Submitted 9 months ago by u202307011927@feddit.de to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
What’s the matter, why can’t men deal with me being sensitive and emotional? Is it because they struggle with me reminding them of having, too, emotions?
Plenty of men can deal with this, and plenty of women can’t. It’s not helpful to see this as a gender thing, you’ll only feel more alienated. You might want to seek out some new social connections?
Ignoring strong correlations because “not all” is less helpful.
Most men, in western society, have issues with expressing emotions other than anger. I’m certain I could find studies as proof, but don’t we all already know this to be true?
You missed my point. I’m ignoring nothing, I’m suggesting OP seek out men who will be supportive, because they’re not hard to find.
I’m certain I could find studies as proof, but don’t we all already know this to be true?
Loaded question. Full of judgement, too.
Fair enough, it’s a subjective perception that I asked about
The answer to your subjective perception question then is… it’s probably reinforced by the people you associate with.
When I was young, most of my friends were girls because the guys were all trying to prove how manly they were. It’s a thing of emotional maturity. The trouble is that many guys don’t emotionally mature until after they’ve left school, and by that point they’re surrounded by other emotionally stunted men in the workplace and unhealthy behaviours are reinforced.
But that’s a stereotype too and depends on what they’re doing in the workforce.
For me, it meant that I have fewer man friends than woman friends, but the relationships are stronger with the ones I do have.
I don’t understand how people are upvoting this comment. Granted, this is online land, but OP made himself vulnerable asking this question which takes …emotional maturity. If you think it’s a loaded question of full of judgment then it’s on you to explain why that is so.
And yeah, it’s a bit loaded and a bit judgy, but it’s also brief and inclusive.
This is what is commonly referred to as “toxic masculinity”. That’s the crux of what they’re talking about. It’s not just that men are taught to be dangerous to those around them, it’s that we’re also taught to be hard and lonely Islands that seek no support.
It’s no way to live and it crushes you over time.
As opposed to masculinity. Look at Gilgamesh, Achelies, even the godfather of stoicism Marcus Arilius. Peak alpha males who never muffled their emotions.
Every (good guy) male character in LoTR, especially Aragorn. All great examples of genuine masculinity.
Toxic patterns get passed on due to resentment, often. It’s not like they wanted to have to suppress their emotions, but they were taught to. The idea people don’t have to anymore itches some people in a weird way.
Like, pretend you joined a club that had an initiation that was really painful, and it happened every year. Tradition. Now imagine that started to change, and you yourself were from that last year that ever had to do it. Now everyone who joins doesn’t have to. That could breed resentment for those new people and that new system, if you let it.
Yeah, I guess that change would confuse the hell out of me …
and I guess I recognize that kind of resentment, like “why/how the hell is him able to be so vulnerable and I not?”
So, it may be that men resent me for my strength?? Tf
It definitely can get weird. All the self-reflection that helps you see it requires some sensitivity too, so never learning that sensitivity can partially prevent you from ever fully acquiring it, dropping those guys into a sort of trap that would be hard for anyone to escape.
I am eternally grateful to Fred Rogers for teaching me many different ways of seeing situations while I was young enough to still believe in him, which helped avoid this trap. Once I got old enough to think for myself, I could look back and choose for myself. I had options to choose from, instead of just my own local culture.
I don’t know your exact experiences, but I had a similar feeling in the past. However, recently I noticed it was a lot of how i behaved to them. I started speaking more openly with my male friends and noticed, they also value my emotions. The main difference was, that my friendships with women started on an emotional level making it a lot easier to open up for me. With my male friends, I needed to just say how i feel, which i have not dared for a long time. My own stereotypes probably played a larger role than the gender of the people involved.
However as others have said, if they do not take you seriously when you open up, they are bad friends.
Then you run into a full-blown narcissist and they will mistake your openness for weakness and start to weaponise it against you. Ask me how I know this.
They wouldn’t be bad friends out of malice though, that’s a bit harsh
Yep. And it's really liberating once you become comfortable plainly sharing your emotions about things with other men. I didn't even realize I was keeping things in until I stopped keeping things in. I think it's helped my relationship with my wife too, just by building better habits around isolating and speaking my emotional reaction to things.
Sounds like you hang out with childish “men” (boys) and emotionally intelligent women.
There have been plenty of times in my life where showing emotions to women was the wrong move. On the other hand, the friend of mine that I consider the most emotionally mature is a man.
Man a lot of people are chalking this up to just the individuals being assholes, but there’s absolutely a societal expectation to men being stoic, and that’s hard to break for a lot of people, even with their closest friends. Men are taught to be driven, active, leaders. It’s what we’ve been conditioned to by society for thousands of years. There’s a growing shift towards men embracing what can be seen as “femininity” in aspects of life, particularly emotionally, but speaking from experience here, it’s still hard to open up to my guy friends. And I have good guy friends who absolutely would listen and support me. Hell, they have.
Toxic masculinity has been brought up here, and kinda shot down, but if you dig deep, that’s what a lot of it is. Note that doesn’t make these people BAD PEOPLE, they’re as much victims of it as you are. There’s no correlation between ‘strength’ and showing emotion. No one, man or woman, is going to look at someone going through it and say ‘ah they she’d a tear! Weakling!’ Hell, if anything, it takes a lot of strength to be emotionally honest. But that feeling is present as a low-level background noise everywhere. Men don’t cry. Get over it you’re a man. She dumped you? She wasn’t that good anyway bro. Nah man, that shit HURTS. This is what toxic masculinity is. Not toxic MEN but toxic STANDARDS, which are perpetuated by both sides.
Obligatory “nOt ALl MeN”
I’m a dude and I’m fine with my guy friends showing emotion. Very few do. We’re socially taught it’s weird, but it’s not.
Get yourself a guy friend you can hug.
Yeah … you’re right 🙈
Past sexual abuse makes it physically icky
Yeah, that’s a concern. But these types of guys typically understand consent, so will respect that.
In my experience, this isn’t a gendered distinction - but rather just down to the individual person.
Some of my closest friends that are both men and women alike are friends I consider “letting my guard down” around. The same applies in the opposite direction, where I have friends (but generally more on the distant friend / acquaintance side) men and women alike that I have to be a bit more guarded around.
And while I can’t comment on this specifically because I of course don’t know you and as such have no frame of reference, from what I’ve experienced in the past and seen others go through, is that a lot of times it’s how you bring it up. If it seems more forceful, it’s going to have a higher chance to not land well with people (of any gender).
Obviously, in any discussion about groups as diverse as men/women, it’s important to recognize that these are sweeping generalizations and that individuals can vary wildly.
It’s not being “sensitive” or “emotional” that most dudes have trouble with.
Most women probably don’t consider it a sign of strength, either. Not the sensitivity or emotionality.
In my experience, most men are focused on something that is happening. A sport or activity, a task, whatever. Your sharing is most likely out of rapport and just isn’t how they want to interact.
I have close male friendships that are very emotionally open, and others where it just doesn’t feel right.
In my experience, women are different. Male/female relationships are already complicated and getting into preferences and other dynamics is pointless. It could be anything.
Assuming you’re attractive/confident/wealthy/etc, there would be many women who would comfort you just to keep you in their orbit.
Assuming you aren’t, there are many women who would comfort you out of a sense of maternal care and empathy.
Assuming you’re usually friendly, funny, safe, etc, women broadly seem to be kinder and more interested in interacting in that emotional space.
Does any of it matter? Probably not. Before insulting all men you know, it might be better to consider that you might just not like to have typical male friends. Just because people don’t like doing what you do, it doesn’t make them dumb.
A lot of my male relationships, we bond while we do things. My female relationships we can just hang out. Don’t know why that is.
I don’t think it’s a man/woman thing. I have been friends with men who were very supportive during such times, and women who saw it as weakness. I’ve also met a lot of women who are turned off by romantic gestures and sentimental feelings coming from men. And of course, I’ve encountered many that were the reverse of these.
So I honestly don’t think gender is a factor here. I think it varies a lot from person to person regardless of gender. It also highly depends on your relationship with that person. Don’t expect a lot of support or empathy from your most casual friends. Some friends will run away from you at the first sign of anything remotely ‘clingy’.
It also highly depends on your relationship with that person. Don’t expect a lot of support or empathy from your most casual friends. Some friends will run away from you at the first sign of anything remotely ‘clingy’.
This is almost certainly part of it. Reality is, most people will only have one or two friendships that are developed enough to be even close to totally vulnerable with. Most people have between 3 to 5 close friends, without much regard for gender.
In the age of social media, friendships seem diluted to me. The vast majority of people you meet, if you come out and dump the mess of your life on them… they’re gonna back away.
It isn’t that they’re unempathetic, either. Maintaining that kind of intimate friendship requires a lot of effort and intentionality; people are going to take a step back because they just don’t have the energy to deal with it and the relationship lacks the frame work of trust and mutual understanding to do more than “gee that sucks. Uhm. Good luck with that.”
That said, it is entirely possible that the culture you find yourself in has dictated all the things that are being said elsewhere here. For a common example, religious congregations that hew to conservative/traditional relationships.
In the age of social media, friendships seem diluted to me.
I agree. People have always been selfish and self-absorbed to varying degrees. But social media acts as an amplifier of that, from what I’ve seen.
It isn’t that they’re unempathetic, either.
Thanks for pointing this out (and your other good points). It’s not reasonable to expect just any random person you know to be a shoulder to cry on.
Unfortunately, I think our modern “pace of life” here in 2023 has diminished the number and quality of those deeper friendships. I think back to my parents in the 70s and 80s, and how they had close friends that they would spend a lot of time talking on the phone with, visiting with in person on a frequent basis, writing letters and postcards to, etc. Much of that would seem completely absurd to a young person today. People are terrified of talking on the phone, and have forgotten how to do anything but conduct robot-like business on the phone (and they resent doing even that).
In my experience, as a man, this simply doesn’t happen.
Men are rejected by both men and women when they’re emotionally vulnerable.
Source: failed to complete suicide in 2014. Lost 95% of my friends, including ones that were active in an org that supposedly worked to prevent suicide.
Same in my experience
Show emotion, get beat down and ridiculed
I don’t think anyone said anything to me directly; they just ghosted me. I’d almost rather have the verbal and emotional beat down so that you know what’s happening.
I hear you. I’m struggling with my mental health daily since I was 19, decades ago. 0 friends. I didn’t have many before but lost the few I had once I went through a crisis.
Lesson learned: bottle it all up, definitely don’t bring it up in, well, any circumstances at all, and you’re golden. Struggling/weak? Garbage that’s only fit to be disposed of.
And that is today in our very “educated and evolved” West. If things were even worse decades ago I don’t even want to know.
The therapist is basically the safest person to bring it up to
Find the right men. There are 4 billion men out there and many are able to communicate and be there for friends. It may take moving into some peripheral spaces where different experiences and points of view are appreciated.
Those men have issues of their own. We’re often raised to be stoic. Many men are instilled with this idea that crying makes you weak, and that men aren’t supposed to be weak from a young age.
Eh, I hate the phrase toxic masculinity.
Some people are assholes. Men are assholes, and women are assholes. Don’t blame it on their gender.
It’s not the gender being referred to as toxic, rather the societal expectation for men to behave a certain way - tougher, harder, to not show weakness through expressing emotion. Toxic masculinity can come from people of any gender.
The phrase “toxic masculinity” is not blaming anything on anyone’s gender.
“toxic masculinity” isn’t anything to do with a single person. It’s the aspects of us, as a gender-based society, that we see as “masculine” but are really just… toxic. Toxic masculinity is telling your kids to have a stiff upper lip. Toxic masculinity is shoving those emotions down in the ‘man place’ because no one cares but you, bro. Society ain’t got time for a man that can’t stand.
Doing these things, experiencing these things, and being shaped by them doesn’t mean someone themselves is toxic, but that they’ve gotten the TOXIC parts of masculinity mixed up with real masculinity.
There’s toxic femininity, too. Off the top of my head, the culture around appearance is definitely an example. Yes, a lot of that was started, and still gets perpetuated, by men, but there’s a lot of women feeding into that as well. Masculinity just tends to be overpowering, in many ways, and so toxic masculinity is easier to see and be pissed at than toxic femininity.
Pretty much that.
Because on the whole, boys are never taught to deal with emotions but anger. All others must be suppressed lest you look weak...
To listen to another man express painful emotions means they may have to acknowledge that they are mot masters of the universe and perfect, stoic gods in every way and in every aspect of their lives.
It takes real courage to allow yourself to be emotionally vulnerable around others and the vast majority of man are never able to to this with anyone but their partners (and will never admit that that they have) and most not even then.
To listen to another man express painful emotions means they may have to acknowledge that they are not masters of the universe and perfect, stoic gods in every way and in every aspect of their lives.
This is really helpful to hear
Glad to hear it helped.
These mags may also be helpful for you.
Seriously, if you ever need another man to speak to and can't find one in your circle, send me a PM. I will listen and I will respond.
None of us are perfect, none of us have all the answers and none of us have control over this random, erratic world we live in.
I agree that socialization is a big part of this tendency, as other commenters are saying. However, having experienced living with a testosterone dominant body and an estrogen dominant body, I’ve found that it was much harder for me to process other people’s emotions on T. While I would care about people and what they were expressing, I often would feel overloaded by strong emotions. On E I don’t notice that as much, and have a lot more patience and capacity to emotionally engage with others.
I’m sure this stuff varies a lot from person to person, and there isn’t one single factor that determines how men and women would typically behave. But in my own life there’s a pretty big hormonal component to this
Men can’t feel. We aren’t allowed to have emotions unless those emotions are sports, trucks or steak. If we’re not on that grind set, making money while we sleep then our dreams of owning sports car will never come true. Without sports car how can we get a trad-wife to give birth to our next men?
I once heard a guy say “Men have two emotions: hunger and anger.”
Damn that’s good. And sad.
Yes, I think so. It’s been my experience that when you show a vulnerability or do something that causes people to confront a hidden little part of themselves, people who can’t deal with their repressed emotions around that thing tend to get resentful and sometimes react in really immature ways. Internally, they might think things like “You’re CRYING? But I don’t feel like I get to cry! I never get a chance to show my emotions! Why should YOU?” And then externally, what comes out of their mouth is wild shit like “pull yourself together” or “man up”. This also happens with other modes of self expression but I think in terms of emotion and masculinity it is particularly awful. Women are more likely to have experienced the harmful effects of strict gender roles, and generally want to make sure men feel supported in the face of that, because it (patriarchy) hurts us all.
Women are also often socialized to know how to react and how to help when people get upset, which can lead to some bleakly unfair family situations, but in contrast to men who might not have that skill set or that lifetime of practice with those types of social situations, they’re going to respond very differently. It is absolutely a skill to be able to cope with others’ feelings, and that skill is not taught to children evenly.
Grown ups try to control who they reveal particular emotions to.
Generally, individuals of any gender would only reveal their sensitive side to very very close friends.
If someone doesn’t respond well to your display of emotion, you may have misread your relationship with them.
Yes
I think one take might be that the cause might be based out of a fear of being perceived as being gay. I mean you have generations of men who faced everything from hanging, to chemical castration to prison sentences for being gay. Policing expression of things like any sign of physical signs of affection or “womanly” displays of emotional connection put men in physical danger. That generational trauma of emotional amputation for preservation of life doesn’t go away in a day.
Internally a lot of guys still have their guards up because that was the model of behaviour their fathers and male community members have because their Dads were like that so even if the underlying cause isn’t known the behaviour seems more “normal”. It’s what the people you saw as grown ups did and what they trained you to emulate to be like them. Under those circumstances everything else becomes the deviation because it feels counter to what you were taught or are mirroring. Fighting that feeling of oddness requires an act of conscious will. A lot of people still look at being gay or femme is a failure state. A weakness of moral character… because it is a rejection of internalized homophobia and misogyny and rejecting the notion that these things are deviant is seen as an endorsement. Compulsory straightness was and is a pretty facist system and all facist systems require a “failure state” to demonize. You don’t want to be the target of violence so you enact the violence asked of you to prove you aren’t one of the failures.
These systems self perpetuate by default.
Women don’t run away from their emotions, like men are taught to do.
Sure they do. Women who can’t hold unto a relationship usually can’t handle the emotional responsibility of commitment. But we like to call them sluts because it’s easier both for us and for them.
Well as you grow older you’ll meet more women and understand the ones you described are in the minority.
Is it possible this is just insecurity? This post reeks of it.
This largely depends on the individual people around you and the culture of your area. There are large swaths of the US where avoiding the perception of vulnerability or toxic masculinity are the norm among men. I live in bigger city where these absolutely still exist but are much less common.
I know for a fact people can grow in this regard though, so my advice is to keep being your authentic self. This will have you modeling what emotional security looks like for those who don’t have it, and will also help you cultivate like-minded people around you
I only want to deal with some of men’s emotions. Sometimes I wanna hang out people for fun and not as their therapist. I find women a lot more gentle to receive that stuff too. There’s a lot of psychology involved.
What emotions are we talking about?
Men don’t talk face to face; they talk shoulder to shoulder. Not sure why you expect everyone else to “confront their feelings” with you.
I’m honest, I don’t understand that analogy.
SharkEatingBreakfast@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Men are often socialized to believe that showing emotion is reserved for children, women, and the weak. They are often taught that emotions are in direct opposition to “strength” and “manliness”.
Unfortunately, if men show emotion, they are often criticized and made fun of (often by other men), calling their masculinity into question. As if having emotions make you weak or less of a man.
Emotions are not a “weak” trait. Emotions are a human trait.
Men need to work hard to be supportive and accepting of other men showing emotion. De- stigmatize emotional men. Stop showing sensitive men or men who struggle or cry as “weak” or worthy of mockery. This is such an antiquated view and needs to be abolished.
Support your bros. Become comfortable with emotional expression. This will help struggling men everywhere, I guarantee it.
Saraphim@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Men show emotions all the time. The problem is that the only “acceptable” emotion is anger or resentment. People if any gender validate other peoples feelings based on their own experiences. Because women’s emotions are invalidated as weak or useless, women tend to be more sympathetic to others who experience that same invalidation.
SharkEatingBreakfast@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
That’s my point: anger is an “acceptable” emotion for men, because it often coincides with the masculine concept of strength.
The “weak” emotions, though, are not acceptable.
Which is why OP feels they are more openly able to show these emotions to women but not men.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
“Did Jesus ever cry? No! And neither will I!”
u202307011927@feddit.de 9 months ago
John 11:3:5
Jesus wept.lars@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“But Daaaaad, I thought you were gonna save Me,” He cried. B&S 4:20:69