I think a lot of friendship groups maintain themselves around the stereotype that females are easily impressed by compliments and special-snowflake-isms, whereas males are easily impressed by mothering and free entertainment. I was part of one such group, and didn't even realise it for a long time, because we were the "alternative" crowd, and because on some level it was working on me. We didn't seem like a sexist group, but the girls were all both "nursie" on messy nights out until it came our turn to be the fucked up one at which point certain boys would whisper insincere nothings as we leaned over the toilet bowl. The guys showered only if they could be bothered, but we spent an hour on makeup to go cry in the corner of a pub, secretly hating each other and resenting the boys. I was given the "one of the guys" compliments and compared favourably to other girls behind their backs without ever saying I wanted to hear it. Because I didn't fish for compliments but DID fish for connections, I felt that their approval was genuine. I bought the drinks. I did want girls to like me, but there was usually only one other and I always somehow sensed that she didn't want me there no matter what she said. Before I cut the group off, I and the other girl admitted that to each other, but it made things worse.
I knew males who carried on exactly the same, my male best friend being one of them, but the other guys could more easily see the desperacy in a male and would ridicule them to their faces. Those guys kept showing up and kept pitching in while others would take advantage. Some supplied alcohol to minors and/or became low-level dealers. My friend simply became an alcoholic and tried to imitate the more confident males, but actually just pissed them off because he was demanding free rides and not supplying them anymore (partly because his parents had banned visitors and their place used to be our den). In the same way, groups of girls could always tell that I didn't fit in and had mocked me in person for years before that, but of course all of the people concerned were teenagers, and I should never have based any expectations around them. I had one female best friend who I met online. She felt that the girls on offer where she lived were equally tiresome but continued to indulge them most of the time while dating guys who were older but certainly no more mature than the ones I was friends with. We both came from small towns painfully lacking in diversity, where most people worth knowing had either disappeared off the radar to study, work, or continue mixing with friends they made years ago. Because we failed to muddle along and suspend our inner Darias, we were left in a permanent high school environment, and thanks to this experience I can see WHY some people arrive at the unhealthy conclusion that they are somehow superior and genuinely valued when neither is true.
Looking at the "gay best friend" stereotype of the 90s, it's so obvious: people who don't fit in with the suggested group will veer towards another that they are more successful at pandering to, whether they have much in common or not, and even if they have to give their soul for a bit of company. To avoid terms such as "well adjusted", what we see is a social mix because some people pander better to one or two stereotypes while others get along well with most people, and again some brush up the wrong way against almost everyone. Obviously loads of people are not extreme, and there's the wildcard of charisma screwing up dynamics that look good on paper. These are just my observations as part of a group where everyone was at their rawest and most co-dependent because of youth, alcohol and/or drugs, and I think it transfers well to the way advertisers view men and women.
