This quote by TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com is a good thing to keep in mind. I'm not going to lock it because it genuinely seems to be helping some people. I'm getting reports though, so remember to be excellent to each other please.
this comment section is a memorial of injured experiences.
tread carefully.
Edit: fixed author's username.
A few years ago I was struggling with body image and was starting to feel worthless and invisible in my marriage. When I tried expressing these feelings to my wife (really just trying to make an emotional connection) her response was curt and to the point: "You don't have body image issues. I'm the one struggling with my weight."
And that was it. I've never felt more alone in my life.
I've been scrolling the comments on this post for a while (longer than I should) and just want to say it is one of the most refreshing collective displays of thoughtfulness and empathy I have read online in far too long. Even the back-and-forwards where people disagree on details or semantics are still overwhelmingly positive, insightful, and respectable on all sides. Another comment here used a brilliant term "merciless insincerity", and personally I've been leaning in a dangerously cynical direction lately about its prevalence. Although I know I am old & resilient enough to not let it capsize me I despise when so much lowest-common-denominator thinking hardens my shell and wallpapers a layer of apathy over who I really am (the angry-yet-optimistic teenager from the 80s/90s who screamed into the void about the climate-emergency, the corrosion of democracy by short-term vote-winning & fundraising, and - more relevantly - the toxicifying impact men and women have had on society - at interpersonal, familial, regional, national, and international scales - by regurgitating thoughtless archetypes and flagwaving in lieu of questioning reality from a fearless standpoint of "open-minded but critical, optimistic but sceptical, confident but fallibilistic". Discussions like these are some of the very few bastions of antidote left for that cynicism and apathy. What blows my mind is that it is apparent a nontrivial proportion of you who are young (well, much younger than me) are introspecting and expressing yourselves about the subject better than I ever could. When I see the flood of toxic (and idiotically childish) nonsense almost everywhere else, discussions like these truly help bolster a dangerously scarce resource called "hope for the future", and reinforces for me why about 99.9℅ of my "social online reading" time is spent on Lemmy lately. Gandhi said "be the change you wish to see in the world", and it's worth considering that what you are all writing here is a good example of you doing exactly that (even if you hadn't realised or intended). It adds up, when groups of people give each other the chance to be truly unafraid (instead of "playing tough" - which merely broadcasts how truly afraid someone really is).
I went through the worst depression of my life around 2017, tried to express these feelings to my gf at the time and explain why our romance was failing or why I spent half the day in bed.
Basically got told "poor you", everyone has struggles, snap out of it and be a man. That definitely helped, and didn't push me even deeper into feelings of worthlessness..
I'm doing ok now, but it was the first time I felt comfortable enough with someone to express those emotions, I was at my wits end. The response was eye opening, never again.
This sort of situation is how I knew my wife was/is a keeper. When I was pushed to the point where my negative emotions got too much, she was there for me. She didn't shy away, but stepped in to help and support me.
In many of my previous relationships, showing negative emotions was lethal to their feelings. I could be happy, or stoic, but never upset or depressed.
On a side note, I had a chat with a trans friend once, regarding emotions. When they transitioned, the intensity of their emotions didn't change much. However, their ability to contain them plummeted. Basically, men and women feel emotions similarly. Men are just a lot more able to bottle them up.
I don't know if I want to blame the patriarchy or the toxic masculinity that goes with it, but crap. My ex was so not ok when I cried over the discovery of her affair.
She genuinely thought I was trying to manipulate her. I was "too extremely emotional" over it. We were highschool sweethearts, had a kid, and she always talked about how she was disgusted with her own mother for having an affair. Even to the point where she cut off contact with her mother until they ended that relationship.
"No man goes to bed crying because their wife cheated on them or sends nudes to the same guy 4 years later."
There were red flags earlier than that. "Why are you crying over a movie?" (I always do at emotional bits). "Man up, no one wants to be with someone expresses sadness."
What's worse is that it's pretty much why I don't bother going out, or have much motivation to get back into the dating game. The patriarchy and toxic masculinity has ruined being human to me. I don't want to be friends with people who cover up all their emotions. I don't want to be friends with guys who are clearly over compensating. Then the girls turn around complain about these men being cruel to them, yet state things like this.
Then you have all the men who have this strange belief that they are owed women, and by behaving like that they get the women they are owed. I won't take part in that. I will not hurt someone else just to satisfy my desires. If that means I don't date, I'm much more comfortable being a good person and alone.
I also try to bring it up in conversation, and then people turn around and act like my refusal to participate in patriarchal behavior is anti-social. I had one person point out "technically, you aren't getting any, even though you want it, making you an incel." I was so shocked. Its not the fault of women I'm not out getting laid. Its men. It's the patriarchy. It's this system set up to isolate me because I have an intense emotional awareness.
I'll add to the trauma dump I suppose
Got married in August 2018, the beginning of the next month my dad died of cancer. Obviously I was mourning him and was in a shitty place, my then wife took that as me not being active enough in our relationship and decided to start cheating on me with multiple guys. Once I found out and called her out on it, and also subsequently kicked her out all of a sudden I was the bad guy. I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics she was hopping through to think that was justified.
Anyway I've moved across the country since then and have met who I believe is my soulmate, and things are amazing with her. Just had to go through sewers to find my green pasture I suppose
Wore nail polish at work this week, because I’m a bloke in his 40s who works in an office so fuck it, why not.
Our HR manager - a man in his 50s who fairly recently sent out an email reminding us to talk about our feelings to help our mental health - asked me (half jokingly) if I was “going through some life changes”
I will be when I find a better company to work for.
Super socially awkward and anxious in middle school and high school and was also bullied a ton. Girls would ask me out as a joke, and there's no good response. If you say yes you're a dumbass for thinking they're actually interested in you, if you say no you're gay and should kill yourself. Combined with being an impressionable teen with incredibly negative self esteem on reddit at a time where something along the lines of all men are rapists was a common sentiment, it really honestly fucked me up. I still am not comfortable with romance and intimacy with women to be honest.
A bit related to this, so many times throughout my life when I've mentioned I'd like to be friends with, take up lost contact with or just mention a woman has a currently present woman reacted like "you know she has a boyfriend, right?", "I don't think you're her type" etc.
It makes sense that so many men have very few or no female friends, because they experience exactly that. It's like many women have decided that all men are incapable of being friendly with women without it being about sex or more than friends. We get scared of trying because it'll just be misinterpreted as wanting to fuck them.
I decided to end a relationship and marriage, after being together for 13 years. For the first time in years I put myself first and realised that I needed to be out of the relationship. Coming out of this has been very difficult and I've been struggling with my mental health since.
I started dating again, and have had two horrible experiences where my feelings were just put aside and it really hurt. Both of which ended up with the relationship ending. It's like I'm not allowed to have feelings or struggle. 😞
I've thought about this a fair bit, and I can definitely recall a bunch of cases from primary school and high school when I opened up about my feelings and personal stuff; and it ended badly for me. It ended badly every time, and I reckon that's why I basically don't tell anyone anything about myself now as an adult. I don't even share most stuff with my partner, or my family - such are the scars of past experience.
I'm sure this is similar for many people.
I'm so sorry for all those commenters having sad stories and being told to "man up". That's very sad
I might be wrong but I have a feeling that it is a very US influenced problem (so now a very English speaking country problem). Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm influenced because it is Internet and there's plenty of Americans and everything is written in English.
Being born in a French speaking culture, I don't feel that way. My friends don't, my non French speaking friends don't as well. Most men of my generation (millennial) that I have met could express emotions without much problems, and women would not react badly to it, but maybe I'm just lucky.
Of course, there's always some shitty people, some overly manly jerks or non caring women, but I would say that they represent less than 15% of the population I've met in my life (data source: My ass).
So, am I wrong ? Am I influenced by Internet ? How is it for German/Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Japanese/Whatever cultures ?
And if I'm right, well that sucks. How can we help ?
Imho the worst are those who crucify the patriarchy at every point, then a man chimes in to criticize calmly the words chosen are inappropriate for the given situation, or outright hurtful, then the radical anti-patriarchy combatants shut down that person as the most vile being they deserve to feel terrible. And that guy ill-adjusts, be it on a personal level of despair or combative misogyny, and the anti-patriarchy combatants continue their cycle, because clearly they were right from the get-go, men are misogynistic and don't speak about their problems. Rinse and repeat.
Please, don't be that type of anti-patriarchy fighter. It doesn't matter that you describe yourself as super leftist progressive, if you behave like crap and reinforcing the worst of stereotypes.
I lost my little brother last year and I would say I already wasn't a very "manly" man before that but that put things into a new perspective. It was a horrible time but also one that showed me that I chose my friends and family very wisely.
Pretty sad comment section, hope y'all get through it.
I guess I’ll share too.
Although I don’t actually cry that often, and will still tend to shut my self off and wallow when I start to feel down; which is something that happens intermittently several times a year where I just feel hopeless, unhappy, lacking purpose, and not really wanting to do life.
So when I’m in these moods my friends have realised the signs, mainly me being hard to reach and absent from gatherings etc. they will all reach out and make me leave the house and have a talk about how I’m feeling, have some hugs, and then just go to roasting each other. This helps massively as isolating makes me worse so being around friends and just being in the moment is a really good antidote for me.
I guess my point is that the men around me are a bit more accepting of mental health issues. It’s not like they’re all hipster kind of mates. I am unusual in that I’m a nerdy software developer that is also very street wise and has mates that are completely the opposite. Most are trades people, a few sell drugs, are handy with their hands etc. basically my friends are chavs, but they’re accepting and not what you would think.
Edit: I should add that we all range from 30-40 years old.
My belief is that most women belive they want a sensitive man (after all, that's the cultural norm), until they actually get one. It's not super cool IRL unfortunately. Though it's very rare that women admits this to themselves or others. Usually you can find another believable excuse, that fits with the norm. Abnormal sensitivity often comes with extra baggage.
But there are of course exceptions, and that's what you should look for if you're a guy and know you're on the more sensitive side of the spectrum.
Also don't fall for any of that "patriarchy" crap that is being spammed here. It's just a useless concept (or religion). Usually advocated by people with close to zero life experience and a taste for conspiracy theories. And in this context its almost dangerous, because even if it was true, advocates draw the wrong conclusions (like that a less patriarchal society would appreciate sensitive men more). If you want to understand why the world feels injust or that you've been fooled, I would start with reading about evolutionary game theory and maybe look at Robert Sapolskys video lectures on human behavior biology on YouTube. Then do some reading on moral realism (and why it's stupid). If you're American (sorry) its probably more likely that you are a firm believer in moral realism and that you don't know much about evolution and biology. Don't go for Jordan Peterson because he's just a completely incoherent thinker (or simply put, a quite stupid guy), who's also into mysticism. Or maybe just read some Peterson and you will hopefully understand. He's very average, but had good timing I guess.
I like to have a cry every so often, like if I'm starting to feel overwhelmed easy and constantly, I'll go watch one my insta cry shows or movies.
One that works really well and lets me cry but over a more uplifting way mostly, is Ricky Gervais show Derek, I ugly cry so damn much in that show and afterwards I come out feeling great.
I used to hide it, but now I'll tell anyone, I don't care anymore, I'm nice, I'm caring and helpful, I'm a good person who uses crying as a form of self therapy, you're the negative one belittling me over a childish viewpoint that makes you feel uneasy because you lack the ability to actually express your emotions, so others shouldn't either.
Plenty of examples out there, also see the "woman vs tree" simile.
For every 50 sensitive men out there, there's a sociopath using a sensitive man persona to try to gain an advantage with women. Believe that men are sensitive, but verify, look for red flags.
Men don't I through things alone, they just only share in groups. At least, the sensitive nice men I know are more comfortable exchanging personal shit than just straight up divulging it
It's ok to cry about sad life experiences... But not about xitter.
the comments aren’t making it to my instance but i peeked over to how they look on slrpnk and just want to say good job all for approaching this with so much respect and decency
certain communities over on .world could never 😜
