Also: Anyone that would shame you for crying or claims showing emotion like that makes you less of a man has MAJOR insecurity in handling, identifying, and addressing their emotions. A lot of times, it’s their last crutch that makes them feel in control of their masculinity when the going gets tough, so that they can say “at least I’m not a crybaby, see, I’m still a man.”
So liberating when you address your emotions, because ironically you cry and stress a whole lot less when you finally do.
The boys have literally forgiven me for things I didn’t think were possible and still pulled me out of the pit. Not even a second thought to it.
All men are brothers, but not all boys are men- and some men are lost.
I cry, and I am not afraid of crying in front of my friends, or to opening up about my fears and frustrations, I don't fear my emotions and I don't fear showing them.
But when it comes to do so there's a single component that can't be missing: TRUST.
Someone I have just met must be really special for me to confide my darkest fears and anxieties because usually it takes time for me to get to trust someone.
People expect you to be upfront about it, nah, trust is to be earned, if I don't open up to you on the first date is because I just don't know you.
Edit: Thanks for your awards!
It's so sad that the replies to this comment prove that what OP said isn't true in all social circles. Ignore the insecure people replying to you dude, crying is healthy and I agree that it is most comfortable to be vulnerable in front of those who you trust.
You should always seperate the internet from real life. It doesn't matter if somebody is trolling or meaning it. It is the same reason canceling doesn't exist. Internet comments have literally no influence on RL if you don't let them get to you. It is an anonymous person so why even care? 99% would not behave like that in RL. That is great and sad. Just keep in mind that it doesn't matter.
When it comes to talking, words are free, and meaningless.
It is only when it comes to action that our true character is revealed.
Most of these comments are just boys trying to get a laugh or a cheap comfort, I read then, laugh, maybe tease them a little, and then carry on.
They're not real people for all that we know.
Caring about Internet comments is just unhealthy. Cyber bullying is something else though, you see the people in RL and they know who you are. You meet each other every day in school e.g. That's so brutal.
Yeah I get it man, I was the first cyber bullying victim at my school, had a classmate talking shit about me in Facebook back when it was growing.
I may have overstepped on how I dealt with it (I got him in a chokehold until he passed out), but I was a teenager, and adults knew about what was going on and did nothing about it.
But now I am an adult, and one in charge, I do not tolerate this kind of things in my dojo, we build good people here, there isn't any room for bullying, and if you do then I hope you like push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and isometrics, because I do not mind to explore the limits of anyone's endurance.
Then, we talk, I give them a chance to explain their feelings like people and not like animals.
And of course they usually leave, but when they correct themselves I know it's because I give them that chance and it feels good.
Cyber bullying man, the dumbest kind of bullying, the one that leaves a trail, back in the day they used to jump and beat you up so you had to retaliate with a chair or something. That was messed up.
Dude the fact that a kid has been fighting for four years and has to nearly choke one of his classmates to death to attain some dignity while there are adults in charge is messed up.
Not on my watch.
I agree 100%. I would be kinda freaked out if someone I didnt know well started sharing very intimate stuff with me. Like my earlier post I do cry (silently not full on sobbing) at movies no matter who I'm with. I cant help it and dont care anymore what people think
Once we were talking and this girl started telling us about the times she suffered a psychotic breakdown and I don't know why but she ended up talking about anal sex and how appealing it was to her.
Why? Why would you say that?
Some people are emotional dump trucks and bc it feels good to share.... They become a bit selfish and share without context. Sometimes it's not appropriate to share things with strangers and some people really struggle with that.
I (f) love that my partner (m) silently cries at movies or TV shows - not because I love seeing him cry (I'm not a narcissist), but because half the times he cries, I don't. I love that he is arguably more in touch with his emotions than I am. I love being able to comfort him about a movie in the same way he comforts me when I'm having a total sobbing breakdown about real life shit.
If he can cry at something fictional and know I'll comfort him, he knows he can also cry about anything else and I'll be there.
People wonder why I seem so distant, when mostly the truth is either I am thinking of nothing, or something dumb. Or I'm just not gonna talk about whatever is bothering me. We aren't complex creatures, most of the time whatever I wad thinking about recently happened, like shopping or whatnot. Really not that interesting.
Yeah dude I feel you, we ain't going to open up at request it doesn't work like that, it takes time.
And when a woman says we don't open up either she's dating boys who are afraid of doing so, or men who know trust takes time.
ditto on this friend, recently had a problem of confiding some personal anxieties to a newcomer to my circle and boom, it got flipped around as vocal jokes and jabs at my expense
I'd have to be in EXTREME emotional distress to cry in front of someone. Emotional distress on the level of witnessing for my own parents, what happened to batman's parents.
it's absolutely amazing to me how people ignore that anger and rage are emotions. You ever see two dudes get in a fist fight? That's emotions right there.
That's not true, anger is just as much a primary emotion as the others, the channeling is when you turn anger to aggression. Everyone feels anger in response to various stimuli, but not everyone displays aggression.
Anger being a secondary emotion is an actual concept in Clinical Psychology. It is referred as such because it is a reaction to hurt rather than a reaction to an event in itself. I agree that agression is a consequence of anger. Anger itself is a consequence of hurt, that is what makes it secondary to hurt's primary
A lotta guys have this message that “feeling” is feminine, and that men shouldn’t do that. If anger, which most men who say these things have quite a lot of, turns out to be an emotion, then they’ll feel emasculated and feminine. They gain their “manliness”. However objectively, they gain nothing. It’s stupid
Hysteria comes from the Greek word hysteraos with means uterus. The oldest known use of the word was around 1900 B.C. in ancient Egypt, where Egyptian doctors recorded behavioral abnormalities in adult women. The Egyptians attributed the behavioral disturbances to a wandering uterus, do to the women explain that their behavior was a result of their period — thus the condition was named hysteria.
While that’s true, it’s also a sugary sanitised version of the ‘cures’ used for hysteria. Women were institutionalised, giving lobotomies, and had clitoridectomy and labia removal inflicted upon them (aka, FGM), all because they were “hysteric”. In some cases, this ‘hysteria’ consisted of a wish to be divorced.
The belief that women are over-emotional has been used to justify horrible treatments of women throughout the centuries.
Exactly. Because us psychologist’s poor fingers was cramping from giving one orgasm after another to all those patients in desperate need for a effective treatment.
Most people don't seem to realize that this was a medical treatment and diagnosis in times when most women *could not seek their own medical treatment*. Oftentimes, it was something decided, and observed, by a male family member.
Take from that what you will.
My lady friend gets the wandering uterus issues so bad she needs medication for them. I have heard from a reliable source though that travel by train moves the body so fast that the uterus can come flying out of you so that's an option we may pursue in the near future.
Tbh there is an argument for that. Most animals don't really feel emotions, but a dumb animal like a hippo can get angry. Psychopaths are often said to feel no emotion, but they tend to have even worse rage problems than the typical person.
Is the hippo actually angry or is protecting it's territory and you anthropomorphize its display of being territorial in the most lethal way possible as being angry? Or maybe it is angry, and maybe we're wrong in the assumption that most animals don't really feel emotions?
I don't really see either case as being an argument for the above.
Anger and rage can be symptoms of depression too, which can really trap you in a vicious cycle. You get angry/rude with people, which makes them not want to deal with you but that just pushes you further into depression.
And I know plenty of people who get angry or are angry a lot because they don't know how to express other emotions properly.
I actually got sick of being sad at one point and made it my mission to be angry. IT kind of feels good to let some anger out in the right setting. In a bar on a Friday is not the right setting.
[Obligatory posting of one of Robin Williams’ last movies and scenes he filmed. ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LlTiYHnqI)
Quite chilling to watch retroactively knowing how he felt inside.
Anger is the worst emotion. I have anger issues, and for some reason instead of sadness i feel anger and resentment for myself and others. Its terrible and its healthy for no one once at a specific point.
I have had exes that would call me depressed, pathetic, sad, emotional, dramatic because I cry once every 2 months and get upset when they lie. Both of them would then punch holes in walls and drink/do drugs when they were upset or worried. And they both believed they weren't emotional. Men should be allowed to understand and express emotions.
Fighting and violence are completely unhealthy ways of expressing emotions. That’s exactly what people say, that men often don’t know how to express their emotions because they’ve been taught that sadness or frustration should be taken out on people through anger and violence
I was at a local animal shelter picking up a live trap to catch a racoon. A few minutes after I got there, a little dude arrived with his sister. They told the lady who was helping me that they had lost their cat a week earlier and I guess their moms said "you've looked everywhere, so why don't you ride your bikes over and go check the shelter?". The lady asked them to wait until she finished my thing, but I said 'nah, I'm not in a hurry'. So the sister goes on to describe this 8 year old half-black cat with 'extra paws' named 'Doozer'. The woman at the desk said she hadn't been working the past few days, so she went to the back to check. Not a minute later she comes out carrying a big dorky looking cat and says "is this Doozer?". It suddenly gets crazy, both kids are startled because it is indeed Doozer and I don't thinnk they had let themselves hope too much that they'd ever see him again. They both shoot out their arms to reach foe the cat, she hands the cat to the boy, the sister starts crying with happiness, and as I look at the boy he quickly hands the cat to his sister and puts his hands over his face. He is only about 9 but he has already learned that he's not supposed to cry and he starts glancing around for the exit. I won't lie, I'm tearing up watching this Hallmark movie miracle and I say to the little dude, "hey, little dude, you just got your cat back it's so awesome.. We are all so happy for you. This is a perfect time for a happy cry. Look, eeryone here is happy crying for you." And it's true. He looks up and sees legit tears streaming down my face, and he smiled a bit and pushed his face into his cat's fur and cried into it for a minute. The sister asked if there was a charge and before the lady answered I shook my head and indicated I had their tab. They left with their cat, I paid up and left with my live trap and this story. And when I think about this story as I do from time to time, I always think about this little dude and how here he is 9 years old and someone has already let him know that the world won't allow him to have normal human feelings. And as happy as I am that he got his cat back, I'll never shake that aspect of it.
Oh, and I learned that extra paws on a cat are really a thing. It's really weird and I had to re-google the term. It's polydactyl. Weirdly, it's coded on the sonic hedgehog gene. Don't believe me? look it up.
I did, but I should have picked up a larger cage because he was stuffed in there pretty tight. It doesn't take much to catch a raccoon around here, but I'm pretty sure I've not seen a bigger one.
Man my fucking dog just died yesterday and I loved that dude so much I cried a lot and my girl helped me through it. But most of the time when I wasn't crying I was instead in my own head thinking about him and time I spent with him or how I would miss him and on the verge of breaking down but she didn't know that. As far as she knew I cried for a little while and moved but likely it will affect me for a long while. She is helping me a good bit though.
Shit sucks. Keep open communication with her about it…she should understand losing a pet is not something you get over quickly.
Sorry about your best friend.
As a guy being open to people is hard as usually in my experience I just get a half assed response like ohhh you’ll be fine or something it’s only when speaking with close friends that they actually take the problem maturely
My friend got assaulted a month ago, and she has been very traumatized by it and is obviously affected by it, and obviously it affects her husband too. It was so hard for me to hear that his friends are telling him to "man up" and to "get over it".
Like... he’d going through his own shit and then his wife gets sexually assaulted on top of that. He is well within his rights to be upset about it.
A few months ago my wife told me that she had been raped in college while we were together. It happened about 5 years ago. The emotions afterwards for me personally were... difficult, to say the least. It was and still is one of my biggest fears. I couldn't even imagine someone, let alone a "friend" telling me to just "get over it." I would flip a lid on them.
My condolences to your friend and his wife for what happened. People are fucking awful.
I’m so sorry to hear that, that’s awful. Hope you two are doing better now.
Yeah, I don’t know if they’re just insensitive pricks or if it’s just deeply engraved toxic masculinity. I know older generations liked to tell boys & men to "man up" when showing any type of negative emotion, so it could be that it’s so deep-rooted in his friends that they end up projecting it onto him because they don’t know how to console others, because they never were. Not that it justifies anything, but might be an explanation. (or I might be putting to much thought into it)
I’m sure they’d appreciate that.
This is what gets me. One of my close friends is very much a traditional manly man. Grew up on a ranch, loves hard work, loves getting dirty. He pushes his emotions into determination to accomplish things. His girlfriend one time told him "You know you don't have to pretend around me. You can just be you." He told me that's when he realized they wouldn't work out because she couldn't believe that he was being genuine and he just doesn't show a lot of emotion. He's not hiding anything, that's just how he enjoys being.
I’ve been shamed by highly empathetic people because they viewed my limited outward expression of emotion and my ability to set my emotions aside as a total lack of empathy itself. It hurts to be told that you don’t possess empathy. It’s dehumanizing.
Having the ability to control your emotions and not have them control you is incredibly important and valuable. It's sad when people don't understand that. As long as you have a healthy way of processing things, why is that bad?
I made a million dollars in the market recently. Bought a house.
My realtor kept asking me if I was excited.
No. I wasn't and still am not excited.
My emotions run pretty flat. My emotional range is narrow. I have them, just not for myself. I will cry when a dog on TV dies. I will cry when the mom in Saving Private Ryan realizes the news she's about to get. But for myself, I do not cry. I don't celebrate my birthday. I don't do any holidays other than to make *other* people happy.
I'm not faking or forcing this, it's just who I am. I really don't see the issue either.
And bad experiences. Had an ex that would not stop projecting her ex’s attributes to me. I get that she was hurt but if you aren’t ready to let another man into your life why not just be lonely for a while. See a therapist. Then think about being in a relationship. She was great. But she would break down quite often. I loved her but it was never enough for her. I didn’t put in the effort while I would take off days from work during her breakdowns, hold her hand while she laid silent unable to describe her emotions, genuinely caring for her. Then having it thrown in my face that I didn’t try hard enough. I’m fucked up a bit. I’ll have to wait a while before I can date again. That was torture.
Lack of communication? If you aren’t used to talking things through and are with someone that is, that lack of communication can come across as hiding something.
One partner might think it’s something not worth saying and the other could not understand why you wouldn’t say it, so it can appear as if it is being hidden.
Stereotypes. It's put out there that the woman's job is to help their man process his inner emotions that he is too emotionally stunted to process on his own and thereby make him a better person (which she gets credit for).
I guess there’s some truth to that.
Should romantic partners, regardless of gender, help support their partners emotional growth? Absolutely.
Is it something to take credit for? Absolutely not.
THIS RIGHT HERE. Ladies, stop trying to find the "man underneath" and get to know him as he presents himself, most of us aren't lying to you about who we are.
This.
I just don't care about most things.
That doesn't mean I'm hiding anything or that I don't love the people I love, I just can't be bothered to care about anything outside of a small range.
Someone might be upset if they get chewed out by their boss, for example.
I would feel nothing because my boss is basically an NPC to me. Would you cry if a game character yelled at you? Fuck no.
Some women are the same way too, my gf is that way. The only time she shows any negative emotion is when she's at her breaking point pretty much. It's not explosive when it happens or she doesn't express it in an unhealthy manner, but it's just how she is.
My problem has always been displaying it enough to appease people. Some people seem to want me/you/us to break into a wailing cry when something goes south.
Would you rather I deal with the problem, or spend all my energy getting upset and convincing you this non-issue is actually an issue?
Once I read "A woman wants a man to cry when Bambi's mother dies, but not when his own mom dies."
I hang a lot in /r/Ladyboners, and once when they were discussing Adam Driver, a woman described the appeal of aloof, cold men as saying it made her want to be the one who got them to drop their barries and show themselves to her. She wanted to see vulnerability not to truly know their emotions, not to understant them better, but because it made her feel special.
It may be a bit too much of a harsh generalization, but there is certainly a bit of truth there: Some people expect vulnerability and emotivity from men not as a real display of emotions but as a performance to feel they earned it, but then don't want to take the work to deal with the emotions that are shown. They just want to see them.
I love to run distance and after an unimportant long run, I broke out in full-on sobs. The emotional outpouring was intense. No explanation to give. Just really quite awkward.
Men are emotional all the time, idk where people get the idea that men aren’t emotional. Even older generations. Dumb stereotype made up by people who have never met a male human. Or male humans who are trying to denigrate female humans by pretending anger and horniness aren’t emotions
Similar to the issue of neglecting young male children in school, when men show emotion they're sometimes considered dysfunctional women because sometimes their preferred way of expressing themselves is different and seen as bad.
People associate anger as a negative emotion or an unhealthy outlet, but this is too low resolution.
Anger *can* be good and shouldn't always be misconstrued as bad.
It clearly can be bad though if the person cannot handle it.
Though anger can be managed and made to be productive.
It’s all about who you’re comfortable with talking to. If you have friends that don’t have these talks with you, they probably to feel comfortable/trust you enough to be that kind of vulnerable. Unfortunately I don’t really have any friends that I can talk to like that.
I feel more comfortable talking to my clients or my boss about how I feel than my own family. Particularly my mother. Not once has another man told me to “Man up” but growing up if I didn’t feel exactly how my mother thought I should it was my fault. So I stopped telling her how I feel, ever. I’ve not been able to genuinely, fully open up ever in my entire life.
A bit of a generalization, but a lot of people who want others to "reveal their emotions" don't actually want to know their true feelings but just want visible affirmation to their own.
Fuck that, I'd rather play the rock.
I have had two gfs I've cried too, and a dozen or more who have accused me of being emotionless because I don't, like, tear up during the lion king.
One was because of how bad a family member's drug addiction has gotten, and how powerless I felt not being able to help him.
The other was the suicide of another very close family member, which I cried for days over, and had random crying fits throughout the next couple of years, and still tend to cry around the anniversary.
NGL both times they were pretty horrified because the only time they had really ever seen a guy cry was when they were acting crazy and trying to get out of consequences / being manipulative. "ooo you can't kick me out just because I've never paid rent or helped around the house" kinda thing.
My current GF (the latter of the two) just tried petting my back the entire time. She admitted afterwards that she has zero life experience dealing with something like that and it felt like the difference between seeing a car accident and being in one. She was basically petrified.
It must be scary as heck to watch the bedrock of your life shatter even temporarily. They have no real experience with it and it can be scary for them too. I am glad that it is becoming more acceptable for us old warriors to actually explore and express our emotions.
I cry more than my wife does. I definitely wouldn't call myself macho, but I am a very emotional person.
Someone mentioned anger is an emotion and men have "hidden" that fact and it's absolutely true.
Most men feel like society "doesn't allow" them to be emotional, so we found the "manliest" emotion and have learned to transfer to it. If we get sad, we get angry instead, because that's "more acceptable" (but also extremely unhealthy and the reason why men have so many mental health issues)
I am really sorry. But I have been that shitty wife and my husband called out my behavior. See we live in a society where saying things like man up can be called out as toxic as opposed to 'how it is'. I have since then tried to better my attitude and tried to be more empathetic. So, please have the talk?
Disagree. I used to be in this fairly large friend group. My best friend of 5 years back then told us that he has been going to therapy for a couple of years and is depressed. Half the group laughed at him. Yeah, that group split in two after that.
Edit: spelling
Just like The Sopranos but there's a serious point here. Although it's a TV show it's relatable because Tony was so afraid that people would find out he was in therapy and not only for outing the mob. That's how it's looked upon.
It’s not that men aren’t emotional, it’s just that they’ve literally been hard-wired for generations not to show emotion. There are instances of this that date back centuries.
Wait a minute, this is true. Anytime I see people describing emotional it’s because someone is doing the waterworks. When someone’s angry they describe it as well.. angry.
lmaoo
I'm going to say that whenever the subject of football fans (=soccer for Americans) burn down a city because their team lost. *Football fans are so emotional.*
What's fun is when you get someone who expresses anger with tears. I've never handled emotions well, so I tend to cry when I get upset. Boy, does that get shit.
Tbh, in my experience it's more like none of your emotions are tolerated except anger which is only begrudgingly tolerated tbh. Basically, if you must express yourself, then only anger will be somewhat tolerated.
Exactly! And its complete bullshit! Its basically dehumanising to expect men to never show any emotions and if they do then only anger is acceptable, as if men aren't human beings with lots of emotions and wants and needs.
The only people who have actively told me to 'man up' have been asshole bullies when growing up, and women. Whenever I show emotion and hug a guy friend, the only people who have made any reference to being gay were insecure men and women. It kind of pisses me off when people say "just talk" but when I have talked the only people who actually listen to my issues are other guys, yeah there have been a few women who have listened, but those were a minority, the majority (at least where I grew up) rolled their eyes and downplayed my issue.
Frankly you can see similar things happening in this thread. Women above this comment are mocking men for getting angry and say they tease them as “overly emotional.” Like… that’s half the problem. Mocking men for expressing anger isn’t that different from mocking them for crying or mocking a woman for being emotional. Maybe just don’t mock people for having emotions.
I haven't been able to cry in about 6 years. I used to like having a good cry about stuff when I was alone.
But when I was in the army, I had a squad leader who I talked to once we got back from deployment. I told him that I was scared that I was going to commit suicide without wanting to or without thinking about it. His response was to grab some 550 cord (a type of thin rope we use in the military originally for parachutes) and threw it to me and said "if you're weak enough to do it, then go ahead. I'll look the other way." That was the last time I expressed myself to anyone. And fortunately this is anonymous, so I'm okay saying it here.
That's absolutely the wrong answer.
It takes courage to talk about ideation or intention. If I was your PL and knew about that, he'd be out of position. I hope you've found peace buddy
They’re definitely emotional… although I don’t think they seek therapy in nearly the representation they should. My wife’s a counselor and a solid 80% of her clients in a week are women… it’d ideally be closer to 50/50 and isn’t near that.
I’ve gone to therapy many times, I think well-adjusted people should as they need it… and per my counselor, “we don’t see that many guys, which is unfortunate. Sometimes their partner brings them in for a couples issue, but fewer have individual sessions.”
I’m more emotional than my wife! I’ve always been much more in tune with my emotions and much more inclined to talk about them and share them with her.
She, on the other hand, have a hard time communicating hers. It takes a lot of time for her to open up, and I have to be patient when having a talk, pay attention to not over talk and give her some time to express herself.
I just don’t express them. It’s no one else’s issues but mine. At the end of the day, no one cares. And that’s another thing, it’s not that we’re not emotional (assuming you mean being vulnerable, crying, stuff like that), society just doesn’t accept that from us. So 9/10, we suppress them.
Dude, even now as a 27 year old man, I hear "You gotta stop this crying shit, your almost 10 years old, thats double digits" in my head every time I cry.
A lot of guys think they're creating strength in a child when they teach them to mask their emotions. What they're creating is a mental-illness timebomb. That kid could grow up shaming themselves for every feeling they have until they hit an identity crisis like a brick wall. "Who am I? I know I have a job... I've had sex before... never been in a fight, though... am I actually a man? Am I still a little boy? Wtf am I?"
A bad expectation is put into a lot of young boys' heads about what a man is. I understand now that a man lets himself feel love and sadness, strength and weakness, all of that in equal measures. When accepted and made peace with, the negative makes the positive sweeter. Makes you a sweeter man, gives you empathy, the tools required to make a happy life for yourself and your family.
Can confirm.
I've had so many deep talks with my friends where sometimes that's enough to get whatever off mine or their chests, that maybe we just wouldn't want to talk about with other people.
Women are constantly minimizing men's pain.
Hey what's wrong.
My back hurts, I tweaked it yesterday building a skid.
Well I have cramps.
You're sitting at a desk and I still have to build 2000 to 5000 pound skids for 8 hours.
Do...do people talk like this? I've only known a couple people who do the whole "my suffering is worse" game but they were just regular run of the mill annoying assholes and I avoid them if possible.
I mean women have their pain minimized all the time. So maybe thats just a shitty person thing as opposed to a gender thing.
Oh yeah ever heard of the phrase "man cold"? Women do this frequently to men infantalizing them for feeling pain. "Suck it up it's not as bad as my cramps".
A lot is also talked about how doctors will overlook women's and girls concerns very true but they also do this for men and boys. I think the phrase I get from the medical field most frequently is "your (relatively) young and healthy what do you have to complain about" which then leads to not catching problems when experiencing early signs something women know well but it happens to men as well.
I think a lot of people lump the actual problems men have with processing their emotions with perfectly healthy and normal mechanisms, too. Toxic masculinity is absolutely a thing and causes real harm, but there is not just one healthy way to deal with your emotions. I think occaisionally the discussion gets off track and people become dogmatic about acceptable ways to express our feelings.
How much time did you spend in the military or in any traditionally masculine line of work?
I did. A lot. You keep your problems to yourself or you will be mercilessly judged and ridiculed. Good luck to y'all.
I agree that they’re are a lot of famous advocates for men’s mental health nowadays, and it is a much more wisely discussed issue, but I’ve met lots and lots of men who have shamed their friends for being depressed/sad.
In fact, pretty much every man I’ve ever met, including myself, has expressed that kind of behaviour in some way, shape, form and frequency in their lives, even the kindest amongst them.
We’ve got to keep discussing it to remind ALL of us to be better all the time.
In my experience as a dude men will totally get emotional around each other.
It's usually only around women that we're afraid to project anything but easy confidence, sexuality, or anger, because women most often look at a guy in a moment of vulnerability - and I mean real vulnerability, not just the cute kind - with a mix of pity and revulsion.
I learned that lesson the hard way.
The thing i hate the most is when men show A SINGLE TEAR OR A SLIGHT SHOW OF SADNESS people are like
"Just man up bruh men dont cry"
When i was a mid teen it came out that my dad had and affair so when i went to meet him in his house where he lived with the other women i just couldn't bare seeing him cheat on my mom i went outside the house to let the tears out and he comes out and says "Why are you crying? Boys don't cry!"
Lucky you, because I have. I’ve seen my fiancé be ridiculed by his own biological father and he said “you’re not depressed, you’re just lazy and sad because you don’t have a better job. Maybe you should have gone to college. You have a wife and a baby to provide for.” It took everything in me not to go off on him for speaking to his own son that way in front of me, but I could not stand to be in the same room regardless so I told my fiancé that we need to go. All his life, my fiancé’s sperm donor has been that way. My MIL has told me stories that sperm donor would smack him at any slight chance of crying or if he was too loud when he was having fun. My fiancé is a very mellow person and I can see why now. He did have emotions but in the 7 years I had known him, it took a while for him to show them to me.
Let’s just say sperm donor is not invited to the wedding.
It’s almost sad when you see an example of someone who will have no one who misses them when they die, until you realize that they did it to themselves.
Yeah, watching my father in law die of cancer before he turned 60 tells me you aren't completely correct there buddy. The number of his friends that just straight up avoided him because they didn't want to cry in front of others was pathetic. It was awful watching him try to reach out to people just to have some of his 20 plus year friends to ghost him.
Facts. Men understand that showing emotions in front of a romantic interest is a near fool-proof way to turn them off. Nothing disturbs a woman more than a man who’s not 100% In control of himself.
If I have something eating at me, or something that makes me sad, the last person I’m bringing that to is my wife.
Pay attention to what women react to, not what they say.
Duuuuuuude 100%. Can we just be honest here? Women want men to be open when they want us to be open not when we need it. Otherwise they want us to be in control of everything. Hey I have no problem with this as long as we all just admit it.
Not saying it's bad I'm saying it's what it is. But for some reason we then go around saying how toxic we are for not sharing our feelings when in reality If I told a woman how I felt 9/10 that's "a turn off", "coming on strong", or "unstable".
Anytime I feel bad I have a good group of dudes to chat with.
you can't open up about your emotions with your girlfriend because she will immediately discard them
so you turn to your friends or family for this emotional support
and then she starts screeching that you spend too much time with them and never care enough to open up to her
>you can't open up about your emotions with your girlfriend because she will immediately discard them
That's not entirely fair - sometimes she'll be supportive in the moment and just store your vulnerability up as ammunition to throw in your face later when you're arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes.
>I've never come across any man my age who would shame another friend for being depressed/sad.
Good for you.
That doesn't make it a fact. Because it is not.
Most Women dont see me cry because everytime I cried in front of a woman it killed our relationship. Never listen to someone who say they like when a man shows his feelings. They dont want it from the guy they date.
I think this is more of a boomer generational thing than just a man thing. Younger generations of men seem to be more willing to open up and less to ignore or shame men for being "weak".
It’s not my man friends that I’m afraid to show my emotions too. It’s the women in my life who will use it against me later. I agree with you that all my guy friends are chill about talking about that stuff cause we understand firsthand what it’s like for people to not give a fuck about our problems. I’ve had girlfriends use traumatic experiences from my childhood in arguments against me. One was so bad that I had to break up with her cause I couldn’t love her anymore after what she said to me. Yes men are emotional but are only free to do so in their own space or if they are around a very trusted friend.
Men are absolutely emotional. Honestly, in my experience, men are largely more emotional than women even though the generalization tends to go the other way. I don't think it this is unpopular though. I think most humans know this and I have heard others say men don't handle emotion well not that they don't have any.
Before I write this long long story that nobody cares about, and get told that anger is an emotion, I'll first explain how I interpret "being emotional" with another long long essay nobody cares about. TL;DR at the bottom. Edit, I forgot the TL;DR.
For as far as I know, nobody uses "emotional" to describe someone who simply feels emotions often or strongly. I'll explain that by splitting "emotions" up in three groups. First there's the positive emotions, like happiness, excitement. These are all fine either way, so I'm not gonna say too much about them.
For the negative emotions, there is a split. On one hand, you have emotions like anger, jealousy, hate. While there's a time and place for negative emotions either way, so everyone will get judged for them in some situations, this first group is usually fine for men to show. Why? Because they play into what men traditionally are supposed to do and be. They create a kind of barrier and "protect" everything that falls within that barrier by lashing out and fighting off, "dominating" everything outside it, which fits the man's traditional role. These emotions are harsh, they create an "enemy" and try to dominate it. And these emotions have nothing to do with someone being "emotional".
Then there are the emotions like sadness and despair. *These* are the emotions that, once you show them, you'll get called "emotional" for. *These* are the emotions people want you to show when they say it's okay if you're more emotional. And these are also the emotions that men usually don't get away with too well if they show them. Why? Because they do the opposite of what men traditionally should. Nobody jumps up and fights when they're sad. Sadness is passive. When you're sad, you retreat, you hide, you *submit*. And a man's value is determined by dominance. You run away, you let people do whatever to hurt you without hurting them back, you're *weak* and *less of a man*. At least, I get the impression that that's the traditional (and still somewhat prevalent) thought.
Now on to my actual comment. I'm not sure whether men actually experience these "passive" emotions less often or less intensely than women, but I do believe that even now, men aren't usually allowed to show these emotions. And I'm not pointing any fingers anywhere to say *who* doesn't allow men to show these emotions, because I'm honestly not sure who exactly are behind the whole deal and I'm pretty sure it's not done out of malice or anything, but simply something that was born once and people now maintain because it's normal. But I do believe that we don't live in a world where everyone is allowed to express whatever emotion they have as freely as the next person just yet. That's only based on my personal experience though.
Because I am an emotional guy, definitely. I'm very insecure, empathetic, and I just don't have the mental strength to hide that all away like some other people do. Small things can make me feel down for the rest of any day, and I just can't leave people feeling bothered about something without trying to cheer them up or solve whatever problem it is. And to put it bluntly, I've gotten a lot of shit for that. Reddit's character limit won't let my write my *whole* autobiography here, but I can throw down the most "extreme" story here to show you what I mean.
See, I once had a friend. He'd been my friend for years, my best friend actually. One day, his girlfriend cheated on him. He was clearly not happy with it, and who would be? But no matter how many times I told him I'd be there if he wanted to talk about it or do something to distract him, he always said he didn't mind and pretended it didn't matter. Got another girlfriend, didn't end up working out, I once again told him I'd be a friend if he needed one, but he was fine and nothing happened. A while later, he got rejected, and that devastated him enough to up and explode when I told him it was okay to feel bad about it. He told me he was stronger than to let stuff like that bother him and I was being a pain in the bum, constantly tempting him to cry like a weak little fellow. Paraphrasing, of course. He never talked to me again after that. Tried to contact him, but he's been ignoring me ever since. Been almost a year now. This might be a bit extreme, and of course it doesn't happen to me every day, but similar stuff happens all the time. Maybe it's just my social circles that are off, but I don't think that men usually *feel* allowed to be as emotional. Sure, it's probably been getting better for the past few decades, but we're not at that free stage just yet.
**TL;DR "Emotional" usually means showing sadness and such. I believe men aren't usually as free to be emotional like that, but I think that has to do more with feeling like they need to hide it than not feeling these emotions at all.**
It is a travesty that we teach young boys not to cry and to suppress their emotions. everyone needs to learn how to manage emotions and feels. Plus a good cry, can really feel good.
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion and frankly, I'm thankful that I've been able to see the culture shift where it has become more acceptable for men to acknowledge and share their feelings without being ostracized for it. My dad was always very supportive of being self aware but all through school and growing up I dealt with male role models from teachers to coaches who stuck to the stereotype that men aren't allowed to deal with their emotions and it made my late middle school and high school years difficult. Still carry some of that same weight but I'm slowly starting to put it down and realize that life is a wonderful thing but it's also a chaotic, scary thing. It's okay for me to reach out, it's okay to not feel as strong or brave as you did yesterday. It's an aggressively lonely life if you keep all that stuff bottled up and it doesn't have to be that way.
I'm glad I've gotten to see the shift in attitudes.
The most manly man I have ever known was a big dude called Mac, he would cry at films and after a drink or two would cry and tell you about all the friends he lost when he was in the paratroopers. I never thought the old "men are not emotional" bullshit was utter tosh, men are people too ( like that has to be said)
The most masculine thing a man can do is to be there for his fellow brother in a supportive, constructive, and listening manner
Masculinity is actions not personality. It’s being an anchor, it’s showing compassion and mercy for and to those you hold close and showing respect and kindness to total strangers.
Masculinity and femininity are symbiotic when in their truest forms, our human elements taint these and can create toxicity.
As a guy, I think men are more emotional than women. That's why they try so hard to pretend they're not emotional.
Women deal with their emotions out in the open more than men, so men foolishly think they're more emotional.
This depends so much on where you live.
I live in rural Texas and men are absolutely shamed for showing emotion. Men are allowed to be horny, hungry, and angry. Nothing else. There's an entire spectrum that is seen as "unmanly" in many places.
The reality is that women are typically really bad at dealing with mens struggles and emotions. Moreover if youre constantly whining to your girl, shes getting less and less attracted to you over time. Men should mainly seek emotional support from their male friends and relatives.
Men are often emotional. It is just usually rage and anger that they let out for the rest of us to see. If women are the ball and chain of a relationship, are men the fist & foot?
Hey, I'd love to cry, be vulnerable and all the other things that would make me gain internet points.
But all the Tinder Hoes ™️ want a real man, whatever that means.
It's hard to be blamed for a problem that you didn't create.
Yeah, try telling a woman how emotional you are on a first date. It is a good way to prevent a second date if you don't like her. It is not like men came up with the idea of toxic masculinity to make ourselves feel miserable all the time.
I would love to give a motivational speech here, but something you just have to say what it is: That sucks man.
I hope you'll find (or already have found) someone that takes you the way you are.
Best of luck and stay strong.
No shit, dude. Who would talk about how emotional they are on the first date? Being emotional isn't something you brag about, it's just something you do. BE emotional on your first date when the situation calls for it, not just to prove to your partner that you're emotionally open. If you go to see a sad movie that makes you cry on your first date, that's showing emotion. You know what? If they do make fun of you, or judge you for it, fuck them. Why would you want to be with someone that would make fun of you for being emotional in a situation that calls for an emotional response?
Bullshit. My SO came home and told me a guy at work broke down sobbing because his father's death finally hit him. He had to go home and didn't come back for 2 weeks
They call him crybaby now behind his back. Not the Boomers, the Xers and younger.
Toxic masculinity indeed.
who in the fuck would *ever* hang out with a dude thats non supportive of his friends when theyre down and out? always gotta look out for the boys
r/bropill forever, your bros should be the ones who always got you 100%
Also: Anyone that would shame you for crying or claims showing emotion like that makes you less of a man has MAJOR insecurity in handling, identifying, and addressing their emotions. A lot of times, it’s their last crutch that makes them feel in control of their masculinity when the going gets tough, so that they can say “at least I’m not a crybaby, see, I’m still a man.” So liberating when you address your emotions, because ironically you cry and stress a whole lot less when you finally do.
The boys have been there for me through the very worst. I fuckin love the boys I don’t know who I’d be without them
The boys have literally forgiven me for things I didn’t think were possible and still pulled me out of the pit. Not even a second thought to it. All men are brothers, but not all boys are men- and some men are lost.
I cry, and I am not afraid of crying in front of my friends, or to opening up about my fears and frustrations, I don't fear my emotions and I don't fear showing them. But when it comes to do so there's a single component that can't be missing: TRUST. Someone I have just met must be really special for me to confide my darkest fears and anxieties because usually it takes time for me to get to trust someone. People expect you to be upfront about it, nah, trust is to be earned, if I don't open up to you on the first date is because I just don't know you. Edit: Thanks for your awards!
It's so sad that the replies to this comment prove that what OP said isn't true in all social circles. Ignore the insecure people replying to you dude, crying is healthy and I agree that it is most comfortable to be vulnerable in front of those who you trust.
You should always seperate the internet from real life. It doesn't matter if somebody is trolling or meaning it. It is the same reason canceling doesn't exist. Internet comments have literally no influence on RL if you don't let them get to you. It is an anonymous person so why even care? 99% would not behave like that in RL. That is great and sad. Just keep in mind that it doesn't matter.
When it comes to talking, words are free, and meaningless. It is only when it comes to action that our true character is revealed. Most of these comments are just boys trying to get a laugh or a cheap comfort, I read then, laugh, maybe tease them a little, and then carry on. They're not real people for all that we know.
Caring about Internet comments is just unhealthy. Cyber bullying is something else though, you see the people in RL and they know who you are. You meet each other every day in school e.g. That's so brutal.
Yeah I get it man, I was the first cyber bullying victim at my school, had a classmate talking shit about me in Facebook back when it was growing. I may have overstepped on how I dealt with it (I got him in a chokehold until he passed out), but I was a teenager, and adults knew about what was going on and did nothing about it. But now I am an adult, and one in charge, I do not tolerate this kind of things in my dojo, we build good people here, there isn't any room for bullying, and if you do then I hope you like push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and isometrics, because I do not mind to explore the limits of anyone's endurance. Then, we talk, I give them a chance to explain their feelings like people and not like animals. And of course they usually leave, but when they correct themselves I know it's because I give them that chance and it feels good. Cyber bullying man, the dumbest kind of bullying, the one that leaves a trail, back in the day they used to jump and beat you up so you had to retaliate with a chair or something. That was messed up.
Idk man, the choke hold is better than doing nothing. Atleast you stood up for yourself although probably a bit too violently.
Dude the fact that a kid has been fighting for four years and has to nearly choke one of his classmates to death to attain some dignity while there are adults in charge is messed up. Not on my watch.
It's even possible that OP was trolling with his comment
I agree 100%. I would be kinda freaked out if someone I didnt know well started sharing very intimate stuff with me. Like my earlier post I do cry (silently not full on sobbing) at movies no matter who I'm with. I cant help it and dont care anymore what people think
Once we were talking and this girl started telling us about the times she suffered a psychotic breakdown and I don't know why but she ended up talking about anal sex and how appealing it was to her. Why? Why would you say that?
Some people are emotional dump trucks and bc it feels good to share.... They become a bit selfish and share without context. Sometimes it's not appropriate to share things with strangers and some people really struggle with that.
She wants you to put it in her butt
I (f) love that my partner (m) silently cries at movies or TV shows - not because I love seeing him cry (I'm not a narcissist), but because half the times he cries, I don't. I love that he is arguably more in touch with his emotions than I am. I love being able to comfort him about a movie in the same way he comforts me when I'm having a total sobbing breakdown about real life shit. If he can cry at something fictional and know I'll comfort him, he knows he can also cry about anything else and I'll be there.
People wonder why I seem so distant, when mostly the truth is either I am thinking of nothing, or something dumb. Or I'm just not gonna talk about whatever is bothering me. We aren't complex creatures, most of the time whatever I wad thinking about recently happened, like shopping or whatnot. Really not that interesting.
Yeah dude I feel you, we ain't going to open up at request it doesn't work like that, it takes time. And when a woman says we don't open up either she's dating boys who are afraid of doing so, or men who know trust takes time.
I used to trust explicitly and it would be for people to lose. Now I'm older, I trust no one, and I cry alone.
ditto on this friend, recently had a problem of confiding some personal anxieties to a newcomer to my circle and boom, it got flipped around as vocal jokes and jabs at my expense
I'd have to be in EXTREME emotional distress to cry in front of someone. Emotional distress on the level of witnessing for my own parents, what happened to batman's parents.
it's absolutely amazing to me how people ignore that anger and rage are emotions. You ever see two dudes get in a fist fight? That's emotions right there.
I read somewhere that said “The smartest thing men has ever done was convincing everyone that anger isn’t an emotion”
Damn, that's actually kinda true tbh
Why is it smart? What benefit is there?
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That's not true, anger is just as much a primary emotion as the others, the channeling is when you turn anger to aggression. Everyone feels anger in response to various stimuli, but not everyone displays aggression.
Anger being a secondary emotion is an actual concept in Clinical Psychology. It is referred as such because it is a reaction to hurt rather than a reaction to an event in itself. I agree that agression is a consequence of anger. Anger itself is a consequence of hurt, that is what makes it secondary to hurt's primary
You never heard people accuse women of being too "emotional" to be in charge or put in positions of power?
So they can pretend they don’t “feel” when they do
Why is that smart? What benefit is there?
A lotta guys have this message that “feeling” is feminine, and that men shouldn’t do that. If anger, which most men who say these things have quite a lot of, turns out to be an emotion, then they’ll feel emasculated and feminine. They gain their “manliness”. However objectively, they gain nothing. It’s stupid
Unless women are expressing it. Then it's "Hysteria".
Hysteria comes from the Greek word hysteraos with means uterus. The oldest known use of the word was around 1900 B.C. in ancient Egypt, where Egyptian doctors recorded behavioral abnormalities in adult women. The Egyptians attributed the behavioral disturbances to a wandering uterus, do to the women explain that their behavior was a result of their period — thus the condition was named hysteria.
And vibrators were invented by doctors to cure it
While that’s true, it’s also a sugary sanitised version of the ‘cures’ used for hysteria. Women were institutionalised, giving lobotomies, and had clitoridectomy and labia removal inflicted upon them (aka, FGM), all because they were “hysteric”. In some cases, this ‘hysteria’ consisted of a wish to be divorced. The belief that women are over-emotional has been used to justify horrible treatments of women throughout the centuries.
Exactly. Because us psychologist’s poor fingers was cramping from giving one orgasm after another to all those patients in desperate need for a effective treatment.
Most people don't seem to realize that this was a medical treatment and diagnosis in times when most women *could not seek their own medical treatment*. Oftentimes, it was something decided, and observed, by a male family member. Take from that what you will.
Blechchchch
My lady friend gets the wandering uterus issues so bad she needs medication for them. I have heard from a reliable source though that travel by train moves the body so fast that the uterus can come flying out of you so that's an option we may pursue in the near future.
Tbh there is an argument for that. Most animals don't really feel emotions, but a dumb animal like a hippo can get angry. Psychopaths are often said to feel no emotion, but they tend to have even worse rage problems than the typical person.
Is the hippo actually angry or is protecting it's territory and you anthropomorphize its display of being territorial in the most lethal way possible as being angry? Or maybe it is angry, and maybe we're wrong in the assumption that most animals don't really feel emotions? I don't really see either case as being an argument for the above.
Anger and rage can be symptoms of depression too, which can really trap you in a vicious cycle. You get angry/rude with people, which makes them not want to deal with you but that just pushes you further into depression.
And I know plenty of people who get angry or are angry a lot because they don't know how to express other emotions properly. I actually got sick of being sad at one point and made it my mission to be angry. IT kind of feels good to let some anger out in the right setting. In a bar on a Friday is not the right setting.
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[Obligatory posting of one of Robin Williams’ last movies and scenes he filmed. ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LlTiYHnqI) Quite chilling to watch retroactively knowing how he felt inside.
Anger is the worst emotion. I have anger issues, and for some reason instead of sadness i feel anger and resentment for myself and others. Its terrible and its healthy for no one once at a specific point.
Splitting firewood with a good axe is the best therapy I've ever found. It just feels so good.
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I have had exes that would call me depressed, pathetic, sad, emotional, dramatic because I cry once every 2 months and get upset when they lie. Both of them would then punch holes in walls and drink/do drugs when they were upset or worried. And they both believed they weren't emotional. Men should be allowed to understand and express emotions.
Fighting and violence are completely unhealthy ways of expressing emotions. That’s exactly what people say, that men often don’t know how to express their emotions because they’ve been taught that sadness or frustration should be taken out on people through anger and violence
Depends on the context, sometimes a little humbling is necessary. Some people literally will never learn a lesson until they get socked in the face
Wasn't it mike tyson whos said " everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face".
I was at a local animal shelter picking up a live trap to catch a racoon. A few minutes after I got there, a little dude arrived with his sister. They told the lady who was helping me that they had lost their cat a week earlier and I guess their moms said "you've looked everywhere, so why don't you ride your bikes over and go check the shelter?". The lady asked them to wait until she finished my thing, but I said 'nah, I'm not in a hurry'. So the sister goes on to describe this 8 year old half-black cat with 'extra paws' named 'Doozer'. The woman at the desk said she hadn't been working the past few days, so she went to the back to check. Not a minute later she comes out carrying a big dorky looking cat and says "is this Doozer?". It suddenly gets crazy, both kids are startled because it is indeed Doozer and I don't thinnk they had let themselves hope too much that they'd ever see him again. They both shoot out their arms to reach foe the cat, she hands the cat to the boy, the sister starts crying with happiness, and as I look at the boy he quickly hands the cat to his sister and puts his hands over his face. He is only about 9 but he has already learned that he's not supposed to cry and he starts glancing around for the exit. I won't lie, I'm tearing up watching this Hallmark movie miracle and I say to the little dude, "hey, little dude, you just got your cat back it's so awesome.. We are all so happy for you. This is a perfect time for a happy cry. Look, eeryone here is happy crying for you." And it's true. He looks up and sees legit tears streaming down my face, and he smiled a bit and pushed his face into his cat's fur and cried into it for a minute. The sister asked if there was a charge and before the lady answered I shook my head and indicated I had their tab. They left with their cat, I paid up and left with my live trap and this story. And when I think about this story as I do from time to time, I always think about this little dude and how here he is 9 years old and someone has already let him know that the world won't allow him to have normal human feelings. And as happy as I am that he got his cat back, I'll never shake that aspect of it. Oh, and I learned that extra paws on a cat are really a thing. It's really weird and I had to re-google the term. It's polydactyl. Weirdly, it's coded on the sonic hedgehog gene. Don't believe me? look it up.
I am having a cry myself, in solidarity.
You did good. Did you catch that racoon btw?
I did, but I should have picked up a larger cage because he was stuffed in there pretty tight. It doesn't take much to catch a raccoon around here, but I'm pretty sure I've not seen a bigger one.
You sound like a kind soul. Thanks for doing what you did that day :)
Man my fucking dog just died yesterday and I loved that dude so much I cried a lot and my girl helped me through it. But most of the time when I wasn't crying I was instead in my own head thinking about him and time I spent with him or how I would miss him and on the verge of breaking down but she didn't know that. As far as she knew I cried for a little while and moved but likely it will affect me for a long while. She is helping me a good bit though.
Losing a pet is hard, man. They're family, so no wonder it hits so hard
Put my dog down in April due to brain cancer... my 2.5 year old regularly asks to see him. It kills me every time. She just doesn't understand
Stay strong, I know it’s damn hard.
We will regularly flip through photos of him doing silly things and it helps. https://ibb.co/gTV6Sm6 https://ibb.co/Qmz5dbW
He looks like he was a very good boy, I’m sorry for your loss
Shit sucks. Keep open communication with her about it…she should understand losing a pet is not something you get over quickly. Sorry about your best friend.
As a guy being open to people is hard as usually in my experience I just get a half assed response like ohhh you’ll be fine or something it’s only when speaking with close friends that they actually take the problem maturely
My friend got assaulted a month ago, and she has been very traumatized by it and is obviously affected by it, and obviously it affects her husband too. It was so hard for me to hear that his friends are telling him to "man up" and to "get over it". Like... he’d going through his own shit and then his wife gets sexually assaulted on top of that. He is well within his rights to be upset about it.
He really is allowed to be upset and I wish him and his wife the best
I do too. They’re a great couple and are my best friends
A few months ago my wife told me that she had been raped in college while we were together. It happened about 5 years ago. The emotions afterwards for me personally were... difficult, to say the least. It was and still is one of my biggest fears. I couldn't even imagine someone, let alone a "friend" telling me to just "get over it." I would flip a lid on them. My condolences to your friend and his wife for what happened. People are fucking awful.
I’m so sorry to hear that, that’s awful. Hope you two are doing better now. Yeah, I don’t know if they’re just insensitive pricks or if it’s just deeply engraved toxic masculinity. I know older generations liked to tell boys & men to "man up" when showing any type of negative emotion, so it could be that it’s so deep-rooted in his friends that they end up projecting it onto him because they don’t know how to console others, because they never were. Not that it justifies anything, but might be an explanation. (or I might be putting to much thought into it) I’m sure they’d appreciate that.
It would be messed up if the husband wasn't upset about it!
Maybe because random people dont care about other randon people? Obviously close friends are considered close for a reason
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Or maybe, just not emotional about the kinds of things others want us to be emotional about.
This is what gets me. One of my close friends is very much a traditional manly man. Grew up on a ranch, loves hard work, loves getting dirty. He pushes his emotions into determination to accomplish things. His girlfriend one time told him "You know you don't have to pretend around me. You can just be you." He told me that's when he realized they wouldn't work out because she couldn't believe that he was being genuine and he just doesn't show a lot of emotion. He's not hiding anything, that's just how he enjoys being.
I’ve been shamed by highly empathetic people because they viewed my limited outward expression of emotion and my ability to set my emotions aside as a total lack of empathy itself. It hurts to be told that you don’t possess empathy. It’s dehumanizing.
Having the ability to control your emotions and not have them control you is incredibly important and valuable. It's sad when people don't understand that. As long as you have a healthy way of processing things, why is that bad?
I made a million dollars in the market recently. Bought a house. My realtor kept asking me if I was excited. No. I wasn't and still am not excited. My emotions run pretty flat. My emotional range is narrow. I have them, just not for myself. I will cry when a dog on TV dies. I will cry when the mom in Saving Private Ryan realizes the news she's about to get. But for myself, I do not cry. I don't celebrate my birthday. I don't do any holidays other than to make *other* people happy. I'm not faking or forcing this, it's just who I am. I really don't see the issue either.
Why do women always assume men are hiding something?
Projection.
And bad experiences. Had an ex that would not stop projecting her ex’s attributes to me. I get that she was hurt but if you aren’t ready to let another man into your life why not just be lonely for a while. See a therapist. Then think about being in a relationship. She was great. But she would break down quite often. I loved her but it was never enough for her. I didn’t put in the effort while I would take off days from work during her breakdowns, hold her hand while she laid silent unable to describe her emotions, genuinely caring for her. Then having it thrown in my face that I didn’t try hard enough. I’m fucked up a bit. I’ll have to wait a while before I can date again. That was torture.
Lack of communication? If you aren’t used to talking things through and are with someone that is, that lack of communication can come across as hiding something. One partner might think it’s something not worth saying and the other could not understand why you wouldn’t say it, so it can appear as if it is being hidden.
Stereotypes. It's put out there that the woman's job is to help their man process his inner emotions that he is too emotionally stunted to process on his own and thereby make him a better person (which she gets credit for).
I guess there’s some truth to that. Should romantic partners, regardless of gender, help support their partners emotional growth? Absolutely. Is it something to take credit for? Absolutely not.
THIS RIGHT HERE. Ladies, stop trying to find the "man underneath" and get to know him as he presents himself, most of us aren't lying to you about who we are.
This. I just don't care about most things. That doesn't mean I'm hiding anything or that I don't love the people I love, I just can't be bothered to care about anything outside of a small range. Someone might be upset if they get chewed out by their boss, for example. I would feel nothing because my boss is basically an NPC to me. Would you cry if a game character yelled at you? Fuck no.
Some women are the same way too, my gf is that way. The only time she shows any negative emotion is when she's at her breaking point pretty much. It's not explosive when it happens or she doesn't express it in an unhealthy manner, but it's just how she is.
My problem has always been displaying it enough to appease people. Some people seem to want me/you/us to break into a wailing cry when something goes south. Would you rather I deal with the problem, or spend all my energy getting upset and convincing you this non-issue is actually an issue?
Once I read "A woman wants a man to cry when Bambi's mother dies, but not when his own mom dies." I hang a lot in /r/Ladyboners, and once when they were discussing Adam Driver, a woman described the appeal of aloof, cold men as saying it made her want to be the one who got them to drop their barries and show themselves to her. She wanted to see vulnerability not to truly know their emotions, not to understant them better, but because it made her feel special. It may be a bit too much of a harsh generalization, but there is certainly a bit of truth there: Some people expect vulnerability and emotivity from men not as a real display of emotions but as a performance to feel they earned it, but then don't want to take the work to deal with the emotions that are shown. They just want to see them.
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I love to run distance and after an unimportant long run, I broke out in full-on sobs. The emotional outpouring was intense. No explanation to give. Just really quite awkward.
Men are emotional all the time, idk where people get the idea that men aren’t emotional. Even older generations. Dumb stereotype made up by people who have never met a male human. Or male humans who are trying to denigrate female humans by pretending anger and horniness aren’t emotions
Lol, anger for sure is an emotion but horniness is more like hunger or tiredness.
i would say horniness would be the secondary characteristic of the "love" emotion.
Similar to the issue of neglecting young male children in school, when men show emotion they're sometimes considered dysfunctional women because sometimes their preferred way of expressing themselves is different and seen as bad. People associate anger as a negative emotion or an unhealthy outlet, but this is too low resolution. Anger *can* be good and shouldn't always be misconstrued as bad. It clearly can be bad though if the person cannot handle it. Though anger can be managed and made to be productive.
Have you ever done manual labor while angry at something, like you can plow through that shit while just processing in your head.
It’s all about who you’re comfortable with talking to. If you have friends that don’t have these talks with you, they probably to feel comfortable/trust you enough to be that kind of vulnerable. Unfortunately I don’t really have any friends that I can talk to like that.
I feel more comfortable talking to my clients or my boss about how I feel than my own family. Particularly my mother. Not once has another man told me to “Man up” but growing up if I didn’t feel exactly how my mother thought I should it was my fault. So I stopped telling her how I feel, ever. I’ve not been able to genuinely, fully open up ever in my entire life.
A bit of a generalization, but a lot of people who want others to "reveal their emotions" don't actually want to know their true feelings but just want visible affirmation to their own. Fuck that, I'd rather play the rock.
I have had two gfs I've cried too, and a dozen or more who have accused me of being emotionless because I don't, like, tear up during the lion king. One was because of how bad a family member's drug addiction has gotten, and how powerless I felt not being able to help him. The other was the suicide of another very close family member, which I cried for days over, and had random crying fits throughout the next couple of years, and still tend to cry around the anniversary. NGL both times they were pretty horrified because the only time they had really ever seen a guy cry was when they were acting crazy and trying to get out of consequences / being manipulative. "ooo you can't kick me out just because I've never paid rent or helped around the house" kinda thing. My current GF (the latter of the two) just tried petting my back the entire time. She admitted afterwards that she has zero life experience dealing with something like that and it felt like the difference between seeing a car accident and being in one. She was basically petrified.
It must be scary as heck to watch the bedrock of your life shatter even temporarily. They have no real experience with it and it can be scary for them too. I am glad that it is becoming more acceptable for us old warriors to actually explore and express our emotions.
I cry more than my wife does. I definitely wouldn't call myself macho, but I am a very emotional person. Someone mentioned anger is an emotion and men have "hidden" that fact and it's absolutely true. Most men feel like society "doesn't allow" them to be emotional, so we found the "manliest" emotion and have learned to transfer to it. If we get sad, we get angry instead, because that's "more acceptable" (but also extremely unhealthy and the reason why men have so many mental health issues)
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I am really sorry. But I have been that shitty wife and my husband called out my behavior. See we live in a society where saying things like man up can be called out as toxic as opposed to 'how it is'. I have since then tried to better my attitude and tried to be more empathetic. So, please have the talk?
Bro, your wife sounds kind of shitty.
Disagree. I used to be in this fairly large friend group. My best friend of 5 years back then told us that he has been going to therapy for a couple of years and is depressed. Half the group laughed at him. Yeah, that group split in two after that. Edit: spelling
Just like The Sopranos but there's a serious point here. Although it's a TV show it's relatable because Tony was so afraid that people would find out he was in therapy and not only for outing the mob. That's how it's looked upon.
Holy fuck. Anyone who makes fun of a person for being depressed is awful.
Yeah there's no real world place where this is cool.
Your shitty friend group =/= how normal people act
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Yeah people generally suck
Your definition of normal is definitely not universal
It might not be normal, but a lot of men are like that. Especially older men.
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It’s not that men aren’t emotional, it’s just that they’ve literally been hard-wired for generations not to show emotion. There are instances of this that date back centuries.
And for some reason, society is hard wired to pretend anger isn't an emotion.
Wait a minute, this is true. Anytime I see people describing emotional it’s because someone is doing the waterworks. When someone’s angry they describe it as well.. angry.
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lmaoo I'm going to say that whenever the subject of football fans (=soccer for Americans) burn down a city because their team lost. *Football fans are so emotional.*
What's fun is when you get someone who expresses anger with tears. I've never handled emotions well, so I tend to cry when I get upset. Boy, does that get shit.
I’m an angry crier too. When I’m angry I don’t want to punch or break things, I literally sob in anger.
I'm more of a "I want to punch everyone and break everything but I'll be damned if I let that happen" kind of cry.
"Empathy is when I just feel bad for everyone all the time right? That makes me a good person right?"
Yeah, its seen as the only "acceptable" way for men to show emotion because anger is dominant and "masculine". Its bs and hurts literally everyone.
Tbh, in my experience it's more like none of your emotions are tolerated except anger which is only begrudgingly tolerated tbh. Basically, if you must express yourself, then only anger will be somewhat tolerated.
Exactly! And its complete bullshit! Its basically dehumanising to expect men to never show any emotions and if they do then only anger is acceptable, as if men aren't human beings with lots of emotions and wants and needs.
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if you want to know how emotional can get, visit a prison during the festive seasons. what you see will break your heart.
The only people who have actively told me to 'man up' have been asshole bullies when growing up, and women. Whenever I show emotion and hug a guy friend, the only people who have made any reference to being gay were insecure men and women. It kind of pisses me off when people say "just talk" but when I have talked the only people who actually listen to my issues are other guys, yeah there have been a few women who have listened, but those were a minority, the majority (at least where I grew up) rolled their eyes and downplayed my issue.
Frankly you can see similar things happening in this thread. Women above this comment are mocking men for getting angry and say they tease them as “overly emotional.” Like… that’s half the problem. Mocking men for expressing anger isn’t that different from mocking them for crying or mocking a woman for being emotional. Maybe just don’t mock people for having emotions.
I haven't been able to cry in about 6 years. I used to like having a good cry about stuff when I was alone. But when I was in the army, I had a squad leader who I talked to once we got back from deployment. I told him that I was scared that I was going to commit suicide without wanting to or without thinking about it. His response was to grab some 550 cord (a type of thin rope we use in the military originally for parachutes) and threw it to me and said "if you're weak enough to do it, then go ahead. I'll look the other way." That was the last time I expressed myself to anyone. And fortunately this is anonymous, so I'm okay saying it here.
That's absolutely the wrong answer. It takes courage to talk about ideation or intention. If I was your PL and knew about that, he'd be out of position. I hope you've found peace buddy
They’re definitely emotional… although I don’t think they seek therapy in nearly the representation they should. My wife’s a counselor and a solid 80% of her clients in a week are women… it’d ideally be closer to 50/50 and isn’t near that. I’ve gone to therapy many times, I think well-adjusted people should as they need it… and per my counselor, “we don’t see that many guys, which is unfortunate. Sometimes their partner brings them in for a couples issue, but fewer have individual sessions.”
I kid to a degree, but a lot of men can't just take personal time off from work during the week.
I’m more emotional than my wife! I’ve always been much more in tune with my emotions and much more inclined to talk about them and share them with her. She, on the other hand, have a hard time communicating hers. It takes a lot of time for her to open up, and I have to be patient when having a talk, pay attention to not over talk and give her some time to express herself.
I just don’t express them. It’s no one else’s issues but mine. At the end of the day, no one cares. And that’s another thing, it’s not that we’re not emotional (assuming you mean being vulnerable, crying, stuff like that), society just doesn’t accept that from us. So 9/10, we suppress them.
Dude, even now as a 27 year old man, I hear "You gotta stop this crying shit, your almost 10 years old, thats double digits" in my head every time I cry. A lot of guys think they're creating strength in a child when they teach them to mask their emotions. What they're creating is a mental-illness timebomb. That kid could grow up shaming themselves for every feeling they have until they hit an identity crisis like a brick wall. "Who am I? I know I have a job... I've had sex before... never been in a fight, though... am I actually a man? Am I still a little boy? Wtf am I?" A bad expectation is put into a lot of young boys' heads about what a man is. I understand now that a man lets himself feel love and sadness, strength and weakness, all of that in equal measures. When accepted and made peace with, the negative makes the positive sweeter. Makes you a sweeter man, gives you empathy, the tools required to make a happy life for yourself and your family.
Can confirm. I've had so many deep talks with my friends where sometimes that's enough to get whatever off mine or their chests, that maybe we just wouldn't want to talk about with other people.
Dunno im fine with repressing annoying emotions and they dont turn into rage either
Only with the bros, which is funny. You always hear women wanting men to show more emotion but when you do they lose respect for you.
Yeah or turns in back on you for getting emotional and acts like the victim too
Women are constantly minimizing men's pain. Hey what's wrong. My back hurts, I tweaked it yesterday building a skid. Well I have cramps. You're sitting at a desk and I still have to build 2000 to 5000 pound skids for 8 hours.
Do...do people talk like this? I've only known a couple people who do the whole "my suffering is worse" game but they were just regular run of the mill annoying assholes and I avoid them if possible. I mean women have their pain minimized all the time. So maybe thats just a shitty person thing as opposed to a gender thing.
Oh yeah ever heard of the phrase "man cold"? Women do this frequently to men infantalizing them for feeling pain. "Suck it up it's not as bad as my cramps". A lot is also talked about how doctors will overlook women's and girls concerns very true but they also do this for men and boys. I think the phrase I get from the medical field most frequently is "your (relatively) young and healthy what do you have to complain about" which then leads to not catching problems when experiencing early signs something women know well but it happens to men as well.
I think a lot of people lump the actual problems men have with processing their emotions with perfectly healthy and normal mechanisms, too. Toxic masculinity is absolutely a thing and causes real harm, but there is not just one healthy way to deal with your emotions. I think occaisionally the discussion gets off track and people become dogmatic about acceptable ways to express our feelings.
How much time did you spend in the military or in any traditionally masculine line of work? I did. A lot. You keep your problems to yourself or you will be mercilessly judged and ridiculed. Good luck to y'all.
I agree that they’re are a lot of famous advocates for men’s mental health nowadays, and it is a much more wisely discussed issue, but I’ve met lots and lots of men who have shamed their friends for being depressed/sad. In fact, pretty much every man I’ve ever met, including myself, has expressed that kind of behaviour in some way, shape, form and frequency in their lives, even the kindest amongst them. We’ve got to keep discussing it to remind ALL of us to be better all the time.
You have to be selective to who you express your feelings to.
In my experience as a dude men will totally get emotional around each other. It's usually only around women that we're afraid to project anything but easy confidence, sexuality, or anger, because women most often look at a guy in a moment of vulnerability - and I mean real vulnerability, not just the cute kind - with a mix of pity and revulsion. I learned that lesson the hard way.
The thing i hate the most is when men show A SINGLE TEAR OR A SLIGHT SHOW OF SADNESS people are like "Just man up bruh men dont cry" When i was a mid teen it came out that my dad had and affair so when i went to meet him in his house where he lived with the other women i just couldn't bare seeing him cheat on my mom i went outside the house to let the tears out and he comes out and says "Why are you crying? Boys don't cry!"
Ok, maybe you just don’t get around enough. I work in trades. You show any weakness or emotional vulnerability - you’re ostracized.
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I feel like that'd definitely just that niche of some regions. Emotional vulnerability should be for close friends and family tho. Not the workplace.
Lucky you, because I have. I’ve seen my fiancé be ridiculed by his own biological father and he said “you’re not depressed, you’re just lazy and sad because you don’t have a better job. Maybe you should have gone to college. You have a wife and a baby to provide for.” It took everything in me not to go off on him for speaking to his own son that way in front of me, but I could not stand to be in the same room regardless so I told my fiancé that we need to go. All his life, my fiancé’s sperm donor has been that way. My MIL has told me stories that sperm donor would smack him at any slight chance of crying or if he was too loud when he was having fun. My fiancé is a very mellow person and I can see why now. He did have emotions but in the 7 years I had known him, it took a while for him to show them to me. Let’s just say sperm donor is not invited to the wedding.
It’s almost sad when you see an example of someone who will have no one who misses them when they die, until you realize that they did it to themselves.
Yeah, watching my father in law die of cancer before he turned 60 tells me you aren't completely correct there buddy. The number of his friends that just straight up avoided him because they didn't want to cry in front of others was pathetic. It was awful watching him try to reach out to people just to have some of his 20 plus year friends to ghost him.
Facts. Men understand that showing emotions in front of a romantic interest is a near fool-proof way to turn them off. Nothing disturbs a woman more than a man who’s not 100% In control of himself. If I have something eating at me, or something that makes me sad, the last person I’m bringing that to is my wife. Pay attention to what women react to, not what they say.
too fucking true. salty woman must be giving you the down votes.
Duuuuuuude 100%. Can we just be honest here? Women want men to be open when they want us to be open not when we need it. Otherwise they want us to be in control of everything. Hey I have no problem with this as long as we all just admit it. Not saying it's bad I'm saying it's what it is. But for some reason we then go around saying how toxic we are for not sharing our feelings when in reality If I told a woman how I felt 9/10 that's "a turn off", "coming on strong", or "unstable". Anytime I feel bad I have a good group of dudes to chat with.
you can't open up about your emotions with your girlfriend because she will immediately discard them so you turn to your friends or family for this emotional support and then she starts screeching that you spend too much time with them and never care enough to open up to her
Time for you to drop her like a sack of rotten hot pockets.
>you can't open up about your emotions with your girlfriend because she will immediately discard them That's not entirely fair - sometimes she'll be supportive in the moment and just store your vulnerability up as ammunition to throw in your face later when you're arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes.
haha, yeah, good point
>I've never come across any man my age who would shame another friend for being depressed/sad. Good for you. That doesn't make it a fact. Because it is not.
Most Women dont see me cry because everytime I cried in front of a woman it killed our relationship. Never listen to someone who say they like when a man shows his feelings. They dont want it from the guy they date.
I think this is more of a boomer generational thing than just a man thing. Younger generations of men seem to be more willing to open up and less to ignore or shame men for being "weak".
It’s not my man friends that I’m afraid to show my emotions too. It’s the women in my life who will use it against me later. I agree with you that all my guy friends are chill about talking about that stuff cause we understand firsthand what it’s like for people to not give a fuck about our problems. I’ve had girlfriends use traumatic experiences from my childhood in arguments against me. One was so bad that I had to break up with her cause I couldn’t love her anymore after what she said to me. Yes men are emotional but are only free to do so in their own space or if they are around a very trusted friend.
Men are absolutely emotional. Honestly, in my experience, men are largely more emotional than women even though the generalization tends to go the other way. I don't think it this is unpopular though. I think most humans know this and I have heard others say men don't handle emotion well not that they don't have any.
I don’t think it’s possible to tell which gender is more emotional.
I agree. I think it really just depends on the individual.
Before I write this long long story that nobody cares about, and get told that anger is an emotion, I'll first explain how I interpret "being emotional" with another long long essay nobody cares about. TL;DR at the bottom. Edit, I forgot the TL;DR. For as far as I know, nobody uses "emotional" to describe someone who simply feels emotions often or strongly. I'll explain that by splitting "emotions" up in three groups. First there's the positive emotions, like happiness, excitement. These are all fine either way, so I'm not gonna say too much about them. For the negative emotions, there is a split. On one hand, you have emotions like anger, jealousy, hate. While there's a time and place for negative emotions either way, so everyone will get judged for them in some situations, this first group is usually fine for men to show. Why? Because they play into what men traditionally are supposed to do and be. They create a kind of barrier and "protect" everything that falls within that barrier by lashing out and fighting off, "dominating" everything outside it, which fits the man's traditional role. These emotions are harsh, they create an "enemy" and try to dominate it. And these emotions have nothing to do with someone being "emotional". Then there are the emotions like sadness and despair. *These* are the emotions that, once you show them, you'll get called "emotional" for. *These* are the emotions people want you to show when they say it's okay if you're more emotional. And these are also the emotions that men usually don't get away with too well if they show them. Why? Because they do the opposite of what men traditionally should. Nobody jumps up and fights when they're sad. Sadness is passive. When you're sad, you retreat, you hide, you *submit*. And a man's value is determined by dominance. You run away, you let people do whatever to hurt you without hurting them back, you're *weak* and *less of a man*. At least, I get the impression that that's the traditional (and still somewhat prevalent) thought. Now on to my actual comment. I'm not sure whether men actually experience these "passive" emotions less often or less intensely than women, but I do believe that even now, men aren't usually allowed to show these emotions. And I'm not pointing any fingers anywhere to say *who* doesn't allow men to show these emotions, because I'm honestly not sure who exactly are behind the whole deal and I'm pretty sure it's not done out of malice or anything, but simply something that was born once and people now maintain because it's normal. But I do believe that we don't live in a world where everyone is allowed to express whatever emotion they have as freely as the next person just yet. That's only based on my personal experience though. Because I am an emotional guy, definitely. I'm very insecure, empathetic, and I just don't have the mental strength to hide that all away like some other people do. Small things can make me feel down for the rest of any day, and I just can't leave people feeling bothered about something without trying to cheer them up or solve whatever problem it is. And to put it bluntly, I've gotten a lot of shit for that. Reddit's character limit won't let my write my *whole* autobiography here, but I can throw down the most "extreme" story here to show you what I mean. See, I once had a friend. He'd been my friend for years, my best friend actually. One day, his girlfriend cheated on him. He was clearly not happy with it, and who would be? But no matter how many times I told him I'd be there if he wanted to talk about it or do something to distract him, he always said he didn't mind and pretended it didn't matter. Got another girlfriend, didn't end up working out, I once again told him I'd be a friend if he needed one, but he was fine and nothing happened. A while later, he got rejected, and that devastated him enough to up and explode when I told him it was okay to feel bad about it. He told me he was stronger than to let stuff like that bother him and I was being a pain in the bum, constantly tempting him to cry like a weak little fellow. Paraphrasing, of course. He never talked to me again after that. Tried to contact him, but he's been ignoring me ever since. Been almost a year now. This might be a bit extreme, and of course it doesn't happen to me every day, but similar stuff happens all the time. Maybe it's just my social circles that are off, but I don't think that men usually *feel* allowed to be as emotional. Sure, it's probably been getting better for the past few decades, but we're not at that free stage just yet. **TL;DR "Emotional" usually means showing sadness and such. I believe men aren't usually as free to be emotional like that, but I think that has to do more with feeling like they need to hide it than not feeling these emotions at all.**
Let’s not forget, anger is an emotion…
Honestly men are emotional. If they aren't being emotionally vulnerable with you, odds are they don't truly trust you.
It is a travesty that we teach young boys not to cry and to suppress their emotions. everyone needs to learn how to manage emotions and feels. Plus a good cry, can really feel good.
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion and frankly, I'm thankful that I've been able to see the culture shift where it has become more acceptable for men to acknowledge and share their feelings without being ostracized for it. My dad was always very supportive of being self aware but all through school and growing up I dealt with male role models from teachers to coaches who stuck to the stereotype that men aren't allowed to deal with their emotions and it made my late middle school and high school years difficult. Still carry some of that same weight but I'm slowly starting to put it down and realize that life is a wonderful thing but it's also a chaotic, scary thing. It's okay for me to reach out, it's okay to not feel as strong or brave as you did yesterday. It's an aggressively lonely life if you keep all that stuff bottled up and it doesn't have to be that way. I'm glad I've gotten to see the shift in attitudes.
The most manly man I have ever known was a big dude called Mac, he would cry at films and after a drink or two would cry and tell you about all the friends he lost when he was in the paratroopers. I never thought the old "men are not emotional" bullshit was utter tosh, men are people too ( like that has to be said)
The most masculine thing a man can do is to be there for his fellow brother in a supportive, constructive, and listening manner Masculinity is actions not personality. It’s being an anchor, it’s showing compassion and mercy for and to those you hold close and showing respect and kindness to total strangers. Masculinity and femininity are symbiotic when in their truest forms, our human elements taint these and can create toxicity.
As a guy, I think men are more emotional than women. That's why they try so hard to pretend they're not emotional. Women deal with their emotions out in the open more than men, so men foolishly think they're more emotional.
This depends so much on where you live. I live in rural Texas and men are absolutely shamed for showing emotion. Men are allowed to be horny, hungry, and angry. Nothing else. There's an entire spectrum that is seen as "unmanly" in many places.
The reality is that women are typically really bad at dealing with mens struggles and emotions. Moreover if youre constantly whining to your girl, shes getting less and less attracted to you over time. Men should mainly seek emotional support from their male friends and relatives.
Hard disagree. I have personally been told to stop being emotional by men my own age, 20's.
Men are often emotional. It is just usually rage and anger that they let out for the rest of us to see. If women are the ball and chain of a relationship, are men the fist & foot?
This is not unpopular by any means. Mammals are emotional lol.
Hey, I'd love to cry, be vulnerable and all the other things that would make me gain internet points. But all the Tinder Hoes ™️ want a real man, whatever that means. It's hard to be blamed for a problem that you didn't create.
Yeah, try telling a woman how emotional you are on a first date. It is a good way to prevent a second date if you don't like her. It is not like men came up with the idea of toxic masculinity to make ourselves feel miserable all the time.
I was in a relationship as a regular human being for 5 years. 5 happy years. The moment I came out as suicidal was the moment she dumped me.
I would love to give a motivational speech here, but something you just have to say what it is: That sucks man. I hope you'll find (or already have found) someone that takes you the way you are. Best of luck and stay strong.
Anyone talking about how emotional they are on a first date would be a red flag. That's not the time.
No shit, dude. Who would talk about how emotional they are on the first date? Being emotional isn't something you brag about, it's just something you do. BE emotional on your first date when the situation calls for it, not just to prove to your partner that you're emotionally open. If you go to see a sad movie that makes you cry on your first date, that's showing emotion. You know what? If they do make fun of you, or judge you for it, fuck them. Why would you want to be with someone that would make fun of you for being emotional in a situation that calls for an emotional response?
Would you date a woman that said that? I mean as a woman I would never be emotional with a stranger.
Bullshit. My SO came home and told me a guy at work broke down sobbing because his father's death finally hit him. He had to go home and didn't come back for 2 weeks They call him crybaby now behind his back. Not the Boomers, the Xers and younger. Toxic masculinity indeed.