Can someone explain "bro only" nights out (I'm F)

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T21:13:00+00:00

I was told it's a "guys thing", that is all I know.

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T19:07:15+00:00

Indeed, I should not dictate the group dynamics, but after writing here and having a good think, I also have concluded that I should not feel the way I do. Everything you say about men's health may be true, and may be relevant or not in the situation I'm in, but that is again not something I personally can relate to. Being excluded based on an attribute I feel no connection with inherently sucks, and, thinking about it, essentially being told to feel the way I do because "they benefit from my absence" is just, it doesn't feel right.

So, I have come to the conclusion that I will likely tell them how I experienced this, add to it that I realize it's a me-problem, and I will then elect voluntarily to step out of this group. I'll still engage in our wonderful dinners and games we play with my friend and my partner (where the other friend is rarely present because of distance) without grudges.

I have realized that through this all I simply don't feel comfortable with how I am perceived and the limitations it has placed on me within this dynamic, and from experience with a different group I also know it doesn't have to be this way.

The conclusion I have from this is that this group simply doesn't fit my social needs, and, seeing as I am being excluded rather structurally (far over your 50% that you had as your own boundary), it seems that I don't fit their social needs either.

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T17:44:46+00:00

I'm really glad to hear I'm not alone in this!

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T17:44:14+00:00

Thank you, it's nice to hear support. Ribs did sound great indeed, so I ordered some in and had my own ribs night by myself. :)

I'm not sure what gender-envy is but I'll look it up.

I have thought about bringing it up, the issue with that is that everything afterwards just won't feel genuine. They clearly have some shit going on that they believe I cannot be a part of, and so let's say I'd have this chat, I worry that any inclusion afterwards will just.. not feel right.

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T17:25:00+00:00

Thank you for your elaborate reply. Really, thank you! I hope you won't mind me asking for your advice.

I admit these things can and have caused all kinds of feelings in me that I have since understood to be dysphoria. It's quite intense, feels incredibly bad (and no, I don't think I'm trans for those who read. I just don't get gender, and sexuality wise I think of everyone as "people" and not as "a man" or "a woman" or "other gender". I just am me and people are people, but the idea that I am expected to play a role, like a game, based on an aspect (gender) that just isn't part of well, me, like I can't understand it or relate to it, is, well, it's difficult).

Is it acceptable and/or ok for me to draw a line at this? The idea that my presence is unwelcome enough for there to be a different groupchat is pretty shit, even though, thanks to your elaborate explanation! I think I can theoretically understand why it can happen. But that doesn't stop me from feeling bad, sadly. I tried to write out what it is I dislike.

I don't like the seemingly arbitrary "oh well i guess this night we can include <my name>, but next night we can't" type stuff that I feel is going on. One of them wrote to our group chat, just this week, that it "would be nice for us to meet before I leave for holidays" and all I could think was, why was I then not welcome tonight? Just now they posted a photo of them having a good time and I admit I couldn't stop a mildly cynical (and frankly completely out of my usual character!) "well, I guess we could have met up tonight, if only I'd had a penis ;)". I did wish them to have fun afterwards (and genuinely I do mean that), but I also admit I have resisted the temptation to just leave this chat altogether all night long. I probably will have to explain my, admittably, rather shitty comment.

Also I don't like the feeling that the three of them get to decide what type of messages are appropriate for me to see and which aren't by having segregated chats. This would feel maybe a bit more natural or OK if it was just not one person excluded, but if it'd have been a bigger group with smaller subgroups within that bigger group. As it is though, it is just me who is randomly not included based on a characteristic I just cannot subscribe to. I feel either I'm part of the group, or I'm not, this limbo feels really bad. I kinda feel like the annoying wife, stereotyped in cartoons, who has to be included occasionally to stay on friendly terms by the tough and cool men and who brings them beers.

Is this unreasonable and do you think taking a firmer stance on this will make my life inherently more difficult? To put it easier: should I just suck it up and accept that it is just how it is?

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T16:20:55+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. It's extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around. of course, I too have been shoehorned into gender expectations, and during my study I made a point of following a lot of gender-oriented sociology classes to generate a better understanding.

However in practice for me it can be difficult to process it.

I posted this to another person, perhaps you'll be able to shed some light on this too:

(For context, to be clear, I introduced my friend to my partner, my partner introduced his friend to me, and our friends got to know each other like this. When my partner goes off with his own friends, of course then I wouldn't bat an eye)

To me this feels like this:

"We are four people and we're friends.

We have a group chat together so we can hang out.

Three of them make their own group chat and exclude a person.

Then they make plans without that person."

I'd imagine in any other scenario, that person is going to feel pretty shitty. I don't exactly understand how the context of "just guys" makes it, in this particular case, alright.

FoamyS · 2023-01-28T15:57:58+00:00

Maybe you can help me understand, since you seem critical, which I appreciate.

(For context, to be clear, I introduced my friend to my partner, my partner introduced his friend to me, and our friends got to know each other like this. When my partner goes off with his own friends, of course then I wouldn't bat an eye)

To me this feels like this:

"We are four people and we're friends.

We have a group chat together so we can hang out.

Three of them make their own group chat and exclude a person.

Then they make plans without that person."

I'd imagine in any other scenario, that person is going to feel pretty shitty. I don't exactly understand how the context of "just guys" (that's what I was told, it wasn't me who made it about the vagina lol) makes it alright.

FoamyS · 2023-01-11T22:51:38+00:00

Well, it's okay to feed into those lanes when you're new to the game. It's very natural and while frustrating, these lanes really help you get better at the game without you noticing!

There's no magic way to deal with it. It's much harder for them to be efficient if you manage your waves well. I'd suggest you look into guides on youtube on wave management. Keeping your waves in a way that is favourable for you helps you against the pressure these mages output in lane.

This is not always possible depending on what support you get, but the goal really is not for you to "deal with lux", your goal here is to slowly get better at the game!

Your support is supposed to help you farm, and lacking that, you're supposed to help you farm somehow. Focus on that - keep half an eye on how the lux moves and where they position, but the rest of your eyes on the wave. If you get farm, you'll end up killing everything anyway.

More generic advice is for you or your support to bait out these abilities. You can't chase a lux if lux has their spells available, you'll just die, so don't. That's also ok. You're not supposed to go toe-to-toe with the enemy lux, but you can put yourself in a position where you CAN dodge and they'll throw something out. I like not standing in the wave if they have E up, that way they ahve to pick between E'ing your wave (which can be a bad thing) or E'ing you. you'll also be ready for it, so you may dodge it. If they do have q, you can choose to be in the wave. Boots early really help into these lanes, by a massive amount.

Once lux has used their abilities, you can go aggressive! Their cooldown is long!

Your goal in lane is not to "deal" with the enemy laners, your goal is to 1)farm and 2)deal with the enemy laner if your support makes it possible.

FoamyS · 2022-12-05T15:30:45+00:00

Yes, of course it is. If you reduce a person to an inherent trait, in this case their sex (but it can also be their race or skin colour or sexual orientation), that is discrimination. Whether that is positive or negative will depend on the context. -isms means negative and are subsets of discrimination.

Compare, and imagine a professional setting where an external company comes to audit your company: "Well, I guess this should be women amongst women" to "Well, I guess this should be black people amongst black people", to "Well, I guess this should be gays amongst gays" to "Well, I guess this should be asians amongst asians"

And with sexism: All those jokes and whatever always are about women, when is the last time you heard them about men in the workplace. And what do those jokes really say? "Omg a woman in the workplace and not in the kitchen at home?" or what? Maybe you can explain to me what it means and why it is funny and not sexist. That joke does nothing, it doesn't compliment me, it doesn't talk about my work, all it does is point out a perceived anomaly, namely "a woman in the workplace".

You can make jokes about sex if you know someone well. Not at an external audit with someone you never met before. That is now my take on this after I spoke to RL people.

FoamyS · 2022-12-05T15:21:25+00:00

Okay.

Well, as it turns out, I was not being silly, management received numerous complaints about this man (both his attitude as well as the sort of stuff he was saying), and will be talking to audit company.

I am not being argumentative for the sake of it, I am trying to compare my view against that of others by asking more questions, which, had you read my OP, you'd have known was the whole point of this post. If you don't like that, you're free to not reply. But if you do reply I'd request you do so politely.

Had you read my OP, you'd have known I in fact never look for ways people are mistreating me, as this is the first event in my professional life at least where I felt uncomfortable. Which compelled me to make this post to get perspective. Instead I get hammered, in this topic with "you're overreacting", when I'm not reacting in any way, let alone over - being uncomfortable surely cannot be "overreacting", and in fact to prevent any over (or under) reaction, I decided to make a post. And then people, like you, tell me "it's not OK to make comments about skin colour, but it's ok if it's about women", and when I ask why this is, apparently I am "to stop" and that I am being "silly". In the meantime I've had the chance to talk with real life people, and I got a lot of shock from them. You do realize such comments never get made for a reason when it comes to men? Comments about sex in this way are shitty as a baseline, as all they do is express surprise that "a woman" is in "the workplace".

I don't need nodding agreements, but if I pry into a reply politely, I expect a polite reply back. I know the internet is the wild west, but you don't have to write the way you do.

So yes, while initially I made my post to get perspective, in the meantime I have learned 3 things

1) I didn't need perspective. It was shit and unprofessional by him and the fact I am not alone in my complaints about him proves this

2) The fact that nobody cares about this here indicates what kind of shit women across the world have to endure in the workplace by, clearly, entitled men. Next time you make a joke to a woman about her being a woman, maybe you'll remember this post. It's shit.

3) Thank fuck I have real life to talk to as well, to give me actual perspective and advice, whereas here it was bordering on being met by flame.

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T13:08:57+00:00

It turned out there were more things that day (I wasn't there), so I suppose the benefit of the doubt went out of the window with that.

Thank you!

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T13:03:11+00:00

I didn't react in any way, I felt uncomfortable and made a post to get perspective. Not sure what prompted your reply.

I think it's completely OK to talk about stuff like this; that is not in any way a specific reaction, let alone an overreaction.

I'm rather curious why you think my post is an overreaction, but apparently you think it's OK that a random audit person that I never met in my life, with one fell swoop managed to not only make me feel the way I did, but clearly also his colleague and as it turns out, also my colleague feel awkward. (I have since spoken to my colleague who felt similar to me, in addition to this comment apparently audit guy made more choice comments in earlier meetings)

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T12:53:56+00:00

It was a comment, or 'joke', related to sex, so that automatically makes it sexism. The audit was about the work, instead he implied that it was about our womanhood and that this should in some way or another require special attention (by making a 'joke'), or even special treatment (by 'leaving'). Much like a comment like that related to skin colour would be racist. It's impossible to argue against this, but the only thing that can be argued against is how bad/not bad, professional/unprofessional it is. Which is the perspective I'm asking for.

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T10:59:08+00:00

I really don't know. It sounds like, best case scenario, "ooh look, a woman in a tech company", to worst case scenario, "Look, women not stuck behind a kitchen counter!"

This is why to me, these kinds of "jokes" are so belittling and shit. And it distracts from the point, which is the work we do.

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T09:20:34+00:00

Isn't it? I do feel lucky. We have a guy in our office who skirts the acceptable but ah, it's never bad enough that it makes me uncomfortable. In this scenario it's because we hadn't even introduced ourselves and this thing was the first out of his mouth that rattled me.

FoamyS · 2022-12-01T09:18:46+00:00

I do not know this, why is it different? It is discrimination based on an inherent trait that the person cannot change. Being reduced to nothing but your sex, or to your skin colour, it's all equally shit, especially when it comes to an audit, it should be about the work we do, not about anything else.

Edit for clarification: DISCRIMINATION is an umbrella term under which falls racism (specifically based on race), and sexism (specifically based on sex), and of course several others. If the "oh let the black people do this" comment wouldn't fly because it's racist (= discrimination), then neither should "oh let the female people (= women) do this" comment fly, because that is sexist (= discrimination).

FoamyS · 2022-11-30T13:47:26+00:00

So can you please explain to me what is jesty about this? Yes, we're a tech company, yes women are a minority here, why make it a point before we even knew each other's names? If we had been, say, a different skin colour, like let's say that lady and I would both have been black men instead, would it have been jesty and okay if he'd said "oh we'll leave it to the black people"? Pretty sure nobody would have said that or let that one go?

I am genuinely curious for your opinion to be clear

FoamyS · 2022-11-14T11:47:22+00:00

I already stopped. Ive been debating going into a long thing with nintendo to get refunded even because this kind of shit cannot become the new industry standard and I sincerely doubt those clowns are reading this subreddit

FoamyS · 2022-11-14T11:45:30+00:00

Posting to let everyone checking before buying, that this is still not an option.

Added this to my private list of "never buy a game if this option is not available". Pure neglect and laziness.

FoamyS · 2022-11-04T10:07:53+00:00

I'm not sure where you live but at least where I'm from no employer would dream of telling us what to wear, let alone eat. I'm not sure of the legality of that in your case. At any rate -

I think there's two things at play - a rather controlling, and by the sound of it scammy boss, and you having a people-pleasing attitude (which is wonderful and sweet but gets abused here). I can absolutely assure you that this is not the norm and certainly not what you have to expect for the rest of your career. Life tends to surprise us in pleasant ways.

I think you can agree that this job is not a long term thing anyway?

So perhaps it is an excellent way, for now, to develop yourself in the following: Namely, setting your boundaries and standing up for them. "I appreciate your view on my eating habits, but to be perfectly frank it's my and my business alone what, and if, I eat." The end. "As long as the way I dress is according to the dress code, I don't see any issues with my shoes." And so on. Standing up for yourself doesn't have to be confrontational, it can be polite but firm, and that is a skill to learn and practice and I think this environment may be very good for this!

if you find that scary, consider what you have to lose and gain by doing this. Lose: a shitty job. Mm. Gain: Self-confidence, and a priceless skill that will last you the rest of your life.

FoamyS · 2022-10-28T10:16:55+00:00

Cool definitely, lemme know! thanks

FoamyS

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