I Am Woman, Hear Me Make Lunch Plans

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie 

Moma Rock

This week, I chose the topic, and I said:  You’ve heard of the phrase, “He’s a man’s man,” and so I ask, “Are you a woman’s woman?”

            I’ve alluded to this in the past, and if you know me, this should come as no surprise, but I am not a “girls’ girl.”  I’m not at all a “woman’s woman.”  This has nothing to do with not liking make-up or pretty clothes or nice handbags (because I do like those things); it’s more of a mindset, a way of perceiving my place in the bigger world, at least so far as that world is divided by gender, which it often is. 

Because I am not a “woman’s woman,” my list of close female friends runs on the short side.  I was never really sure why until, not long ago, I reviewed a book for Chicklit Central called:  My Other Ex:  Women’s True Stories of Losing and Leaving Friends.  Compiled by Stephanie Sprenger and Jessica A. Smock, the book told the stories of the demise of dozens of female friendships.  One of the contributors commented that female friendships take more work and emotional investment than friendships with males.  I had my “a ha” moment.  I readily agreed.  For the most part, in my experience, female relationships are hard work.  They seem to require a greater level of cultivation than those with men.  If I don’t talk to some of my female friends for a while, it’s a problem.  Some of them react badly.  They take it personally – even if I have a good explanation that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the rest of my life.  But I can easily call or text a male friend I haven’t communicated with in forever and we simply pick up where we left off, regardless whether it’s been a week or a month or a year since our last contact.  There are no recriminations, no, “Are you mad at me’s?”  No hurt feelings.  To me, that is as it should be.  Because those same friends know that all they need to do is pick up the phone and call me if they need or want to, and I will be there.  This seems a harder lesson for some women.

             With women – and I say all of this in general and remind you that I am limited to my own experiences and perceptions, obviously – I also feel I have to watch what I say.  I feel critiqued.  I choose my clothing more carefully, make sure my hair and make-up look ok.  Am I crazy?  Perhaps.  But so many women clique off.  They talk – often about each other.  Not to say men don’t notice what women or even other men wear or how they style their hair, and not that men don’t meet other men and bond into groups, but they’ve always seemed more open to the introduction of someone new, or at least less likely to exclude someone trying to join in the fun.  It’s certainly felt easier for me to break into a male circle than one dominated by females.  Again, it’s most likely my wiring, my perception – but I guess that’s the point.  And it’s why I’m not a girls’ girl.

            If I listed my friends by how long I’ve known them, the longer-standing ones would almost all be men.  Sure, a few women go pretty far back, but the men dominate.  They’ve lasted because they’ve made it easy.  This is also true with friends I’ve made at school, as well.  My two closest college friends?  Both men.  (I cannot say the same about high school since we were a man-free zone.)  But probably nowhere is my general struggle with female relationships more obvious than in the workplace.  With the exception of one or two, I’ve generally not liked any female boss with whom I’ve worked.  When I first started practicing law, I was assigned a female mentor, and let’s just say that didn’t end well.  I couldn’t stand her – and she felt the same way about me.  (How do I know?  She talked about me behind my back.)  Sure, there have been exceptions, and I’ve been lucky to work with many, several of whom I call friends.  But usually, I just hang with the boys.  For me, it’s easier.  Perhaps it’s the fact I grew up with all boys – a dozen on my block in contrast to a single girl:  me.  I really don’t know.  I just know that, overall, I get along better with guys:  as friends, as co-workers, in general. 

I’ve spent the last decade and a half working in a male-dominated industry, which can be a struggle for some women.  I’ve seen female co-workers fall apart under the stress.  I’ve seen others allow themselves to be utilized as pretty distractions, in and out of court.  Others have decided the best defense was a strong offense, and they rushed in like lip-sticked, high-heeled bulls in china shops, often alienating someone along the way (often, me). 

In my opinion, the practice of law is a bit of a boys’ club.  As a female, this can be frustrating, even disheartening.  It can be a challenge.  When I was a newbie, I was told to wear a suit with a skirt to job interviews and to court, no exceptions.  I once stood alongside female opposing counsel in front of an older male judge who looked us both up and down and said, “I guess I’ll have to decide this one on the merits!”  He called us “honey” and “sweetie” and “dear.”  I was in that same courtroom when I was eight months pregnant with my youngest daughter, laughing at the look of sheer terror on the faces of my male counterparts, who couldn’t help but stare at my huge belly as they silently prayed I would not go into labor before their case was called.  I spent years at a firm that never once promoted a woman to the position of partner in the nearly ten years it has been in existence – and it’s most senior associate attorney is, indeed, a woman.  Does any of this bother me?  Of course.  But being part of the boys’ club can be enjoyable, too, assuming you know how to play the game.  And assuming you enjoy playing, that the game is your thing. 

I guess it’s mine.  I recently realized that fact when I made plans to meet a few former co-workers and one of my mentors for lunch.  All of the players but I was male.  Our text convo went something like this:

Male #1:            Are we still doing lunch today?

Male #2:            I’m ready.

Male #1:            Let’s go somewhere nearby.

Me:                    Let me know when and where.

Male #2:            Let’s go to Joe’s House of Toast.  High noon.

Male #1:            I emailed Male #3, too.

Male #2:            OMG

Male #1:            Can we uninvite Male #4?  He weirds me out.  [Male #4 was on this chain, but silent and thus just begging   
                           to be harrassed.]

Me:                    I don’t want to sit next to Male #1.  For obvious reasons.

Male #1:            Because I won’t be wearing pants?

Me:                    Again …

Male #1:            I’ll sit on Male #4’s lap, then.

Me:                    Again …

Male #1:            Ok, you guys heading over soon?

Me:                    Leaving in a few.

Male #1:            I’ll be the guy wearing a dress.

Me:                   Again …

Contrast this to an email conversation I had just a few days later, when one of my co-workers generously started the process of setting up a good-bye lunch for me on my last day of work.  She sent the email to me and three others – all women – and then told me to invite whomever else I wanted.  This put me in an awkward position because I had become somewhat friendly with almost everyone in the office (all but three women – shocking, I know) and would have preferred just inviting anyone who wanted to come along.  However, I knew the person setting it up didn’t feel that way; if she’d had, she would have done just that.  So I added only one name to the list, a woman I knew got along with the other invitees.  Four emails later, we had finally chosen a time – but one of the invitees didn’t like how late it was.  Of course, she wouldn’t actually tell the person who suggested it, speaking about it only to my face (and behind the other’s back).   Eight emails later, we still hadn’t decided on a place.  The invitee who didn’t like the time started emailing separately about the place; for some reason, she would not tell the group her preferences.  By 9:00 am, I was ready to sneak out and call it a day.  It took more than one dozen emails to finally choose a time and a place, and we were still left with one person who wasn’t particularly happy with either and two people who were late leaving the office.*

            Lest you think I overthought the politics of inviting additional people to the lunch, I share this story:  I once worked at a place where two female co-workers who were once quite friendly eventually had a huge falling out (it had to do with one feeling snubbed by the other).  As a result, every group lunch for months after (until the snubee quit) had to exclude one or the other.  And don’t get me started about their fight, which I had to break up in the bathroom during our firm’s holiday party.  The men I know would have had it out and gotten over it – which I would have appreciated.  (That and the twelve-year-old boy sense of humor running so common among men, one I have always found amusing (the pantsless lunch), and probably always will.)

I’ve been lucky enough to stumble across a handful of female friends who are like me, women with juvenile senses of humor, who don’t play the girl games I’ve come to hate, who are straightforward and honest and don’t require too much maintenance – all of the things I generally hate about female relationships.  At the place I last worked, I started to become friendly with a female co-worker toward the end of my tenure.  We had a few fairly long convos during which we realized we had a ridiculous number of things in common.  Big things.  Important things.  By our third conversation, I thought to myself, I could be friends with this person.  I was telling another female friend about her, and I actually said these words:  “She’s really cool.  You’d like her.  She’s like us, more like a guy.”  I paused and said, “That sounds weird, but you know what I mean.”  My friend laughed and said, “I know exactly what you mean.”  Of course she does – because she’s like me, and that’s why we’re friends. 

And so I cling to my guy friends and my “more like a guy” friends, happy to know I am not alone, that I am not the only “man’s woman” in the fold, happy it is possible to arrange a lunch in fewer than six texts, happy to joke about attendees not wearing pants, happy I’m comfortable in my own – even when I go to court and someone calls me “sweetie.”

*Postscript to the lunch story:  Upon our return, one of the female attendees was cornered by a female non-attendee (she wasn’t asked), who essentially asked why only certain people were invited.  I had, up to that moment, spoken to the non-attendee exactly once in my tenure at that job – and only because I walked into a convo she was having with someone else.  She never so much as said hello to me passing in the hallway (at best, I received a tight-lipped smile), and yet she felt snubbed by not being invited to my small going away lunch.  Contrast this to the guy who sat across from me, with whom I spoke several times a day each day, who happily asked upon my return, “How was lunch?”.  Point?  Proven.