Are you more comfortable making friends with people of your own gender or of another? Why?

I need people to talk to and who may come to care about me. For me, it’s easier to find that with women. Trust and friendship, for me, contain love and affection and—as trivial as this may sound—I feel safer expressing that with women than with men, with whom it feels unsafe because of homo-erotic overtones.

Maybe I’m deluded, but I trust women more than I trust men. So many of the women I meet seem to have this quirky, half-cynical half wounded puppy outlook on life. It makes for funny, interesting conversations. I don’t have to compete with them. It’s clear we’re on the same team. I rarely feel that way with men.

Are you better friends with people of your own sex, or of another sex? Why do you think you have this preference? Has your preference for friends of any particular gender ever gotten you into trouble? Is there any hint of a more intimate relationship in any of your friendships? What, if anything, do you do with that energy?