started quietly arguing, and then I overheard Olive say:

“And I wore this stupid fucking skirt.”

For context, I had met Olive only once before, and that night I happened to wear a skirt with boots. This night, Olive wore a skirt with boots, while I was in jeans and Jordans. Obviously, this was getting said because my outfit from the previous night had been discussed.

I sat there in actual disbelief.

First of all… why are we basing outfits off each other after one interaction?

Second, why are we upset about it?

And third, why are we saying this out loud?

The rest of the night was painfully awkward. Everyone could feel the tension. The fights ended, nobody followed through on the plans afterward, and eventually everyone stopped talking altogether. Clay and Olive stopped seeing each other shortly after. Same with the other guy and his fling.

But honestly, that night stuck with me for reasons bigger than just awkward group dynamics.

Since graduating, moving home, and leaving athletics behind, I’ve realized how difficult female friendships feel for me to navigate. And I hate admitting that because the phrase “I get along better with guys” has been so weaponized by certain types of women online that even saying it makes me cringe a little.

The truth is, I don’t fully relate to men either.

But friendships with men often feel… easier. Less layered. Less performative. Less like there are invisible tests I didn’t study for.

With women, sometimes I walk away replaying every interaction, wondering if I talked too much, came off weird, dressed wrong, sounded annoying, was too confident, not confident enough, too friendly, not friendly enough. It feels like trying to crack a code everyone else got handed in middle school.

And maybe part of it is me.

Maybe years in hyper-competitive athletic environments conditioned me to expect comparisons. Maybe moving home in my twenties disrupted my sense of identity more than I realized. Maybe everyone is just insecure and trying their best.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that nobody really talks about how lonely the transition out of collegiate sports can feel. You lose structure. Identity. Community. Routine. And suddenly you’re expected to know how to build a life and relationships from scratch.

So maybe the real question isn’t: “Why are men easier to befriend?”

Maybe it’s: Why does female friendship sometimes feel so much harder than we admit?

As I keep thinking about all of this, my brain constantly runs through reasons why men often seem easier to be friends with.

And weirdly enough, I read something last week while studying that sent me into a full spiral about it.

I was reading about children who are at-risk for communication impairments, and one factor that increases risk is simply being male. I was shocked.

Apparently, males have a lower threshold for crossing the “developmental delay” line. Women have XX chromosomes while men have XY chromosomes, meaning women essentially have a built-in backup copy. Women can sometimes compensate for mutations on one X chromosome, while men can’t in the same way. So for women, impairments often require larger or more severe mutations to fully manifest.

The second I read that, my brain started connecting dots that probably have absolutely no business being connected, but stay with me.

Women are analyzers.

We overthink. We dissect. We read between the lines of everything. We replay conversations in our heads while shampooing our hair. We appreciate the inner workings of relationships. We crave transparency, and emotional safety, and the feeling of being 110% comfortable around the people closest to us.

Meanwhile, boys are like: “Can he take a joke?” “Does he play Call of Duty?” “Cool. That’s my boy.”

I have an older brother, and we butt heads constantly. One day, my sister and I were venting to my mom about him because, genuinely, he acts exactly the same way outside the house as he does inside: annoying.

My mom asked, “Then why do his friends like him so much?”

And I immediately said: “Because boys don’t care about that. They care if you’re funny.”

And honestly? I stand by that.

Men, overall, seem to have lower standards for what constitutes a good friendship. They don’t care if their friend roasts their outfit, answers with attitude, forgets to text back, or barely acknowledges the emotional crisis involving the girl they’re talking to.

Half the time, they either don’t notice subtle digs and underlying tension… or they do notice and simply do not care.

And honestly, maybe there’s something freeing about that.

Women, on the other hand, are constantly scanning. Reading energy shifts. Tone changes. Facial expressions. Tiny comments that technically mean nothing but somehow mean everything.

And this becomes painfully obvious in romantic relationships, too.

You cannot hint your way through communication with men. You have to explicitly state every single point you want them to understand because there is a very real chance they will not spend even five seconds trying to interpret what you actually meant.

Which, depending on the day, is either refreshing or infuriating.

All of this probably explains why friendships with men often feel easier to me. The interaction itself feels lighter. Less comparative. Less layered. Less emotionally loaded.

It’s not that men are inherently better friends.

It’s that women are often socialized to be hyperaware of relationships in ways men simply aren’t.

Men walk into a room thinking: “Who’s trying to have a good time?”

Women walk into a room subconsciously wondering: “How am I being perceived right now?”

And maybe that’s the exhausting part.

I also want to make one thing very clear before I continue sounding like the world’s biggest “I get along better with guys” stereotype:

I have had meaningful female friendships. Deep ones. Soul-level ones. The kind where you laugh until you can’t breathe, cry on each other’s floors, share clothes, share secrets, share entire eras of your life.

And honestly, most of those friendships came through volleyball.

Sports gave me access to some of the best women I have ever met. Women who are loyal, hilarious, driven, protective, emotionally intelligent, and genuinely good people.

Sports also introduced me to some of the most clinically insane human beings I will ever encounter.

And there is one story in particular that I tell people all the time because, looking back, it genuinely feels like a fever dream.

I had just moved states. New school. New volleyball team. New everything. I knew absolutely nobody.

I remember feeling terrified all the time. Terrified to walk into practice. Terrified to eat alone. Terrified that everyone had already found their people and I was just awkwardly orbiting around established friendships, trying to squeeze my way in.

One girl on the team immediately took a liking to me. We’ll call her Dylan.

At the time, Dylan didn’t really have a ton of friends, and honestly, neither did I. I was in survival mode socially. If someone wanted to hang out with me, I was probably saying yes.

We also enjoyed participating in the same extracurricular activities… if you know what I mean.

Some of the girls on the team warned me about her almost immediately.

“She’s weird.” “She’s crazy.”

And honestly? Even early on, I could see a little bit of the weirdness. But I also hate when people form opinions about someone before actually getting to know them. I want people to give me that grace, so I try to do the same for others.

And despite everything, Dylan genuinely came from a good place. She cared deeply. I could empathize with that.

So time goes on. I’m settling in more at school, getting closer with the team, meeting other athletes, and finally starting to feel normal again.

Toward the end of the quarter, my team decides to go to a concert together.

At some point I had casually told Dylan that maybe I’d ride with her, but nothing was officially planned. Another teammate, Payton, also offered me a ride — and honestly, it made more sense. More room, easier logistics, and a chance to pregame beforehand.

Then Dylan tells me that a girl from my old school was riding with them too. A girl who, respectfully, has never exactly been my biggest fan. She also mentioned someone might literally have to ride in the trunk.

So I told her: “Hey, I think I’m probably gonna ride with Payton instead. There’s more room, and honestly, it’ll probably just be easier for everyone.”

When I tell you this girl lost her ever-loving mind…

I mean it.

Over 70 text messages. 20 missed calls and FaceTimes. And a three-minute-long FaceTime video message of her crying and spiraling because I changed rides to a concert.

A CONCERT.

Somehow, this entire situation eventually got brought to my coach, and I had to sit in his office explaining friendship drama like it was a custody battle.

Thank God this man was level-headed because he basically looked at me and said: “You do not have to subject yourself to that if you don’t want to.”

And I remember thinking: I already deal with emotional relationship negotiations with my boyfriend at the time. Why am I suddenly doing it in a friendship, too?

Because that’s the thing about female friendships sometimes: there can be this unspoken expectation of emotional loyalty at all times.

And to be fair, I had communicated with her. I told her my plans changed. I wasn’t sneaky about it.

But what actually upset her was that I didn’t prioritize her feelings over my own and everyone else’s convenience.

And that level of emotional pressure exhausts me.

I think women are naturally more relational. More emotionally aware. More sensitive to shifts in closeness, attention, loyalty, inclusion, exclusion — all of it.

Which also means jealousy can creep in so easily.

And before anyone acts morally superior, every woman has experienced jealousy in friendships at some point.

Including me.

But I don’t handle that dynamic well at all.

I genuinely do not understand the possessiveness that can sometimes happen in female friendships. If my best friend has another friend group she loves spending time with… great? That gives me freedom to exist as my own person, too.

I’ve never understood the: “You’re my best friend, so we have to do everything together and prioritize each other above everyone else” mentality.

That sounds less like friendship and more like mutual surveillance.

Now for my favorite part of this entire conversation.

As I’ve already established, women are naturally competitive with one another. Especially in environments involving men.

And honestly? Most of my issues with other women have somehow traced back to men in one way or another.

Take Olive, for example.

There is almost always underlying tension between the “girl best friend” and the potential next girlfriend. It’s like an invisible territorial war that everyone pretends isn’t happening while simultaneously participating in it.

I’ve had girls genuinely upset with me because the guy they thought was cute came up to talk to me at the bar instead of them.

As if I orchestrated it.

Like, I secretly submitted a request to the universe beforehand.

I’ve had friends become cold toward me because some cute new basketball player asked me to hang out. One specific girl got so upset about it that she later tried talking to my ex and slept with a guy I had gone on a date with.

And honestly, situations like that taught me something really interesting:

Women are often conditioned to view each other as competition before companionship.

Meanwhile, men hardly experience social fallout like this with each other.

If their friend pulls a hot girl? They dap each other up. They celebrate it. They think it’s hilarious.

“Let’s gooo, that’s my boy.”

The contrast is honestly insane.

And this connects to a much larger societal double standard that everyone knows exists but pretends is nuanced when it really isn’t.

When men sleep around, they’re “the man.” When women do it, suddenly there’s a moral committee assembled.

But the even bigger picture here — and maybe the most frustrating part — is that men often benefit from female competition without having to participate in it themselves.

They create environments where women are indirectly pitted against one another, and then they sit back and enjoy the attention, validation, and access that comes from it.

A guy talks to multiple girls. The girls become insecure or competitive with each other. Now the women are focused on “winning” against one another while the man gets the ego boost of being fought over.

It’s not exactly a symbiotic relationship.

And before someone inevitably says: “Well women should just stop competing over men.”

Sure. In theory.

But we also can’t ignore how deeply social validation, desirability, and comparison are ingrained into women from basically birth. Women are taught very early that beauty, attention, and romantic success are tied to value. So, naturally, those insecurities sometimes leak into friendships.

Again, I’m not saying women are innocent angels in these situations.

We absolutely contribute to it.

But I also don’t think men are clueless observers either. Some men are very aware of the dynamics they create and fully enjoy the chaos that follows.

And honestly? I think this is probably one of the biggest reasons female friendships fail.

Not because women are incapable of loyalty. Not because women are “too much.” But because relationships become complicated the second romantic attention, comparison, insecurity, and ego enter the room.

And unfortunately but not surprisingly, men are usually standing right in the middle of it.

I long for female friendships outside of my family.

And maybe part of the reason they feel so difficult is that I already have my sister. Maybe she unintentionally set the standard so high that everything else feels incomplete in comparison. With her, there’s no performance. No overthinking. No trying to decode hidden meanings behind tone shifts or delayed responses. She just gets me.

I do have other female friends, too. Some of the most incredible women I know, actually. But many of them don’t live here anymore, and the others are simply in different stages of life than I am.

Not wrong stages. Just different ones.

I’m 23. Single as hell. Four months into my first real “big girl” job. Starting my master’s degree. Still figuring out who I am outside of being an athlete.

Meanwhile, many of the women I work with are married, raising children, buying homes, or are 10–15 years older than me and navigating entirely different versions of womanhood.

And of course, I could still become friends with them. But shared experiences matter. Shared humor matters. Shared chaos matters.

Because realistically, who at work wants to hear about my 17 vodka cranberries and the man I’m emotionally attached to this week, without quietly wondering if I need clinical intervention?

And beyond age or lifestyle differences, I think being a female athlete shaped me in ways I’m still unpacking.

Sports gave me confidence, discipline, resilience, competitiveness, adaptability. It taught me how to perform under pressure and how to coexist with strong personalities. But it also made me accustomed to intense environments, constant comparison, built-in community, and relationships formed through proximity and shared struggle.

There’s something uniquely disorienting about leaving that world.

One day, you’re surrounded by teammates, group chats, practices, road trips, matching warmups, inside jokes, and people who automatically understand your lifestyle.

Then suddenly you graduate, and everyone disappears into separate states, careers, relationships, and lives.

And now you’re sitting at a desk at 23 trying to explain why you know how to tape an ankle, survive on Celsius and kirkland vodka, and emotionally recover from losing in five sets… but have no idea how adult women organically become best friends.

Maybe that’s really what all of this comes down to.

Not that female friendships are impossible. Not that men are better. Not that women are secretly evil or competitive all the time (hate this stigma, but still somehow feed into it).

I think I’m just grieving the ease of built-in connection.

Because adulthood is weird. Especially in your twenties. Especially after sports. Especially when everyone seems to be becoming someone while you still feel halfway between versions of yourself.

And maybe there are a lot more women out there feeling this exact same unique loneliness than any of us are willing to admit.