[AnnieBL]

There's a strong taste of misandry in this thread. It's not very flattering.

I don't sound like a misandrist do I?

In another thread I made this point:

I don't believe traits such as narcissism, selfishness, and sociopathy are limited to one gender. Terms like "bridezilla" and "princess syndrome" I think illustrates unfortunately that women can also be self-absorbed and nasty to others.

I think while your friend does make a good point that men and women may have many conflicting traits, I don't think it means all women are angels and all men are demons. On the flip side, I've known men to complain about women being high maintenance, flighty, irrational, and downright crazy at times.

I think something interesting to consider is when men and women find it easier to befriend the opposite sex than their own.

Let's face it, none of us can be to blame for the characteristics we are born with - it's what we do with them for better or worse. We have no control over our natal sex, nor our natal brain conditioning, nor (in the absence of interference) our hormonal conditioning, nor even to a large extent our cultural and environmental conditioning, nor even to the information available to us at important stages in our development. I've always felt that people are people regardless of gender, and that my real friendships are also regardless, but -oh- so important.

What's good about a man is what's good about that person. And all of us can be mean at times, and probably it's our masculinity or femininity that's as often a cause of that as any thing else. And both masculine and feminine traits can be both virtues and vices, with the balance being influenced by the society in which we move. It does seem to me that masculinity is currently somewhat devalued, but that is the swing of the pendulum.