Don't disagree, but some hard things don't get said when the other gender is around, especially with men of a certain age. It takes a lot for many men to even out loud say the word "lonely" or "sad" or "worthless". A lot of male conversation is silent. The whole spiel is to project and feel capable of dealing with the world, to feel useful, to be a Man. To feel otherwise is not "masculine". To admit this to mixed company is a couple of bridges too far for most of us.
Funny, because the traditional role of a women is exactly to be the one who hears all these hard things and helps the man overcome them.
Extra funny hat women should be excluded so men can talk about feeling lonely and how they wish they had a woman.
It only takes one time: a woman who sees a man as less than for admitting his weakness makes him never talk about that stuff around women again.
Unfortunately, there are many women who react this way, so the cycle continues. I don't necessarily blame women for this, it's more about the social expectations for men, the moment they violate that expectation and are "punished" for it, they follow it to the letter, because they then know what happens if they don't.
find different women. Obviously many woman would have similar social expectations due to the way things have shook out.
Phew, I have very rarely heard something so wrong. Women are absolutely not traditionally an emotional support for men. In fact, being vulnerable in that way as a man is just about the surest way to make most women suddenly quite uninterested. Every woman has a story where some important man cries in front of her for the only time. In his entire life.
Women want men to be emotionally open as it applies to supporting them. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but let's call a spade a spade.
Wish they'd taught me this when I was young. They told me being open and vulnerable was attractive.
They also told me I had to verbally ask girls if it was okay to kiss them and if they didn't verbally say yes I was assaulting them.
Intimacy has not been absent from my life, but it has had a very small role.
That may be the traditional role of a wife, though even in marriage a man who dumps all his fears and worries on his wife will soon find himself without one. Women want a man to open up and share his feelings, but in practice a little of that goes a long way.
But in any case, it's not the traditional role of whatever women happen to be in earshot.
It’s not complicated. Men need women. But men need men, too. The needs are distinct and not interchangeable.
Fine, but why do you list two needs with enormous female gendered baggage in that case?
>A lot of male conversation is silent.
No it isn't! Men need to talk about their feelings just as much as women! There isn't some major difference in how we handle emotions!
We are all human, and humans are emotional creatures.
So many men need to Grow the Fuck Up and realize that being vulnerable is not the same as being weak. You need to be talking to your friends or confidants about your feelings.
>To feel otherwise is not "masculine"
Wrong. If you need to project a constant air of competence and stoicism and power, you are insecure and emotionally stunted.
I blame media honestly. Watch what women protagonists in American media do compared to male protagonists. Watch how male characters just do not talk through their feelings and emotions to other men, except as essentially a crisis point. Watch as women characters are much more likely to talk about how they felt about something.
Meanwhile, outside the US, male characters are allowed to have feelings. The Doctor is an insanely emotional man, full of complicated feelings that he is constantly having to face, and yet is portrayed as a man of immense power and prestige.
What male role model to American men have that portrays emotional development as a good and important thing?
> Men need to talk about their feelings just as much as women! There isn't some major difference in how we handle emotions!
You are categorically wrong. In fact, you couldn’t be further from the truth.
Men process emotions differently than women do. A real, biological difference. There is a reason why men don’t cry at the end of titanic. And to imply men are somehow emotionally stunted because they don’t emote like a woman does, is not only wrong but is harmful.
> vulnerable is not the same as being weak
Go read a dictionary. Showing vulnerability is the same thing as showing weakness and society shuns and shames weak men. There are reasons for that, and men have every incentive not to show weakness.
> No it isn't! Men need to talk about their feelings just as much as women! There isn't some major difference in how we handle emotions!
Yes there is. It isn't some societal thing either. It's ingrained deeply in biology. Saying men just need to be like women is asking them to go against their nature.
> Men need to talk about their feelings just as much as women! There isn't some major difference in how we handle emotions!
I... I've never heard this before, and it is in stark contrast to decades of my personal experience.
> You need to be talking to your friends or confidants about your feelings.
What do you mean "need to"?