Making platonic friends with the opposite sex at work

It feels impossible to make genuine friends at my new job

I’m 27M, and I’m a gym teacher. I recently started work at a very small (read: less than 30 staff, less than 80 kids) private school specialized for children with disabilities. So far it has been really cool, and I love working with these kids. Pay ain’t great, but it’s rewarding to feel like I’m being a positive influence and making an impact on these kids’ lives.

However, I’m the only guy that works there. In the entire building, all of my coworkers are women. I don’t have a problem with working for a woman boss or with female coworkers at all, and I don’t have a problem with having purely platonic female friends.

Problem is, it feels like the whole place is a girls’ club sometimes, and even though I try to go out of my way to be outgoing and friendly, and make friends with my coworkers, I kind of always wind up getting socially pushed aside. I try not to be overbearing and invite myself where I’m not wanted, but idk, I feel like I’m not wanted in general around some of my coworkers at all.

My direct supervisor and admin have all been professional and polite and courteous, I don’t have any complaints about them making me feel unwelcome. I don’t even think I can say anything to (our one and only person) HR admin. Even if I could, I’m not the type of person who would go “whine to mommy and daddy because the other kids won’t let me play” to HR. I’d rather solve the problem myself without admin intervention.

I have friends outside of work, (even female friends from college and church and stuff) it’s not like I’m some kind of social pariah, and I have a really nice relationship with my girlfriend, so it’s not like I’m starved of female attention. I have a good relationship with my mother and with my aunts and girl cousins also, so it’s not like I don’t respect women or am some kind of raging misogynist or whatever.

But it would be nice to have some work friends too. Work is always better with buds, even if you maintain a healthy professional detachment.

Idk, I just want to not eat lunch alone every day , and do well socially in the place I spend more than half of my waking hours haha.

(Reddit mobile won’t let me add this to the first paragraph but I’ve been at the school since August of 2024, this is my second semester here)