Nice nod to the Fab 4...
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You forgot to include your enjoyment of and appreciation for watches, which is another male-dominant hobby/past time. I too am guilty of inferring you were male - NOT because of anything you said or discussed - but simply because of the high proportion of males on here. Having said that, I had also been of the opinion (before knowing you were female) that you were clearly in touch with your "feminine side", as you would often go into much richer detail on how things looked, tasted, smelled, etc. then most men. In addition, you also seem to be very relationship-oriented, which is another more-typical feminine trait. When I finally discovered you were female (due to I think another discussion similar to this) I remember thinking "now it all makes sense!".
Sorry for over-analysis of something that really should not matter at all.
To be honest, I am surprised that this should be something considered of relevance, or interest, to anyone.
Actually, - and this is ironical - and is even odder that men are so determined to try to put people into neat little boxes, and seek to try to define them thus, and feel unable to communicate unless the boxes are ticked. Candidly, most of the time, I am massively uninterested in people - I wish them well in a benignly indifferent manner, but have no real interest in interacting with the vast majority of them, except in a professional context; give me a book, instead.
Re relationships, it is just that on this site, some completely clueless individuals need to have things explained to them in language that might get through to their thick skulls. And, it is nice to have a platform to articulate some stuff I have come to realise (even if belatedly) I have come to believe in.
More to the point, I have been struck by the fact that the curse of 'mansplaining' - men thinking themselves expert in areas they are not - often extends to some ludicrous attitudes concerning women, women's role, and relationships; some of my interventions have been prompted by an exasperated need to put them right, rather than allowing them to carry on sailing through life, freighted by their own wilful and blissful ignorance, and completely certain in the utter strength of their cluelessness.
So, to be honest, I am not all that relationship orientated at all in my 'real' life; when I am working, my dedication to that is total. When I meet people in 'real life', we tend to talk about history, or politics, - or alcohol, or food or travel or whatever - and I am unusually disinterested in, and repelled by, small talk, and the myriad details of others' relationships. Moreover, I am allergic to babies, (although I do like cats and dogs) and wedding talk, and fashion, and celebrity nonsense bores me to tears.
However, I do like history, politics, theatre, books, reading, music, writing, travel, photography, facts (which is why I loved science at school, and seriously contemplated a career in it, to be advised that - as a female - a career as a research scientist or academic would be almost impossible to achieve), food, (both the preparation and the eating), and a great many other things, some of which - wonderfully - we get to discuss in various fora here. (Where else could I discuss Star Trek which I have loved since childhood?)
As for watches, I think the male obsession possibly derives from a mixture of questions arising from the extraordinary mechanical advances in watchmaking - how can you physically craft something which tries to measure time? - along with broader philosophical questions - how can you measure time, which is something I have always found fascinating, added to the fact that watches are considered to be one of the few forms of adornment, or jewellery, that society considers it appropriate for men to wear. My own watch is an Omega Deville, which I have had for seven years; it looks like the watches from the 50s, and 60s, and is plain, elegant and classic in appearance.
I suppose that, in some ways, I see this site as a way to discuss stuff I never - or hardly ever - discuss in the rest of my life. It allows an exploration - not just of the online world, and a community within that - (this is the first online community I had ever joined - for, I joined MR years before I joined LinkedIn or Twitter; besides, I am a lot more restrained on both Twitter and LinkedIn, as I appear there under my own name,) but also, I suppose, of discussions of stuff that I would not normally discuss, or make much time for.
Mind you, when abroad, - and my working environment tends to be exceptionally male - it is funny: I rarely, if ever, discuss my personal life, - not when I am abroad - but male colleagues (usually over a late fourth beer) will insist on discussing theirs with me. However, sometimes, good friendships have developed out of that; most of the friends that I have made over the past 20 years have been male, and have come about from my international work, not the academic world, which is not something I would have expected when I started working in that world.
