Thursday, July 02, 2009

Introspection: Girl Friends (not Girlfriends)

I've been thinking about college a lot of lately, in part because I've recently re-connected with someone I knew at Rice. I'm reminded that, although my closest 2 or 3 friends were guys, most of my "second-tier" friends and many of my friendly acquaintances were girls. What makes this fact especially interesting---to me, at least---is that I was quite intimidated by women throughout college.

In grad school at Georgia Tech, and during my postdoc at NRL, the population of my peers was predominantly males, so it's difficult to draw any conclusions from my time at those institutions.

At my current workplace, there are decent numbers of both males and females. The men certainly outnumber the women, though, especially on the projects I'm involved with. Still, most of my work friends are women. Meanwhile, I long ago got over any intimidation I once felt, which may be a result of my relationship with Alison; I'm not on the lookout for a romantic relationship.

I can't help but wonder what this gender distribution of my friendships says about me, if anything.

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