Playing With / One of the Girls

Basic Trope: A male character who prefers to socialize with female characters.

• Straight: Bob has more female friends than male friends. (He may or may not be In Touch with His Feminine Side.)
• Exaggerated:
  • Bob worships womanliness. He not only hangs around only women, but only hangs around women who are as girly as him, or he even constantly preaches womanhood and LGBT rights too.
  • Bob is One of the Girls, and he discovers that each boyfriend he makes is also One of the Girls.
  • The Geodesic Cast consists entirely of female teams with each The One Sensitive Guy.
• Downplayed:
  • Two Girls and a Guy
  • Bob hangs out with other guys sometimes, but still prefers to go with the girls.
  • While Bob has more female friends than male friends, he doesn't really have a feminine side and/or all of those girls in question are Tomboys.
• Justified:
  • Bob has issues making male friends no matter how much he genuinely tries to fit in with them.
  • Bob's female friends have more in common with his feminine interests than all the men in the series do.
  • Bob is a transgender man, but just because his gender has changed, doesn't mean his personality and taste in friends has too.
• Inverted: Bob hates women.
• Gender Inverted: Alice has more male friends than female friends. Alice is "One of the Boys".
• Subverted:
  • Bob hangs out with girls all the time, but then it's revealed that these girls are all his sisters making sure no girl gets too friendly with him.
  • Bonnie is a trans woman who hadn't transitioned yet at the start of the series.
  • Bonnie is pulling a Sweet Polly Oliver but feels she would be more convincing as a feminine guy than as a manly man.
• Double Subverted:
  • Whenever he gives them the slip, he hangs out with his girl-friends.
  • And later "Bonnie" comes out as a transgender man.
• Parodied:
  • Bob looks and acts so much like one of his female friends that everyone is surprised to learn that he's a guy.
  • Bob spends so much time with girls that he has grown long hair and has a gynoid hip like them.
• Zig Zagged: Bob has more female friends than male...but his best friend is a guy... who is also One of the Girls.
• Averted:
  • Bob's gender never comes up.
  • Bob has few female friends, or no female friends.
  • Bob has no friends, period.
• Enforced:
  • "We need a believable circle of friends for our sensitive guy."
  • "We need a guy in this series, but he shouldn't be masculine because our target audience is little girls".
• Lampshaded:
  • "And these are my friends...Bob, too."
    • "What's that mean? Just cause he's not a girl doesn't mean he's not one of my friends."
• Invoked: Bob, tired of Testosterone Poisoning, starts spending more time with Alice.
• Exploited:
  • Alice wants a boyfriend who can handle her, ahem, social graces.
  • Bob actually doesn't like any of the things Alice and her friends like, but he's trying to cozy up to Alice.
• Defied: Bob decides that he wants bonding with other men who understand his feelings better, and decides to give his male friends another chance.
• Discussed: "Don't you think Bob is too much of a feminine- I mean...he doesn't have any male friends."
• Conversed: "Isn't it weird that almost all the characters are female except Alex?" "Alex is a boy!?"
• Deconstructed:
  • The girls may resent Bob encroaching on their female-bonding time; now they have to class it up more than perhaps they want to (or so they think.)
  • One of the girls may have feelings for Bob but Cannot Spit It Out because they spend all their time rough housing. Alternatively, Bob has feelings for one of them but she sees him as one of her friends, not as boyfriend material.
• Reconstructed:
  • Bob accepts his female friends and their conversations. He also doesn't "cling" to them. In turn, they don't resent him, even enjoying his company...and his advice on how to relate to men better if he has any.
  • Everyone knows where they stand with Bob relationship wise.
• Played For Laughs:
  • Bob's friends forget that he's a guy on a regular basis.
• Played For Drama: Alice falls in love with Bob, but he is Oblivious to Love. (Or vice versa.)
  • Bob's parents think he should act more like a true man, causing friction between him and them.
• Implied: The friendship dynamics aren't explored in detail, but Bob has mainly female friends.

---

Back to One of the Girls

---