Why socialising is easier with the opposite gender

I was once told that I would effortlessly fit into university, simply because I like talking about guys and dressing up. It is probably blatantly untrue. I've never fit in anywhere, and trying to only makes it worse. Sure, I always manage to settle into a clique of sorts after an extended period of time when people decide that I am likable enough, but that doesn't count as fitting in.

It's just that it's so much easier to socialise with guys than with girls. Females are so much more critical of other females. When interacting with new females, there's a very delicate balance to strike. On one hand, you want to impress, yet you don't want to suck up. You want to be interesting enough to be differentiated from the others, yet you don't want to be too weird, too different. It's that balance between conformity and uniqueness that needs to be found.

With guys, conversational slip-ups either go unnoticed or noticed but ignored. Remarks of an insecure nature can simply be brushed off as endearing, whereas insecure remarks made to a fellow female are not endearing at all, but merely weak points for attack. Furthermore, there's always that underlying sexual magnetism that is present in any male-female interaction. More often than not, it tends to obfuscate any social awkwardness present, by turning that social awkwardness into something appealing, something endearing, something that makes you go "aww".

Perhaps that's why socialising is easier with the opposite gender: a remark which would have been typically interpreted as socially awkward could be interpreted as mildly flirtatious or endearingly childlike. If I was uncomfortable at a party, and I voiced it out loud to a guy, it may incite both interpretations. He could volunteer for us to leave the place together, which would have fulfilled both interpretations: we would be alone, and he would be my sole protector. Whereas if I told a female that "man, the people here are weird", she could either dismiss me or deny her genuine sentiments that coincide with mine, because she doesn't want to be a misfit like I am. If I was shy and unnecessarily quiet, guys wouldn't even notice it. There's not much judging going on. On the other hand, girls might think I was being standoffish, or just plain boring.

Unfortunately, that sexual tension, the tendency to interpret socially awkward remarks as flirtatious doesn't quite exist with female-female relationships. Still, I'm not saying that guys don't judge, or always think that tongue-tied girls are cute, or that the sexual tension is always evident. Sometimes it is deliberately ignored to give things a more business-like approach, more platonic, if that is possible. I'm just saying that girls generally are harder to get along with, that's all.

I don't think I've ever felt more like a third wheel, a light bulb, a gooseberry, the painted feet on a picture of a snake; have never felt so superfluous.

I just thought of the origins of the phrase "dian deng pao", which means to be a third party. I'm not sure if my idea was original, or I just dug it up from the recesses from my mind. Basically I was thinking of how there used to be hanging bulbs at every table in the past. And that might have gotten in the way of any cross-table pecks, or something. Just a thought.

Well, it was an interesting experience. I just wish I always knew what to do.