Let me offer that annoying response, "
You are young. Your perspective may change over the years. When I was your age ...". (1) Your environment will influence your relationships, especially if/when your environment changes. What happens if you were to find yourself in a predominantly male environment e.g. a company with mostly male engineers. (BTW, That's not a statement against a woman's ability to do engineering). (2) Your self-conception may change, and you may open up to men as they mature over time.
When I was 18, as you are now, the majority of my friends were female. It was so extreme that I knew when to carry advil with me to offer when their monthly calendars would peak for symptoms of PMS.
In college, that ratio became more mixed. Now, my friends are predominatly male. At age 31, it's difficult for me to emphathize with the experience of pregnancy, for example. I wish my female friends well, and I understand their experiences, but I can never claim to have quite the same perspective as they do for obvious biological reasons. My work environments have also been heavily saturated with men, so I adjusted.
There may also be a time when you come to admire another man because he possesses the traits that you would like to cultivate within yourself. You indirectly mentioned not having had the best exposure or reference to me growing up in a predominantly female household. You received indirect cues on what
not to be as a man, from a feminist perspective. What
not to be as a man is still not a definition of what to be
pro-actively as a man. In general, you won't discover that around other women; you will only learn that in the company of men.
As a result of competition, men learn not to trust each other. However, the most successful men among their peers are those men who know how to cultivate a sense of trust. Learning how to validate another man's sense of self-worth has been one of the most important life skills/lessons that I've learned in deailng with other men.
I can't small talk with men that easily, it's down to the individual but I tend to find it easier to talk with women, I'm not sure what men do for me exactly, maybe being raised purely by women has made me learn to live without them. I'd be happy enough to be surrounded by women all the time, well untill I get bored or annoyed but even then I only need my own space and not another man. Try telling me what I'd be missing out on exactly?
