TLDR My boyfriend’s best friends are all male and are all in the military. Despite us all spending a lot of time together, they’re unwilling to have conversations with me beyond small talk, most likely because I’m female. I would still really like to get to know them - is there a way to do this or is it a lost cause?
My boyfriend (“Chris”) is an officer in the military while I’m a software engineer at a major tech company.
We’ve been together for 1 year, and have been learning to navigate the various culture clashes between military life and tech life. The biggest one for me has been the ingrained cultural expectations of women in military relationships. At his work and social events, if I’m meeting a new person, I’m usually initially very subtly talked down to and asked questions like wether I work or “play a supporting role” (many military wives / girlfriends can’t have careers due to their partners’ frequent relocations). At first these used to make me very uncomfortable but I’ve mostly learned to navigate those dynamics and not take it to heart.
The one that I’m still having trouble with is the way that his close friend circle interacts with me. They’re a group of 4 military officers who often meet together or with their significant others. We’ll all usually meet a few times a week, and sometimes go on extended week long trips together.
His best friends are all very polite and nice towards me. However, they’ll never engage with me in any conversations beyond a very surface “small talk” level. If I tell a funny story or mention something interesting as an opener, they never ask follow up questions. They also act the same way towards the other female partners. When we’re all together, the expectation is that we’ll all make some small talk and then the group will split into two - the men on one side and the women on the other. I have no problem hanging out with the girls sometimes, but I also understandably would like to get to know Chris’ close friends, not just their girlfriends.
At first I just though they didn’t like me or I was doing something wrong when I was trying to start conversations with them. I’m normally a very social person and don’t have trouble talking to anyone, so this was an unusual and uncomfortable experience for me. I just assumed it was an issue with me not being able to correctly grasp military culture and interact with them in a way that they found engaging and sort of gave up. However recently I met a few of his more peripheral military friends and got along great with them. We had no trouble with having normal, engaging, funny conversations, bonding and generally having a great time. I felt like in a short time I got to know them a lot better than Chris’ best friends that I spend a lot of time with.
When I talked to Chris about my feelings about this, he understood and started to notice the exact same thing. The way he explained it is that it’s considered very inappropriate to be too friendly with your friends’ significant others, and it’s a deeply held cultural belief. The acquaintances of his that I did get along with are considered slightly “socially awkward / weird” for breaking many types of military conventions and that’s probably why they were comfortable talking with me. He even mentioned that it initially made him feel slightly uncomfortable seeing those acquaintances have extended conversations with me just because it seemed odd.
Obviously the entire culture is somewhat misogynistic but that’s not something that I can change on a macro level. But what should I do regarding his friends? I really don’t really want to not spend time with his friends because I know that they’re really important to him and also because I legitimately think they’re very cool people and that they would like me if they got to know me. But I also constantly feel subtly rejected and unfulfilled whenever we all hang out and I try to talk to them and they don’t engage — it’s not a great feeling.
Submitted November 10, 2019 at 12:06PM by rel-throwaway-pepper https://ift.tt/2Q790Fa
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