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Am man.
I enjoy living alone.
I enjoy owning my house and keeping it clean and maintained.
I enjoy cooking at a pretty high level.
I don’t particularly enjoy doing my laundry, but it doesn’t hinder me.
I do not enjoy yardwork, so I outsource it to a landscaper.
I enjoyed being a single dad.
I enjoy watching my daughter making her way in the world.
I enjoy it when my daughter calls me to regale me with tales of her life. I enjoy it even more when she calls me for advice.
I enjoy stability.
I enjoy the silence.
I enjoy the autonomy.
I’m pretty boring.
Age has definitely begun to take its toll on my youthful looks, especially as all my remaining teeth seem to be rebelling all at once.
I do not adapt well to changes in my daily routine or my domestic environment.
I save money. I don’t much spend it.
But I enjoy traveling whenever I feel like it to wherever I feel like it so see whichever friends I please.
I do not own a bidet or an electric kettle, just a dystopian stovetop kettle.
Life has repeatedly, loudly, aggressively taught me that all of this is woefully insufficient.
I am not a desirable adult.
Please, take the bear and leave me be.
What does this imply, exactly? They aren’t responsible?
More that we, as men, are poorly socialized to deal with interpersonal relationships due to the way that society teaches us to prioritize certain behaviors and values and eschew others.
Like, “be manly, stuck it up, don’t cry” kind of stuff?
Exactly that sort of thing! But also subtler cues, like being encouraged to react to problems with aggression without it being outright ‘said’.
Not that aggression doesn’t have its place as a reaction, but it very much bleeds into “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” sort of thing.
ples ignore if i come off like idk… this has been just really fascinating to me and talking to people about this has been a fucking nightmare…and i have been craving to infodump on somebody… im sorry please forgive me. im really not trying to explain anything with any authority, but reading about this was kind of very low key mind blowing, more like “well of course…” :
… so I have almost finished this book (1) about how misogyny became so normalized through history… and like the books’ theory, based on archeological findings and studiyng various ancient texts, including the bible, so that theories starting point is before agriculture made us settle down, includes all the history up to when the romans okayed christianity into their statemodel and loads of other stuff that i started to write down in an editor until i realized i was trying to recap a book of 620 pages, 20 pages of references and 30 pages of additional literature… im sorry i love this book in a way… and i hate it in a way… i can only recommend it
… so i already typed this and it is basically a deep dive into a recap and the starting point of the book kinda…
before agriculture made us settle down, we had to be very egalitarian in regards to gender roles, there didnt exist any societal expectations yet except that of the little group you belonged to, but that was exclusively of cooperative nature, eventually the early humans realized left behind seed would sprout vegetables, and those places would be more often frequented and eventually we would settle at our favourite spot and for the first time we would call something our own, property was invented. some settlements would develop to be matrilinear, others would be patrilinear, but since women had always been the ones tending to the plants and little animals, while the men had been hunting large game, it would be the women who would have to grind the seeds they harvested into flour, so due to this hard work and the already higher exertion due to child birth, women would die earlier than men by about 10 years or so, men wouldnt become older than 40 or something…
… yeah hm
(1 “Die Wahrheit ueber Eva, Die Erfindung der Ungleichheit von Frauen und Männern” Carel van Shaik, Kai Michel) am on page 580 and i want to murder some specific men. they already are dead though
I’ve definitely heard that theory before!
Another big cause was mass infantry warfare - you can see in low-density sedentary societies and nomadic pastoral societies (which generally had strong traditions of mass horsemanship, rather than infantry combat) that oftentimes (though not always) women can still hold very high position. It’s when the norm of warfare changes from “Who’s better with a sword” (in which women can very much remain competitive with men) to “What massive group of human meat on foot can roll over the other” that women begin to be pushed out of military roles (due to the triple-problem of women being shorter and lighter on average, women having less dense bones, and such stage 1 societies prioritizing ridiculous birth rates to maintain or gain advantages over neighboring societies), and, as the saying goes, power flows from the barrel of a gun. Or, in this case, the edge of blade!
I just watched a YouTube video about the history of Carhartt and the host made a really amazing point: Almost all of men’s fashion is either derived from military uniforms or work wear. Cardigans, T shirts, men’s suits, field coats, wristwatches, bomber jackets, and trench coats are all based on military clothing.
Just thought this fact dovetailed neatly into your point about how toxic masculinity grows out of warfare.
Is this really important for men? Most men tend to be more talented when there is value connected to it. For example in business (colleagues) or group interest, like sports and close/true friendships.
And men seem to cope better with enemies. It’s been studied.
“… in a way that makes them
desirable asactual adults.”FTFY.
As a bisexual guy, this is exactly why I mostly dated women.
Wow! Sample size: 1. Sure showed them, buddy.
Clearly not bi, btw, you’re a misandrist. Congratulations 🎉!
I’ve never seen someone so pissed off and offended over not getting any bussy lmao
Hey! Bi cis male here, the few men I seem to go on dates with always seem to have some hangup. I’m not gay enough, I’m married to a women, hates vegans, hates trans people. It’s really exhausting to the point that first dates feel like I’m interviewing them.
As a straight man I could say similar things about most of the women I’ve dated. It’s not a men problem or a women problem, it’s just how dating is. Nobody’s perfect and it’s hard to find someone that fits with you.
you mean to tell me that most people don’t believe the majority of the things you do? That’s weird.
You’re married, go on dates, then complain people are mad that you’re married… How many times were you dropped on your head as a kid exactly?
It’s really exhausting to the point that first dates feel like I’m interviewing them.
If it’s a first date, you are interviewing them. I’m sorry it feels exhausting for you though.
I get what you mean but it shouldn’t feel like that. I shouldn’t be searching for something they might hate me over.
I agree, it shouldn’t feel like that. As someone who is bi and queer though, on top of all the normal trials and tribulations of dating there’s also a long list of people who don’t think I have the right to exist. I’d rather find out they’re a hate filled asshole as soon as possible so I can move on with my life. At this stage I won’t meet someone face to face unless we’ve chatted extensively online already. Even though I’m dooming hard I do still hope you find someone 😊
Yeah, when I met my wife the first time it was the opposite of exhausting. I felt like I could keep talking all night.
Dude same. It was really easy to date before 2016. First date with my wife we kept talking until the bar closed.
Now you have to look into your meeting spot make sure nothing problematic happened there. I was lucky that my enbyfriend friend was in the music scene when I was because I already knew a lot about them before our relationship started.
Now if someone is interested in me. I’m always skeptical. I recently got asked to help this straight lady cheat on her husband because she wanted to create strife for a divorce. Like who TF what’s to be involved with that stress?
As a bisexual guy, this is not at all my experience with non-straight men. They seem to be mostly cool and well socialized.
Men are hot, but I’m more pessimistic about finding a guy I’d want a relationship with than finding a girl. As a transfem, I’d have an easier time finding a guy, but a majority would probably be abusive or chasers. There might be fewer women, but it’d be safer(women are more likely to be progressive) and they’d be more into me as a person. It’d be harder to hookup, but easier to find a gf than bf.
Even transmascs would be better than cis dudes because they’re almost certainly not bigoted chasers that were raised to see women as goals instead of people.
My wife would agree I suspect. She’s transfem, and basically considered herself a lesbian until she met me.
I’m not gonna be the “not all men” guy because this person does have a point,
But I will say, if all you look for is negatives, that’s all you’re gonna find.
Not being desirable can also solely be a lack of positives.
Ah yes, you look at the entirety of the male population, say “there’s no positives”, and still think you have a point 😂😂😂.
It’s like you can’t even wrap your own head around the sheer amount of misandry oozing from your mouth.
That wasn’t my point. Good job failing at reading comprehension.
Why even post these super subjective perspectives? It proves how stupid you are and how little you actually interact with others.
Most of the time the ppl that hold these myopic views are losers that stick to sycophants or never leave their home or have incredibly bad expectations of others (e.g., they expect everyone else to see their world view only and everything is a clear cut dichotomy).
Go work at any large company with a healthy mix of genders. Go mix and mingle with many married couples. Hell, just go outside and try to mix with ppl without trying to paint them into a bucket based on shallow evidence. You’ll quickly realize that the number of decent folk outweight the number of indecent. The only thing that’s changing are ppl with such unevolved frontal lobes becoming more prevalent.
Kinda unfair, plenty of chill men. If you keep running into undesirables, please reflect on yourself
Cool, we caught a live “not all men” over here!!
Not exactly, if you want me to blunt I am saying that if everywhere you go there are assholes, then the asshole is probably you. You being a woman is inconsequential
Friend, it’s not that this is a fact, it’s that you brought it into the conversation. It’s also genuinely not all men either, the problem is that every time a woman speaks up there’s a chorus of men ready to respond “Not All Men” instead of actually listening.
I am listening, I think it’s a case by case basis and generalizations just alienate people instead of making them empathetic or sympathetic.
I also know that people tend to downplay women’s concerns as part of misogynistic histories, so I am mindful of that too. I do my part to speak up against these kinds of patterns when I see them
Edit I am just giving my pov, I wish there was a way to know which approach is more helpful.
Edit 2 but yeah, I tend to generalize too, so I get the need to do it when something annoys you enough
Youre not wrong, I’m in a lot of trans circles and their type of thinking tends to be detrimental to trans men, or at least extremely isolating.
But hey anyone that tries to enforce a gender divide is gonna have to encourage division somehow
This criticism only really works when it’s a woman speaking of their personal experience with men, not when it’s someone making a generalisation about all men.
Nothing was brought into the conversation, it was an all men/ not all men thing from the beginning.
With a bonus “It’s clearly your fault as the woman”.
Damn. Self accountability is sexism now?
This is such a great way to articulate the issue. The conversation mostly revolves around individuals (“men are bad”). This is one of the few rimes that men are talked in a way that acknowledges the system at play, that they are a product of an environment and society that has shaped them a certain way.
I’ve lost the podcast source that talked about “there is no good way to be a man currently”. Even for someone who wants to be a better man, there aren’t role models or celebrations of " good manliness". There’s no positive road map, only a list of “don’ts” and stereotypes to avoid.
therapy is a good place to start. men need to want to improve themselves. many don’t. I find this issue to be more prevalent among older generations who are extremely resistant to therapy.
We, as a society, are still trapped within the “feminist revolution”, there’s fighting going on and no new normal emerged.
Both sides are ripped apart by two often contradicting sets of expectations, the traditional role and the progressive role.
What makes it so hard for a lot of men is, that it’s a willful surrender of privileges. Men lost a ton of privileges over the last decades and it takes a bit of reflection to understand that these privileges were never legitimate in the first place. Instead, they frame women’s rights as weakness, because it directly contradicts their narrative of a strong man.
And that also reflects on women, to put it extremely bluntly, he’s expected to pay for dinner, but she still wants equal pay. It will take decades to sort all of that out.
I like it
What makes it so hard for a lot of men is, that it’s a willful surrender of privileges. Men lost a ton of privileges over the last decades and it takes a bit of reflection to understand that these privileges were never legitimate in the first place. Instead, they frame women’s rights as weakness, because it directly contradicts their narrative of a strong man.
the important distinction here is that these privileges were the reason that men did what they did. Without them now men don’t really have an overall driving force through life. Without the expectation of “being a strong man” they literally have nothing to live for in society.
What?? So when you were a kid ,you just wanted to be a “strong man” when you grew up??
there was nothing i wanted to be when i was growing up. I got the question of “what do you want to do” but there isn’t exactly a good answer to that question and nobody seemed to ever really care either. Things are more focused on education and not being an asshole individually, as opposed to be a socially good person who respects other people.
It should be no wonder that people raised like this turn to figures like andrew tate looking for some semblance of something to focus on.
the reason why strong man is quoted is because if you don’t grow up to be a strong person, as a man or a woman, or whatever in between, you fucking die.
Being a good human being is an option for everyone.
And I know this is from a kids cartoon, but Uncle Iroh from Airbender embodies benevolent masculinity pretty well. If we want children and young men to be socialized better, a good place to start is with our media to depicting more characters like that.That’s what the post above mine meant by there not being a positive manliness.
Progressive manliness is described as a substraction from the old ideal. We simply have not yet formed a positive, progressive male identity.
yeah, we need to work towards building something that solves this problem sooner rather than later, if you’re a parent now, you should be figuring this out now, and if you want to be a parent, figure it out before you have children.
It sucks. As a dude, I feel it’s almost impossible to balance being confident and approaching women you don’t know and also not being a creep or bothering them. I’m not the best but not the worst when it comes to looks, I have many friends of different genders (shoutout to my enby fellows who have to deal with this mess and also discrimination) and I’m confident in most things I do aside from dating. It’s gotten to the point I just won’t ask women out due to anxiety over coming across as a creep or bothering them, and instead endure loneliness. Which is not great, but it is what it is.
The best example of good manliness in media I can think of is Bandit from Bluey.
The options are pretty slim if a cartoon dog from a children’s show is humanity’s best example of being a good man.
Tim Walz seems to do it right.
And the speech professor
Uncle Iroh is another one
Idk, I think Aragorn is a great example. As is Samwise.
Even for someone who wants to be a better man, there aren’t role models or celebrations of " good manliness". There’s no positive road map, only a list of “don’ts” and stereotypes to avoid.
Bluey.
bluey is great, but it’s only one example in a sea of no ships. It’s also aussie, so it’s not even super culturally relevant to most of the west, it’s also focused at really young children.
Beyond young children you have shows like, full house, which is literally fucking ancient.
This is hilarious because Bluey is a girl
I meant the father from Bluey. What’s his name? Bandit?
Yeah, it’s Bandit. It’s one of those series that you can watch as an adult. It’s great. If they ever stop making it, I’m going to riot.
there aren’t role models
What would you expect from a “role model”? Just a person who does good for its own sake? Doing so would be something that’s not publicized, so it’s hard to show off good behaviour.
Robin Williams was always a standup guy, Keanu Reeves seems like a nice guy, Ryan Reynolds seems to be a standup guy (but he has a hard monetary incentive to keep this image), the guys from Cinema Therapy seem to be decent. Do these people count as role models?
What would you expect from a “role model”? Just a person who does good for its own sake? Doing so would be something that’s not publicized, so it’s hard to show off good behavior.
people that are the stereotypical mr rogers of the real world. We really do just need more people that are such good people that just they instill goodness in others on a fundamental level. That and people willing to spend time educating others.
if you aren’t a stereo-typically perfect individual, that’s fine, you almost certainly have something useful that you can teach someone young that’s around you.
At least that means the routes men take will be more unique
Or they’ll all fall down the Andrew “Sex Trafficker” Tate pipeline instead.
He’s not special. Run of the mill pimp.
im sorry sex trafficking isn’t special?
Ugh, in no way am I trying to suggest this is a good man doing acceptable things. I’m trying to suggest he is a bad man doing exploitive things AND that there are many like him that perhaps are less skillful with social media.
yeah, and i don’t think that makes it or him “normal” either. He’s an exceptionally terrible human being. That has managed to be the kingpin of an entire attention economy for years now.
In some regards he is special That’s why Romania is putting him through the ringer, it’s why the extradition might actually happen.
Ok fine, he’s a special pimp.
I didn’t say he was special, just that his type has an outsized influence on young men.
That’s correct. Please accept my apology if it seemed I was suggesting otherwise.
All good, I did misinterprete what you were trying to add :)
Sucks that your type has this character.
True, but it encompasses a lot of people.
what good ever comes from being desirable to women?
half your shit + any alimony payments 10 years from now
This is why I prefer queer people, they generally know how to be themselves and have emotions.
Accepting that one is queer often includes a significant deal of shedding at least some of the internalized constraining expectations of society in order to accept yourself, so queer folk have a ‘cleaner’ slate to resocialize themselves on, if you will.
As a general rule, obviously none of this is universal, and there are plenty of poorly socialized toxic queer folk out there. But I’m inclined to agree that they’re less likely to be toxic, in my experience as well.
There’s def something to be said by just how alien the cishet dynamic is to me for example.
I have no concerns regarding children, no concerns regarding gender or power, I’m in a transbian relationship with another trans woman, we don’t have to work very hard to be equal in terms of societal sex dynamics.
It’s not all like we’re super enlightened Buddhist monks or something, we fight and get pissed and get upset, but man, that kind of discomfort and disconnect and almost a quiet rage I feel that cishet men and women towards each other because of the broader state of societal relations between the groups just isn’t something that plays into it for me.
I suppose while being queer is generally more a curse practically in most of the world, this sort of freedom is some reward for surviving through it.
As a gay guy, I call bullshit on that, unless you’re bi and have first-hand experience.
My experience is my queer circle. We have a nice online space where being yourself is normalized so there’s no pressure to act all manly or whatever.
As a guy who had a hard time finding a video game loving girlfriend, I understand the sentiment.
It could just as easily be framed that women are raised and socialized to have unrealistic expectations for a partner.
As unrealistic as ‘be better than a wild bear’.
It’s funny. I went to the zoo the other day and I didn’t see any women jumping into the bear enclosure.
in my defense, bears can’t speak so.
I remember someone writing that the bar for men to be “good men” is in hell. That always stuck with me.
The bar to be a good partner is different from the bar to be a good person/man though.
I dislike the conflation between the two because it implies being unable to have a partner implies being a bad person.
Take a hypothetical man with severe mental impairments necessitating 24/7 care: Is it impossible for him to be a good man? Yes, that is a more extreme example but it just goes to show that there is a difference between the two. Being a good partner requires different skills than “just” being a good man.
Don’t be abusive or sexist, damn that’s a high bar to cross.
when you don’t raise men such that they don’t do this, it generally does become a high bar to cross.
I’ve seen guys who had no business even being in human society getting dates. Not sure “Women expect too much of men” is the issue here.
Both can be true at the same time, because, you know, there are a lot of very different people.
There’s no one size fits all.
Like, seven billion of them. Assuming half the world is below average of your expectation of things, that’s 3.5 billion people.
Women do most of the raising of children. Is it more likely that women raise their boys in a way they know will make them undesirable as an adult, or is it more likely that they push their daughters to do better and unintentionally raise their standards too high?
Standards of toxic masculinity are very often upheld by women as much as men. Growing up, one is told “Boys don’t cry” by mothers as well as fathers, and then mothers wonder why their husbands are emotionally closed off.
Society is broken. Less broken than it used to be, maybe, but still broken.
i think its more that we focus more on women currently than we do men, and have been for at least 50 years. It was less of a problem due to the way the older social dynamic went, but as that’s shifted int he last 20 years, it’s gotten worse and worse over time, and now we have people like andrew tate who are the vultures of this problem.
I once asked my male partner to wipe down the bathroom counter because my grandparents were coming over. He did a bad job. I got upset about it. He said my expectations were too high. He had left a dead bug on the counter.
We absolutely do not have too high of expectations.
He did a bad job.
Sounds like his parents did a bad job at raising him.
You should probably align with him on what “clean” means. It probably means “cleaner” to him, whereas you meant “nigh impeccable” - your definition isn’t bad; there’s just a mismatch between both your understanding.
….theres a dead bug on the counter and you call this nigh impeccable?
I’m never eating dinner at your house
As if your misandrist ass who nitpicks about imperfections would ever be invited to any dinner lol.
Hey, don’t blame us. YOU dated him.
As if the wildabeasts with Karen haircuts, the inability to change a tire, and the ability to complain makes these women somehow better than the men they complain about. Thunderthighs -away-
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society
