Reddit is filled with threads of women complaining about men pretending to be their friends just in order to get close to them and try to have sex. And I have no problem with that, it's a reasonable thing to be upset about, but these posts are a lot of times accompanied by laments that they don't have any male friends, that they want male friendship.

That's the part that to me just seems utterly absurd. What exactly are women thinking when they say that? I, for one, have never heard any man in my life ever say that they want some female friends. Maybe we're wrong on that, but still, the idea of seeking out or desiring a specific type of friendship is just ridiculous.

A friend is an individual that you meet and you spontaneously come to like one another. A woman saying she needs some male friends in her life is no different than someone saying "man, I really need to make some Asian friends." If you incidentally meet a cool Asian person, great, but to search for a specific type of person because of what they might be able to contribute to your life is weird, to say the least. If a "different" person comes along you should be open to them and the experiences they could bring, but to say to yourself "I could really use a white/disabled/older/whatever friend in my life" isn't the right way to go about it.