A good number of times I've linked this to female friends when they started doing that. Many stopped coming to me with these complaints, but a portion acknowledged what they were doing, and turned out to be great friends who can call each other out on stuff and still get along. These are the ones I hang out with.

Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary on how your own friends will react.

It really is true that there are times when women and men look at a situation from completely different vantage points. I learned this hard truth when I was a young and student teaching in a high school. I was helping a student when a boy two seats in front of us asked another boy “What do you think of the new teacher?” There was no doubt that I was the new teacher. My cooperating teacher (who was a man) looked up from his desk because he too overheard the question. “I’d like to cream all over her face,” the boy replied. I wanted to die right then and there. I ran from the room and burst into tears. My cooperating teacher followed me into the hall. “He didn’t realize you were behind him,” he told me. “I don’t care!” I snapped back, now furious that I had been humiliated. “That is so disrespectful! He should be written up for that!” The cooperating teacher said “I don’t think that is the way to handle this. He didn’t mean any harm.” Incredulous, I shook my head, and stared at him for a minute. “I just don’t understand what I did that made him hate me enough to cream all over my face,” I finally said. After he stared back at me, now incredulous himself, he explained to me that the boys comment was a compliment and that he found me sexually appealing. I wanted to die once again for being so dense, but at least I was no longer humiliated. I will say that after that incident those two boys treated with me with the greatest respect. I will credit that to the cooperating teacher who most likely explained my vantage point to them.