British Men Relationship Customs/Other men

 I am curious to hear from the other women on this forum who are in long-term relationships with British men. From the get-go, my partner has mentioned that Americans are much more lax as far as having male female friendships. Is this typical for British men? In the UK, Is it not the norm for men and women to have friendships outside of the marriage or to spend time one-on-one with the opposite sex without their partner?

my partner has mentioned that Americans are much more lax as far as having male female friendships.

Interesting. Could it be said that there is a difference (broadly speaking) in how we view friendships in general? 

I ask this as we quite often have posters who comment that they find it harder to make friends here in the UK.

I can't say it's been something I've noticed with my husband and I.

He's definitely a "guy's guy" and mostly has male friends.  I'm definitely a "girl's girl" and mostly have female friends.  However, I work in a very male dominated industry (he does as well), so my work colleagues and friends are usually male.  We do dinner/after work drinks, etc., and he's never had an issue with it.  He has had women at work make him treats (he's gluten-free).

My guess that this is more of an individual thing versus a cultural thing (as I know Americans who are not comfortable with their partner having friends of the opposite sex).  But I'm certainly no expert.

This is just anecdotal experience, but my husband has a group of friends that he's known since high school. They seem to readily accept single men into their group (DH has introduced a few workmates and they are instantly invited to everything) but I have yet to see any single women be invited into their clique. Maybe it's just women who are more likely to post about these things, but I feel like we hear about women having a hard time making friends a lot more frequently than men.

I've noticed that whenever we have a get together there is a pretty clear split along gender lines with the men going off together and vice versa. In fact there are two people in the group who used to date in high school. They broke up 10 years ago and both found new partners shortly after. They are now both engaged to these partners. All these years later the "original" girls (yes this is how they refer to themselves) are still pretty awful to the woman the male member of the group ended up dating. She is frequently accused of "flirting" with the men because she hangs out with them during group activities rather than with the women who snub her. It's all very odd and unnecessarily petty to me. But this could be more of a small town thing than an English thing.

Great input. Thank you!

Ha, last night I spied a male co-worker (who is in a long term relationship) out with another female co-worker at a nice pub, out for drinks and dinner. Ashamed to say I immediate thought there was an affair going on there.  Then I was of course, yelling at myself that of course people can go out as friends.  Ooops. I felt bad.   

Ha, last night I spied a male co-worker (who is in a long term relationship) out with another female co-worker at a nice pub, out for drinks and dinner. Ashamed to say I immediate thought there was an affair going on there.  Then I was of course, yelling at myself that of course people can go out as friends.  Ooops. I felt bad.   

You should of gone over to them...."Hey guys!"

should of

You've been here too long! 

You should of gone over to them...."Hey guys!"

I did.   
No red faces or squeals of embarrassment, so I realised they were definitely out as friends. 

I did.   
No red faces or squeals of embarrassment, so I realised they were definitely out as friends.

I saw two people out from work many years ago, back in the US.  She was single, he was not.  It was VERY obvious when he spotted me that he was up to no good!  White as a ghost!!

You've been here too long! 

'Tis true...I'm leaking grammar like a sieve....and I don't think it's Britain causing it. I never know anymore where to put commas in relation to quotation marks (round brackets)....inside? Outside?

I've gotten to where I just stick a hyphen in whenever I can't figure out if a word is compound or not....man-cave..at-risk...free-fall...

Subject-verb agreement can be like a mind-puzzler now...

I've noticed that whenever we have a get together there is a pretty clear split along gender lines with the men going off together and vice versa.

Anecdotally I've found this to be true too at gatherings. The women stay and chat in one area and the guys go off to another, for at least part of the night.

That's not to say a woman can't join the guys if she wants to. (I certainly do.) But there is definitely a man's man culture that still exists (the pub, etc.)

I'm not sure about British men having female friends. All of my DH's friends back home are guys. The only women are significant others. But, he has lots of brothers and he is a guys' guy, so that might be part of it.

British husband has several close female friends in the UK, some were even ex girlfriends, and my experience in the US (or my little corner of it) was that that is unusual and it was quite something for me to adjust to. Great friends to me as well now for whatever that's worth. 

My English husband has many female friends too. A couple of them are from work, but mostly they're from his high school and sixth form days. One of his friends is an ex girlfriend too. They were on again/off again for a long time, starting as teens. I too found this weird at first, but then met her and realized she was just like any other female friend of his. We even went to her wedding last year.