I once heard an evolutionary psychologist talk about how hospitalized psychiatric male patients in London during the bombings suddenly stood up and drove around in ambulances, basically helped as they could, when only minutes ago they were deeply depressed and in catatonic states. He used this example to showcase that maybe the traditional approach of talking therapy isn't as effective for men as it is for women, and that maybe there should be an approach towards helping men feel more useful. Idk, just found that story very interesting, although I have no idea if it's true.
That is fascinating. My relative suddenly went mentally i'll at 21. He's 29 now and there have been little improvements. I would be so fascinated to see if there were a working therapy that could help him.
I think in general, men have strong desire to feel useful and productive - but the society we live in really warps the idea of what is useful and productive compared to things like saving lives or building homes etc.
I do agree with you. I have a book called Male psychology: Males perspective. It’s very interesting and it does point that out, that men need to feel useful and purpose. Like the therapy we use now is modelled from females perspective but does work for men as much as it works for women. Hence you see men state that the gym helps with their mental health and that is because they are doing stuff like lifting and etc. but yea it is interesting
It isn’t true. There is plenty of evidence that is randomized and plenty of smaller studies on men. The problem isn’t that therapy doesn’t work as well for men as women. The problem is that men resist the idea of therapy to begin with. Part of this may also be because the demographics of practitioners has shifted dramatically. There are not enough male practitioners and many men may feel uncomfortable doing therapy with a woman. So what to we do with that? I’m not sure. But yea people do have a strong desire to be useful and have purpose. We find that pretty unilaterally. And therapy alone is never enough. You can’t just talk your problems away and then continue to return to the same life you’ve been living.
Just to throw my two cents in, I realized in my mid 20s that the emotional intimacy of my male friendships actually decreased as we went from boys to men and felt the need to fulfill the social role of men. In my teenage years my guy friends would have sleepovers (that we called man-overs) and the last thing we did before we went to sleep was turn the lights off and have quite vulnerable discussions as we laid in our sleeping bags or on the couch. To contrast with this, I only had moments this vulnerable with friends I made in college when at least one of the parties was horrendously drunk and even among my childhood friends our open vulnerability decreased. That being said, among men I'm still on the more emotionally open and vulnerable side and it's always struck me how much men crave it and will open up emotionally once someone else makes the first disclosure. It's kind of a chicken or egg thing, but my group of friends from my teenage years was made up of both boys and girls whereas once I went off to college my friend groups became more and more only guys.
That's interesting because I had somewhat the opposite experience. I still have friends from college who I regularly will have over or stay at theirs (granted, they're in different cities now) but just the general emotional closeness is higher now that I'm an adult. It's understood that hugs and being vulnerable are part of our friendship, and it's something that has demarcated newer, weaker friendships that I've developed, and I think I'll never have that closeness with new people again.
I second this. I’ve had guy friends who told me they intentionally seek out female friends bcs they feel like they cant be vulnerable with male friends no matter how close
I'm female and as a child I wasn't really allowed to show lots of negative emotions. Mainly sadness was suppressed. Since my father made no distinction between how he raised males and females, I was basically brought up as a man, like he was. Nowadays I struggle to understand my own emotions and I very much relate to most men. It's quite interesting.
I had three older brothers and only realise now how in some ways I was treated as an ersatz man (not allowed to show any strong emotions so I suppressed them). Then being overprotected as a young girl growing up in terms of socializing, but unprotected in terms of sexual predation. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here.
It was similar to me. My father wanted a boy, and even now, he sometimes refers to me as one by accident. I recently noticed his approach, when my mother found another partner, and he's so nice and carries my things for me. I somehow hate the second thing and feel weak when he does it.
I’m gay and my best friend is straight. He’s told me I’m the only one he’s been able to open up to because I have a deeper more open understanding of emotions but I’m also a guy so in his mind he doesn’t feel weak. My heart broke for him, I recommended a therapist to him and he’s considering it, I hope he goes.
I'm a woman and I have not a single friend. My husband is my everything; best friend, therapist, partner, financial provider, carer when I've been sick etc. I grew up in a family that mocked and belittled me when I did express express my emotions. I felt so painfully lonely until I found him. Having my emotions validated by him was such a new feeling. If he left me or passed away before me I actually think I would literally die too. I know it's not ideal but I'm grateful that I have at least him in this lonely world. I empathise so much with those men who feel how I did. I truly hope they find loving supportive partners.
I was just commenting under a similar comment like yours. I'm in the same exact position. I feel extremely uncomfortable expressing myself and have gotten so good at not saying anything due to my upbringing. Among certain people I get encouragement to express how I actually feel, one of them being my husband who is happy when i express my anger and true emotions even during a serious argument since i tend to hide it. I began struggling with especially my female friendships around age 14. Long story short I have about 1 close friend who is a queer male and a couple female almost-friends but I've lost the ability to get past that stage so those relationships fade off after some time. The person i confide in the most is my husband, he has friends so it's hard for me to consider myself as a close friend in the same way he'd see it.
@@normalouis8593 wow I feel so similar to you. Do you believe in God? I feel like my other best friend is God, who knows everything in my heart without me having to say a word. This gives me great comfort too. My aim in life is to listen to my kids with unconditional love and support, and not have them feel how I did growing up.
@@click2112 Yes I do! I was raised to believe him but over time I formed my personal relationship with him (still in the process). My favorite thing about it is that I believe he sees and knows all, so it's one being I don't have to hide my true feelings around (not that I could). Like yourself, I would like to do the same for my children too. We tend to mimic our parent's ways so I really need to make sure I can "check" myself to make sure I avoid their behavior. I hope it goes well for you. What I've found interesting is that my friend is sort of like yours too. He's VERY extroverted and easy to read and in-turn can read others. It's not as easy for me to hides feelings around him, but naturally I feel comfortable being "real" with him because he won't judge and is also real with everyone.
Thank you for the honest and authentic empathy that's so rare these days holy shit I didn't realize it but never ever seen a comment like yours and I was feeling very angry about all this stuff because I'm young 20s and am trying to understand this shit and why women online seem to be into men who don't respect them or see them as lesser vs guys who actually care and get friendzoned but your genuine empathy and saying the truth how lonely shit can be without that experience gives me a lot of respect for you and lowered my anger significantly knowing that there are women out there who understand this experience too.
I've never heard that humor doesn't matter in male friendships. I would honestly believe the opposite. Pretty much every male friend group I've experienced cracks jokes at others, themselves and all types of other things.
Actually I believe this is the problem, platonic relationships for guys usually have TOO much humour. We never take anything seriously. We laugh at ourselves and others, we don’t take real problems seriously, we’re bad at expressing AND recognising signs for mental health conditions in people, etc it’s all just jokes and fun until a bro does something horrible to themselves or others, and then we’re left wondering “Damn, why’d he do that” and then the cycle repeats
@@tiramisu7544 Oof... I'm sorry, replace all instances of 'we' with 'I'. It's not really that way. I'm a man and wouldnt categorize the whole thing. All fun and jokes you say ahah sure, sometimes. When i feel like. But mine is a personal story, as it is everyone story, so lets just say, given im introducing myself, lets say i kind of bumped and ditched those who i used to hand around with. No bros. No hoes. Im alone and dont want noone around bothering me. Im figuring out myself. I cant have 'bros' around. They generally suck though. As you grow up, it becomes increasingly hard to get along and have all that 'bro big movement thing' going on
Humour doesn't matter in that the jokes are filler for anything meaningful. We are there to make each other laugh because it's easier to do that than accept something might be wrong with us. My friend group was awesome at the time and while it was fun cracking jokes It creates a boundary of emotion, I know what can make my friends laugh but did I know they were being verbally abused at home? The boys always see each other as a goofy little gang of goobers and if I told them I had a problem I'm afraid it'd mess everything up or I'd be left behind. When my friends dad died he never told any of us, when he did we didn't know how to comfort him because we'd never been confronted with any emotion outside "LMAOOOO UR MUM BROO BAHAHAHA" they make us feel better and yes that's good short term but it should be more balanced between banter and serious emotional connection.
A genuine thank you for making this video. I'm a 27yo male, who has been taking his black pill every day for the past year. Yesterday I said "no more, I want to be happy again". Today I watched this, and I feel I once again remember how it feels not to be resentful. Thank you for being there, helping me to un-poison my world view ❤️ May the goodness of the universe, in beneficial proportion, converge around you 🙏🏻
Good luck to you. It's difficult, but we have a lot of life ahead of us. I don't want to change in my 40s, my 50s. At the same time, I feel that I am now too deep in my career to have time to really delve into this. So I focus my energy on male friendships and then leave out the bad news when it comes to my romantic relationships. It feels unhealthy and disingenuous. Ive always felt like it's my emotional unavailability that has caused most of my relationships to fail. Either that or choosing a woman based on superficial things and finding that it didn't actually make me happy long term. I think I know the woman I'm looking for when I see her, but it's up to me to not c*ck it up by defaulting to the "just be stoic and don't let her in on your problems." I suppose this reluctance to share emotional vulnerability, especially with women, has only made me feel worse about myself. It never has worked for me. But at the same time, the fear of sharing emotions in an unhealthy or unappealing way is what turns me away from closer connection with my partner of 4 years. So I find she shares a lot while I hold back. It's not good and it's not going to work long term. I need to get into therapy, because I know that I want to be with her. But there's no energy or always something else that we'd rather do than try to invest free time and tons of money in the luxury of finding a very good therapist that works well for me. Anyway, I hope this helps you somehow. I just needed to share this. I think we will be okay, but we have to seize the day even if it's a small step at a time. Just get a little better each day. Progress isn't linear. It sometimes feels like we go backwards, but if you can keep the lighthouse in view, you can make it through any storm in life. Best wishes for you on this journey. It is hard but worth every ounce of effort.
@@Chironex_Fleckeri Thank you for sharing. I'm happy to say I am getting better every day, even if they are small steps. For the first time ever, I feel good being single. Or at least, I do not feel bad about it and I can enjoy the things I am now focusing on: my career and gym. It is hard to put it into words, but in all simplicity, I have started very actively and consciously taking care of myself holistically. I even take baths with bath bombs just to have a way to unwind, other than gym or hiking. I've fixed my diet (it never was bad but now it is bona fide healthy), I work out every day, go to sleep before midnight, read books and try to focus from time to time giving something back to my community. I feel genuinely good. I feel that now when I feel truly good when alone, I am finally ready to fall in love in a healthy way. As my mother says: "don't worry, your wife is already born, now you just have to find her.". Thank you Bill :) Just to give something back to you: Try opening up to her. You are a good man and you are strong. You are enough as you are, even with some insecurities and fears. Fear is an opportunity to display courage, not a sign of weakness. And even if it was, which it is not, weakness in some things is not a sin. Weakness and strength are always proportional to which we compare them. You do not have to be all-enduring to be deserving of love ❤️ I hope all the best to you! And if it gives you a ray from the lighthouse what to follow, come tell me when you've taken the first the first step and tried opening up :) All the best, Val
@@TheTurtlePenguin thank you as well. I wish you well. Progress is never linear, not in my experience. We all have things we are working on. Good luck friend
@@TheTurtlePenguin this is so so so great to read. I often read incel forums and even though as a woman they are equal parts frightening and infuriating to read, there's always a part of me that wonders how far gone some of those men are, how comforting it would be if reven a tiny fraction of them could realize how damaging that worldview is not only for women, but especially for themselves. It's so wonderful to see how at least one of them realized how dramatically his life could improve with just the will to change and some selfcare. Truly made my day.
A few years ago my best friend of 20 years and best man was living with me and my wife in our one bedroom apartment, he was sleeping on the floor trying to get his teaching career off the ground, and I wanted to help him more than anything but slowly we stopped talking. He wouldn't go out to the bar, dinner, or share any meals with us. At first it was just odd but I noticed he would always agree to go out but then come up with an excuse and bail, and i started to have a really hard time relating with him. One time we had a few drinks and he broke down and apologized for everything but then went right back to being a stoic libertarian. We stopped having company because he lived on the floor of our living room, he insisted on paying rent and eating saltine crackers and canned tuna for every meal and binging on fast food. his lifestyle was causing me to violently stress clean which was a terrible way to behave and a habit I learned from my own mother thats apparently permanent. Then my grandmother died and things got worse, culminated in the end of our relationship and both of us living in my apartment in silence for 6 weeks until he left, i haven't heard from him since, and don't really miss the acrimony in my life. As it stands I'm just as you describe in the video married with no friends, were trying to make friends with other couples but every man i know has the same emotional distance that can only be dissolved temporarily with drugs and alcohol, myself included.
You're a really great, insightful, writer. Your words really made me see ur story play out as if I were reading a book. I actually would read ur book if you wrote about this and went into a lot of descriptive details and shared some insights or lessons that you might have gleaned from the experience. Also I have never heard the violent stress cleaning described in that way as though it is actually an illness or coping mechanism and I didnt know it was permanent..I dont have it but a family member of mine does haha. On the bright side, at least it's a way of using anger to get something done. Anger is not the enemy, it's how we channel it to create change that determines its nature. I'm glad u and ur wife have it good now.
Thank you for sharing this insight. I've noticed that a lot of the younger generations seem to be more open and aware to their own feelings and expressing them so I feel as though society is getting better on that front, like anything else it just takes a lot of time for that change but I do see it happening. I have family members who stress clean before anyone comes over to their house, they become really irritable and angry the entire week before they have company over, like the presentation of their home will never be good enough even though it looks good. During that time they are DREADFUL to be around when their in that state. I think that's tied into some other emotional stuff though. I've heard that men, if not self sufficient and independent they feel worthless and depressed and I'm sure that played a huge part in the strain on your friendship, I'm sure he was embarrassed and felt like a burden to you and your wife and that rly kills people, women as well but especially men. I truly hope you and your wife find some friends that are open to sharing their true deep thoughts and feelings. Sending lots of love your way! 💙💙💙
I really appreciate your nuanced critique of male culture partly because it doesn’t devolve into an attack, and because it also doesn’t turn into a “men vs women” debate. We each go through our own struggles and it isn’t a competition!
Unfortunately, some of the people in these comments are turning it into that. Especially under a video that primarily tackles men’s issues in a more nuanced manner…
@@DanKlein1995 its because a woman is trying to explain how man work, most of the times woman dont even know how they themselfs are. so how are u going to listen to a woman explaining mans issues >?
Well, mostly you're right, but she is not as nuanced as usually is about male friendships in my opinion. Probably because this is the territory where she has little real experience. I hope she will have more.
I am a man and my most intimate friendships are almost exclusively with women. I struggled with PTSD for some years now and because growing emotionally numb became incredibly toxic to me I have an increased desire and need to express my feelings on a regular basis. During those years I've experienced Alexithymia to the point where it can even be difficult to name how I feel. For a long time I've resorted to unhealthy stoicism and pent up emotions instead until they bagage became too heavy to cope with. My female friends are capable of talking about emotions while my male friends don't share their own and become clearly uncomfortable when I go into detail about mine. Edit: Fixed possibly misleading phrasing regarding my PTSD.
I do have a friend who is a woman and she's the only one i can talk about "sensitive" issues about my feelings and shit. I always feel better afterwards
B/C were supposed to think be rational its hard 5o be rational with ao much pain and anger or sadness and ovr hey man it aint easy I know I got aspergers or asd 1 l,adhd and ocd and probably ptsd but with what I know about the mind is that its influenced by emotion and carnalities but it must be a hard separation from the two and you must acknowledge both sides and be in control and always be logical about the situation. All of us as men all of us put too much stock into what society says when we shouldn't. We gotta put ourselves into things bigger than us as humans. Now through this venting a bit we must be able to recognize our own emotions and go beyond that and control it. Me I believe in the God of the bible THE MOST HIGH THE AMLIGHTY HIMSELF. So I try to change and do change to become on very higher plane than whats down here and be objective and honest a out the situation be truthful within my self and with others but definitely within myself first. Cause you gotts understand as us guys its our fault cause we let ourselves go too much into the desires of the world. But long story short well even shorter life aint hard but it aint easy its simple dont make things harder than what they are. Find out ways to change ourselves for all of our benefit o4 aka our weaknesses and find out how to improve our strength and go extra hard on your weaknesses and keep improv8ng your strengths and it'll all balance out 1 day put things in the right context and if you need to let those emotions out physically and let them go not hard or easy real simple we all gotta start boiling it down to a what gs living in the who. God bless shalom or assalamalakium or peace be unto you in whatever way God wants for you.
I agree, I'm much more comfortable around and talking to women. I think there's a lot of men that have been told (and as I've seen on the net are continuing to be told) that talking about their feelings is somehow a bad thing, and that they should just go to the gym. For me, exercise helps, but what helps even more is talking about my problems and having someone else help me put things into perspective. Sometimes even just getting it off your chest is enough.
@@starrysergal9376 I mean the general attitude that men are supposed to push through tough times without complaining about how it makes them feel. Basicly to just "suck it up" and keep going. It's likely that I experienced this especially strongly because of a variety of contributing factors: I grew up on a farm so my fathers work just has to get done no matter how you feel. I also have ADHD which causes difficulties with concentration and makes me easily frustrated, but due to difficulties in school I had to study even when doing so made me feel horrible. Doesn't sound like a big deal but if that defines your teenage years the behavior can become pretty engrained. Dealing with the sometimes overwhelming emotions ADHD can trigger was an important skill, needed to make sure that you don't act inappropriatly in social situations. Eventhough those factors are highly subjective I don't believe I am remotely alone with this since most of my male friends seem to have learned that same "unhealthy stoicism". I am just someone who can easily recognize it since it became a major roadblock when it comes to processing trauma.
Alpha bros associating stoicism with their mindset is nonsense and completely against its teachings in the first place. Stoicism is all about even-tempered, rational thinking and responses to emotion. Not in an apathetic way, but moreso "I can not control the actions of someone who did me wrong, so why should I let it ruin my happiness?" sort of way. Stoics loved nature and friendship and affection too - they are taking stoic philosophies and twisting them into justification to be a shitty person.
exactly. i’m convinced they don’t even know what stoic means. they just hear it and think no emotion, gaze of steel, no speaking “cool guy” persona man of few words etc. it’s just overplayed gender roles at the end of the day.
This explains why most of my male friends would say that they started 'liking' me but after some time would realise it wasn't the case. They just didn't realise that emotional empathy can also come from friendships. I, on the other hand used to get frustrated thinking that the male population never sees me as a person but as a romantic endeavour, but now i try and understand why they could end up confusing their feelings for me.
i tell my sister to be careful about guy friends cuz quite often a man isn’t use to genuine empathy sympathy from women. cuz as much as lot of ppl say that women are the more considerate empathic gender..that is rarely the case with men in general were feared hated etc..so i tell her when a guys vulnerable and bares himself to you BE VERY CAREFUL. Cuz most likely your acceptance & kindness will fan the flames of love in that man..cuz we love idealistically women Not so much…The mark of true intimacy of men is..letting you in VERY VERY rarely will this happen. In fact guys can count on 1 hand the amount of women we truly trust with our hearts and minds. And it’s always to a point never the whole thing cuz MOST ain’t built to handle it.
@@Michael_Jackson187 You sound like an egghead would after being rejected will then, to save your own ego, make up some lie about the other person. You also seem to assume all men just by default are dogs incapable of having complex emotions like the original comment was alluding to, which is very misandrist of you.
@@jockslap I'm just pointing out the cause & effect of this particular societal problem. [EDIT] also funny you mention fighting when radfems love to fight and nitpick over EVERYTHING.
Welcome to the women world ahahaha. Now, seriously, if we think about it, no one is validated these days when they express their feelings,and i think the reason is we, as listeners, dont know how to deal with it
YOOO THIS IS IT BOIS. HE NAILED IT. Imagine being ignored after explaining internal trauma and then being dehumanized because you don't use words to express pain
My husband and I just got married earlier this year. We’re both in our early 30s-neither of us have a prior marriage. We dated for a little over 3 years before getting engaged…I am his first serious, actually long-term relationship. And damn… this video is poignant. What breaks my heart is that many of our struggles (that involve him-I have my own issues 😅) revolve around his complete lack of intimacy skills or ability to understand and articulate his emotions. You’d think a guy who never had a 1yr+ relationship would struggle with commitment, but that’s NEVER been the case (the manosphere can shove it-monogamous men exist, my dudes. Just like poly women also exist.) He has been committed to me from the beginning-hell, he was more in this than I was at the beginning. But there was an absolute disconnect between his deep desire for partnership and his ability to actually SUPPORT a partnership with someone. He has a big group of close, loving male friends that he’s had since high school-but as much as they are good at expressing affection for each other and sticking around, they almost NEVER share their feelings about anything. They talk AT each other ago it things they’re facing, but they almost never solve problems or ask each other for help. “Talking things out” between them almost always involves one guy venting about his issues and the other guy going, “damn. Really?” With a lot of sitting in silence in between. There’s so much real love there, but the complete inability to articulate or examine internal emotional states blows my mind. And like… I just refuse to believe it’s some kind of innate biological difference. I see my husbands capacity to be supportive in intimacy-he’s grown TREMENDOUSLY already-but like… it’s like watching someone exercise a weak and underused muscle. It makes me so sad, because i can see how the stress and trauma of life is just that much harder to process when those tools have been withheld from you.
Wow brilliant! I totally agree that male culture is a problem and it's not bec of biology. Yes men and woman are different but emotional competency is a human thing.. that is just not well supported in male culture
Do me a favor, just answer this: What if it IS based on biology and not culture? I don't know if it's out of fear, but people (even men) really do NOT like to engage with the idea. Which means nothing will ever change. After all, we do know that Men/Women have different endocrine systems. Hell even different eye cells.
I'm gonna do a bit of guessing: what if they have heard "psychologists don't give advice"? Or, what if they don't offer advice UNLESS someone explicitly asks for it? This is a bit funny and ironic, in other parts of "the internets" I've heard of "don't give me an advice, I just want to vent out". It's curious. In advance, I'm sorry if, in any case, sounded grumpy, quite the opposite, I remembered funny things.
@@Shockguey u mean that we process emotions different bec of biology? Yes I think that is true on a level. But we are still human and can learn about each others needs. I think men very often ask woman to be more sexual than is 💯 natural for us So I think men can learn more about what females need to feel connected emotionally
@@Yoginimassage "I think that is true on a level" Excellent, you should talk about it more- "But" Oh c'mon- "we are still human" That's a copout. "I think men can learn more about what females need" The video is about men. The comment is about men. The question was about men. Yes. Women. Sure.
Bro, you're weak if you have this mentality. Don't let your emotions control your life. Your mom and your sister are feminine and can't teach you how to be a man.
Strangely I experienced an inverse. With the lack of a male in the house, it was pushed for me to be the “man of the house”, making this even worse for me
its almost like we're all different and not even our surroundings fully make us into who we are because we're all people with our own thoughts and wants and desires.
Did the opposite for me. Its been hard for me throughout my young life(late teens and 20s) had little experience, was home most of the time. Lack of experience.
Strangely enough my grandfather grew up with a complete family and a "strong father figure" but he's such an asshole towards women it's not even funny.
The youtube video “Male Dating, a problem in plain sight” is a great video from the perspective of a man who went through the “manosphere” and speaks of his personal opinion and findings. Really great as he offers actual help and strategies at the end of his videos instead of just pointing at the problem.
The main issue is with interpretation of manosphere. Manosphere is focused mainly on common initial successes and hard fails. Considering that they can talk interchangeably about success in monogamous and polygamous sense makes everything even more confusing. The main issue is that manosphere should be interpreted from proper, not too deep perspective. Manosphere talks about specific dangers and tendencies but not about building anything really... It's not a place where people will teach you how to be best climber - they will tell you what is probably OK to start and where are dangerous places where people had more accidents and that's it. They barely talk about other stuff and if they talk, they instantly make more mistakes and cause division... Because we are driven to search for full answers and because not many people will admit that they don't have answers, we can easily be trapped in misinterpretation by overinterpretation or overestimation. Any focus on answering sought answers can cause self-fulfilling guru problem that can be used in wrong way and this is why currently significant amount of manosphere talk strongly against guru mentality and manipulative pickup artists in general which is really something considering that not so long ago when manosphere was a lot less mainstream you could find only hideous pickup artists...
the whole reason why men dont express their feelings isnt because they want to act tough. its because they know it wont change anything or just make things worse. no one will care and more than likely you will be mocked for it and people around you will lose respect for you. given the very high likelyhood of those occurring, the other option is to simply not do anything and try your best to go on and get through life.
Ngl I've been mocked by women in my life more than men for perceived weaknesses and faults. I will sometimes express vulnerability to my family (mum and sister) and my close male friends but rarely to romantic partners because I feel that most romantic partners just don't want to hear it. Recently though I seem to have found the one exception to that norm, and by god I want to stick by her because of that haha
And if a society doesn’t have tough people and are always crying about their emotions, do you think that society will win wars or progress? I want you to seriously believe what country would win. A country who respects masculinity and toughen emotions, or one who’s emotional?
There’s a survival instinct with men controlling their emotions. You may find it intimidating, but you will learn the ramifications of when men are crying and screaming over the littlest things…
When so many men are scratched out of ANY sexual relationships, I don’t agree that “men want sexual abundance…” - there are plenty of men who just want a trusted friendship and intimate relationship. I know plenty of men, myself included, who have happily focused on monogamous relationships, but sadly I know many who have had lifelong struggles to even get something started. What amazes me is how successful the “piggy” minority of men can be, lying and cheating their way to sexual promiscuity-and so many of the women who fall for it.
@@Clubsandwich2 Isn't all humans do is to learn a particular skill and use it into there own advantage? If conventional wisdom like chasing a girl, showing respect, being the friend first and being a overall nice guy is not able to get you a girlfriend and you always end up in the friendzone and you look into whom girls actually date are all mean, bad boys it's natural to get into the pick up stuff and correct your mistake. Learning what works is power how to use it is up to you. A shitty person might exploit a genuine one might use it to get into a relationship and stay commited
@@Clubsandwich2 Don't women wear make up and pretend to be attracted to men they don't like or wouldn't be personally intimate with if they did not see any personal gain. Both men and women are more than willing to lie to get what they actually want.
I have a theory that the conflation of intimacy and eroticism among modern men is what makes pursuing genuine friendship with them not only scary and vulnerable, but potentially even transgressive and dangerous. But I also think most men are deeply grateful when treated tenderly, and even moreso once they feel comfortable reciprocating. It is truly a liberation from a very real form of oppression that is utterly endemic among Western men.
@@omarb2653 as recent as 100 years ago it was common for close male friends to live together, platonically kiss, and hold hands. In other places in the world this is still common amongst men. So it's pretty recent
@@oshonechikuweku5593 I come from a region of the world where men platonically kiss, hold hands, etc. But it’s also one of the most homophobic regions of the world, just fyi. I think a lot of people mistakenly think platonic male affection = more sexually open but it’s often the exact opposite. Male affection is tolerated because of how sexually closed off the society is. It’s inconceivable that men would ever be romantic with each other, so holding hands is just a friendly thing
Always being a fairly sensitive and emotionally intelligent individual, it has shocked me how over the years the intimacy between my male friends and I has decreased to the point where we freeze up when discussing serious topics. It never used to be the case. In my opinion the "manosphere" is a hypocritical mess of sleazy salesmen offering shallow advice to a desperate audience. I found this video far more insightful.
That's not surprising because the people you're talking about pick up artists people whose only goal in life is money and women, the people that focus on those topics aren't as popular with mainstream audiences because people just don't like them as they give Solutions that are hard but will fix their problems.
The idea that "men are visual creatures" always makes me skeptical, insofar (woooo the influence!) as most mammals are visual creatures, women included. I'm waiting for the studies to come out on this one, lots of women are also aroused visually.
Yeah honestly whenever I hear this point about visual creatures it's usually being used to justify creep things like men staring at women or men only caring about looks. if anything it's a socially produced phenomenon but more likely as you said it's just a human thing in general
I was confused when she explained what being visual means in relation to dating apps. Because from my experience, plenty of men online act way too ready to either sleep with you or date you seriously without any need of having seen you in person. Like dude, what if I am ugly in real life? Or have a bad personality? What if I am a scammer? What if I have a boyfriend? What if I am a murderer?
@@isabella6075 Honesty, I don’t even think it’s the objective beauty we crave, it’s the connections you make when you see someone in real life that you can’t replicate via texts or a phone call that’s so unique that it’s ridiculous how not a lot of people talk about it in depth. The whole falling in love with personality fallacy is all about that human connection of seeing someone as a whole and not part of a whole.
Thank you for making this, as a young male seeing all these dating apps and sigma grindset society mentality on this side is burning me out mentally. Its really rough, I hope both females and males can get through the rough times.
Life is supposed to be rough, we will all suffer at some point. Being comfortable is a luxury. But some how were in a golden age where being comfortable is a necessity. Which is why so many people suffer from mental illness, because they can’t accept reality. The real world isn’t for weak people.
@Will Wilde nah it’s just because people seem to have this idea that being unhappy is always a bad thing, when it’s not. Im not saying ALL mental health issues are due to this, but I believe many are.
I dated this radical feminist recently and she was complaining about women's issues in society and male privilege. I mentioned that women have their own privileges and men their own problems as well. She gave me this snarky look and smile and said "Like what?". I found it very disturbing that she genuinely thought we had no problems and just enjoy a life of "patriarchy". But what I found even more disturbing was my inability to articulate the problems I was feeling in my life as a man and men in general. Thank you for this.
Young men leave cults, because while the cults are obviously oppressive to women, if the cult leader has, 10 wives, that’s 9 additional women out of the dating pool. The “patriarchy” is really a system that benefits patriarchs, which is not the same as men in general. The social norms that result in male privilege make it easier for men to have high paying careers, but men are still faced with the increasingly unattainable social position of having to be providers. If John Doe is forced join the military for stable finances, while he won’t face the same sexism as Jane Doe, that benefits the patriarchy not men, even if men are still placed in an advantages position and we shouldn’t play oppression Olympics with it
I don't get the assumption of certain women that we guys are resting our hands behind our head. I live in a place where it is usually not up to me who I get to marry. It would have to be the decision of the woman's father. Until recently, a woman could be 35 years old and still expect to be legally bound to her father's consent to marry. As much as woman are having it worse, we as young guys aren't enjoying this system invented by possessive and obsessive grandads (i.e the patriarch), with all this constant policing to our work and social lives.
when they say "privilege" they are looking at the top 0.00001% of ♂that are attractive and rich and successful. never forget that to most ♀you are invisible
Straight man here. I got involved in Ballroom and Ballroom style (swing styles, country, etc) just over a decade ago. Prior to getting involved with the dancing communities many of the issues discussed in this video applied to one degree or another. Being a part of these communities, however, has had the effect of short circuiting the social connection problems and done wonders for both my well-being and that of many, many others.
How do you get involved as a 20 year old single guy with very under developed social skills who isn't in college? I've always thought dancing would help me work on my social skills and physical coordination but I don't know how to start and don't wanna come off as a creep that's just there to hit on girls yk
@@ColonelMinecraft find a group class in your area. When I started I googled "Ballroom lessons " and found lessons that were taught at a community center. It was intimidating and awkward at first, but after about the first month I realized that no one was giving me a hard time about "not being good" or being socially awkward. It's because of their welcoming nature that I was able to stick with it, and it was because of the greater dance community that I was able to start thriving as a person.
@@quantumhorizon imma get into it this month thank you. Any other things that helped you at least socially? The last time I had a group of friends was when I was 16 and in high school I was a loner depressed waste for 3 years after only started trying to work on myself a year ago but I'm even lonelier now than I was then as I've lost the friends that weren't interested in doing anything more than play video games all day with their lives...
@@ColonelMinecraft honestly, partner dancing is the thing I recommend far and beyond anything else. And the nice thing about it is there are several communities with different styles of music and cultures so you can find the fit that meets your personality and preferences. The reasons I recommend it so much is that it's good for physical, mental, social, and emotional health all in one go. Of course there are the other things such as sports clubs, group gym workouts, toastmasters, boardgame clubs and all that, but I've found the partner dancing world to rise above in overall benefit.
@@quantumhorizon yeah I've got into BJJ and while having a competitive physical outlet is fantastic I haven't clicked with anyone at the gym and still feel intimately starved. I'll report back how my foray into social dancing goes
I agree on gift giving. My ex would also give me lots of gifts to try and get closer but it did nothing. I agree it's toxic when men expect their partners to be everything for them, a best friend, therapist, etc. but it's understandable because we are told not to show those emotions or have emotionally intimate relationships with friends so when women make fun of men for doing that without addressing the issue it leaves a bad taste in my mouth
@@MissMuttonmeat Many years ago I watched pewdiepie on youtube and he once said "be the best brocolli you can be", and even though I don't watch him anymore it stuck. What's the story behind your name/pic
@@lewisbirkett4428 That's actually pretty cute and interesting . I thought you were someone who liked cooking or had a career in culinary arts. I'm a fiber artist who spins wool and knits, I think sheep are neat.
One of the biggest problems I find, as a man who searches for love sometimes is that when I think of places to meet people there aren’t many options as the “third place” beyond work and home to be social. Approaching women in shops always feels intrusive and talking up coworkers is frowned upon so you end up in this hopeless state of not even knowing where to go to meet women.
Caleb here are a few options to consider: salsa classes (any dance class really), yoga, book clubs, hiking club.... I have found that those groups always have a disproportionate ratio of women to men.
Look up meetup groups my guy. I made good frienda that way. Also, i took up sport climbing and now have a huge community of people and new friends around me who are relatively similar in temperament. Theres more than just that, but it worked for me so i figure its worth mentioning.
You hit the nail on the head with this ““ wellness distrusts modern medicine and science and it fosters a sense of agency among its primary customer base.” I’m a pharmacist and herbalist . My goal is the bridge this gap for a greater good. Thank you for putting this into such a deeper prescriptive! Amazing work
This has been an extremely useful and explanatory video for someone like me. Growing up male and queer really allows for experience of both of these worlds, and offers a true intimate and personal account of their differences. Personally, I haave always preferred and still do prefer, female friendships because it allows for me to be an individual, a person, a thinking and feeling being with hopes, fears, doubts and everything in between. Not to say that those are non-existent in male relationships, but they really do often lack, or are reduced to the most basic form and usually either presented as joy, sex drive or angriness. I have consistently failed in connecting with male peers/colleagues, while also having truly personal and meaningful friendships with females. Being queer, I believe does play an important part in that, because it took away from me the most basic building block for male friendships, a shared sexual desire, which is not in any way required in female friendships. Males have as much potential for emotional development as females evidently, its just that they are never allowed to fulfill it.
Heterosexual man here. I understand where you're coming from. I prefer male friendships. Although I do like having legitimate platonic female friends as well. Maybe because I was never close with my father, but I do feel more comfortable opening up, and showing my emotions with female friends. Most of them have been good at giving me support. And I try to do the same for them. However, regarding women who I date, then I try not to show any vulnerability with them. Why? Because they lose attraction for me when I do. Yes, women like to see a mans softer side, but *only* if it's a friend. Not a lover. I don't expect that a single woman will ever admit this inconvenient fact, but I know that I'm not alone when I say that women lose interest in their romantic partners when they see him as being vulnerable. It sucks. But it is what it is.
@@ikilledthemoon I don't agree with all of that, but some plays back into the double standard that's been around for ages. If a girl sleeps around she's called all kinds of horrible things, but I know men who have been made fun of for being virgins. The ideas that people have to fit into certain social dynamics and fit certain standards doesn't make sense to me because it only ends up hurting both sides.
@@ikilledthemoon The age thing isn't always valid though because I've seen men in their 60s try and date women in their early 30s, and there's very little chance of that getting anywhere due to being at totally different stages in life and experiences. Having similar maturity level and goals is more important. Many people seem to have this flawed idea that a woman somehow expires after 40, but as long as someone is healthy, I don't see why women are expected to look like teenagers and those in their 20s, when they're not. Age isn't something to be ashamed of. And even if it is about wanting to have kids, some people at my church have had kids into their 40s.
Why are you people always bringing up about your sexuality….this isn’t even the topic of discussion, and yet we have to hear another pity fest and how it incorporates into why things were “always wrong”. Sorry bud, but your sexuality doesn’t solve the issue, nor should an outlet of your troubles be something the Internet can healthily and maturely handle. Seek actual certified therapists if you need that validation…
The fact about Tinder distorting reality is amazing to know. Honestly, in the real world, you see all types of people finding good relationships and even social success. Even people who we perceive as less desirable for whatever reason get into relationships and have opportunities to have sex. Media and social media distorts the perspective.
I really do remember being a child/teen and being shut down by other boys and men when trying to have more meaningful conversations and when you view others being shut down too it really does create a social fear around communication and it meant friendship groups become really superficial and full of content for morons. I turned out gay and yeah men are very visual creatures and that does manifest to a greater degree in gay culture and "dating" apps. The communication thing is probably something that affects a lot of gay men because there are issues around intimacy (along with fears around other things like violence, rejection and death) and that shows up in higher levels of depression, suicide, sexual approval seeking and substance misuse.
@@ikilledthemoon there probably is something around that regarding what women learn about men and the expectations of their outlook/behaviour . Perhaps it comes out in stressful circumstances. I don’t think all women are like this. There is probably an expectation that men need to be driven and want more out of life especially when this opportunity has been afforded to independent women who have become more successful, I don’t think they would ask something from someone that they aren’t doing or prepared to do themselves. Maybe explain why that isn’t helpful or don’t hang around women who do that.
Men considered as visual creatures is actually bullshit if you want my opinion. Men are trained like Pavlov dogs to be aroused by images, visuals and pictures and the bodies they consume are used as mere tools to hack their addicted brains.
@@ikilledthemoon Well considering your statement is a generalisation that has labelled every woman as being the same, by your decree, my response was lighthanded. What kind of response did you expect? Gay men tend to have better platonic relationships with women and actually listen to them. Maybe stop demanding sexual attraction from the opposite sex. Even among gay men I can’t have every guy into me and want to sleep with me, it’s unrealistic. Straight men seem to feel violated when a woman isn’t sexually interested in them but it’s just a part of life, technology has been too effective at sorting through people and categorising them into what people want. You aren’t going to change someone else, but you can change certain things about yourself, how you view the world and treat others. You guys need to stop watching porn, it has really destroyed your ability to think realistically about women, relationships, love and sex. Get away from the fantasy and treat them as another human being. Straight men need to make more platonic female friends. Stop putting idiot alphas on a pedestal while taking in every drop of malicious spooge that leave their lips. At what point did men stop being able to think critically and turn into such lemmings?
@@f.remplakowski true Andrew tate is one of those alphas that admitted to getting away with rape and going to a country where woman have no rights so he can use them as free labor, he shames any man for cooking and supposedly never wrote the book he prophet off of . If most guys do listen to him , im seriously concerned. As for porn , I enjoy porn personally but I don't delude myself.. I like the ones that are mutual and not fake and particularly animations also put some of their work .. which is very well done .
Alot of the manosphere discourages pursuit. Having to pursue indicates a lack of interest on the lady's part, as well as some other potential traits depending on the context. Pursuing leaves you quite liable to be taken advantage of as well. Levels of "pursuit" are better matched and mutual.
@@madmank7881 To take it upon oneself to actively pursue showing your interest in someone, is not inherently a pickup scheme so to speak. Show someone that you find them interesting and that you would like to talk to them, when within the quite easy to understand boundaries of polite and respectful behavior... Allowing for that person to choose to reciprocate your interest or to pass, seems like the only way anyone ever met anyone outside of the small fraction of miraculous relationships in which there was spontaneous, immediate and completely reciprocal feelings
My most intimate relationship is with my male best friend, and there was a stream that Kidology did where she mentioned the jdea of guy friendships being less intimate because they are more often based on 3-people-or-more interactions whereas women have way more 1-on-1 interactions. I guess I can count myself lucky to have that male friendship with my companion because we've spent so much time together 1-on-1 (diadic activities i think was the term). Convos got hella deep, and when my mental health shit began to pop off, he was the one person who I couldn't deny closeness to, no matter how difficult my mind was. even now, after moving away from all my friends, i talk to him the most and we still have emotionally vulnerable conversations, though it is harder with distance
Some of my male friends said this too. They even said they would remain friends with a guy that their girlfriend cheated with even when the girl and their guy friend were at fault 🤯🤯
As a young male adult, 23 yo, most of my friends are opening up our feeling with one another. We have come to realize that this is necessary. Also, love between friends is very accepted between my friend groups. Hugs are accepted easily, and it really helps take a toll out of our shoulders. We're Brazilian, so maybe it's a local thing. But I know that from other places guys can be a lot more repulsive of such interactions and see it as an offense to their masculinity. Listen, we're all straight. Having affectionate friends is not gay. It's only Gay if you like dick. Otherwise, be cool
i live in the middle east and the amount of men holding each other's hands in a platonic way here is very high. in fact when men greet each other here, they touch noses. it's great.
This was quite the video... As a gay man i dont have hard time maintaining my friendships, but i have to admit it is hard to gain new friends. As you grow older, in my opinion, forming new friendships is something odd, in my opinion. Specially if you're someone like me who just doesn't want to have a vain relationship with any person. I don't enjoy friendships that don't fulfill me or my friend, it's weird to say but that's just how i feel. However, finding a significant other is something i struggle with a lot. Of course, there are dating apps and whatnot, but most of them are used for mainly sex, and honestly that's not what is interesting to me. Like i don't value it as much as other man like me would and do, it's just I'd rather have my relationship be based about; love, mutual support and understanding in a more deep human level (if that makes any sense). Somehow i think i understand the struggle women have finding a partner, while yes sex is good and all, but i guess we need more?
I'm weird in that i kinda do and don't have problems making friends. On the one hand, I've put in the work to maintain a lot of my friendships from high school and college, some with women and mostly with men. We don't do it all the time, but if someone brings up a genuine, serious topic, we'll be open and frank about it. Not huge dusplays of emotional crying or anything, but we're pretty honest. We can also pick up right where we left off even if it was weeks or months since we saw or spoke to each other, and I can confidently say that if I contacted most of my friends, if it was within their ability to do, they'd have my back and help me out if or when I need something. (A friend called myself and another of our buddies to help him move into a new apartment, and we took time out of our day without question). Similarly, I can have longrunning comversations about anything from fun and entertaining stuff to downright serious stuff for ours on end with most of my friends if oresented the opportunity (driveway car conversations get real, man). I think I'm a rare exception when I say that although I don't see them quite as often as we used to when we were younger, I'm very blessed to have a fair number of genuine friendships, mostly with men and some with women. On the other hand, when it comes to large groups of people, I really have to force myself to engage and interact, becaise unless I'm specifically pointed out and invited into conversation and interaction with people I don't know very well, my natural instinct is to ghost through the crowd. I'm pretty good once I actually get into a comversation, so I don't really think I'm necessarily shy (at least not in the conventional sense), but I've always struggled with initiating comversation with strangers unless there was something specific we were both doing at the moment. Idk if it's that I'm not trusting of people I don't know, which I suppose is somewhat true, but I also try to give people the benefit of the doubt until I'm given reason to do otherwise. Idk, really. I guess I'm fine in smaller, more intimate settings, but it takes a ton of effort once I enter very large groups of people, although I've definitely gotten a little better about that over the years. (Learning how to interview people helped). At thr same time, however, although I'm not too shabby at making and I'm very good at maintaining existing friendships, I honestly don't know the first thing about finding a romantic relationship. I'd say I'm fairly perceptive about people in general, but once it enters the realm of romantic interest, I'm about as dumb as a box of rocks. I just have no idea, and I wonder if it's too late to learn now that I'm in my late 20s, going on 30 in a little over a year from now...
The problem is most men dont actually recieve the help even when they ask for it , there is something I have realised as much as people like talking to men abou t being vulnerable this only applies in friends and intimate relationship and even then it depends, alot of people cant handle mens emotions even the women who claim they can and are expert on emotional intelligence , the rest is actually true as a dude if mess up in life no one is helping you , there are several dudes living homeless on the street , and people don't feel the need to donate to those causes guys are dropping out from school and boys are reducing in terms of colleges and now have higher suicide rates , and the solution given is work harder , that's usually what it boils down and this messaging is from everyone , most of the time we ask for help it's usually sent back in our faces, have emotionally issues go to therapy , we don't care how easily therapy is accessible to you or whether or no therapy would even help, no just do it , every single issue men have the solution given to men is simply work harder regardlees , the reason why men shut off vulnerability and being weak is because most men usually know the result of that and how people react to it , you can make the claim that it is unhealthy but at the same time i the alternative isn't really better for most men for some men maybe but that's because they have the means and resources but most men dont have that
@@vivvy_0 I think everyone plays a role but regardless of who reinforces it , no one wants to help even if men seek that help , even the women who claim that just do that for the individual men in their lives it doesn't mean they care about men as a whole , you are proving that by making it sound like I assigned blame, and I am pretty sure you would give the same solution if they asked you for help , that's they should do it themselves or work harder , just saying something doesn't reinforce if the result of what is reinforced is correlates with the ideology then people will listen to that ideology
I am a woman in my late 20's and I had a good opportunity to go to San Diego a few times in the past year. I met a few really generous people who were spending a lot of money on me even though I told them they did not have to do any of these things for me they would not hear of it and really wanted me to enjoy my time there. (These were financially well off people). I felt like I had stumbled upon such dumb luck. I also noticed the growing homeless problem and the growing wealth disparity between people who have and people who don't. I met a young homeless man on the street and I was caught off guard at how young he seemed, probably my age and he was going through his suitcase at night and I asked him why he was on the street knowing he had every right to tell me to go f myself lol. But he didn't he described a rly normal life that went terribly wrong. I had such good fortune that I wanted to help him, and like I said I had been thinking about wealth disparity and how it was so easy for me (a modelesque woman) to make fast wealthy friends in an instant who were willing to do so much for me, it reminded me how unfair the world is and honestly I wish it wasn't like that but I digress. Anyways, I told him I would get a hotel room for him so he could have a few days to get a good nights sleep and shower, eat, ext... and he told me he couldn't remember the last time someone cared enough to help him. It was very sad. The next time I was in San Diego I did the same thing again but helped yet another young guy I came by, and he was extremely kind just like the first and had a normal life and things just went downhill. Another thing about all of this is that I was sure not to tell ANYONE that I did this in fear I would be judged or the people around me would try to convince me to never do something like this again. Which also is unfortunate. I also have a few close guy friends and I love them very much and they know this and they know I will always help them. I also push them to tell me their true feelings about things and they do which is good. I love both the men and the women in my life. I guess I'm trying to say is there are some people who genuinely care, I'm not the only one.
@@lydiahiksan1232 there are, my issue Iis they are not many , and I am not saying this because i think people have to help men or that men are entitled to help , I am saying this because I know that people typical don't, they recieve less sympathy normally , so vulnerability isnt that much of an option , especially for people who generally have issues that they mainly have to solve themselves without help , maybe on an individual level but pretty sure most of the people In the world don't care about men as a group and that's fine I guess , but like people shouldn't be asking for vulnerability and telling men to ask for help if they themselves can't give that help , because the reality is like it or not , you have to solve your issues yourself as a man or else at some point you would be left behind , not saying this for pity just saying I get why vulnerability isn't considered as much of a good option considering its results arent helpful
I was floored when you mentioned Alexithymia, it's so strange learning there's already word for something you've been struggling to put into words your whole adult life. I always felt broken because I have trouble feeling, and now I wonder if I'm as numb as I thought I was, or if I just never learned the language to describe my feelings to myself.
It truly was an eye opener to me, Ive always had the struggle of dictating my thoughts and emotions into words for someone else to understand, along with the inability to connect when someone shares what they are struggling, or issues they are having. It always came to me as a sort of disconnect, not one I wanted but one that would consistantly ulitimately happen time and time again. It led to me ultimately invalidating what I felt since I couldn't share it, and feeling shitty when I couldn't give thoughtful responses to someone elses perspective on a problem.
My male friends tend to like talking with me one on one rather than in a group and I realize that I often try and dig through this alyxathemia to get to the roots of their opinions and the emotions behind them. I do not enjoy this condition in men and hate the way it is glorified by society, men and other women. Men are so much more than their performative capabilities. And seeing and hearing them happy beyond those shackles is so heartwarming and wholesome.
I'd only heard of it used in the context as being something that often comes with autism and other chronic conditions. My boyfriend always asks me how I feel and I never know without taking a long hard think about it, I just exist, so it makes it hard to communicate at times. It's taken a while, but I'm glad he's willing to talk about both our challenges in ways to try and make things work better.
Awesome, insightful episode as always, Kid! I pretty much agree with your points. As a single 53 year old guy, I just checked out of online dating as it just wasn't getting me anywhere after a good college try! In the end, I don't think the futility had ANYTHING to do with men/women, but the websites themselves! I think there is more control and manipulation than what we think. I have found that I bang my head against the wall, but when I end my subscriptions, I start getting likes that I can't see without paying! When I have taken the bait in the past, there is NO response after I reach out. :( Yeah, I've been through a TON of counseling and, in the end, came to the begrudging conclusion that I NEEDED it! It helped me become more self aware of MY personal mechanics and helped me to identify UNHEALTHY habits I had that was affecting me in MANY areas including relationships! A lot of what we do is unconscious and my "awakening" has literal shaped my life in ways I'm still recognizing! It was HARD, but SO worthwhile!!!!!!! I highly recommend it if you can find a GOOD counselor (not easy in its self)! Yeah, porn can be a slippery slope! If you are CAREFUL, CAUTIOUS, and EMOTIONALLY/PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY, it can be an amazing teaching/educational tool, but I fear this is usually NOT the case. Thanks again for the excellent work, my friend! :)
Dating apps in 2022 do not worth for the average man. Lopsided male / female ratio is one reason. As a single 53 year old man you’re not going to get anywhere using them, because even women you’re age are using then to meet younger guys. The golden age for dating apps and online dating was about ten years ago. Today it’s a cesspit.
@@Shaa-Belle Hey, LB! I respect your opinion for sure, but disagree. I think it can help as it portrays folks of different shapes, cultures, and sizes trying various techniques that actually can ENLIVEN someone's sexual experience! I believe some relationships STAGNATE as partners can stuck in a "rut" so to speak. Now believe me, I'm not saying all porn is good or is well-intentioned (or legal for that matter!), but again, I say in CERTAIN instances it can ENHANCE and EDUCATE. Thanks for sharing your feedback! :)
I'm really struck by the statistic that 78% of tinder users are men, wow. At the beginning of this year one of my New Year's resolutions was No Online Dating 2k22 because I was depressed by how futile my experiences with dating apps had been. I'm bisexual & date men, women, & enby people & I find that dating apps (for me at least!) also make my dates with non-men unrewarding & shallow. The issue is that I don't really know how else we can claw our way out of loneliness without dating apps. I know men are lonelier than women on average, but I also don't have a best friend (I have a lot of friends- just no best friend) & find that when my male or female friends get into a serious romantic relationship, our friendship suffers & becomes less intimate. So anyway...youtube void, suggestions?? The pandemic has made this all even harder as I feel many people have become more insular & focused on their preexisting relationships.
Pot calling the kettle black because for some reason I still have dating apps (I get okay matches, but I never get anything out of it, and most people who dare have a conversation just try to feign interest in order to grift their "premium content"), but I am trying to do more of the things that have been recommended to me, and it makes sense that it would work. I would say that the best way to find potential romantic partners is to put yourself out there to socialize more in general. Get connected with groups centered around common interests/hobbies, common values, and common goals. Likewise, don't go to the bars and clubs with the misguided intention of finding meaningful relationships with quality, likeminded people. Think about the kind of people you want to be around, and then seek out the places/groups/activities where you're most likely to find them.
Why don't we just try going outside and having conversations? It's only awkward when someone is making awkward, so just act like this is 100% natural and nothing awkward about it and they resolve (because people can't think for themselves if they are making an interaction awkward until they see someone who just isn't lol)
That stat makes me feel physically a little ill not gonna lie as a young dude who has gotten extremely depressed to the lowest level you can get from feeling like an absolute loser trying to online date - to now years later on the opposite end having been pursued by women on those apps depressed for my friends and peers who won't ever get to experience that and might feel like I did forever I fucking hope not also makes me realize how above average my experience has been which is fucking insane as a dude who has gotten so depressed from rejection and darker shit from women that I tried to end it years ago to now trying very hard to get more mature and grow up and learn the womans pov because it makes me super angry how most men are treated tbh including good people but now im understanding we are getting conned and played with these apps I completely thought tinder was 50 50 or maybe 60 40 dudes to women but 78 22 makes me feel dizzy from how dumb I've been letting that shit wreck my mental health
The thing that's helped a lot of people I know including myself, is to find a common interest with someone. Not specifically looking for dating, but for a social group. Whether that's going to a meetup or class for a hobby you have, going to a local festival or convention for something you like, or any other local ways to engage with things you like where there will be other people.
@@joylox facts that's great advice I became a legal weed farmer grew pounds and gave away bouquets of free ounces to women I was dating or even good friends too divided up amongst people and it was fun as fuck completely worth got loads of quality reviews and im still vaping the hash rosin from the fresh frozen of that strain nearly a year later
As humans it is is important for us to step away from material objects and material fulfillment and step towards emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Finding that with others and helping out eachother as needed.
True. Porn had a terrible effect on peoples' intimacy and emotional/psychological needs. We haven't seen the worst of it yet. My #1 advice to men and women alike is to not date people who watch porn, especially if you are a het woman looking for a fulfilling relationship
@@langustajableczna. I guarantee you every man in a relationship watches porn sometimes when their partners are away/unavailable. When you start letting the porn compromise your relationship, that’s a mistake on your part, not pornography inherently. That’s like telling someone not to date ppl who gamble. It *could* turn into a problem, but that’s why trust is the most important factor In any romantic endeavor.
And find EXCESS in the "immaterial" I take it. Stuff other people own and women get anyway. Recent study according to NY Post shows that women cheat more than men. THEY want the variety, and get bored of a man "just being himself". And it's long been this "sky is blue, but can you PROVE it is?" buried factoid that everyone with eyes could tell. This "manosphere" gets CALLED as such, and essentially speak for "all men", only in the eyes of a society so one-sidedly servile to women. Hashtag NOT ALL women, not nearly all, "women" just means a minority of western women unable to understand their amounting wealth. Their competition against MAJORITY of world's women, is simply about utilizing the servile position men have relative to them. THIS IS WHY women can so easily get their fast fashion and cobalt batteries to post onto Tiktok with, and not even paying $2000 for an iPhone but $800. The entire idea that "men need variety" is borne itself out of the self-loathing self-feminization, of men being secluded from any natural source of self-discovery and have nothing to fall on but to project the feminine society onto themselves and act like old widow gossiping at their looms. They loop a broken record of thinking themselves masculine, because they represent the "masculine" side of fundamentally feminine society. They see their male bodies as proof of manhood the same way a child would put on make-up and play dress-up to prove how adult they are, while this conception of the idealized "male" is forged INTO the Mean Girl attitude. That which manosphere carves out of the society that ONLY HAS ROOM for women, and women OCCUPY the Nice Girl attitude so that's the only identity up for grabs. If there's a way to FIX this, that remains to be seen if women stop congratulating themselves for all the variety the GET in their life. Like infantile gangsta rappers rap about their possessions, women are not rising up to the task of "settling" but even frame it as a shameful thing if they don't GET all kinds of wealth even WITHOUT owning it. Own nothing, and be happy. Except THAT permeates western culture in its heavy mainstream.
@@BlapwardKrunkle nah, you can tell a world of difference with porn watchers and nonwatchers. It's ingrained in their brains, they behave differently. Set your standards extremely high if you are going to date a man. Also yes! Don't date gamblers
Radical masculinity movement helped me a lot with becoming more attractive (from a few, to 2-3000Tinder matches in my country), more organised, stronger, helped me overcome my fears of travel etc. However, I’ve been having a very hard time maintaining interest in one female partner, while having a lot more options. Lack of emotion has mostly killed my romantic side, while lack of fulfilling connection hasn’t really helped. It’s a well studied phenomenon, when having too many options will actively take away from the satisfaction of choosing one. I’m still not feeling great sometimes, but people see and say I’m doing a lot better. Feel like I’ve become resentful for the times girls weren’t interested in me to the point where i feel like all girls who like me now only do for the things I’ve worked for and not for who i am, like success diggers. All except for two or three. Appreciate the interest in the subject, and i hope you may do interviews with men who actually benefited from masculinity, and make a video about your findings and/or whether it changed your view on the matter
Never used dating apps. I've always worked to establish friendships first with women I know personally. I want the face to face and the emotional connection first, but can't safely pursue that where I spend my time in the real world. It isn't the fear of rejection it's the fear of losing my job or legal ramifications for basically expressing interest. I've seen it happen several times. I'm pretty easy going and extremely cognizant of overstepping my bounds, but some men are more clumsy and I've seen them suffer for it. And there is (at least the perception) no room to practice, no forgiveness. Punishment. Women don't want to be harassed, I get it. But what constitutes harassment varies from person to person and the only way to avoid trouble is not to try at all or with EXTREME trepidation. It could be a personality defect but in my experience most people I interact with on a day to day are not interested in establishing new deep emotional relationships. With many people I try to make a connection, but especially with women there is an profound reticence to engage honestly and openly. Personal problem or societal problem, idk. I need the person to person and all I know is it is not for a lack of trying that I am and have been for some time, alone. Many of the men I know, family and friends (who haven't yet married) are struggling really hard right now, personal problems or societal problem idk
@@alx8571 That's understandable, but that's where I spend most of my waking life. If a relationship is not permitted to blossom in the most organic setting imaginable, seeking a relationship becomes a deliberate act, which itself is a bastardization of friendship. If a man cannot find a partner at work or out and about in the world (for the most part), then he is effectively compelled to use 'the apps' unless he has a strong social support network which might give him the opportunity to meet someone in the circle. The apps appear mostly harmful for your average man in my opinion and to me have little appeal. I am considering volunteering though, just in general because work is soul draining and as a man, I feel a call to serve, however antiquated the notion. I am, in many respects, resigning to winds of fortune, that someone might see something of value in me. So be it
@@alx8571 nah man I've had women flirt with me HARD what could be considered harassment if I did it to them and then when I asked them out politely go on HR crusades making shit up trying to get me fired cameras covered my ass but ffs stop denying so many people's lived experiences I have anxiety bad dating now bc not sure if she will snap if I try to reciprocate the same way they act towards me
This was really good. Glad there's a woman talking about this is such detail without the super causal lingo we usually hear on the subject. Having this type of perspective really drives home the point that it's more the just women complaining, but solidifies root causes of male interactions within society.
Thank you so much for this video. You are part of the vanguard for men's liberation. So glad to see a woman who understands our struggle. Male life is cold, with love often being the only warmth we feel.
so good thank you! love that you went relatively in-depth instead of reducing the problem & solution down to a catchy sentence. seems like one of the things that would help both men & women (and everyone outside of that binary) alike is to emphasise the perception and reflection of themselves and whoever they're attracted to as *unique individuals* and to view issues and conflicts within themselves and their relationships with a more personalised lens, rather an a generalised "all men" / "all women" one. i think often in everyday discussions of sexism/gender inequality and all that entails, people end up falling into the age-old trap of reductive gender stereotypes (e.g. men are emotionless animals, women are overly emotional and unpredictable, etc.) whilst under the guise of "breaking existing gender stereotypes". in order for us not to go to far one way or another and to actually see people as human beings, we have to do just that: start talking about people and reflexively analysing ourselves (this latter one is a huge one that men tend to overlook) as actual unique individuals with different genetic, environmental, and social factors that influence their beliefs and decision-making on attraction and dating - and to remember that personality and behaviour is not set in stone, and that we can change our intentions and actions with the help of knowledge, understanding, and patience.
I'm a Male living in New Zealand and I have felt this on a personal level. I've always believed in this scale a fairness throughout my life. If one gives, the other is expected to give back. In relationships I would stretch and strain that meaning, to points of madness. Feeling not valuable because I wasn't holding a job or reciprocating the same gifts back. Distancing myself further because I wasn't providing. It wasn't till recently that I learnt the importance of time and being present. That I started to understand, respecting someone is not monetary. It's about showing them your best within your own limits. Whether it's with your time, your actions or with but simple cup of coffee. Thank you.
Disagreeable men are "no nonsense" and "strong", whereas disagreeable women are "combative, unfriendly, power-hungry". How could someone actually subscribe to these hilariously unsubtle double standards?
Double standards exist unfavourably towards both genders, that if you put it all together, it seems less like there's any particular level of unfairness than people seem to think when they bring up individual double standards. Eg. the reverse is a double standard against men: women who are soft and caring are "motherly", "nurturing", and "feminine", whereas men with similar qualities are "emasculate", "soft", and "spineless".
Here is a simple answer to answer to your laughable ignorance: - Short women are seen as "cute" and "attractive", whereas short men are "comical" and "unattractive". How could someone actually subscribe to these hilariously unsubtle double standard? Essentially: the source of your ignorance comes from trying to replace what "the world is" with what you "feel the fair world should be". Sure, we could argue that short men should be equally attractive, but they just aint. Just as combative women are objectively perceived as b*tchy. It's just a fact of the world.
@@someguy6862 This is the problem cause we are from a physical standpoint (not to go that deep but a T in the alphabet community is literally killing a biological woman in any sport especially mma at that point that's domestic violence lmfao if that was a straight man and wouldn't be allowed), an emotional standpoint were the same true, but were we different is this logically as a man I can put my emotions feelings carnal physical I can put all these different things into an interconnected context and be objectively truthful amongst all men and women. I don't have to look no further than the op and see that this person is either a woman or a sympathizer. Burpie talks like double standards don't exist on both sides but it's because we're different and built different. Again as a woman you dead ass just gotta look good and the world is your oyster as a man you gotta do a whole lot more than just look good cause guys who just look good aren't even respected frfr. They get favored more but respected prob not. A man has to become more cause well were capable of doing more. Look a5 how the op describe men cause yes its a show of strength for a guy to do these things yes but as a woman that's not how you're built. You can tell the op is miserable by a society that still favors her and yet she's still not happy. And won't ever be until a guy actually comes and be her king and she be his queen . To think were the same is ludicrous and nuts but hey it is what it is.
@@donnyjones6717 I think the thing your describing is patriarchy from a male perspective. Not only does a patriarchy make woman be dehumanized and worthless, but it also makes men dehumanized and worthless in a different way. Where a woman has to stay at home and shut up, a man has to slave away and prove himself all his life. There are so many double standards on both sides because patriarchy forces up to be exact opposites. People might argue which side has it better but honestly that discussion is useless since its shit for both genders. People will also argue to what extent patriarchy exists, however its very clear there is at least an echo of patriachy in society since both genders clearly arnt happy with their positions in life.
I struggled a lot in my relationship with men and I found many Male creator addressing masculinity but no women. So its awesome to find you and I feel like I leave with more understanding and peace:) thankyouuu
By whom? By other men? Well that depends on how you’re acting. If you’re going off all crazy, then ya you’re going to get flack for it, but if you’re feeling depressed, then I doubt you’d be ostracized.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 Obviously you’re missing the mark here. Men are completely different emotionally compared to women. We live in a modern women driven world where the standards of women’s psych are all across the board so when men express themselves in that way it’s seen as “brash” and like you said they get flack for it, in turn this leads to increase in suicide rates among young men, increased loneliness of young men, etc. And when you have too much of a large segment of the next generation of men who feel broken down and have nothing to lose then I think you’d understand what I mean when I say that is a recipe for disaster
@@serene4961 because it's not known they all secretly feel this way. Also the more you get ridiculed the scarier it gets and fear isn't always rational
the entire video is gold, but the last segment, the unscripted one, at least for me, it's the most interesting and depressing. I think that the impact dating apps and pornography can have in exacerbating men's problems with intimacy/relationships. Incredible work on your part
@@michaelpapazis it’s a drug and the internet is their dealer. You’d be shocked at how many convicted pedophiles were just looking for the next “novel” and “taboo” thing thanks to their porn addiction
I keep trying to turn my female partner into my everything and my best friend. This is partly a result of having grown up in an environment ( Canadian school) where it was discouraged to speak to girls and parents and teachers did little to get each gender to interact. I think this was mostly detrimental to those boys like myself who struggled to speak to girls and make friends as well as to those boys who ooze with a false sense of confidence. To this day I struggle to make friends with a female without becoming infatuated and I have extremely high expectations of emotional fulfillment with whoever becomes my significant other. Most often when the infatuation isn't the case, it is because of a large social circle which allows me to interact with males and females intimately and platonically while we each maintain our private lives.
i was so happy with every point in this video. a lot of my thoughts lately can be summed up to the commodification of humans and the way that capitalism has ascribed literal monetary value to genuine human connection, and how that is impacting the way we see and interact in real life. unique breakdown on the way men and women are socialized differently around intimate relationships- and not just meaning sex, but emotionally and spiritually and mentally intimate too.
The fact of men not having close friendships, and having the women in their lives be their 'all' so to speak, is hilariously addressed in SNL's 'Man Park' skit.
What's funnier is that men make memes about how women are fake even in friend ships and dudes are friends for life, now cut to men in the comment section saying they find their female friends much easier and comforting to talk to. It's hilarious
@@killme5630 not all men are think the same. You should know that right? In my experience it's easier talking to men so it's far better for me to maintain those friendships but not get past the intimate parts. For women though, I've noticed the lack initiative by not actively trying to keep a friendship going. It's one sided most of the time as they babble about their lives and show disinterest/surface level interest. Maybe it's just a generational issue (im Gen z if you were going to ask) or something else. I'm not sure.
@@yrdeft9774 "not all men think the same, you should know that right" sorry but when you're scrolling insta and see the 123th stolen reddit même which is an attempt at being funny, it's almost always, "girls boring, men quirky" meme. And it's always dudes bragging about how much they love their homies and girls are venomous snakes who break friendships over silly things. I literally saw a tweet go about "women compliment their pals and don't mean it, men insult their pals and don't mean it". Like??? This has been happening since Facebook memes used to be the hot shit. So it's just fucking hilarious to see the opposite here. It's almost cathartic.
Thanks Lass. I didn't have problems beforehand being a CIS male. I was progressing like one should; majoring in philosophy, working as a social worker and so on. But then, I stumbled upon the Manosphere... And it corrupted me. I didn't agree with them but it filled a void I didn't know I had. It answered a question that I didn't have nor needed a priori; in fact, it CREATED a dichotomy within myself. Your video realigned my psyche. Thanks!
Creating problems to sell solutions. This is the game we all play, making it convoluted. Great video, breaking ground to go deeper in to the complications of intimacy.
9:20 I, a cis woman, was, oddly enough, raised to hide my emotions and be tough, by my mother (I was homeschooled, therefore spent most of my childhood and teenage years with her). Whenever I would express a negative emotion, she would tell me to "be a man". She also espoused an obvious preference for me to be quiet, non-emotive, and reserved in my feelings. As an adult, I am emotionally stunted. I have great difficulty communicating my feelings or even simply identifying what I feel in the first place and why, and often elect to just bottle them up because it's easier. I also feel emotions very strongly, and not being able to express them properly has affected my mental health tremendously. My partner has been so patient with me as I learn to identify and express my emotions, but it's been a long journey, and one that is nowhere near finished. I can't imagine the additional conditioning men and boys go through; no wonder there's such a disconnect between men and women
I don't know how this happened but I all felt the need to hide my emotions too. I was the first born of 3 girls and people always told me I was weak because of my gentle nature and soft voice. Plus I felt less feminine than my sisters because I was calculative and logical and didn't really have the "small mummy" vibe. I was bad at multitasking and it was harder for me to do house chores because I was basically slow. Surprisingly ( to myself probably), I was more emotional so ended up bottling up or being a little violent.I never used to word "Love" and I hated hugs( though I kinda wanted them(. I am slowly trying to open my emotional side. It's hard, but I find myself feeling a lot happier. I am trying to express my emotions more. I just hope things work out, God helping me. I pray things work out for you too.
@@BATfileW oman mistreats her son -> patriarchy Woman beats man -> patriarchy Woman abuses kid -> patriarchy Woman forces man to not speak up -> patriarchy Woman shames man for showing weakness -> patriarchy I love misandrist rationale
"Where humor matters greatly in female friendships it hardly matters in male friendships." Now, I don't know what study that comes from, but if there's something I can be sure in this life, more so even than death, is that that statement is fundamentally false. Had it said "mocking people behind their backs", then I'd concur.
Yeah I don't get what that means really. As a guy, every friendship I've had with another guy has been specifically based around humor. Why would I hangout with someone I don't laugh with?
Yeah it's totally the opposite. Half the shit in this video is wrong or projection. Getting a little annoyed that these RUclips pseudointellectual video essays are given far more weight than they're worth just because of the format.
@@rakkatytam Also male friendships are made supporting a fav sports team to the point of making our lives around it hahaha. Mens humor is roasting each other and trash talk. Can be described as “locker room talk.” Yet we see most of the popular comedians are male.
@@jater10 Well that might have been absolutely accurate generalization in.... 1950, I find the idea laughable as an accurate general description of most male relationships. No doubt such relationships are incredibly common, I would say just as common these days are male friendships that do not revolve around sports tailgating camaraderie amongst the collective frat boys
Your point about men thinking they can rely solely on their partner (no other friends) makes a whole lot more sense to me now. I'm nonbinary transmasc, but before I came out I was a tomboy who dated cishet guys that felt that way. The fact that I was truly their friend, could share their hobbies and interests, and also be there for intimacy made it a good situation for them. Looking back I just see me confused with my gender and a bunch of guys looking for female friendship and connection.
I am going to provide a counter example to some of the comments here. I am a straight male who was raised by and largely socialized with women. In some ways I have virtues that offset a lot of the perceived weaknesses of men, I am comfortable with and require deeper connections to my friends. I generally choose kindness and compassion when facing people who are challenged or challenging. I am open and interested in other people and try to understand them beyond a surface level. Put another way, I have relatively high emotional intelligence in the modern framing and am fairly comfortable discussing these things. It would not be wholly inaccurate to say that I have an understanding and diplomatic personality in many contexts. All that said until I finally had opportunity to socialize with and bond with other men I was not able to understand myself and often found myself at war with my own nature and still do though in a lesser way. The feminized upbringing I had placed shame and conflict within me in regards to my conventional masculine urges and behaviours. I found myself often disliking myself and viewing myself as a man as being inherently flawed, I also originally opposed and misunderstood conventional masculine behaviours despite carrying a number of them naturally myself such as stoicism. I often misunderstood how other men behaved towards me and allowed my own personal shame and confusion about my own masculinity to be the filter through which I interpreted my peers much to my detriment. The biggest step forward for me was slowly learning not to be embarrassed by or dislike my masculinity, and to this day at 40y/o this is a constant path of challenge and growth for me. We often fail to realize that most virtues are one side of a coin, as often articulated in regards to how women can be unfairly regarded the line between bossy and exacting is a fine one but also one that does exist. When we carelessly apply our strengths they can manifest as failings. Men often learn how not to be bossy because the repercussions for violation in the sphere of men are often more direct and immediate than in the world of women, we learn boundaries in a more direct and simple form because those failures manifest immediately and sometimes in ways that present a real risk of harm. Conversely the more subtle and nuanced quality of classically feminine behaviour is easily misunderstood by many men and is an area of failing or weakness for such men because of their inability to appreciate the true depth of nuance that exist within such a social species and society as the one we live in. Some men can rightly be accused of treating everything like it is a nail because all they bring to the table is a well forged hammer. Virtues are often the positive side of traits or behaviours that have both negative and positive qualities. As an example tenacity and stubbornness are the same behaviour interpreted or shown in different contexts and frames. We need to learn to accept ourselves and that what can be a strength in one context is a weakness in another, we need to accept ourselves not as flawed creatures trying to carve off our failings and realize that an emotionally and mentally healthy person is someone who is in harmony with themselves. They are not a creature without flaws but someone whose flaws are as much a truth of their nature as their virtues, this self knowledge can make one aware enough to be able to navigate their own nature and accept themselves and their flaws without feeling shame or feeling incomplete.
There's so much to say about your comment, well put. I no longer feel any shame or insecurity about my masculinity and my urges, it's one thing to understand what your body wants, and it's another to know what your mind needs. It doesn't need me to filter shame, I just don't trust myself enough to be assertive because of constant fear of rejection, but I'm very socially apt, but sabotage my friendships by shutting myself down/out on a daily basis, out of worry that people will shoot me down. It's seriously liberating to read what you have to say, because this isn't simply black/white, it's a learning process and coming out of my shell has to be my current goal right now.
Congratulations on 100K, Zee :) I'm so proud of you to have come this far so quickly - 20K+ in two months; incredible!!!! God bless you and all that you do. Thank you for being a legend.
The way you speak is so digestible, not condescending or patronising and the best part is you’re getting to the point. I see women rambling about the “manosphere” not really saying anything productive but you get it and seems like you understand and accept male and female differences. Props
I’m a guy and my dream job is to be a stay at home wife. The professional expectations of being a man over in the US are brutal. So much of my depression comes from my own perception, but it’s so hard to shake those perceptions once they’ve been ingrained so heavily
While I don't disagree with your observations I hate the idea of "talk to people", "open up more", "share your feelings", "go to therapy" because that DOESN'T work for me. It never has: among family it feels like I'm guilt-tripped and among therapists I'm made to feel like my thoughts are just invalid. I don't think I'm around the wrong people either I think I'm just a bit of a weird thinker in some rites but that means talking to other people about my feelings is usually counterproductive and ends up making me angry most of the time. For those reasons I'd rather keep my emotions to myself, it's more effective because I often burn through negative emotions quickly and feel less isolated than when I try to share my thoughts
understand completely, being told to be honest and open and then getting judged for it is one of the most twisted things people do.. the ideal therapist wouldn't do that and instead listen carefully and give their thoughts for you to work with - but finding a competent therapist is like searching for a diamond in the desert.
Since we don't have the experience of sharing smotions, our fledgling attempts are almost certainly going to be difficult and painful. We need classes or in some way to be taught how to do these things.
Firstly, great video. Secondly, I really appreciate you saying that therapy is a middle class solution that is not accessible to everyone, Betterhelp cost $60-$90 a session, Talkspace has a subscription service that charges $65/week, not per month, per week, and neither take insurance. The internet talks about therapy like it can do anything...it can't. It can only do so much. I think therapy is a good thing, but it's not going to save the world.
I honestly think that overall this digital society has deteriorated our bonds and relationships. People now join digital communities instead of real in person ones. People no longer visit each other because they can call or video call. But it's not the same as being present with someone, now they're creating virtual reality to mimick that experience. It's all down hill from here in my opinion. I also think this is why narcissistic tendencies are increasing, people behave in less selfish ways when they're actively involved in their communities, and communities are being lost.
What's worse is that some men are fully aware of the damage done, but simply lack the emotional skills needed to even address it. In my case I've found the best I have is to explain all of my emotions in an incredibly detached sense once they've washed over me and I'm calm again, and even I know that is lacking. Can't afford therapy so it's all I've really got. It's a comfort to see more discussion of this!
I (M,22) transferred to an arts elementary school in my early teens which was primarily attended by girls. I had the luck of strucking up some deep and long lasting platonic relationships with a couple of them. I found them a lot more agreeable and just easier to talk to and be around than the boys who, at this age were sexually maturing ofc and some of them were very competitive with eachother. That kind of stayed with me and even now that iam somewhat mature my friends pool is almost exclusively female. After all these years i find it very hard to recconect to my male peers, furthermore, some of the female friendships now demand me to be more emotionally open, since we are the age we are i think its only fitting we ge to know eachother fully. Allthough I consider myself more and more emotional and open, I have expirienced Alexithimia on multiple ocassions. Sometimes it feels wrong to share certain things.
Being on the Internet for as long as I have, I rarely see people like me come out and discuss genuinely - So I want to say that I'm personally a femboy Not the cringy "uwu" kind you always see online, but someone who's realized they connect more to their femininity than masculinity, just like a tomgirl; I'm here since I wanted to mention this point is one of the main problems I've had with the manosphere, the concept that sex = happiness. Throughout my entire life, sex to me is something as an nice cherry on top of a cake, but I can still enjoy that beautiful cake laced with flavor and vibrancy. That cake is the special someone I may have in my life one day (i know cake can also be perceived as a butt, hush yourself lol). I sincerely believe instead of trying to look at relationships in general from the perspective of genetics, we take that into consideration still but use it as a stepping stone to expand our knowledge on how we manage relationships and ourselves too. Being able to have a partner you can treat as your bestie, that's something we all should aim for. I'm grateful I had the chance a few years back to date a wonderful girl where we were best friends but also sexually-attracted partners (her parents hated my guts, so that's why we aren't together anymore but there's always something next~). From that experience, I've learned that kind of relationship is almost never brought up; its always about having sex the first two weeks and consistently playing mind games both genders are guilty of, that just ends up with more of a rip between the two couple. And having self-love along with the ability to control your sexual/innate impulses is something I wish more people learned to do, sincerely. I can't express how frustrating it is to see people always say, "This is my personality" and how this is "the way I am", never ever making the attempt to even explore new parts of themselves. Having that care for yourself combined with an amazing relationship you know you can be as uncensored as possible with is something I believe are the most important factors when it comes to maintaining a long-term committed relationship. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out, whoever you are, genuinely. c: This is coming from someone I've learned is pretty rare to find, a femboy having an actually have a operating brain other than "O w O", so I hope my introspective knowledge of myself can help shine some light that not all men in the manosphere, or in general have an agreed consensus on how its like to be a "man". I'm just me, a person who loves the hecc out of bunnies, wears feminine clothes with no shame, and hope one day I can find a lady who can one day be each other's cake~ c:
absolutely incredible. one of, if not the best, summaries of the manosphere I've seen. you get to the bottom of it so thoroughly and succinctly, to a degree I haven't seen in the video essay space
As a guy, I have to say there is a lot media messages that we get from women, from social media and musical lyrics that women seem to get a degree of enjoyment from spending a man’s money. If you find yourself offended at this as a woman, I would implore you to take a cold hard look at women are socialized to view men. I think it’s very odd to come to the conclusion that patriarchy is real, but also that women wouldn’t have developed their own problematic social conceptions of what a man is, or what his “place” is in a relationship.
I got into an argument with a dude because he didn't want me to buy him a drink back. I never did think men were walking wallets and baby making machines just like I don't like women be objectified by men. It doesn't end well for either. Good luck.
@@justmechilling... Well, no need for good luck, I’ve been in a happy healthy relationship with my girlfriend coming on a year now! That being said, I’m happy that you don’t personally view men as ATMs in the same way that I don’t view women as walking sex toys. However, that doesn’t mean that aren’t problematic cultural expectations of men that women need to call out other women on. I hope this doesn’t come off as a personal attack
@@mnkwazi Do you mean the traditional expectations that they place on us? I think that some of the more benign homages like holding the door open can be fine, expectations that a man consistently runs a financial deficit is definitely harmful to the relationship, especially after learning what this video has to say about gift giving being an indicator of an unstable relationship
17:30 - 17:50 you're so on point here, I hate how society thinks that discourses of empathy are thought to be made with intentions other than trying to make things better for everyone involved. Incredible vid!
This video is amazing. I as a man have encountered many of these topics in my life and seen many of my male friends encounter the same. I've tried my hardest to stay on the most clear minded path when navigating, and I am so glad to see that more people are discussing this topic. I hope that as many men as possible will both see and understand this video!! ♥️
One of the random things I was thinking about while watching this vid was the number of men in my life with stories about being randomly placed into a fight situation, whether it was grade school or out drinking with friends. Both of my brothers have been randomly punched in the face by strangers. Multiple boyfriends have laid out their 'defensive maneuver' plans if we ever ended up in a situation where we're in danger. Those conversations were always mainly based around protecting me, and the conversation would seemingly come out of the blue like it was just in the back of his head more than he was letting on. Plenty of women learn to walk with their keys as a weapon or learn how to defensively get away from a situation, but somehow those conversations with the men in my life never feel like they're as much about getting out of the situation first and foremost and getting home safely and you certainly don't talk about the fear afterwards. It became a huge turn off in dating because those conversations were so alienating and it always felt like they weren't seeing my available personhood, that I would help in that situation, or even if they turned part of the steering wheel over to me I might have an alternative way to end an engagement quickly. They never talked about how scary and frustratingly unfair it is to be put into those positions out of the blue. I've never talked to a guy about this subject without feeling several walls between us.
@empty shogun Yup. The men are fighting and dying in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the women are somewhere else, talking about their feelings and focusing on their wellness.
You're fucking awesome. It's so rare to find people who are willing to just talk about shit, especially with a focus on objectivity. Please don't stop posting. I need this shit sometimes
Literally clicked on this video because I have been questioning why I am afraid of intimacy (especially when it involves women). I actively avoid it yet want it at the same time. I've wrestled with this probably most of my life, but I REALLY realized when I finished college and moved out from home and on my own. I noticed when I quit pornography for months at a time, my thoughts grew more positive and and I felt like I was a step closer to actually achieving someintimacy in my life. However, during this time I was working full-time and then studying for career advancement during my remaining waking hours. I was still not getting in-person connections. It wasn't until recently that one of my favorite RUclipsrs encouraged me to no only quit porn byt to also practice courage and getting out of my comfort zone. As a result I've started attending salsa classes where I have NO choice but to be face-to-face with people who share a common goal. Improving and just having a fun, de-stressing experience. What held me back before was knowing that I wouldn't be a good dancer and consequently embarrassing myself around much more talented individuals. My therapist has helped shift my mind from focusing on not "how I perform" but on "the experience of performing and being present in the first place". The latter mentality has been helping a lot with my anxiety, self-esteem, and diminishing my ego. The goal is to continue trying and learning new things, but making sure I'm around a balance of men and women who are partaking in a similar goal.
god daaaaamn this is all so true. as a gay male with mostly female friends, i've always seen these things within my male friendships and felt so strange about it. why are men holding themselves to the standard of being unemotional, almost acquaintances with their male friends, when the reason we have friends is to relate and release and to love? i've never had that issue, so it's definitely not biological.
In my opinion, I think why you've never experienced it is probably because you're gay. It might have to do with the cliche of gay men stereotypically being effeminate (i don't know if you really are), so people who know you're gay don't really lose all respect for you when you show emotion to them or are vulnerable, because subconsciously they might be treating you with the same stereotype in mind. This entire thing is an ugly game of stereotypes left to fester in society for too long.
I'm gay with mostly female friends, but I think it is biological. They've done lots of studies that have shown morphological similarities in brain scans of gay men and straight women. We're not gay for no reason! It could be because of androgen exposure in the womb etc
Wouldn't say as a (25) male that intimate relationships are difficult, but the subject of other male relationships (friendships) being difficult to maintain or not have any underlying qualms is spot on. I do notice most of my insecurities come from other male friends' accomplishments rather than insecurities of me being in a relationship with a woman. The whole time I was watching this video, I couldn't help but think that it's not a gender specific problem, but just a generational / era problem. Everyone is so jaded from dating and wanting to be vulnerable around another person.
As a gay person who has had an opportunity to be in some sort of therapy since high school today (about 4-6 years taking in consideration the gaps). I was shook to realize that some straight guys dont take that much stock on emotions or talk about emotions with friends. Like most of my friends are female since they are ok talking about relationships and emotions. I feel that its difficult with men be they gay or straight.
There is a reason the “manosphere” gains it’s followers. It needs a lot better competition than it has been getting. The craving for guidance and brotherhood is real, and men deserve better than to be grifted or led into personality cults or political agendas. (Not everything in what gets called the ‘manosphere’ is that, and some are better than others, but too much of it is or leads to those agendas.)
Yea, it's kinda Tru. Probably explains all those cringe,masculine shit on RUclips. They used to be nice and uplifting and meaningful. But now, it's just devolved into hating feminine men, manipulating women's statements, and idolizing villainous characters under the guise of "literally me". And don't get me started with all those alpha male podcasts
"There is a reason the “manosphere” gains it’s followers. It needs a lot better competition than it has been getting." This comment is really, really superb. But it isn't going to happen, and the reason is that in the political climate of the past half century and possibly longer, *any* attempt to address these problems is guaranteed to be attacked even more viciously. Everybody who is reasonable and gentle and trying to help is quickly going to get tired of being held as the most evilest of all and go into another business, leaving only people unpleasant and aggressive enough to maintain personal integrity under a barrage of hatred. ETA: I see essentially no difference between the structure of (are they left-wing? hard to tell sometimes) blasting of the _manosphere_ and _men's rights_ and the right's blasting of _critical race theory_ and _systemic racism._ They are all based on definition from outside for political motivation and bigoted hatread punctuated by cherry-picking. And my previous paragraph applies equally well. One *cannot* make the right understand what critical race theory *actually is,* because they'll just point to their straw men and cherry-picked examples. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of critics of anything men do *cannot* be made to understand that it is anything but evil penis-wielders like Emmett Till constantly raping women. The same stuff on both "sides" is driven by basic tribal hatreds and is absolutely not amenable to education.
Just use the religous institution, find a good one, not the crappy ones, find the ones that speak the truth, they are usually more helpful than this manosphere thing.
@@killme5630It's not cringe to be masculine. It's cringe to be a weak modern man who thinks he should be in touch with his emotions and to do only what he feels like doing.
@@readsomebooks4506 and yet look how that's turned out. It used to be a good thing. Like I said, there is nothing wrong with motivating men to lift and be the best version themselves instead of lying around and being incels. But you equating "being in touch with feelings" to "weak" and "modern" highlights the problems with these edits. These edits just become one sided and become obsessed with one standard of men and any other man or woman who does not agree with their 30 second Tommy Shelby edit is a weak modernist. Their like the very feminists they despise. Funny how you can go on hating something and becoming that very thing.
Jesus, a few minutes in and you keep hitting the nail on the head so hard the hammer has gone through the board and the nail is now buried under several feet of soil. As a guy this is pretty much exactly what I've seen, exactly what I've been trying to tell people. Also what comes to best friends, I've always felt like it was the most natural kind of friendship, I have one friend I'd count as someone who's truly close to me, a guy I've known since kindergarten. I can't understand why this kind of relationship isn't more common and why it seemingly isn't encouraged. When me and my best friend both had a falling out with our partners around the same time, it was that mutual trust and being able to talk to each other, just the two of us, that helped us both get through that time. I couldn't imagine a life where that wasn't a possibility, where I couldn't open up to a good friend like him.
The manosphere makes me feel all kinds of weird and conflicted, tbh. I feel like I'm equal parts their target audience, deeply off-put by prevalent sentiments in the communities, and empathetic to the struggles of the expectedly flawed humans within. And what gets me the most is, that I have felt the pull. For once, I did not have to fight to avoid having my concerns and frustrations invalidated. After all, that's what it seems tailored to do - it serves as a safe-space. And when you are in, people are ready with equally easy solutions. At the end of the day, I lament that there aren't more people offering that same pull and feeling of inclusion to these people, who are more socially responsible with it.
There is nothing worst than rejecting your own feelings, we exist to feel, for what else would we have been born into the SENSITIVE reality? Rejecting your feelings is like rejecting what makes you human, is like rejecting existence.
I have always found it easier to make friends with males than with females, and throughout my life most of my closest friends have been males. What I've witnessed since adolescence, and now well into adulthood, is that I become a sort of confidant for them. I've always felt that my male friends were comfortable being themselves with me. Their walls would come down, so to speak, and they would open up about some pretty deep, emotional topics. They would not hold back if they needed to cry. I consider it quite a blessing to be able to experience those types of friendships with men. It has really shown me that the sexes are far more similar than we may think. Having this type of understanding makes it so much easier to see through all of the nonsense that is marketed to us, the "manosphere" being just one example.
@@vivvy_0 You've got me thinking deep on this one haha! I found it hard to fit into the group dynamic, for one. I am actually surprised to see the stats that Kid is showing, about women being more drawn to one-on-one interactions as opposed to groups, because I have experienced the total opposite. The females I've known have all seemed to be part of a large group, almost like a sisterhood. I could never keep up with the social demand, as I am much more content with my own company. Plus I was always the odd one out. Most females haven't expressed much desire to have me as a close friend. This could be due to lack of shared interests, as I do tend to be drawn to more obscure things. I'm also not typically feminine in certain ways (yet quite feminine in others). It could also be that they don't need what I have to offer. I am aware that there are other women out there like me out there, and I have known a lot of amazing women. It's just always seemed like I 'click' more often with men, and they will open up to me very naturally.
@@vivvy_0 Also, thank you for reading my comment and taking interest in what I said 🙏 Have you ever experienced something similar to what I'm describing?
@@stephaniescott424 I am not the one you were talking with but here goes my insightful experience as man: Most men I have met are actually perfectly willing to talk about their emotions and the experiences that have hurt them. However they seem to prefer acting detached from it, but if you add commentary of a particularly similar experience they become more emotional and responsive. Men that I have barely have quite easily opened up about depression and family issues. Based on my own experiences I would wager the fear men have of opening up is less related to views on masculinity and more about fear of having their feelings used against them.
I've never got this to be honest. I've had the same group of friends for 10 years and we're all men. Different ethnicities, living standards, sexualities, careers... And we just hang out and talk and seek support in each other because we've all been through the wringer at one point or another. I don't know if it's our culture, or maybe whiter societies are more focused on using friends as professional connections first. But it's a topic that I find really interesting and really sad.
Honestly I feel the same way, I've had some friend groups especially when I was younger that didn't really go into emotions that much, but now that I've grown up I literally have multiple groups consisting sometimes of only men and sometimes of both men and women in which it is totally okay to talk about your feelings. Do we sit in a circle all day crying? No of course not, but if someone looks a bit down or is going through something, the others will ask about it and be open to talk about it if they want to. I now think back to the friendships I had when I was younger as being just way weaker friendships then the ones I've cultivated now; going into the deep end with someone creates such a higher level of friendship I wouldn't even call someone I don't have this with a good friend nowadays.
@Chankston honestly, just send the damn message man. Nothing weak about wanting to have fun. Just think about what you would think if some other dude were to ask you to hang out. Would you think 'pff look at this guy, doesn't even have anything to do except for messaging me", or would you think "great, let's hang out"? Speaking from personal experience, men are simple as fuck, we don't even think about why someone would want to hang out. So just send the message and build those friendships back up.
the reason is that nobody cares about your emotions as a man. they say that men are naturaly more stoic when in reality you are beaten down with an emotional club until you cant get up anymore and can only go on as a hollow husk of your previous self loosing all your emotion in the process. when ever i felt unfairly treated or sad or anything i would always get belitled over it, those emotions just fade so you are left with anger, and maybe a tiny bit of happines that can shine through the cracks from time to time. anything you can still feel is muted, like you put a million matrasses over a pea. its there but not really at the same time and once you reach that point you can never return and the simple fact is people dont care especialy women. my girlfriend keeps saying how she wants me to be more emotional with her, the thing is i barely feel any after years of emotional neglect, i just learned they dont matter especialy after she ghosted me years ago pretty much becasue i was too emotional with her ( the exact same girl). dont listen to women like in this video, she has no clue what women actualy want.
The alexithymia part is pretty interesting. I remember when I was a kid I was legitimately worried I was sociopathic because I lacked emotional responses to things that i should have. When my grandparents died i was more concerned about not feeling anything about it than the deaths themselves.
I have a little bit of dispute with some of the things you have said here. For context, I am a man who has grown up never really feeling discouraged from expressing my emotions, I have what I would consider healthy relationships with multiple male friends, who I can definitely talk to about my deepest problems, but I still experience some of the things you describe. Those things being maybe difficulty expressing my emotions, or sort of a lack of interest in doing so, or maybe even just feeling no emotion in certain situations that other people around me feel and express during. I have had plenty of time to sort through my childhood trauma etc, and have had multiple therapists in my life. I think you could be discounting something extremely important but often overlooked in the gender divide: the effects of testosterone. (The are profound and wide reaching on both body and mind) Another thing I should mention as well: when I do express my emotions, frequently I feel as though women view me as a dangerous or predatory creature, like a jackal or hyena or something. I’d go on, but I’ve forgotten anything else that I was going to say. I’d be more than happy to have an extended conversation with you about this, if you’re interested.
hi Jacob! im glad you've had emotional outlets in your life. its refreshing to read. I think the problems kid is describing go deeper than simply access to emotional outlet. your multiple and fulfilling male friendships might not be enough to combat the aggressive socialization that men face. as kid said, perhaps your father began to use more "violent" language in your formative years. perhaps the women in your life were treated with more gentleness than you were. the types of biases that cause the disparity kid highlights are IMPLICIT, and run deeper than you think. you get these messages from the media you consume, the toys you play with, the way strangers on the street treat you. it would take heavy censoring from birth for an aware parent to combat the messaging that permeates our society. also, your story is anecdotal--while valid, it is not enough to disrupt decades of data. testosterone does not, generally, have the effect of closed-offedness or inability to express emotion. women actually have a higher volume of testosterone in their body than men, which is balanced by more estrogen. there are many women with imbalances that give them too much testosterone, and still behave like women because socialization probably has a larger effect on gender dynamic. im sorry women treat you that way when you express emotion. perhaps they themselves experience some repression, or perhaps they don't feel they know you well enough for the conversation being had, or maybe they simply aren't used to a man speaking to them in such a way. don't let this discourage you. keep trying, keep opening yourself to people. I love the ted talk "the power of vulnerability", which might help you.
It is better to share your deepest darkest Emotions to someone you are not attracted to or romantically pursue. Have a platonic female friend and share with her she will understand you. Someone you are dating will get turn off by emotional weakness atleast in the starting. Once she is invested enough then you might share something occasionally but overdoing it will cost you
@@Den_Vazw_Onoma Ask any girl if she likes her man to be taller or shorter than them. 99% will want their man to be taller. The reason girls will tell you that they want to feel small and protected. Now you tell me if guy acts more feminine by crying and showing is emotions more than a girl do you think she would feel protected? Everybody know the worst thing to do in stressful situations is to freak out.
I am a queer man, and even though I struggled with emotional vulnerability and openness during my teenage years and early 20s, I have grown to be a lot more open about any kind of struggles with my friends. It is very common that I end up listening to my male friends say a *ton* of vulnerable things to me 1 on 1, and then follow that up with something along the lines of "I have never told that to anyone before." It is definitely sad that we as men are socialized in this way, and I think really the only ones who can do anything about this are ourselves, whether we are queer, cis, or straight.
It's interesting because when I was in high school, all the girls said the boys made better friends because they'd actually listen and not spread drama (for the most part), and now I'm wondering if that's because they just didn't talk to each other about anything other than games, movies, and school. Which would be sad if it was true.
![Hunxho - Ball Forever [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nki9ZTF9Uls/mqdefault.jpg)
I once heard an evolutionary psychologist talk about how hospitalized psychiatric male patients in London during the bombings suddenly stood up and drove around in ambulances, basically helped as they could, when only minutes ago they were deeply depressed and in catatonic states. He used this example to showcase that maybe the traditional approach of talking therapy isn't as effective for men as it is for women, and that maybe there should be an approach towards helping men feel more useful. Idk, just found that story very interesting, although I have no idea if it's true.
That is fascinating. My relative suddenly went mentally i'll at 21. He's 29 now and there have been little improvements. I would be so fascinated to see if there were a working therapy that could help him.
I think in general, men have strong desire to feel useful and productive - but the society we live in really warps the idea of what is useful and productive compared to things like saving lives or building homes etc.
I do agree with you. I have a book called Male psychology: Males perspective. It’s very interesting and it does point that out, that men need to feel useful and purpose. Like the therapy we use now is modelled from females perspective but does work for men as much as it works for women. Hence you see men state that the gym helps with their mental health and that is because they are doing stuff like lifting and etc. but yea it is interesting
I am a woman but feel like volunteering and being useful is more helpful then talking about my problems with a therapist
It isn’t true. There is plenty of evidence that is randomized and plenty of smaller studies on men.
The problem isn’t that therapy doesn’t work as well for men as women. The problem is that men resist the idea of therapy to begin with.
Part of this may also be because the demographics of practitioners has shifted dramatically. There are not enough male practitioners and many men may feel uncomfortable doing therapy with a woman. So what to we do with that? I’m not sure.
But yea people do have a strong desire to be useful and have purpose. We find that pretty unilaterally. And therapy alone is never enough. You can’t just talk your problems away and then continue to return to the same life you’ve been living.
Just to throw my two cents in, I realized in my mid 20s that the emotional intimacy of my male friendships actually decreased as we went from boys to men and felt the need to fulfill the social role of men. In my teenage years my guy friends would have sleepovers (that we called man-overs) and the last thing we did before we went to sleep was turn the lights off and have quite vulnerable discussions as we laid in our sleeping bags or on the couch.
To contrast with this, I only had moments this vulnerable with friends I made in college when at least one of the parties was horrendously drunk and even among my childhood friends our open vulnerability decreased. That being said, among men I'm still on the more emotionally open and vulnerable side and it's always struck me how much men crave it and will open up emotionally once someone else makes the first disclosure.
It's kind of a chicken or egg thing, but my group of friends from my teenage years was made up of both boys and girls whereas once I went off to college my friend groups became more and more only guys.
That's interesting because I had somewhat the opposite experience. I still have friends from college who I regularly will have over or stay at theirs (granted, they're in different cities now) but just the general emotional closeness is higher now that I'm an adult. It's understood that hugs and being vulnerable are part of our friendship, and it's something that has demarcated newer, weaker friendships that I've developed, and I think I'll never have that closeness with new people again.
I’m younger than you and you’ve basically described what I’m living through right now
I second this. I’ve had guy friends who told me they intentionally seek out female friends bcs they feel like they cant be vulnerable with male friends no matter how close
Your are so correct in your analysis.
@@cippyjournals dude I’m a woman and i want male friends sooo baaad…
I'm female and as a child I wasn't really allowed to show lots of negative emotions. Mainly sadness was suppressed. Since my father made no distinction between how he raised males and females, I was basically brought up as a man, like he was. Nowadays I struggle to understand my own emotions and I very much relate to most men. It's quite interesting.
I had three older brothers and only realise now how in some ways I was treated as an ersatz man (not allowed to show any strong emotions so I suppressed them). Then being overprotected as a young girl growing up in terms of socializing, but unprotected in terms of sexual predation.
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here.
me too...
It was similar to me. My father wanted a boy, and even now, he sometimes refers to me as one by accident. I recently noticed his approach, when my mother found another partner, and he's so nice and carries my things for me. I somehow hate the second thing and feel weak when he does it.
DUDE SAMEEEEEE
Omggggg not you giving me another puzzle piece
I’m gay and my best friend is straight. He’s told me I’m the only one he’s been able to open up to because I have a deeper more open understanding of emotions but I’m also a guy so in his mind he doesn’t feel weak. My heart broke for him, I recommended a therapist to him and he’s considering it, I hope he goes.
I’m so glad he has a gentle friend like you. Hopefully he can see he deserves the help & it doesn’t make him weak.
I’m gay and I’ve noticed that a lot of my straight guy friends do that too
You're a good friend
therapy makes you cope cope cope don't fall for the meme bros
I have heard therapy gives more female oriented solutions. More effective for women. At least ask him to go to a male one though.
I'm a woman and I have not a single friend. My husband is my everything; best friend, therapist, partner, financial provider, carer when I've been sick etc. I grew up in a family that mocked and belittled me when I did express express my emotions. I felt so painfully lonely until I found him. Having my emotions validated by him was such a new feeling. If he left me or passed away before me I actually think I would literally die too. I know it's not ideal but I'm grateful that I have at least him in this lonely world. I empathise so much with those men who feel how I did. I truly hope they find loving supportive partners.
I was just commenting under a similar comment like yours. I'm in the same exact position. I feel extremely uncomfortable expressing myself and have gotten so good at not saying anything due to my upbringing. Among certain people I get encouragement to express how I actually feel, one of them being my husband who is happy when i express my anger and true emotions even during a serious argument since i tend to hide it. I began struggling with especially my female friendships around age 14. Long story short I have about 1 close friend who is a queer male and a couple female almost-friends but I've lost the ability to get past that stage so those relationships fade off after some time. The person i confide in the most is my husband, he has friends so it's hard for me to consider myself as a close friend in the same way he'd see it.
@@normalouis8593 wow I feel so similar to you. Do you believe in God? I feel like my other best friend is God, who knows everything in my heart without me having to say a word. This gives me great comfort too. My aim in life is to listen to my kids with unconditional love and support, and not have them feel how I did growing up.
Oh, that sounds like such a vulnerable position to be in 😟
@@click2112 Yes I do! I was raised to believe him but over time I formed my personal relationship with him (still in the process). My favorite thing about it is that I believe he sees and knows all, so it's one being I don't have to hide my true feelings around (not that I could).
Like yourself, I would like to do the same for my children too. We tend to mimic our parent's ways so I really need to make sure I can "check" myself to make sure I avoid their behavior. I hope it goes well for you.
What I've found interesting is that my friend is sort of like yours too. He's VERY extroverted and easy to read and in-turn can read others. It's not as easy for me to hides feelings around him, but naturally I feel comfortable being "real" with him because he won't judge and is also real with everyone.
Thank you for the honest and authentic empathy that's so rare these days holy shit I didn't realize it but never ever seen a comment like yours and I was feeling very angry about all this stuff because I'm young 20s and am trying to understand this shit and why women online seem to be into men who don't respect them or see them as lesser vs guys who actually care and get friendzoned but your genuine empathy and saying the truth how lonely shit can be without that experience gives me a lot of respect for you and lowered my anger significantly knowing that there are women out there who understand this experience too.
I've never heard that humor doesn't matter in male friendships. I would honestly believe the opposite. Pretty much every male friend group I've experienced cracks jokes at others, themselves and all types of other things.
Yeah thats the best thing about male friendship
Actually I believe this is the problem, platonic relationships for guys usually have TOO much humour.
We never take anything seriously. We laugh at ourselves and others, we don’t take real problems seriously, we’re bad at expressing AND recognising signs for mental health conditions in people, etc it’s all just jokes and fun until a bro does something horrible to themselves or others, and then we’re left wondering “Damn, why’d he do that” and then the cycle repeats
@@tiramisu7544 Yeah that's what I would say too.
@@tiramisu7544
Oof... I'm sorry, replace all instances of 'we' with 'I'. It's not really that way. I'm a man and wouldnt categorize the whole thing. All fun and jokes you say ahah sure, sometimes. When i feel like. But mine is a personal story, as it is everyone story, so lets just say, given im introducing myself, lets say i kind of bumped and ditched those who i used to hand around with. No bros. No hoes. Im alone and dont want noone around bothering me. Im figuring out myself. I cant have 'bros' around. They generally suck though. As you grow up, it becomes increasingly hard to get along and have all that 'bro big movement thing' going on
Humour doesn't matter in that the jokes are filler for anything meaningful. We are there to make each other laugh because it's easier to do that than accept something might be wrong with us. My friend group was awesome at the time and while it was fun cracking jokes It creates a boundary of emotion, I know what can make my friends laugh but did I know they were being verbally abused at home? The boys always see each other as a goofy little gang of goobers and if I told them I had a problem I'm afraid it'd mess everything up or I'd be left behind.
When my friends dad died he never told any of us, when he did we didn't know how to comfort him because we'd never been confronted with any emotion outside "LMAOOOO UR MUM BROO BAHAHAHA" they make us feel better and yes that's good short term but it should be more balanced between banter and serious emotional connection.
A genuine thank you for making this video. I'm a 27yo male, who has been taking his black pill every day for the past year. Yesterday I said "no more, I want to be happy again". Today I watched this, and I feel I once again remember how it feels not to be resentful. Thank you for being there, helping me to un-poison my world view ❤️ May the goodness of the universe, in beneficial proportion, converge around you 🙏🏻
The black pill is toxic and lethal brother, I suggest you stay off of it
Good luck to you. It's difficult, but we have a lot of life ahead of us. I don't want to change in my 40s, my 50s.
At the same time, I feel that I am now too deep in my career to have time to really delve into this. So I focus my energy on male friendships and then leave out the bad news when it comes to my romantic relationships. It feels unhealthy and disingenuous. Ive always felt like it's my emotional unavailability that has caused most of my relationships to fail. Either that or choosing a woman based on superficial things and finding that it didn't actually make me happy long term. I think I know the woman I'm looking for when I see her, but it's up to me to not c*ck it up by defaulting to the "just be stoic and don't let her in on your problems."
I suppose this reluctance to share emotional vulnerability, especially with women, has only made me feel worse about myself. It never has worked for me. But at the same time, the fear of sharing emotions in an unhealthy or unappealing way is what turns me away from closer connection with my partner of 4 years. So I find she shares a lot while I hold back. It's not good and it's not going to work long term. I need to get into therapy, because I know that I want to be with her. But there's no energy or always something else that we'd rather do than try to invest free time and tons of money in the luxury of finding a very good therapist that works well for me.
Anyway, I hope this helps you somehow. I just needed to share this. I think we will be okay, but we have to seize the day even if it's a small step at a time. Just get a little better each day. Progress isn't linear. It sometimes feels like we go backwards, but if you can keep the lighthouse in view, you can make it through any storm in life. Best wishes for you on this journey. It is hard but worth every ounce of effort.
@@Chironex_Fleckeri Thank you for sharing. I'm happy to say I am getting better every day, even if they are small steps. For the first time ever, I feel good being single. Or at least, I do not feel bad about it and I can enjoy the things I am now focusing on: my career and gym.
It is hard to put it into words, but in all simplicity, I have started very actively and consciously taking care of myself holistically. I even take baths with bath bombs just to have a way to unwind, other than gym or hiking. I've fixed my diet (it never was bad but now it is bona fide healthy), I work out every day, go to sleep before midnight, read books and try to focus from time to time giving something back to my community. I feel genuinely good. I feel that now when I feel truly good when alone, I am finally ready to fall in love in a healthy way. As my mother says: "don't worry, your wife is already born, now you just have to find her.".
Thank you Bill :) Just to give something back to you: Try opening up to her. You are a good man and you are strong. You are enough as you are, even with some insecurities and fears. Fear is an opportunity to display courage, not a sign of weakness. And even if it was, which it is not, weakness in some things is not a sin. Weakness and strength are always proportional to which we compare them. You do not have to be all-enduring to be deserving of love ❤️ I hope all the best to you! And if it gives you a ray from the lighthouse what to follow, come tell me when you've taken the first the first step and tried opening up :)
All the best,
Val
@@TheTurtlePenguin thank you as well. I wish you well. Progress is never linear, not in my experience. We all have things we are working on. Good luck friend
@@TheTurtlePenguin this is so so so great to read. I often read incel forums and even though as a woman they are equal parts frightening and infuriating to read, there's always a part of me that wonders how far gone some of those men are, how comforting it would be if reven a tiny fraction of them could realize how damaging that worldview is not only for women, but especially for themselves. It's so wonderful to see how at least one of them realized how dramatically his life could improve with just the will to change and some selfcare. Truly made my day.
A few years ago my best friend of 20 years and best man was living with me and my wife in our one bedroom apartment, he was sleeping on the floor trying to get his teaching career off the ground, and I wanted to help him more than anything but slowly we stopped talking. He wouldn't go out to the bar, dinner, or share any meals with us. At first it was just odd but I noticed he would always agree to go out but then come up with an excuse and bail, and i started to have a really hard time relating with him. One time we had a few drinks and he broke down and apologized for everything but then went right back to being a stoic libertarian. We stopped having company because he lived on the floor of our living room, he insisted on paying rent and eating saltine crackers and canned tuna for every meal and binging on fast food. his lifestyle was causing me to violently stress clean which was a terrible way to behave and a habit I learned from my own mother thats apparently permanent. Then my grandmother died and things got worse, culminated in the end of our relationship and both of us living in my apartment in silence for 6 weeks until he left, i haven't heard from him since, and don't really miss the acrimony in my life. As it stands I'm just as you describe in the video married with no friends, were trying to make friends with other couples but every man i know has the same emotional distance that can only be dissolved temporarily with drugs and alcohol, myself included.
You're a really great, insightful, writer. Your words really made me see ur story play out as if I were reading a book. I actually would read ur book if you wrote about this and went into a lot of descriptive details and shared some insights or lessons that you might have gleaned from the experience. Also I have never heard the violent stress cleaning described in that way as though it is actually an illness or coping mechanism and I didnt know it was permanent..I dont have it but a family member of mine does haha. On the bright side, at least it's a way of using anger to get something done. Anger is not the enemy, it's how we channel it to create change that determines its nature. I'm glad u and ur wife have it good now.
Damn, you can't make this shit up. Life is so diverse
Thank you for sharing this insight. I've noticed that a lot of the younger generations seem to be more open and aware to their own feelings and expressing them so I feel as though society is getting better on that front, like anything else it just takes a lot of time for that change but I do see it happening.
I have family members who stress clean before anyone comes over to their house, they become really irritable and angry the entire week before they have company over, like the presentation of their home will never be good enough even though it looks good. During that time they are DREADFUL to be around when their in that state. I think that's tied into some other emotional stuff though.
I've heard that men, if not self sufficient and independent they feel worthless and depressed and I'm sure that played a huge part in the strain on your friendship, I'm sure he was embarrassed and felt like a burden to you and your wife and that rly kills people, women as well but especially men.
I truly hope you and your wife find some friends that are open to sharing their true deep thoughts and feelings.
Sending lots of love your way! 💙💙💙
@@SeaFlower38 I agree. He’s a great writer.
Damn that's so crazy, he was literally living with you guys yet the distance grew larger and larger
I really appreciate your nuanced critique of male culture partly because it doesn’t devolve into an attack, and because it also doesn’t turn into a “men vs women” debate. We each go through our own struggles and it isn’t a competition!
IKR
Unfortunately, some of the people in these comments are turning it into that. Especially under a video that primarily tackles men’s issues in a more nuanced manner…
@@DanKlein1995 Yes some are shockingly fast to go "all women" or "all men" and avoid the nuance
@@DanKlein1995 its because a woman is trying to explain how man work, most of the times woman dont even know how they themselfs are. so how are u going to listen to a woman explaining mans issues >?
Well, mostly you're right, but she is not as nuanced as usually is about male friendships in my opinion. Probably because this is the territory where she has little real experience. I hope she will have more.
I am a man and my most intimate friendships are almost exclusively with women. I struggled with PTSD for some years now and because growing emotionally numb became incredibly toxic to me I have an increased desire and need to express my feelings on a regular basis. During those years I've experienced Alexithymia to the point where it can even be difficult to name how I feel. For a long time I've resorted to unhealthy stoicism and pent up emotions instead until they bagage became too heavy to cope with.
My female friends are capable of talking about emotions while my male friends don't share their own and become clearly uncomfortable when I go into detail about mine.
Edit: Fixed possibly misleading phrasing regarding my PTSD.
I do have a friend who is a woman and she's the only one i can talk about "sensitive" issues about my feelings and shit. I always feel better afterwards
B/C were supposed to think be rational its hard 5o be rational with ao much pain and anger or sadness and ovr hey man it aint easy I know I got aspergers or asd 1 l,adhd and ocd and probably ptsd but with what I know about the mind is that its influenced by emotion and carnalities but it must be a hard separation from the two and you must acknowledge both sides and be in control and always be logical about the situation. All of us as men all of us put too much stock into what society says when we shouldn't. We gotta put ourselves into things bigger than us as humans. Now through this venting a bit we must be able to recognize our own emotions and go beyond that and control it. Me I believe in the God of the bible THE MOST HIGH THE AMLIGHTY HIMSELF. So I try to change and do change to become on very higher plane than whats down here and be objective and honest a out the situation be truthful within my self and with others but definitely within myself first. Cause you gotts understand as us guys its our fault cause we let ourselves go too much into the desires of the world. But long story short well even shorter life aint hard but it aint easy its simple dont make things harder than what they are. Find out ways to change ourselves for all of our benefit o4 aka our weaknesses and find out how to improve our strength and go extra hard on your weaknesses and keep improv8ng your strengths and it'll all balance out 1 day put things in the right context and if you need to let those emotions out physically and let them go not hard or easy real simple we all gotta start boiling it down to a what gs living in the who. God bless shalom or assalamalakium or peace be unto you in whatever way God wants for you.
I agree, I'm much more comfortable around and talking to women. I think there's a lot of men that have been told (and as I've seen on the net are continuing to be told) that talking about their feelings is somehow a bad thing, and that they should just go to the gym.
For me, exercise helps, but what helps even more is talking about my problems and having someone else help me put things into perspective. Sometimes even just getting it off your chest is enough.
I would love to hear more about what you mean by "unhealthy stoicism", just curious :0
@@starrysergal9376 I mean the general attitude that men are supposed to push through tough times without complaining about how it makes them feel. Basicly to just "suck it up" and keep going.
It's likely that I experienced this especially strongly because of a variety of contributing factors:
I grew up on a farm so my fathers work just has to get done no matter how you feel. I also have ADHD which causes difficulties with concentration and makes me easily frustrated, but due to difficulties in school I had to study even when doing so made me feel horrible. Doesn't sound like a big deal but if that defines your teenage years the behavior can become pretty engrained. Dealing with the sometimes overwhelming emotions ADHD can trigger was an important skill, needed to make sure that you don't act inappropriatly in social situations.
Eventhough those factors are highly subjective I don't believe I am remotely alone with this since most of my male friends seem to have learned that same "unhealthy stoicism". I am just someone who can easily recognize it since it became a major roadblock when it comes to processing trauma.
Alpha bros associating stoicism with their mindset is nonsense and completely against its teachings in the first place. Stoicism is all about even-tempered, rational thinking and responses to emotion. Not in an apathetic way, but moreso "I can not control the actions of someone who did me wrong, so why should I let it ruin my happiness?" sort of way. Stoics loved nature and friendship and affection too - they are taking stoic philosophies and twisting them into justification to be a shitty person.
Truly spoken
exactly. i’m convinced they don’t even know what stoic means. they just hear it and think no emotion, gaze of steel, no speaking “cool guy” persona man of few words etc. it’s just overplayed gender roles at the end of the day.
You've literally never read a damn thing any of these people have written.
@@llywelyngruffydd8474 because they can’t put a sentence together
@@alx8571 You wouldn't know one way or the other.
This explains why most of my male friends would say that they started 'liking' me but after some time would realise it wasn't the case. They just didn't realise that emotional empathy can also come from friendships. I, on the other hand used to get frustrated thinking that the male population never sees me as a person but as a romantic endeavour, but now i try and understand why they could end up confusing their feelings for me.
The take of seeing someone as a person , this phrase sound very weird to me
i tell my sister to be careful about guy friends cuz quite often a man isn’t use to genuine empathy sympathy from women. cuz as much as lot of ppl say that women are the more considerate empathic gender..that is rarely the case with men in general were feared hated etc..so i tell her when a guys vulnerable and bares himself to you BE VERY CAREFUL. Cuz most likely your acceptance & kindness will fan the flames of love in that man..cuz we love idealistically women Not so much…The mark of true intimacy of men is..letting you in VERY VERY rarely will this happen. In fact guys can count on 1 hand the amount of women we truly trust with our hearts and minds. And it’s always to a point never the whole thing cuz MOST ain’t built to handle it.
Or maybe you turned them off lol
@@Michael_Jackson187 You sound like an egghead would after being rejected will then, to save your own ego, make up some lie about the other person. You also seem to assume all men just by default are dogs incapable of having complex emotions like the original comment was alluding to, which is very misandrist of you.
Wow you put this into words…
This was brilliant. This shuts down all the man vs. woman drama saga that’s fueled on the internet. I loved this so much. Thank you.
Doesn’t really shut down anything, just shows how men think different to women
Okay Richard
@@ad2094 if you don't think so, state your reason why you disagree otherwise your complicit
@@jockslap I'm just pointing out the cause & effect of this particular societal problem.
[EDIT] also funny you mention fighting when radfems love to fight and nitpick over EVERYTHING.
@@AllWillBeRevealed957 ok richard
Another aspect of this is that a lot of the time, when you, as a man, do get encouraged to express your emotions, they are simply invalidated.
that's so true
Welcome to the women world ahahaha. Now, seriously, if we think about it, no one is validated these days when they express their feelings,and i think the reason is we, as listeners, dont know how to deal with it
and/or you just get perceived as a weakling if those emotions are sadness, uncertainty and fear.
YOOO THIS IS IT BOIS. HE NAILED IT. Imagine being ignored after explaining internal trauma and then being dehumanized because you don't use words to express pain
@@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070 opening myself emotionally was a big mistake I made a year ago... dang a year passed. Emotional men are unwanted
My husband and I just got married earlier this year. We’re both in our early 30s-neither of us have a prior marriage. We dated for a little over 3 years before getting engaged…I am his first serious, actually long-term relationship. And damn… this video is poignant.
What breaks my heart is that many of our struggles (that involve him-I have my own issues 😅) revolve around his complete lack of intimacy skills or ability to understand and articulate his emotions. You’d think a guy who never had a 1yr+ relationship would struggle with commitment, but that’s NEVER been the case (the manosphere can shove it-monogamous men exist, my dudes. Just like poly women also exist.) He has been committed to me from the beginning-hell, he was more in this than I was at the beginning. But there was an absolute disconnect between his deep desire for partnership and his ability to actually SUPPORT a partnership with someone. He has a big group of close, loving male friends that he’s had since high school-but as much as they are good at expressing affection for each other and sticking around, they almost NEVER share their feelings about anything. They talk AT each other ago it things they’re facing, but they almost never solve problems or ask each other for help. “Talking things out” between them almost always involves one guy venting about his issues and the other guy going, “damn. Really?” With a lot of sitting in silence in between. There’s so much real love there, but the complete inability to articulate or examine internal emotional states blows my mind. And like… I just refuse to believe it’s some kind of innate biological difference. I see my husbands capacity to be supportive in intimacy-he’s grown TREMENDOUSLY already-but like… it’s like watching someone exercise a weak and underused muscle. It makes me so sad, because i can see how the stress and trauma of life is just that much harder to process when those tools have been withheld from you.
Wow brilliant! I totally agree that male culture is a problem and it's not bec of biology. Yes men and woman are different but emotional competency is a human thing.. that is just not well supported in male culture
Do me a favor, just answer this: What if it IS based on biology and not culture?
I don't know if it's out of fear, but people (even men) really do NOT like to engage with the idea. Which means nothing will ever change.
After all, we do know that Men/Women have different endocrine systems. Hell even different eye cells.
I'm gonna do a bit of guessing: what if they have heard "psychologists don't give advice"?
Or, what if they don't offer advice UNLESS someone explicitly asks for it?
This is a bit funny and ironic, in other parts of "the internets" I've heard of "don't give me an advice, I just want to vent out". It's curious.
In advance, I'm sorry if, in any case, sounded grumpy, quite the opposite, I remembered funny things.
@@Shockguey u mean that we process emotions different bec of biology? Yes I think that is true on a level. But we are still human and can learn about each others needs. I think men very often ask woman to be more sexual than is 💯 natural for us
So I think men can learn more about what females need to feel connected emotionally
@@Yoginimassage "I think that is true on a level"
Excellent, you should talk about it more-
"But"
Oh c'mon-
"we are still human"
That's a copout.
"I think men can learn more about what females need"
The video is about men. The comment is about men. The question was about men.
Yes. Women. Sure.
As a man I wish I had grown up with brothers and a present father figure, but growing up with my mom and sister gave me the room to express myself.
Bro, you're weak if you have this mentality. Don't let your emotions control your life. Your mom and your sister are feminine and can't teach you how to be a man.
Strangely I experienced an inverse. With the lack of a male in the house, it was pushed for me to be the “man of the house”, making this even worse for me
its almost like we're all different and not even our surroundings fully make us into who we are because we're all people with our own thoughts and wants and desires.
Did the opposite for me. Its been hard for me throughout my young life(late teens and 20s) had little experience, was home most of the time. Lack of experience.
Strangely enough my grandfather grew up with a complete family and a "strong father figure" but he's such an asshole towards women it's not even funny.
The youtube video “Male Dating, a problem in plain sight” is a great video from the perspective of a man who went through the “manosphere” and speaks of his personal opinion and findings. Really great as he offers actual help and strategies at the end of his videos instead of just pointing at the problem.
I forget. Is that from Macbre Storytelling?
Edit: It is! Love that guy!
Let me guess, man are bad womans are perfect.
The main issue is with interpretation of manosphere. Manosphere is focused mainly on common initial successes and hard fails. Considering that they can talk interchangeably about success in monogamous and polygamous sense makes everything even more confusing. The main issue is that manosphere should be interpreted from proper, not too deep perspective. Manosphere talks about specific dangers and tendencies but not about building anything really... It's not a place where people will teach you how to be best climber - they will tell you what is probably OK to start and where are dangerous places where people had more accidents and that's it. They barely talk about other stuff and if they talk, they instantly make more mistakes and cause division... Because we are driven to search for full answers and because not many people will admit that they don't have answers, we can easily be trapped in misinterpretation by overinterpretation or overestimation. Any focus on answering sought answers can cause self-fulfilling guru problem that can be used in wrong way and this is why currently significant amount of manosphere talk strongly against guru mentality and manipulative pickup artists in general which is really something considering that not so long ago when manosphere was a lot less mainstream you could find only hideous pickup artists...
That’s all this red pill, pink pill, even most politics is these days, it’s utter BS. No solutions just pointing to problems
@@Ryan-cb1ei its easy to solve. Kill all simps, womans wont get their fix on ego booom. Problem solved
the whole reason why men dont express their feelings isnt because they want to act tough. its because they know it wont change anything or just make things worse. no one will care and more than likely you will be mocked for it and people around you will lose respect for you. given the very high likelyhood of those occurring, the other option is to simply not do anything and try your best to go on and get through life.
Ngl I've been mocked by women in my life more than men for perceived weaknesses and faults. I will sometimes express vulnerability to my family (mum and sister) and my close male friends but rarely to romantic partners because I feel that most romantic partners just don't want to hear it. Recently though I seem to have found the one exception to that norm, and by god I want to stick by her because of that haha
Good luck
Yup simple as this.
And if a society doesn’t have tough people and are always crying about their emotions, do you think that society will win wars or progress? I want you to seriously believe what country would win. A country who respects masculinity and toughen emotions, or one who’s emotional?
There’s a survival instinct with men controlling their emotions. You may find it intimidating, but you will learn the ramifications of when men are crying and screaming over the littlest things…
When so many men are scratched out of ANY sexual relationships, I don’t agree that “men want sexual abundance…” - there are plenty of men who just want a trusted friendship and intimate relationship. I know plenty of men, myself included, who have happily focused on monogamous relationships, but sadly I know many who have had lifelong struggles to even get something started. What amazes me is how successful the “piggy” minority of men can be, lying and cheating their way to sexual promiscuity-and so many of the women who fall for it.
This pick up stuff works man! The girl will fall for you but you should act ethically afterwards.
Most evolutionary psychology is pointless speculation. It's hard to analyse the brain of something that died and rotted away millions of years ago.
@@gagadonim3354 but then aren’t you selling a false version of yourself in the beginning?
@@Clubsandwich2 Isn't all humans do is to learn a particular skill and use it into there own advantage? If conventional wisdom like chasing a girl, showing respect, being the friend first and being a overall nice guy is not able to get you a girlfriend and you always end up in the friendzone and you look into whom girls actually date are all mean, bad boys it's natural to get into the pick up stuff and correct your mistake. Learning what works is power how to use it is up to you. A shitty person might exploit a genuine one might use it to get into a relationship and stay commited
@@Clubsandwich2 Don't women wear make up and pretend to be attracted to men they don't like or wouldn't be personally intimate with if they did not see any personal gain. Both men and women are more than willing to lie to get what they actually want.
I have a theory that the conflation of intimacy and eroticism among modern men is what makes pursuing genuine friendship with them not only scary and vulnerable, but potentially even transgressive and dangerous. But I also think most men are deeply grateful when treated tenderly, and even moreso once they feel comfortable reciprocating. It is truly a liberation from a very real form of oppression that is utterly endemic among Western men.
Not limited to the west.
I’m curious why you specify modern men? Was there a time when this wasn’t the case?
@@omarb2653 in hunter gatherer tribes men are way more closer and intimate. So it has to be modern to some degree
@@omarb2653 as recent as 100 years ago it was common for close male friends to live together, platonically kiss, and hold hands. In other places in the world this is still common amongst men. So it's pretty recent
@@oshonechikuweku5593 I come from a region of the world where men platonically kiss, hold hands, etc. But it’s also one of the most homophobic regions of the world, just fyi. I think a lot of people mistakenly think platonic male affection = more sexually open but it’s often the exact opposite. Male affection is tolerated because of how sexually closed off the society is. It’s inconceivable that men would ever be romantic with each other, so holding hands is just a friendly thing
Always being a fairly sensitive and emotionally intelligent individual, it has shocked me how over the years the intimacy between my male friends and I has decreased to the point where we freeze up when discussing serious topics. It never used to be the case. In my opinion the "manosphere" is a hypocritical mess of sleazy salesmen offering shallow advice to a desperate audience. I found this video far more insightful.
That's not surprising because the people you're talking about pick up artists people whose only goal in life is money and women, the people that focus on those topics aren't as popular with mainstream audiences because people just don't like them as they give Solutions that are hard but will fix their problems.
The idea that "men are visual creatures" always makes me skeptical, insofar (woooo the influence!) as most mammals are visual creatures, women included. I'm waiting for the studies to come out on this one, lots of women are also aroused visually.
The way if this true marketing wouldn't be what it was, it's visual for everyone, that's why social media is so big.
Yeah honestly whenever I hear this point about visual creatures it's usually being used to justify creep things like men staring at women or men only caring about looks. if anything it's a socially produced phenomenon but more likely as you said it's just a human thing in general
Exactly it’s lies many women want attractive men
I was confused when she explained what being visual means in relation to dating apps. Because from my experience, plenty of men online act way too ready to either sleep with you or date you seriously without any need of having seen you in person. Like dude, what if I am ugly in real life? Or have a bad personality? What if I am a scammer? What if I have a boyfriend? What if I am a murderer?
@@isabella6075 Honesty, I don’t even think it’s the objective beauty we crave, it’s the connections you make when you see someone in real life that you can’t replicate via texts or a phone call that’s so unique that it’s ridiculous how not a lot of people talk about it in depth. The whole falling in love with personality fallacy is all about that human connection of seeing someone as a whole and not part of a whole.
Thank you for making this, as a young male seeing all these dating apps and sigma grindset society mentality on this side is burning me out mentally. Its really rough, I hope both females and males can get through the rough times.
You’ll be good bro
@@don2nd650 thank you
Life is supposed to be rough, we will all suffer at some point. Being comfortable is a luxury. But some how were in a golden age where being comfortable is a necessity. Which is why so many people suffer from mental illness, because they can’t accept reality. The real world isn’t for weak people.
@Will Wilde nah it’s just because people seem to have this idea that being unhappy is always a bad thing, when it’s not. Im not saying ALL mental health issues are due to this, but I believe many are.
@Will Wilde Not accepting reality can lead to mental health issues. Do I really need research to prove this? Seems like common sense.
I dated this radical feminist recently and she was complaining about women's issues in society and male privilege. I mentioned that women have their own privileges and men their own problems as well. She gave me this snarky look and smile and said "Like what?". I found it very disturbing that she genuinely thought we had no problems and just enjoy a life of "patriarchy".
But what I found even more disturbing was my inability to articulate the problems I was feeling in my life as a man and men in general.
Thank you for this.
Young men leave cults, because while the cults are obviously oppressive to women, if the cult leader has, 10 wives, that’s 9 additional women out of the dating pool. The “patriarchy” is really a system that benefits patriarchs, which is not the same as men in general. The social norms that result in male privilege make it easier for men to have high paying careers, but men are still faced with the increasingly unattainable social position of having to be providers. If John Doe is forced join the military for stable finances, while he won’t face the same sexism as Jane Doe, that benefits the patriarchy not men, even if men are still placed in an advantages position and we shouldn’t play oppression Olympics with it
@@TheJadedJames Exactly, perfect analysis, almost all feminists conflate the "patriarchy" with men in general.
Why would you date a radical feminist
I don't get the assumption of certain women that we guys are resting our hands behind our head. I live in a place where it is usually not up to me who I get to marry. It would have to be the decision of the woman's father. Until recently, a woman could be 35 years old and still expect to be legally bound to her father's consent to marry. As much as woman are having it worse, we as young guys aren't enjoying this system invented by possessive and obsessive grandads (i.e the patriarch), with all this constant policing to our work and social lives.
when they say "privilege" they are looking at the top 0.00001% of ♂that are attractive and rich and successful. never forget that to most ♀you are invisible
Straight man here. I got involved in Ballroom and Ballroom style (swing styles, country, etc) just over a decade ago. Prior to getting involved with the dancing communities many of the issues discussed in this video applied to one degree or another. Being a part of these communities, however, has had the effect of short circuiting the social connection problems and done wonders for both my well-being and that of many, many others.
How do you get involved as a 20 year old single guy with very under developed social skills who isn't in college? I've always thought dancing would help me work on my social skills and physical coordination but I don't know how to start and don't wanna come off as a creep that's just there to hit on girls yk
@@ColonelMinecraft find a group class in your area. When I started I googled "Ballroom lessons " and found lessons that were taught at a community center. It was intimidating and awkward at first, but after about the first month I realized that no one was giving me a hard time about "not being good" or being socially awkward. It's because of their welcoming nature that I was able to stick with it, and it was because of the greater dance community that I was able to start thriving as a person.
@@quantumhorizon imma get into it this month thank you. Any other things that helped you at least socially? The last time I had a group of friends was when I was 16 and in high school I was a loner depressed waste for 3 years after only started trying to work on myself a year ago but I'm even lonelier now than I was then as I've lost the friends that weren't interested in doing anything more than play video games all day with their lives...
@@ColonelMinecraft honestly, partner dancing is the thing I recommend far and beyond anything else. And the nice thing about it is there are several communities with different styles of music and cultures so you can find the fit that meets your personality and preferences. The reasons I recommend it so much is that it's good for physical, mental, social, and emotional health all in one go. Of course there are the other things such as sports clubs, group gym workouts, toastmasters, boardgame clubs and all that, but I've found the partner dancing world to rise above in overall benefit.
@@quantumhorizon yeah I've got into BJJ and while having a competitive physical outlet is fantastic I haven't clicked with anyone at the gym and still feel intimately starved. I'll report back how my foray into social dancing goes
I agree on gift giving. My ex would also give me lots of gifts to try and get closer but it did nothing. I agree it's toxic when men expect their partners to be everything for them, a best friend, therapist, etc. but it's understandable because we are told not to show those emotions or have emotionally intimate relationships with friends so when women make fun of men for doing that without addressing the issue it leaves a bad taste in my mouth
Why is your icon broccoli? What's the story behind that?
@@MissMuttonmeat Many years ago I watched pewdiepie on youtube and he once said "be the best brocolli you can be", and even though I don't watch him anymore it stuck. What's the story behind your name/pic
@@lewisbirkett4428 That's actually pretty cute and interesting . I thought you were someone who liked cooking or had a career in culinary arts. I'm a fiber artist who spins wool and knits, I think sheep are neat.
@@MissMuttonmeat Oh that's really cool too. Haha sadly not although I do like to cook when I can afford it
@@lewisbirkett4428 I'm feeling that, groceries are too damn expensive to cook really good meals. :/
One of the biggest problems I find, as a man who searches for love sometimes is that when I think of places to meet people there aren’t many options as the “third place” beyond work and home to be social. Approaching women in shops always feels intrusive and talking up coworkers is frowned upon so you end up in this hopeless state of not even knowing where to go to meet women.
Caleb here are a few options to consider: salsa classes (any dance class really), yoga, book clubs, hiking club.... I have found that those groups always have a disproportionate ratio of women to men.
Look up meetup groups my guy. I made good frienda that way.
Also, i took up sport climbing and now have a huge community of people and new friends around me who are relatively similar in temperament.
Theres more than just that, but it worked for me so i figure its worth mentioning.
arranged marriage
@@yes-vy6bn If you want failure.
Church 😂 ❤
You hit the nail on the head with this ““ wellness distrusts modern medicine and science and it fosters a sense of agency among its primary customer base.”
I’m a pharmacist and herbalist . My goal is the bridge this gap for a greater good.
Thank you for putting this into such a deeper prescriptive! Amazing work
This has been an extremely useful and explanatory video for someone like me. Growing up male and queer really allows for experience of both of these worlds, and offers a true intimate and personal account of their differences. Personally, I haave always preferred and still do prefer, female friendships because it allows for me to be an individual, a person, a thinking and feeling being with hopes, fears, doubts and everything in between. Not to say that those are non-existent in male relationships, but they really do often lack, or are reduced to the most basic form and usually either presented as joy, sex drive or angriness. I have consistently failed in connecting with male peers/colleagues, while also having truly personal and meaningful friendships with females. Being queer, I believe does play an important part in that, because it took away from me the most basic building block for male friendships, a shared sexual desire, which is not in any way required in female friendships. Males have as much potential for emotional development as females evidently, its just that they are never allowed to fulfill it.
@@ikilledthemoon This reeks of self deprivation and pity
Heterosexual man here. I understand where you're coming from. I prefer male friendships. Although I do like having legitimate platonic female friends as well. Maybe because I was never close with my father, but I do feel more comfortable opening up, and showing my emotions with female friends. Most of them have been good at giving me support. And I try to do the same for them. However, regarding women who I date, then I try not to show any vulnerability with them. Why? Because they lose attraction for me when I do. Yes, women like to see a mans softer side, but *only* if it's a friend. Not a lover. I don't expect that a single woman will ever admit this inconvenient fact, but I know that I'm not alone when I say that women lose interest in their romantic partners when they see him as being vulnerable. It sucks. But it is what it is.
@@ikilledthemoon I don't agree with all of that, but some plays back into the double standard that's been around for ages. If a girl sleeps around she's called all kinds of horrible things, but I know men who have been made fun of for being virgins. The ideas that people have to fit into certain social dynamics and fit certain standards doesn't make sense to me because it only ends up hurting both sides.
@@ikilledthemoon The age thing isn't always valid though because I've seen men in their 60s try and date women in their early 30s, and there's very little chance of that getting anywhere due to being at totally different stages in life and experiences. Having similar maturity level and goals is more important. Many people seem to have this flawed idea that a woman somehow expires after 40, but as long as someone is healthy, I don't see why women are expected to look like teenagers and those in their 20s, when they're not. Age isn't something to be ashamed of. And even if it is about wanting to have kids, some people at my church have had kids into their 40s.
Why are you people always bringing up about your sexuality….this isn’t even the topic of discussion, and yet we have to hear another pity fest and how it incorporates into why things were “always wrong”. Sorry bud, but your sexuality doesn’t solve the issue, nor should an outlet of your troubles be something the Internet can healthily and maturely handle. Seek actual certified therapists if you need that validation…
The fact about Tinder distorting reality is amazing to know. Honestly, in the real world, you see all types of people finding good relationships and even social success. Even people who we perceive as less desirable for whatever reason get into relationships and have opportunities to have sex. Media and social media distorts the perspective.
I really do remember being a child/teen and being shut down by other boys and men when trying to have more meaningful conversations and when you view others being shut down too it really does create a social fear around communication and it meant friendship groups become really superficial and full of content for morons. I turned out gay and yeah men are very visual creatures and that does manifest to a greater degree in gay culture and "dating" apps. The communication thing is probably something that affects a lot of gay men because there are issues around intimacy (along with fears around other things like violence, rejection and death) and that shows up in higher levels of depression, suicide, sexual approval seeking and substance misuse.
@@ikilledthemoon there probably is something around that regarding what women learn about men and the expectations of their outlook/behaviour . Perhaps it comes out in stressful circumstances. I don’t think all women are like this. There is probably an expectation that men need to be driven and want more out of life especially when this opportunity has been afforded to independent women who have become more successful, I don’t think they would ask something from someone that they aren’t doing or prepared to do themselves.
Maybe explain why that isn’t helpful or don’t hang around women who do that.
@@ikilledthemoon you must have quite a dating history to speak for most women.
Men considered as visual creatures is actually bullshit if you want my opinion. Men are trained like Pavlov dogs to be aroused by images, visuals and pictures and the bodies they consume are used as mere tools to hack their addicted brains.
@@ikilledthemoon Well considering your statement is a generalisation that has labelled every woman as being the same, by your decree, my response was lighthanded. What kind of response did you expect?
Gay men tend to have better platonic relationships with women and actually listen to them. Maybe stop demanding sexual attraction from the opposite sex. Even among gay men I can’t have every guy into me and want to sleep with me, it’s unrealistic. Straight men seem to feel violated when a woman isn’t sexually interested in them but it’s just a part of life, technology has been too effective at sorting through people and categorising them into what people want. You aren’t going to change someone else, but you can change certain things about yourself, how you view the world and treat others.
You guys need to stop watching porn, it has really destroyed your ability to think realistically about women, relationships, love and sex. Get away from the fantasy and treat them as another human being. Straight men need to make more platonic female friends. Stop putting idiot alphas on a pedestal while taking in every drop of malicious spooge that leave their lips. At what point did men stop being able to think critically and turn into such lemmings?
@@f.remplakowski true Andrew tate is one of those alphas that admitted to getting away with rape and going to a country where woman have no rights so he can use them as free labor, he shames any man for cooking and supposedly never wrote the book he prophet off of . If most guys do listen to him , im seriously concerned. As for porn , I enjoy porn personally but I don't delude myself.. I like the ones that are mutual and not fake and particularly animations also put some of their work .. which is very well done .
Alot of the manosphere discourages pursuit. Having to pursue indicates a lack of interest on the lady's part, as well as some other potential traits depending on the context. Pursuing leaves you quite liable to be taken advantage of as well. Levels of "pursuit" are better matched and mutual.
Right on the money
extremely rare manosphere W
What you are talking about is pick up artist
@@madmank7881
To take it upon oneself to actively pursue showing your interest in someone, is not inherently a pickup scheme so to speak. Show someone that you find them interesting and that you would like to talk to them, when within the quite easy to understand boundaries of polite and respectful behavior... Allowing for that person to choose to reciprocate your interest or to pass, seems like the only way anyone ever met anyone outside of the small fraction of miraculous relationships in which there was spontaneous, immediate and completely reciprocal feelings
@@Romana6794
That's not how is works nowadays. Women either want you or they don't. You're either their type or you're not.
I haven't seen any creators deconstruct both the manosphere and wellnesssphere in such a concise way. Well done!!!
concise?
@@monstercameron i'd say it's concise given that the average yt vid essay is 4-ish hours these days
My most intimate relationship is with my male best friend, and there was a stream that Kidology did where she mentioned the jdea of guy friendships being less intimate because they are more often based on 3-people-or-more interactions whereas women have way more 1-on-1 interactions. I guess I can count myself lucky to have that male friendship with my companion because we've spent so much time together 1-on-1 (diadic activities i think was the term). Convos got hella deep, and when my mental health shit began to pop off, he was the one person who I couldn't deny closeness to, no matter how difficult my mind was. even now, after moving away from all my friends, i talk to him the most and we still have emotionally vulnerable conversations, though it is harder with distance
Some of my male friends said this too. They even said they would remain friends with a guy that their girlfriend cheated with even when the girl and their guy friend were at fault 🤯🤯
Best of luck to you and your friend, Goat
@@caramelese8520 You're male friends sound castrated
As a young male adult, 23 yo, most of my friends are opening up our feeling with one another. We have come to realize that this is necessary. Also, love between friends is very accepted between my friend groups. Hugs are accepted easily, and it really helps take a toll out of our shoulders. We're Brazilian, so maybe it's a local thing. But I know that from other places guys can be a lot more repulsive of such interactions and see it as an offense to their masculinity.
Listen, we're all straight. Having affectionate friends is not gay. It's only Gay if you like dick. Otherwise, be cool
i live in the middle east and the amount of men holding each other's hands in a platonic way here is very high. in fact when men greet each other here, they touch noses. it's great.
This was quite the video... As a gay man i dont have hard time maintaining my friendships, but i have to admit it is hard to gain new friends. As you grow older, in my opinion, forming new friendships is something odd, in my opinion. Specially if you're someone like me who just doesn't want to have a vain relationship with any person. I don't enjoy friendships that don't fulfill me or my friend, it's weird to say but that's just how i feel.
However, finding a significant other is something i struggle with a lot. Of course, there are dating apps and whatnot, but most of them are used for mainly sex, and honestly that's not what is interesting to me. Like i don't value it as much as other man like me would and do, it's just I'd rather have my relationship be based about; love, mutual support and understanding in a more deep human level (if that makes any sense). Somehow i think i understand the struggle women have finding a partner, while yes sex is good and all, but i guess we need more?
I’m a queer man going through the exact same thing
Me too
I'm weird in that i kinda do and don't have problems making friends. On the one hand, I've put in the work to maintain a lot of my friendships from high school and college, some with women and mostly with men. We don't do it all the time, but if someone brings up a genuine, serious topic, we'll be open and frank about it. Not huge dusplays of emotional crying or anything, but we're pretty honest. We can also pick up right where we left off even if it was weeks or months since we saw or spoke to each other, and I can confidently say that if I contacted most of my friends, if it was within their ability to do, they'd have my back and help me out if or when I need something. (A friend called myself and another of our buddies to help him move into a new apartment, and we took time out of our day without question). Similarly, I can have longrunning comversations about anything from fun and entertaining stuff to downright serious stuff for ours on end with most of my friends if oresented the opportunity (driveway car conversations get real, man). I think I'm a rare exception when I say that although I don't see them quite as often as we used to when we were younger, I'm very blessed to have a fair number of genuine friendships, mostly with men and some with women. On the other hand, when it comes to large groups of people, I really have to force myself to engage and interact, becaise unless I'm specifically pointed out and invited into conversation and interaction with people I don't know very well, my natural instinct is to ghost through the crowd. I'm pretty good once I actually get into a comversation, so I don't really think I'm necessarily shy (at least not in the conventional sense), but I've always struggled with initiating comversation with strangers unless there was something specific we were both doing at the moment. Idk if it's that I'm not trusting of people I don't know, which I suppose is somewhat true, but I also try to give people the benefit of the doubt until I'm given reason to do otherwise. Idk, really. I guess I'm fine in smaller, more intimate settings, but it takes a ton of effort once I enter very large groups of people, although I've definitely gotten a little better about that over the years. (Learning how to interview people helped). At thr same time, however, although I'm not too shabby at making and I'm very good at maintaining existing friendships, I honestly don't know the first thing about finding a romantic relationship. I'd say I'm fairly perceptive about people in general, but once it enters the realm of romantic interest, I'm about as dumb as a box of rocks. I just have no idea, and I wonder if it's too late to learn now that I'm in my late 20s, going on 30 in a little over a year from now...
Omg for me it's the opposite, super easy to make new friends, hard to keep them
@@Tyler_W you sound so interesting , do you keep a journal? If not then I strongly suggest , especially before you turn 30
The problem is most men dont actually recieve the help even when they ask for it , there is something I have realised as much as people like talking to men abou t being vulnerable this only applies in friends and intimate relationship and even then it depends,
alot of people cant handle mens emotions even the women who claim they can and are expert on emotional intelligence , the rest is actually true as a dude if mess up in life no one is helping you , there are several dudes living homeless on the street , and people don't feel the need to donate to those causes guys are dropping out from school and boys are reducing in terms of colleges and now have higher suicide rates , and the solution given is work harder , that's usually what it boils down and this messaging is from everyone , most of the time we ask for help it's usually sent back in our faces, have emotionally issues go to therapy , we don't care how easily therapy is accessible to you or whether or no therapy would even help, no just do it ,
every single issue men have the solution given to men is simply work harder regardlees , the reason why men shut off vulnerability and being weak is because most men usually know the result of that and how people react to it , you can make the claim that it is unhealthy but at the same time i the alternative isn't really better for most men for some men maybe but that's because they have the means and resources but most men dont have that
so who reinforces the notion that men dont deserve help? is it all just thanks to womens or..?
@@vivvy_0 I think everyone plays a role but regardless of who reinforces it , no one wants to help even if men seek that help , even the women who claim that just do that for the individual men in their lives it doesn't mean they care about men as a whole , you are proving that by making it sound like I assigned blame, and I am pretty sure you would give the same solution if they asked you for help , that's they should do it themselves or work harder , just saying something doesn't reinforce if the result of what is reinforced is correlates with the ideology then people will listen to that ideology
I am a woman in my late 20's and I had a good opportunity to go to San Diego a few times in the past year. I met a few really generous people who were spending a lot of money on me even though I told them they did not have to do any of these things for me they would not hear of it and really wanted me to enjoy my time there. (These were financially well off people). I felt like I had stumbled upon such dumb luck. I also noticed the growing homeless problem and the growing wealth disparity between people who have and people who don't.
I met a young homeless man on the street and I was caught off guard at how young he seemed, probably my age and he was going through his suitcase at night and I asked him why he was on the street knowing he had every right to tell me to go f myself lol. But he didn't he described a rly normal life that went terribly wrong. I had such good fortune that I wanted to help him, and like I said I had been thinking about wealth disparity and how it was so easy for me (a modelesque woman) to make fast wealthy friends in an instant who were willing to do so much for me, it reminded me how unfair the world is and honestly I wish it wasn't like that but I digress.
Anyways, I told him I would get a hotel room for him so he could have a few days to get a good nights sleep and shower, eat, ext... and he told me he couldn't remember the last time someone cared enough to help him.
It was very sad.
The next time I was in San Diego I did the same thing again but helped yet another young guy I came by, and he was extremely kind just like the first and had a normal life and things just went downhill.
Another thing about all of this is that I was sure not to tell ANYONE that I did this in fear I would be judged or the people around me would try to convince me to never do something like this again. Which also is unfortunate.
I also have a few close guy friends and I love them very much and they know this and they know I will always help them. I also push them to tell me their true feelings about things and they do which is good. I love both the men and the women in my life.
I guess I'm trying to say is there are some people who genuinely care, I'm not the only one.
@@lydiahiksan1232 there are, my issue Iis they are not many , and I am not saying this because i think people have to help men or that men are entitled to help , I am saying this because I know that people typical don't, they recieve less sympathy normally , so vulnerability isnt that much of an option , especially for people who generally have issues that they mainly have to solve themselves without help , maybe on an individual level but pretty sure most of the people In the world don't care about men as a group and that's fine I guess , but like people shouldn't be asking for vulnerability and telling men to ask for help if they themselves can't give that help , because the reality is like it or not , you have to solve your issues yourself as a man or else at some point you would be left behind , not saying this for pity just saying I get why vulnerability isn't considered as much of a good option considering its results arent helpful
I mean random women aren’t your therapist or emotional dumping ground, relationships are two way streets. If you’re gonna get, you also have to give.
I was floored when you mentioned Alexithymia, it's so strange learning there's already word for something you've been struggling to put into words your whole adult life. I always felt broken because I have trouble feeling, and now I wonder if I'm as numb as I thought I was, or if I just never learned the language to describe my feelings to myself.
It truly was an eye opener to me, Ive always had the struggle of dictating my thoughts and emotions into words for someone else to understand, along with the inability to connect when someone shares what they are struggling, or issues they are having. It always came to me as a sort of disconnect, not one I wanted but one that would consistantly ulitimately happen time and time again. It led to me ultimately invalidating what I felt since I couldn't share it, and feeling shitty when I couldn't give thoughtful responses to someone elses perspective on a problem.
My male friends tend to like talking with me one on one rather than in a group and I realize that I often try and dig through this alyxathemia to get to the roots of their opinions and the emotions behind them.
I do not enjoy this condition in men and hate the way it is glorified by society, men and other women. Men are so much more than their performative capabilities. And seeing and hearing them happy beyond those shackles is so heartwarming and wholesome.
I'd only heard of it used in the context as being something that often comes with autism and other chronic conditions. My boyfriend always asks me how I feel and I never know without taking a long hard think about it, I just exist, so it makes it hard to communicate at times. It's taken a while, but I'm glad he's willing to talk about both our challenges in ways to try and make things work better.
Awesome, insightful episode as always, Kid! I pretty much agree with your points. As a single 53 year old guy, I just checked out of online dating as it just wasn't getting me anywhere after a good college try! In the end, I don't think the futility had ANYTHING to do with men/women, but the websites themselves! I think there is more control and manipulation than what we think. I have found that I bang my head against the wall, but when I end my subscriptions, I start getting likes that I can't see without paying! When I have taken the bait in the past, there is NO response after I reach out. :(
Yeah, I've been through a TON of counseling and, in the end, came to the begrudging conclusion that I NEEDED it! It helped me become more self aware of MY personal mechanics and helped me to identify UNHEALTHY habits I had that was affecting me in MANY areas including relationships! A lot of what we do is unconscious and my "awakening" has literal shaped my life in ways I'm still recognizing! It was HARD, but SO worthwhile!!!!!!! I highly recommend it if you can find a GOOD counselor (not easy in its self)!
Yeah, porn can be a slippery slope! If you are CAREFUL, CAUTIOUS, and EMOTIONALLY/PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY, it can be an amazing teaching/educational tool, but I fear this is usually NOT the case.
Thanks again for the excellent work, my friend! :)
Dating apps in 2022 do not worth for the average man. Lopsided male / female ratio is one reason. As a single 53 year old man you’re not going to get anywhere using them, because even women you’re age are using then to meet younger guys. The golden age for dating apps and online dating was about ten years ago. Today it’s a cesspit.
@@logicbeagle Ha, thanks for the feedback, LB! I'm not sure there is a golden age to be honest with you, but points taken. :)
@@Shaa-Belle Hey, LB! I respect your opinion for sure, but disagree. I think it can help as it portrays folks of different shapes, cultures, and sizes trying various techniques that actually can ENLIVEN someone's sexual experience! I believe some relationships STAGNATE as partners can stuck in a "rut" so to speak. Now believe me, I'm not saying all porn is good or is well-intentioned (or legal for that matter!), but again, I say in CERTAIN instances it can ENHANCE and EDUCATE. Thanks for sharing your feedback! :)
It's really refreshing how you seem to approach the issue from all perspectives, and recognize how everyone has their own problems.
I'm really struck by the statistic that 78% of tinder users are men, wow. At the beginning of this year one of my New Year's resolutions was No Online Dating 2k22 because I was depressed by how futile my experiences with dating apps had been. I'm bisexual & date men, women, & enby people & I find that dating apps (for me at least!) also make my dates with non-men unrewarding & shallow.
The issue is that I don't really know how else we can claw our way out of loneliness without dating apps. I know men are lonelier than women on average, but I also don't have a best friend (I have a lot of friends- just no best friend) & find that when my male or female friends get into a serious romantic relationship, our friendship suffers & becomes less intimate. So anyway...youtube void, suggestions?? The pandemic has made this all even harder as I feel many people have become more insular & focused on their preexisting relationships.
Pot calling the kettle black because for some reason I still have dating apps (I get okay matches, but I never get anything out of it, and most people who dare have a conversation just try to feign interest in order to grift their "premium content"), but I am trying to do more of the things that have been recommended to me, and it makes sense that it would work. I would say that the best way to find potential romantic partners is to put yourself out there to socialize more in general. Get connected with groups centered around common interests/hobbies, common values, and common goals. Likewise, don't go to the bars and clubs with the misguided intention of finding meaningful relationships with quality, likeminded people. Think about the kind of people you want to be around, and then seek out the places/groups/activities where you're most likely to find them.
Why don't we just try going outside and having conversations? It's only awkward when someone is making awkward, so just act like this is 100% natural and nothing awkward about it and they resolve (because people can't think for themselves if they are making an interaction awkward until they see someone who just isn't lol)
That stat makes me feel physically a little ill not gonna lie as a young dude who has gotten extremely depressed to the lowest level you can get from feeling like an absolute loser trying to online date - to now years later on the opposite end having been pursued by women on those apps depressed for my friends and peers who won't ever get to experience that and might feel like I did forever I fucking hope not also makes me realize how above average my experience has been which is fucking insane as a dude who has gotten so depressed from rejection and darker shit from women that I tried to end it years ago to now trying very hard to get more mature and grow up and learn the womans pov because it makes me super angry how most men are treated tbh including good people but now im understanding we are getting conned and played with these apps I completely thought tinder was 50 50 or maybe 60 40 dudes to women but 78 22 makes me feel dizzy from how dumb I've been letting that shit wreck my mental health
The thing that's helped a lot of people I know including myself, is to find a common interest with someone. Not specifically looking for dating, but for a social group. Whether that's going to a meetup or class for a hobby you have, going to a local festival or convention for something you like, or any other local ways to engage with things you like where there will be other people.
@@joylox facts that's great advice I became a legal weed farmer grew pounds and gave away bouquets of free ounces to women I was dating or even good friends too divided up amongst people and it was fun as fuck completely worth got loads of quality reviews and im still vaping the hash rosin from the fresh frozen of that strain nearly a year later
As humans it is is important for us to step away from material objects and material fulfillment and step towards emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Finding that with others and helping out eachother as needed.
Nice cap. You live in a society where CAPitalism won.
True. Porn had a terrible effect on peoples' intimacy and emotional/psychological needs. We haven't seen the worst of it yet. My #1 advice to men and women alike is to not date people who watch porn, especially if you are a het woman looking for a fulfilling relationship
@@langustajableczna. I guarantee you every man in a relationship watches porn sometimes when their partners are away/unavailable. When you start letting the porn compromise your relationship, that’s a mistake on your part, not pornography inherently.
That’s like telling someone not to date ppl who gamble. It *could* turn into a problem, but that’s why trust is the most important factor In any romantic endeavor.
And find EXCESS in the "immaterial" I take it. Stuff other people own and women get anyway.
Recent study according to NY Post shows that women cheat more than men. THEY want the variety, and get bored of a man "just being himself". And it's long been this "sky is blue, but can you PROVE it is?" buried factoid that everyone with eyes could tell. This "manosphere" gets CALLED as such, and essentially speak for "all men", only in the eyes of a society so one-sidedly servile to women. Hashtag NOT ALL women, not nearly all, "women" just means a minority of western women unable to understand their amounting wealth. Their competition against MAJORITY of world's women, is simply about utilizing the servile position men have relative to them. THIS IS WHY women can so easily get their fast fashion and cobalt batteries to post onto Tiktok with, and not even paying $2000 for an iPhone but $800.
The entire idea that "men need variety" is borne itself out of the self-loathing self-feminization, of men being secluded from any natural source of self-discovery and have nothing to fall on but to project the feminine society onto themselves and act like old widow gossiping at their looms. They loop a broken record of thinking themselves masculine, because they represent the "masculine" side of fundamentally feminine society. They see their male bodies as proof of manhood the same way a child would put on make-up and play dress-up to prove how adult they are, while this conception of the idealized "male" is forged INTO the Mean Girl attitude. That which manosphere carves out of the society that ONLY HAS ROOM for women, and women OCCUPY the Nice Girl attitude so that's the only identity up for grabs.
If there's a way to FIX this, that remains to be seen if women stop congratulating themselves for all the variety the GET in their life. Like infantile gangsta rappers rap about their possessions, women are not rising up to the task of "settling" but even frame it as a shameful thing if they don't GET all kinds of wealth even WITHOUT owning it. Own nothing, and be happy. Except THAT permeates western culture in its heavy mainstream.
@@BlapwardKrunkle nah, you can tell a world of difference with porn watchers and nonwatchers. It's ingrained in their brains, they behave differently. Set your standards extremely high if you are going to date a man. Also yes! Don't date gamblers
Radical masculinity movement helped me a lot with becoming more attractive (from a few, to 2-3000Tinder matches in my country), more organised, stronger, helped me overcome my fears of travel etc.
However, I’ve been having a very hard time maintaining interest in one female partner, while having a lot more options.
Lack of emotion has mostly killed my romantic side, while lack of fulfilling connection hasn’t really helped.
It’s a well studied phenomenon, when having too many options will actively take away from the satisfaction of choosing one.
I’m still not feeling great sometimes, but people see and say I’m doing a lot better.
Feel like I’ve become resentful for the times girls weren’t interested in me to the point where i feel like all girls who like me now only do for the things I’ve worked for and not for who i am, like success diggers. All except for two or three.
Appreciate the interest in the subject, and i hope you may do interviews with men who actually benefited from masculinity, and make a video about your findings and/or whether it changed your view on the matter
Not the success story women would want to hear
Never used dating apps. I've always worked to establish friendships first with women I know personally. I want the face to face and the emotional connection first, but can't safely pursue that where I spend my time in the real world. It isn't the fear of rejection it's the fear of losing my job or legal ramifications for basically expressing interest. I've seen it happen several times. I'm pretty easy going and extremely cognizant of overstepping my bounds, but some men are more clumsy and I've seen them suffer for it. And there is (at least the perception) no room to practice, no forgiveness. Punishment. Women don't want to be harassed, I get it. But what constitutes harassment varies from person to person and the only way to avoid trouble is not to try at all or with EXTREME trepidation. It could be a personality defect but in my experience most people I interact with on a day to day are not interested in establishing new deep emotional relationships. With many people I try to make a connection, but especially with women there is an profound reticence to engage honestly and openly. Personal problem or societal problem, idk. I need the person to person and all I know is it is not for a lack of trying that I am and have been for some time, alone. Many of the men I know, family and friends (who haven't yet married) are struggling really hard right now, personal problems or societal problem idk
This may be a demisexual situation you are facing. 🤔
Maybe keep sexual attraction out of the workplace…
@@alx8571 That's understandable, but that's where I spend most of my waking life. If a relationship is not permitted to blossom in the most organic setting imaginable, seeking a relationship becomes a deliberate act, which itself is a bastardization of friendship. If a man cannot find a partner at work or out and about in the world (for the most part), then he is effectively compelled to use 'the apps' unless he has a strong social support network which might give him the opportunity to meet someone in the circle. The apps appear mostly harmful for your average man in my opinion and to me have little appeal. I am considering volunteering though, just in general because work is soul draining and as a man, I feel a call to serve, however antiquated the notion.
I am, in many respects, resigning to winds of fortune, that someone might see something of value in me. So be it
@@alx8571 nah man I've had women flirt with me HARD what could be considered harassment if I did it to them and then when I asked them out politely go on HR crusades making shit up trying to get me fired cameras covered my ass but ffs stop denying so many people's lived experiences I have anxiety bad dating now bc not sure if she will snap if I try to reciprocate the same way they act towards me
This was really good. Glad there's a woman talking about this is such detail without the super causal lingo we usually hear on the subject. Having this type of perspective really drives home the point that it's more the just women complaining, but solidifies root causes of male interactions within society.
Thank you so much for this video. You are part of the vanguard for men's liberation. So glad to see a woman who understands our struggle. Male life is cold, with love often being the only warmth we feel.
Finally, a take on the manosphere that adds something to the conversation instead of just walking us through all the players. 🙄
so good thank you! love that you went relatively in-depth instead of reducing the problem & solution down to a catchy sentence.
seems like one of the things that would help both men & women (and everyone outside of that binary) alike is to emphasise the perception and reflection of themselves and whoever they're attracted to as *unique individuals* and to view issues and conflicts within themselves and their relationships with a more personalised lens, rather an a generalised "all men" / "all women" one.
i think often in everyday discussions of sexism/gender inequality and all that entails, people end up falling into the age-old trap of reductive gender stereotypes (e.g. men are emotionless animals, women are overly emotional and unpredictable, etc.) whilst under the guise of "breaking existing gender stereotypes". in order for us not to go to far one way or another and to actually see people as human beings, we have to do just that: start talking about people and reflexively analysing ourselves (this latter one is a huge one that men tend to overlook) as actual unique individuals with different genetic, environmental, and social factors that influence their beliefs and decision-making on attraction and dating - and to remember that personality and behaviour is not set in stone, and that we can change our intentions and actions with the help of knowledge, understanding, and patience.
I'm a Male living in New Zealand and I have felt this on a personal level.
I've always believed in this scale a fairness throughout my life. If one gives, the other is expected to give back. In relationships I would stretch and strain that meaning, to points of madness.
Feeling not valuable because I wasn't holding a job or reciprocating the same gifts back. Distancing myself further because I wasn't providing.
It wasn't till recently that I learnt the importance of time and being present. That I started to understand, respecting someone is not monetary.
It's about showing them your best within your own limits. Whether it's with your time, your actions or with but simple cup of coffee.
Thank you.
Disagreeable men are "no nonsense" and "strong", whereas disagreeable women are "combative, unfriendly, power-hungry". How could someone actually subscribe to these hilariously unsubtle double standards?
Because they believe men and women are extremely different, especially mentally
Double standards exist unfavourably towards both genders, that if you put it all together, it seems less like there's any particular level of unfairness than people seem to think when they bring up individual double standards.
Eg. the reverse is a double standard against men: women who are soft and caring are "motherly", "nurturing", and "feminine", whereas men with similar qualities are "emasculate", "soft", and "spineless".
Here is a simple answer to answer to your laughable ignorance:
- Short women are seen as "cute" and "attractive", whereas short men are "comical" and "unattractive". How could someone actually subscribe to these hilariously unsubtle double standard?
Essentially: the source of your ignorance comes from trying to replace what "the world is" with what you "feel the fair world should be".
Sure, we could argue that short men should be equally attractive, but they just aint. Just as combative women are objectively perceived as b*tchy. It's just a fact of the world.
@@someguy6862 This is the problem cause we are from a physical standpoint (not to go that deep but a T in the alphabet community is literally killing a biological woman in any sport especially mma at that point that's domestic violence lmfao if that was a straight man and wouldn't be allowed), an emotional standpoint were the same true, but were we different is this logically as a man I can put my emotions feelings carnal physical I can put all these different things into an interconnected context and be objectively truthful amongst all men and women. I don't have to look no further than the op and see that this person is either a woman or a sympathizer. Burpie talks like double standards don't exist on both sides but it's because we're different and built different. Again as a woman you dead ass just gotta look good and the world is your oyster as a man you gotta do a whole lot more than just look good cause guys who just look good aren't even respected frfr. They get favored more but respected prob not. A man has to become more cause well were capable of doing more. Look a5 how the op describe men cause yes its a show of strength for a guy to do these things yes but as a woman that's not how you're built. You can tell the op is miserable by a society that still favors her and yet she's still not happy. And won't ever be until a guy actually comes and be her king and she be his queen . To think were the same is ludicrous and nuts but hey it is what it is.
@@donnyjones6717 I think the thing your describing is patriarchy from a male perspective. Not only does a patriarchy make woman be dehumanized and worthless, but it also makes men dehumanized and worthless in a different way. Where a woman has to stay at home and shut up, a man has to slave away and prove himself all his life. There are so many double standards on both sides because patriarchy forces up to be exact opposites. People might argue which side has it better but honestly that discussion is useless since its shit for both genders. People will also argue to what extent patriarchy exists, however its very clear there is at least an echo of patriachy in society since both genders clearly arnt happy with their positions in life.
I struggled a lot in my relationship with men and I found many Male creator addressing masculinity but no women. So its awesome to find you and I feel like I leave with more understanding and peace:) thankyouuu
Maybe when I stop getting shamed and ridiculed for being emotionally open, I'll start doing so.
So many men I’ve been friends with say this I don’t get why they can’t just be open with each other if they all secretly feel this way
By whom? By other men? Well that depends on how you’re acting. If you’re going off all crazy, then ya you’re going to get flack for it, but if you’re feeling depressed, then I doubt you’d be ostracized.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 Obviously you’re missing the mark here. Men are completely different emotionally compared to women. We live in a modern women driven world where the standards of women’s psych are all across the board so when men express themselves in that way it’s seen as “brash” and like you said they get flack for it, in turn this leads to increase in suicide rates among young men, increased loneliness of young men, etc. And when you have too much of a large segment of the next generation of men who feel broken down and have nothing to lose then I think you’d understand what I mean when I say that is a recipe for disaster
@@malbasedvalentine3210 lots of assumptions for a p general statement
@@serene4961 because it's not known they all secretly feel this way. Also the more you get ridiculed the scarier it gets and fear isn't always rational
the entire video is gold, but the last segment, the unscripted one, at least for me, it's the most interesting and depressing. I think that the impact dating apps and pornography can have in exacerbating men's problems with intimacy/relationships. Incredible work on your part
Dating apps and pron are very bad for society. It is banned in some countries
@@michaelpapazis it’s a drug and the internet is their dealer. You’d be shocked at how many convicted pedophiles were just looking for the next “novel” and “taboo” thing thanks to their porn addiction
I keep trying to turn my female partner into my everything and my best friend. This is partly a result of having grown up in an environment ( Canadian school) where it was discouraged to speak to girls and parents and teachers did little to get each gender to interact. I think this was mostly detrimental to those boys like myself who struggled to speak to girls and make friends as well as to those boys who ooze with a false sense of confidence.
To this day I struggle to make friends with a female without becoming infatuated and I have extremely high expectations of emotional fulfillment with whoever becomes my significant other. Most often when the infatuation isn't the case, it is because of a large social circle which allows me to interact with males and females intimately and platonically while we each maintain our private lives.
i was so happy with every point in this video. a lot of my thoughts lately can be summed up to the commodification of humans and the way that capitalism has ascribed literal monetary value to genuine human connection, and how that is impacting the way we see and interact in real life. unique breakdown on the way men and women are socialized differently around intimate relationships- and not just meaning sex, but emotionally and spiritually and mentally intimate too.
The fact of men not having close friendships, and having the women in their lives be their 'all' so to speak, is hilariously addressed in SNL's 'Man Park' skit.
I went to watch it and it's so funny
What's funnier is that men make memes about how women are fake even in friend ships and dudes are friends for life, now cut to men in the comment section saying they find their female friends much easier and comforting to talk to. It's hilarious
@@killme5630 its very weird indeed
@@killme5630 not all men are think the same. You should know that right? In my experience it's easier talking to men so it's far better for me to maintain those friendships but not get past the intimate parts. For women though, I've noticed the lack initiative by not actively trying to keep a friendship going. It's one sided most of the time as they babble about their lives and show disinterest/surface level interest. Maybe it's just a generational issue (im Gen z if you were going to ask) or something else. I'm not sure.
@@yrdeft9774 "not all men think the same, you should know that right" sorry but when you're scrolling insta and see the 123th stolen reddit même which is an attempt at being funny, it's almost always, "girls boring, men quirky" meme. And it's always dudes bragging about how much they love their homies and girls are venomous snakes who break friendships over silly things. I literally saw a tweet go about "women compliment their pals and don't mean it, men insult their pals and don't mean it". Like??? This has been happening since Facebook memes used to be the hot shit. So it's just fucking hilarious to see the opposite here. It's almost cathartic.
Thanks Lass. I didn't have problems beforehand being a CIS male. I was progressing like one should; majoring in philosophy, working as a social worker and so on. But then, I stumbled upon the Manosphere... And it corrupted me.
I didn't agree with them but it filled a void I didn't know I had. It answered a question that I didn't have nor needed a priori; in fact, it CREATED a dichotomy within myself.
Your video realigned my psyche. Thanks!
Creating problems to sell solutions. This is the game we all play, making it convoluted. Great video, breaking ground to go deeper in to the complications of intimacy.
yep
9:20 I, a cis woman, was, oddly enough, raised to hide my emotions and be tough, by my mother (I was homeschooled, therefore spent most of my childhood and teenage years with her). Whenever I would express a negative emotion, she would tell me to "be a man". She also espoused an obvious preference for me to be quiet, non-emotive, and reserved in my feelings.
As an adult, I am emotionally stunted. I have great difficulty communicating my feelings or even simply identifying what I feel in the first place and why, and often elect to just bottle them up because it's easier. I also feel emotions very strongly, and not being able to express them properly has affected my mental health tremendously.
My partner has been so patient with me as I learn to identify and express my emotions, but it's been a long journey, and one that is nowhere near finished. I can't imagine the additional conditioning men and boys go through; no wonder there's such a disconnect between men and women
I don't know how this happened but I all felt the need to hide my emotions too. I was the first born of 3 girls and people always told me I was weak because of my gentle nature and soft voice. Plus I felt less feminine than my sisters because I was calculative and logical and didn't really have the "small mummy" vibe. I was bad at multitasking and it was harder for me to do house chores because I was basically slow. Surprisingly ( to myself probably), I was more emotional so ended up bottling up or being a little violent.I never used to word "Love" and I hated hugs( though I kinda wanted them(. I am slowly trying to open my emotional side. It's hard, but I find myself feeling a lot happier. I am trying to express my emotions more. I just hope things work out, God helping me. I pray things work out for you too.
Not super odd because the patriarchy hates emotions.
@@BATfile This has nothing to do with the ghoulish conspiracy theory of patriarchy
@@BATfileW oman mistreats her son -> patriarchy
Woman beats man -> patriarchy
Woman abuses kid -> patriarchy
Woman forces man to not speak up -> patriarchy
Woman shames man for showing weakness -> patriarchy
I love misandrist rationale
"Where humor matters greatly in female friendships it hardly matters in male friendships."
Now, I don't know what study that comes from, but if there's something I can be sure in this life, more so even than death, is that that statement is fundamentally false.
Had it said "mocking people behind their backs", then I'd concur.
Yeah I don't get what that means really. As a guy, every friendship I've had with another guy has been specifically based around humor. Why would I hangout with someone I don't laugh with?
Yeah it's totally the opposite. Half the shit in this video is wrong or projection. Getting a little annoyed that these RUclips pseudointellectual video essays are given far more weight than they're worth just because of the format.
@@rakkatytam Also male friendships are made supporting a fav sports team to the point of making our lives around it hahaha.
Mens humor is roasting each other and trash talk. Can be described as “locker room talk.” Yet we see most of the popular comedians are male.
@@jater10
Well that might have been absolutely accurate generalization in.... 1950, I find the idea laughable as an accurate general description of most male relationships.
No doubt such relationships are incredibly common, I would say just as common these days are male friendships that do not revolve around sports tailgating camaraderie amongst the collective frat boys
As a man, I feel SO lucky to have friends that actually care about each other. I truly am a wildly lucky man to have what I do.
Your point about men thinking they can rely solely on their partner (no other friends) makes a whole lot more sense to me now. I'm nonbinary transmasc, but before I came out I was a tomboy who dated cishet guys that felt that way. The fact that I was truly their friend, could share their hobbies and interests, and also be there for intimacy made it a good situation for them. Looking back I just see me confused with my gender and a bunch of guys looking for female friendship and connection.
It's important to know that very few guys actually buy into this kinda stuff, most guys just want to love and be loved
I am going to provide a counter example to some of the comments here.
I am a straight male who was raised by and largely socialized with women.
In some ways I have virtues that offset a lot of the perceived weaknesses of men, I am comfortable with and require deeper connections to my friends. I generally choose kindness and compassion when facing people who are challenged or challenging. I am open and interested in other people and try to understand them beyond a surface level.
Put another way, I have relatively high emotional intelligence in the modern framing and am fairly comfortable discussing these things. It would not be wholly inaccurate to say that I have an understanding and diplomatic personality in many contexts.
All that said until I finally had opportunity to socialize with and bond with other men I was not able to understand myself and often found myself at war with my own nature and still do though in a lesser way. The feminized upbringing I had placed shame and conflict within me in regards to my conventional masculine urges and behaviours. I found myself often disliking myself and viewing myself as a man as being inherently flawed, I also originally opposed and misunderstood conventional masculine behaviours despite carrying a number of them naturally myself such as stoicism. I often misunderstood how other men behaved towards me and allowed my own personal shame and confusion about my own masculinity to be the filter through which I interpreted my peers much to my detriment.
The biggest step forward for me was slowly learning not to be embarrassed by or dislike my masculinity, and to this day at 40y/o this is a constant path of challenge and growth for me.
We often fail to realize that most virtues are one side of a coin, as often articulated in regards to how women can be unfairly regarded the line between bossy and exacting is a fine one but also one that does exist. When we carelessly apply our strengths they can manifest as failings. Men often learn how not to be bossy because the repercussions for violation in the sphere of men are often more direct and immediate than in the world of women, we learn boundaries in a more direct and simple form because those failures manifest immediately and sometimes in ways that present a real risk of harm. Conversely the more subtle and nuanced quality of classically feminine behaviour is easily misunderstood by many men and is an area of failing or weakness for such men because of their inability to appreciate the true depth of nuance that exist within such a social species and society as the one we live in. Some men can rightly be accused of treating everything like it is a nail because all they bring to the table is a well forged hammer.
Virtues are often the positive side of traits or behaviours that have both negative and positive qualities. As an example tenacity and stubbornness are the same behaviour interpreted or shown in different contexts and frames. We need to learn to accept ourselves and that what can be a strength in one context is a weakness in another, we need to accept ourselves not as flawed creatures trying to carve off our failings and realize that an emotionally and mentally healthy person is someone who is in harmony with themselves. They are not a creature without flaws but someone whose flaws are as much a truth of their nature as their virtues, this self knowledge can make one aware enough to be able to navigate their own nature and accept themselves and their flaws without feeling shame or feeling incomplete.
There's so much to say about your comment, well put. I no longer feel any shame or insecurity about my masculinity and my urges, it's one thing to understand what your body wants, and it's another to know what your mind needs.
It doesn't need me to filter shame, I just don't trust myself enough to be assertive because of constant fear of rejection, but I'm very socially apt,
but sabotage my friendships by shutting myself down/out on a daily basis, out of worry that people will shoot me down. It's seriously liberating to read what you have to say, because this isn't simply black/white, it's a learning process and coming out of my shell has to be my current goal right now.
Congratulations on 100K, Zee :) I'm so proud of you to have come this far so quickly - 20K+ in two months; incredible!!!! God bless you and all that you do. Thank you for being a legend.
The way you speak is so digestible, not condescending or patronising and the best part is you’re getting to the point.
I see women rambling about the “manosphere” not really saying anything productive but you get it and seems like you understand and accept male and female differences.
Props
I’m a guy and my dream job is to be a stay at home wife. The professional expectations of being a man over in the US are brutal. So much of my depression comes from my own perception, but it’s so hard to shake those perceptions once they’ve been ingrained so heavily
Bro never say this shit again lol
@@Michael_Jackson187 🤦♀️
@@Michael_Jackson187 you really hating on dreams lmoa
Unfortunately staying at home will likely cause your partner to resent you
@@Michael_Jackson187 🤣🤣🤣
That gift giving point is true. When I was in a relationship which was mainly supported by the gifts I felt so unfulfilled/empty
Damn, I wish I got gifts. I don't get birthdays gifts, Christmas gifts or nothing. 🤷♂️
@@counselorguy5481 boo hoo
While I don't disagree with your observations I hate the idea of "talk to people", "open up more", "share your feelings", "go to therapy" because that DOESN'T work for me. It never has: among family it feels like I'm guilt-tripped and among therapists I'm made to feel like my thoughts are just invalid. I don't think I'm around the wrong people either I think I'm just a bit of a weird thinker in some rites but that means talking to other people about my feelings is usually counterproductive and ends up making me angry most of the time. For those reasons I'd rather keep my emotions to myself, it's more effective because I often burn through negative emotions quickly and feel less isolated than when I try to share my thoughts
understand completely, being told to be honest and open and then getting judged for it is one of the most twisted things people do.. the ideal therapist wouldn't do that and instead listen carefully and give their thoughts for you to work with - but finding a competent therapist is like searching for a diamond in the desert.
Since we don't have the experience of sharing smotions, our fledgling attempts are almost certainly going to be difficult and painful.
We need classes or in some way to be taught how to do these things.
Firstly, great video. Secondly, I really appreciate you saying that therapy is a middle class solution that is not accessible to everyone, Betterhelp cost $60-$90 a session, Talkspace has a subscription service that charges $65/week, not per month, per week, and neither take insurance. The internet talks about therapy like it can do anything...it can't. It can only do so much. I think therapy is a good thing, but it's not going to save the world.
I was forced to get a screening because my son was born and I had to pay for it .. total bs ..
I honestly think that overall this digital society has deteriorated our bonds and relationships. People now join digital communities instead of real in person ones. People no longer visit each other because they can call or video call. But it's not the same as being present with someone, now they're creating virtual reality to mimick that experience. It's all down hill from here in my opinion. I also think this is why narcissistic tendencies are increasing, people behave in less selfish ways when they're actively involved in their communities, and communities are being lost.
Robert Putnam published about this very thing using data from before the internet in Bowling Alone. People have been getting lonelier for a while now.
This is so wise and such a bold topic to tackle, and I love her empathy for both sides. She understands me better than my psych lol
holy shit she was spot on with the pornography trap too, its nice to know that women acknowledge this and care 🙏
@@j_eezus_christ_bro_chill wait I don't think it is something encouraged by the manosphere
Yeah, women who are understanding of mens difficulties are really rare. Appreciate the hell out of this video
A female friend of my mine, just sent me this video today. I've got to say, this is beautiful. Thank you.
What's worse is that some men are fully aware of the damage done, but simply lack the emotional skills needed to even address it. In my case I've found the best I have is to explain all of my emotions in an incredibly detached sense once they've washed over me and I'm calm again, and even I know that is lacking. Can't afford therapy so it's all I've really got. It's a comfort to see more discussion of this!
I (M,22) transferred to an arts elementary school in my early teens which was primarily attended by girls. I had the luck of strucking up some deep and long lasting platonic relationships with a couple of them. I found them a lot more agreeable and just easier to talk to and be around than the boys who, at this age were sexually maturing ofc and some of them were very competitive with eachother. That kind of stayed with me and even now that iam somewhat mature my friends pool is almost exclusively female. After all these years i find it very hard to recconect to my male peers, furthermore, some of the female friendships now demand me to be more emotionally open, since we are the age we are i think its only fitting we ge to know eachother fully.
Allthough I consider myself more and more emotional and open, I have expirienced Alexithimia on multiple ocassions. Sometimes it feels wrong to share certain things.
Being on the Internet for as long as I have, I rarely see people like me come out and discuss genuinely - So I want to say that I'm personally a femboy
Not the cringy "uwu" kind you always see online, but someone who's realized they connect more to their femininity than masculinity, just like a tomgirl; I'm here since I wanted to mention this point is one of the main problems I've had with the manosphere, the concept that sex = happiness.
Throughout my entire life, sex to me is something as an nice cherry on top of a cake, but I can still enjoy that beautiful cake laced with flavor and vibrancy. That cake is the special someone I may have in my life one day (i know cake can also be perceived as a butt, hush yourself lol). I sincerely believe instead of trying to look at relationships in general from the perspective of genetics, we take that into consideration still but use it as a stepping stone to expand our knowledge on how we manage relationships and ourselves too.
Being able to have a partner you can treat as your bestie, that's something we all should aim for. I'm grateful I had the chance a few years back to date a wonderful girl where we were best friends but also sexually-attracted partners (her parents hated my guts, so that's why we aren't together anymore but there's always something next~).
From that experience, I've learned that kind of relationship is almost never brought up; its always about having sex the first two weeks and consistently playing mind games both genders are guilty of, that just ends up with more of a rip between the two couple.
And having self-love along with the ability to control your sexual/innate impulses is something I wish more people learned to do, sincerely. I can't express how frustrating it is to see people always say, "This is my personality" and how this is "the way I am", never ever making the attempt to even explore new parts of themselves.
Having that care for yourself combined with an amazing relationship you know you can be as uncensored as possible with is something I believe are the most important factors when it comes to maintaining a long-term committed relationship.
Thank you for taking the time to hear me out, whoever you are, genuinely. c: This is coming from someone I've learned is pretty rare to find, a femboy having an actually have a operating brain other than "O w O", so I hope my introspective knowledge of myself can help shine some light that not all men in the manosphere, or in general have an agreed consensus on how its like to be a "man".
I'm just me, a person who loves the hecc out of bunnies, wears feminine clothes with no shame, and hope one day I can find a lady who can one day be each other's cake~ c:
absolutely incredible. one of, if not the best, summaries of the manosphere I've seen. you get to the bottom of it so thoroughly and succinctly, to a degree I haven't seen in the video essay space
As a guy, I have to say there is a lot media messages that we get from women, from social media and musical lyrics that women seem to get a degree of enjoyment from spending a man’s money. If you find yourself offended at this as a woman, I would implore you to take a cold hard look at women are socialized to view men. I think it’s very odd to come to the conclusion that patriarchy is real, but also that women wouldn’t have developed their own problematic social conceptions of what a man is, or what his “place” is in a relationship.
I got into an argument with a dude because he didn't want me to buy him a drink back. I never did think men were walking wallets and baby making machines just like I don't like women be objectified by men. It doesn't end well for either. Good luck.
@@justmechilling... Well, no need for good luck, I’ve been in a happy healthy relationship with my girlfriend coming on a year now! That being said, I’m happy that you don’t personally view men as ATMs in the same way that I don’t view women as walking sex toys. However, that doesn’t mean that aren’t problematic cultural expectations of men that women need to call out other women on. I hope this doesn’t come off as a personal attack
@@realcaramelli7068 True. I also don't like how women make what is good for them is "right".
@@mnkwazi Do you mean the traditional expectations that they place on us? I think that some of the more benign homages like holding the door open can be fine, expectations that a man consistently runs a financial deficit is definitely harmful to the relationship, especially after learning what this video has to say about gift giving being an indicator of an unstable relationship
17:30 - 17:50 you're so on point here, I hate how society thinks that discourses of empathy are thought to be made with intentions other than trying to make things better for everyone involved. Incredible vid!
This video is amazing. I as a man have encountered many of these topics in my life and seen many of my male friends encounter the same. I've tried my hardest to stay on the most clear minded path when navigating, and I am so glad to see that more people are discussing this topic. I hope that as many men as possible will both see and understand this video!! ♥️
One of the random things I was thinking about while watching this vid was the number of men in my life with stories about being randomly placed into a fight situation, whether it was grade school or out drinking with friends. Both of my brothers have been randomly punched in the face by strangers. Multiple boyfriends have laid out their 'defensive maneuver' plans if we ever ended up in a situation where we're in danger. Those conversations were always mainly based around protecting me, and the conversation would seemingly come out of the blue like it was just in the back of his head more than he was letting on.
Plenty of women learn to walk with their keys as a weapon or learn how to defensively get away from a situation, but somehow those conversations with the men in my life never feel like they're as much about getting out of the situation first and foremost and getting home safely and you certainly don't talk about the fear afterwards.
It became a huge turn off in dating because those conversations were so alienating and it always felt like they weren't seeing my available personhood, that I would help in that situation, or even if they turned part of the steering wheel over to me I might have an alternative way to end an engagement quickly. They never talked about how scary and frustratingly unfair it is to be put into those positions out of the blue. I've never talked to a guy about this subject without feeling several walls between us.
@empty shogun Yup. The men are fighting and dying in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the women are somewhere else, talking about their feelings and focusing on their wellness.
You're fucking awesome. It's so rare to find people who are willing to just talk about shit, especially with a focus on objectivity.
Please don't stop posting. I need this shit sometimes
Absolutely. I wish healthier versions of masculinity were more visible.
Arnold looks pretty healthy to me
@@michaelpapazis Who does he talk to when he's stressed? How does he talk to those people?
Masculinity is just masculinity. It can't be toxic or healthy.
@@downsjmmyjones101 Weak people are stressed
@@readsomebooks4506 How so?
Literally clicked on this video because I have been questioning why I am afraid of intimacy (especially when it involves women). I actively avoid it yet want it at the same time. I've wrestled with this probably most of my life, but I REALLY realized when I finished college and moved out from home and on my own. I noticed when I quit pornography for months at a time, my thoughts grew more positive and and I felt like I was a step closer to actually achieving someintimacy in my life. However, during this time I was working full-time and then studying for career advancement during my remaining waking hours. I was still not getting in-person connections. It wasn't until recently that one of my favorite RUclipsrs encouraged me to no only quit porn byt to also practice courage and getting out of my comfort zone. As a result I've started attending salsa classes where I have NO choice but to be face-to-face with people who share a common goal. Improving and just having a fun, de-stressing experience. What held me back before was knowing that I wouldn't be a good dancer and consequently embarrassing myself around much more talented individuals. My therapist has helped shift my mind from focusing on not "how I perform" but on "the experience of performing and being present in the first place". The latter mentality has been helping a lot with my anxiety, self-esteem, and diminishing my ego. The goal is to continue trying and learning new things, but making sure I'm around a balance of men and women who are partaking in a similar goal.
interesting
god daaaaamn this is all so true. as a gay male with mostly female friends, i've always seen these things within my male friendships and felt so strange about it. why are men holding themselves to the standard of being unemotional, almost acquaintances with their male friends, when the reason we have friends is to relate and release and to love? i've never had that issue, so it's definitely not biological.
In my opinion, I think why you've never experienced it is probably because you're gay. It might have to do with the cliche of gay men stereotypically being effeminate (i don't know if you really are), so people who know you're gay don't really lose all respect for you when you show emotion to them or are vulnerable, because subconsciously they might be treating you with the same stereotype in mind.
This entire thing is an ugly game of stereotypes left to fester in society for too long.
@@usrnewxnew5227 this actually makes alot of sense
I'm gay with mostly female friends, but I think it is biological. They've done lots of studies that have shown morphological similarities in brain scans of gay men and straight women. We're not gay for no reason! It could be because of androgen exposure in the womb etc
Wouldn't say as a (25) male that intimate relationships are difficult, but the subject of other male relationships (friendships) being difficult to maintain or not have any underlying qualms is spot on. I do notice most of my insecurities come from other male friends' accomplishments rather than insecurities of me being in a relationship with a woman. The whole time I was watching this video, I couldn't help but think that it's not a gender specific problem, but just a generational / era problem. Everyone is so jaded from dating and wanting to be vulnerable around another person.
A solution to all of this is actually helping out your fellow men.
You can't help delusional people
@@burpie3258 Well, something has to be done.
@@burpie3258 that’s what I’m saying, there’s only so much we can do, they have to be able to help themselves.
@@Spider3289 the men need to help each other
@@PrincePetti that’s what I’ve been saying
As a gay person who has had an opportunity to be in some sort of therapy since high school today (about 4-6 years taking in consideration the gaps). I was shook to realize that some straight guys dont take that much stock on emotions or talk about emotions with friends. Like most of my friends are female since they are ok talking about relationships and emotions. I feel that its difficult with men be they gay or straight.
There is a reason the “manosphere” gains it’s followers. It needs a lot better competition than it has been getting.
The craving for guidance and brotherhood is real, and men deserve better than to be grifted or led into personality cults or political agendas. (Not everything in what gets called the ‘manosphere’ is that, and some are better than others, but too much of it is or leads to those agendas.)
Yea, it's kinda Tru. Probably explains all those cringe,masculine shit on RUclips. They used to be nice and uplifting and meaningful. But now, it's just devolved into hating feminine men, manipulating women's statements, and idolizing villainous characters under the guise of "literally me". And don't get me started with all those alpha male podcasts
"There is a reason the “manosphere” gains it’s followers. It needs a lot better competition than it has been getting."
This comment is really, really superb. But it isn't going to happen, and the reason is that in the political climate of the past half century and possibly longer, *any* attempt to address these problems is guaranteed to be attacked even more viciously. Everybody who is reasonable and gentle and trying to help is quickly going to get tired of being held as the most evilest of all and go into another business, leaving only people unpleasant and aggressive enough to maintain personal integrity under a barrage of hatred.
ETA: I see essentially no difference between the structure of (are they left-wing? hard to tell sometimes) blasting of the _manosphere_ and _men's rights_ and the right's blasting of _critical race theory_ and _systemic racism._ They are all based on definition from outside for political motivation and bigoted hatread punctuated by cherry-picking. And my previous paragraph applies equally well. One *cannot* make the right understand what critical race theory *actually is,* because they'll just point to their straw men and cherry-picked examples. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of critics of anything men do *cannot* be made to understand that it is anything but evil penis-wielders like Emmett Till constantly raping women. The same stuff on both "sides" is driven by basic tribal hatreds and is absolutely not amenable to education.
Just use the religous institution, find a good one, not the crappy ones, find the ones that speak the truth, they are usually more helpful than this manosphere thing.
@@killme5630It's not cringe to be masculine. It's cringe to be a weak modern man who thinks he should be in touch with his emotions and to do only what he feels like doing.
@@readsomebooks4506 and yet look how that's turned out. It used to be a good thing. Like I said, there is nothing wrong with motivating men to lift and be the best version themselves instead of lying around and being incels. But you equating "being in touch with feelings" to "weak" and "modern" highlights the problems with these edits. These edits just become one sided and become obsessed with one standard of men and any other man or woman who does not agree with their 30 second Tommy Shelby edit is a weak modernist. Their like the very feminists they despise. Funny how you can go on hating something and becoming that very thing.
Jesus, a few minutes in and you keep hitting the nail on the head so hard the hammer has gone through the board and the nail is now buried under several feet of soil. As a guy this is pretty much exactly what I've seen, exactly what I've been trying to tell people.
Also what comes to best friends, I've always felt like it was the most natural kind of friendship, I have one friend I'd count as someone who's truly close to me, a guy I've known since kindergarten. I can't understand why this kind of relationship isn't more common and why it seemingly isn't encouraged. When me and my best friend both had a falling out with our partners around the same time, it was that mutual trust and being able to talk to each other, just the two of us, that helped us both get through that time. I couldn't imagine a life where that wasn't a possibility, where I couldn't open up to a good friend like him.
this was some of the most insightful material i've seen in a while, had to slow the video down a little because the information was so dense
The manosphere makes me feel all kinds of weird and conflicted, tbh.
I feel like I'm equal parts their target audience, deeply off-put by prevalent sentiments in the communities, and empathetic to the struggles of the expectedly flawed humans within.
And what gets me the most is, that I have felt the pull. For once, I did not have to fight to avoid having my concerns and frustrations invalidated. After all, that's what it seems tailored to do - it serves as a safe-space. And when you are in, people are ready with equally easy solutions.
At the end of the day, I lament that there aren't more people offering that same pull and feeling of inclusion to these people, who are more socially responsible with it.
What do most people see as the manosphere is mostly pick up artist who only care about women and money
There is nothing worst than rejecting your own feelings, we exist to feel, for what else would we have been born into the SENSITIVE reality?
Rejecting your feelings is like rejecting what makes you human, is like rejecting existence.
I have always found it easier to make friends with males than with females, and throughout my life most of my closest friends have been males. What I've witnessed since adolescence, and now well into adulthood, is that I become a sort of confidant for them. I've always felt that my male friends were comfortable being themselves with me. Their walls would come down, so to speak, and they would open up about some pretty deep, emotional topics. They would not hold back if they needed to cry. I consider it quite a blessing to be able to experience those types of friendships with men. It has really shown me that the sexes are far more similar than we may think. Having this type of understanding makes it so much easier to see through all of the nonsense that is marketed to us, the "manosphere" being just one example.
what has been your difficulty to be friends with other women?
@@vivvy_0 You've got me thinking deep on this one haha! I found it hard to fit into the group dynamic, for one. I am actually surprised to see the stats that Kid is showing, about women being more drawn to one-on-one interactions as opposed to groups, because I have experienced the total opposite. The females I've known have all seemed to be part of a large group, almost like a sisterhood. I could never keep up with the social demand, as I am much more content with my own company. Plus I was always the odd one out. Most females haven't expressed much desire to have me as a close friend. This could be due to lack of shared interests, as I do tend to be drawn to more obscure things. I'm also not typically feminine in certain ways (yet quite feminine in others). It could also be that they don't need what I have to offer. I am aware that there are other women out there like me out there, and I have known a lot of amazing women. It's just always seemed like I 'click' more often with men, and they will open up to me very naturally.
@@vivvy_0 Also, thank you for reading my comment and taking interest in what I said 🙏 Have you ever experienced something similar to what I'm describing?
@@stephaniescott424
I am not the one you were talking with but here goes my insightful experience as man:
Most men I have met are actually perfectly willing to talk about their emotions and the experiences that have hurt them.
However they seem to prefer acting detached from it, but if you add commentary of a particularly similar experience they become more emotional and responsive. Men that I have barely have quite easily opened up about depression and family issues.
Based on my own experiences I would wager the fear men have of opening up is less related to views on masculinity and more about fear of having their feelings used against them.
I've never got this to be honest. I've had the same group of friends for 10 years and we're all men. Different ethnicities, living standards, sexualities, careers... And we just hang out and talk and seek support in each other because we've all been through the wringer at one point or another. I don't know if it's our culture, or maybe whiter societies are more focused on using friends as professional connections first. But it's a topic that I find really interesting and really sad.
Where you from?
The video is wrong about male to male friendships.The brotherhood is real and they don't get it
Honestly I feel the same way, I've had some friend groups especially when I was younger that didn't really go into emotions that much, but now that I've grown up I literally have multiple groups consisting sometimes of only men and sometimes of both men and women in which it is totally okay to talk about your feelings. Do we sit in a circle all day crying? No of course not, but if someone looks a bit down or is going through something, the others will ask about it and be open to talk about it if they want to. I now think back to the friendships I had when I was younger as being just way weaker friendships then the ones I've cultivated now; going into the deep end with someone creates such a higher level of friendship I wouldn't even call someone I don't have this with a good friend nowadays.
@Chankston honestly, just send the damn message man. Nothing weak about wanting to have fun. Just think about what you would think if some other dude were to ask you to hang out. Would you think 'pff look at this guy, doesn't even have anything to do except for messaging me", or would you think "great, let's hang out"? Speaking from personal experience, men are simple as fuck, we don't even think about why someone would want to hang out. So just send the message and build those friendships back up.
the reason is that nobody cares about your emotions as a man. they say that men are naturaly more stoic when in reality you are beaten down with an emotional club until you cant get up anymore and can only go on as a hollow husk of your previous self loosing all your emotion in the process. when ever i felt unfairly treated or sad or anything i would always get belitled over it, those emotions just fade so you are left with anger, and maybe a tiny bit of happines that can shine through the cracks from time to time. anything you can still feel is muted, like you put a million matrasses over a pea. its there but not really at the same time and once you reach that point you can never return and the simple fact is people dont care especialy women. my girlfriend keeps saying how she wants me to be more emotional with her, the thing is i barely feel any after years of emotional neglect, i just learned they dont matter especialy after she ghosted me years ago pretty much becasue i was too emotional with her ( the exact same girl). dont listen to women like in this video, she has no clue what women actualy want.
The alexithymia part is pretty interesting. I remember when I was a kid I was legitimately worried I was sociopathic because I lacked emotional responses to things that i should have. When my grandparents died i was more concerned about not feeling anything about it than the deaths themselves.
I have a little bit of dispute with some of the things you have said here. For context, I am a man who has grown up never really feeling discouraged from expressing my emotions, I have what I would consider healthy relationships with multiple male friends, who I can definitely talk to about my deepest problems, but I still experience some of the things you describe. Those things being maybe difficulty expressing my emotions, or sort of a lack of interest in doing so, or maybe even just feeling no emotion in certain situations that other people around me feel and express during. I have had plenty of time to sort through my childhood trauma etc, and have had multiple therapists in my life.
I think you could be discounting something extremely important but often overlooked in the gender divide: the effects of testosterone. (The are profound and wide reaching on both body and mind)
Another thing I should mention as well: when I do express my emotions, frequently I feel as though women view me as a dangerous or predatory creature, like a jackal or hyena or something.
I’d go on, but I’ve forgotten anything else that I was going to say. I’d be more than happy to have an extended conversation with you about this, if you’re interested.
hi Jacob!
im glad you've had emotional outlets in your life. its refreshing to read.
I think the problems kid is describing go deeper than simply access to emotional outlet. your multiple and fulfilling male friendships might not be enough to combat the aggressive socialization that men face. as kid said, perhaps your father began to use more "violent" language in your formative years. perhaps the women in your life were treated with more gentleness than you were. the types of biases that cause the disparity kid highlights are IMPLICIT, and run deeper than you think. you get these messages from the media you consume, the toys you play with, the way strangers on the street treat you. it would take heavy censoring from birth for an aware parent to combat the messaging that permeates our society.
also, your story is anecdotal--while valid, it is not enough to disrupt decades of data.
testosterone does not, generally, have the effect of closed-offedness or inability to express emotion. women actually have a higher volume of testosterone in their body than men, which is balanced by more estrogen. there are many women with imbalances that give them too much testosterone, and still behave like women because socialization probably has a larger effect on gender dynamic.
im sorry women treat you that way when you express emotion. perhaps they themselves experience some repression, or perhaps they don't feel they know you well enough for the conversation being had, or maybe they simply aren't used to a man speaking to them in such a way. don't let this discourage you. keep trying, keep opening yourself to people. I love the ted talk "the power of vulnerability", which might help you.
It is better to share your deepest darkest Emotions to someone you are not attracted to or romantically pursue. Have a platonic female friend and share with her she will understand you.
Someone you are dating will get turn off by emotional weakness atleast in the starting. Once she is invested enough then you might share something occasionally but overdoing it will cost you
@@gagadonim3354 lmao wtf are you talking about
@@gagadonim3354 unless your "deepest darkest Emotions" is "i want to kill everyone and r*pe children" this makes no sense
@@Den_Vazw_Onoma Ask any girl if she likes her man to be taller or shorter than them. 99% will want their man to be taller. The reason girls will tell you that they want to feel small and protected. Now you tell me if guy acts more feminine by crying and showing is emotions more than a girl do you think she would feel protected? Everybody know the worst thing to do in stressful situations is to freak out.
I am a queer man, and even though I struggled with emotional vulnerability and openness during my teenage years and early 20s, I have grown to be a lot more open about any kind of struggles with my friends. It is very common that I end up listening to my male friends say a *ton* of vulnerable things to me 1 on 1, and then follow that up with something along the lines of "I have never told that to anyone before."
It is definitely sad that we as men are socialized in this way, and I think really the only ones who can do anything about this are ourselves, whether we are queer, cis, or straight.
Beautifully said
It's interesting because when I was in high school, all the girls said the boys made better friends because they'd actually listen and not spread drama (for the most part), and now I'm wondering if that's because they just didn't talk to each other about anything other than games, movies, and school. Which would be sad if it was true.