What is the hardest thing about being a man?

[Peter Deadpan]

I have been deeply wounded by men. There were a couple times that I wasn't sure I was going to live through the pain. But I did, and when faced with the decision to either turn against and hate men, or turn toward and love them, I somehow chose the latter.

I want to know: What are the hardest issues you face as a man? If you can, I'd really love you to dig deep here and get really honest. You can always PM me if that is more comfortable for you.

There will be zero tolerance for trolling in this thread as I want this to be a non-threatening place to open up and discuss. If you're not mature enough to handle this, move along.

 

[Korvinagor]

I'm not sure if I can prescribe any of my issues as gender based, but...

Perhaps at one point in time the expectation of me to raise a family? I mean, my parents stopped this when they realised that wasn't possible for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a matter of time until friends of my parents will begin to wonder about the whole 'Is he married?' thing yet. And then the 'does he have children yet?' thing. Even if the latter is something I'm rather adamant against, and the former isn't legally binding in my case.

Can't say it's the toughest thing, but it's certainly something.

 

[Agent Washington]

Gender expectations and toxic masculinity.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Gender expectations and toxic masculinity.

Are you comfortable talking about this in more depth?

 

[Lord Lavender]

For me the hardest thing has been having to act tough and uncaring and being expected to do well in sports and fighting when I am not a very athletic person plus being shamed for loving furry toys . Plus not being allowed to express a wide range of emotions which in the long run would make me feel less ashamed.

 

[TheMainFlamingo]

It would definitely be the standards society has laid out for us. Similar to how being female is, there is a definite "cooker cutter" mold men must fall into. Muscles, emotional stability, success, little to no femininity, etc. This is how the media perceives men, when in fact I have seen more men who resent this than those who conform to it.

If not that, than apathy. I am not sure if this relates to being a man as much as the first one, but it is something I am beginning to develop as I grow older. I thought maybe the apathy could be related to increased testosterone. I say all this negatively because a sense of empathy is usually needed in order to maintain healthy friendships. My friends usually get mad at me.

Also! The whole sex hype. It is isolating being a man with little sexual interest. That's just my experience though. I have not met many men who aren't super intense about sex. Probably because my peers are still growing up.

 

[kyuuei]

I'm not a man, but I've seen some fucked shit happen to them.

One guy was a super nice guy... but fell in love with a crazy woman. They had a kid. Divorced soon after. He had to pay out so much money to her during the divorce already, even though she threw them into massive debt during the brief marriage, he was responsible for the debt she hid from him as well because the IRS dgaf. But she wanted child support too.. the judge granted both custody. She decided she wanted custody of the child. The child is too young to realize what they're doing. He worked and she was a SAHM so the kid was obvi very attached to her. So she accused him of sexual assault on the kid, and coached the kid to tell the police what happened. He was thrown in jail and arrested while they investigated, his face/name plastered on the local news (small town, EVERYONE knew) for it, everyone knew his ex was batshit, but something so grave and towards a man? ... There are people who still don't talk to him because apparently if you're a man pedophilia charges = automatically guilty. Honestly, the ONLY reason he is out of jail so fast is because she texted his friend admitting she lied about it and he did the right thing. He has to forever live with the embarrassment of not only his reputation being fucked... but seeing his own child accusing him of something his ex peer pressured the small kid into doing killed him inside. She keeps up with the lie too, despite him being out of jail, trashes his name any chance she gets, and sends the child to therapy for a sexual assault that never happened. AND even though he was proven innocent, the court STILL gave her custody "just in case". He has never been the same dude since, stopped talking to everyone, can't find a good job in his town so he had to move, is forever ostracized 'just in case' because people just assume the justice system wants pedophiles running around free.

Because he liked a girl and she thought he had more money than he really did. Not a wink of anything human in that woman's eyes.

I've seen other men with horror stories of young school age girls accusing them of sexual assault because they liked their teacher and hated that he didn't reciprocate. They didn't like the rejection, so they accused him of sexual assault to try to blackmail him into sleeping with her.

Having a lot of close personal friends that are male... Most of them are terrified to be left alone around peoples' kids lest they be accused or judged of being 'creepy' for simply liking kids without being a father themselves. Male teachers have to constantly very carefully watch what they say/do lest they be accused of anything inappropriate. It's just SO easy to do that to them. I think the fake sexual assault/rape claims and the custody battles are some of the worst things I've seen my male friends go through.

 

[Agent Washington]

Are you comfortable talking about this in more depth?

I find it hard to organise these things into words and I'd have to think about it a bit more.

Basically, being expected to conform to a certain sort of masculine standard isn't just annoying. It's soul-destroying and I think we become alienated from our own humanity. But not conforming = basically treated like subhumans.

"What kind of man does that" is another weapon that I've seen used.

Clinically depressed; get called "emo". Can't have a single ounce of feelings or shed a single tear or else it gets ridiculed.

Short. Don't fit the norms of the masculine body type. Even if I worked hard or exercise, it'd never be within reach. (I know that's basically how women feel too, and the standards for men are looser than for women, but every portrayal of men is basically men = taller than women.)

Health issues; expected to suck it up.

Compulsory heterosexuality; men bonding with other men over objectifying women. Can't relate.

 

[1487610420]

le pness

 

[Peter Deadpan]

le pness

I knew the second I saw your name that this is what you said.

 

[1487610420]

dat's cuz u no me s'well

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Unfortunately, these kinds of threads almost always devolve into shitshows, but I'll give this one a shot.

I find sports kind of boring, usually. But it's kind of expected that I care about them.

Also, I think some people have different standards of behavior for men and women, while denying that it's what they're doing. That's pretty obnoxious to encounter. Either treat people equally, or don't, but don't say that you believe in treating people equally when you really don't. Like the concept of "tone policing." Why is it not ok to do that, but it's ok to tell me "it's not what you say, but how you say it?" Ultimately your tone has on effect on how you are perceived, whether you like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, regardless of whether you are male or female.

 

[kotoshinohaisha]

Being a man yet being stucked in a girl's body

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Unfortunately, these kinds of threads almost always devolve into shitshows, but I'll give this one a shot.

I find sports kind of boring, usually. But it's kind of expected that I care about them.

Also, I think some people have different standards of behavior for men and women, while denying that it's what they're doing. That's pretty obnoxious to encounter. Either treat people equally, or don't, but don't say that you believe in treating people equally when you really don't. Like the concept of "tone policing." Why is it not ok to do that, but it's ok to tell me "it's not what you say, but how you say it?" Ultimately your tone has on effect on how you are perceived, whether you like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, regardless of whether you are male or female.

Do you mean there is a double-standard and that it's okay for women to use a tone but not men?

That's something I need to ponder further. I know I have really bothered my exes by speaking to them in certain tones. I have a history of speaking down to my partners apparently without realizing it. It's definitely something I would like to stop doing.

I can be quite sensitive to angry tones. I cried once when my ex shouted "BABE!" to get my attention when I was fucking something up. He wasn't even mad, but I just sorta crumbled and it caught me by surprise cuz I had never done that before. Many women are sensitive to what they perceive as anger or aggression in men because of past experiences. It's really almost a mild form of PTSD (it's actually called complex-PTSD).

Which brings me to another topic: Anger is often the default emotion for men because it is the only one that society approves of. What I mean is that when a man is hurting or sad, because he has been told that it's not okay to express that, he expresses it through anger and may not even be able to identify and label his emotions properly. This is a brutal disconnect and it really only results in further suffering for him, and a transfer/spread of suffering to those around him, oftentimes women. It's a terrible cycle that feeds into itself and nobody wins.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Being a man yet being stucked in a girl's body

I cannot tell if you are being serious or not, but I don't find gender identification issues to be funny, so if you're joking, please leave this thread.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Do you mean there is a double-standard and that it's okay for women to use a tone but not men?

It's hard to say how true it is across the board (it's probably not true universally speaking), but I do think it's the case in some situations, in some contexts.

Which brings me to another topic: Anger is often the default emotion for men because it is the only one that society approves of. What I mean is that when a man is hurting or sad, because he has been told that it's not okay to express that, he expresses it through anger and may not even be able to identify and label his emotions properly. This is a brutal disconnect and it really only results in further suffering for him, and a transfer/spread of suffering to those around him, oftentimes women. It's a terrible cycle that feeds into itself and nobody wins.

I agree with this.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

I agree with this.

Forgive me if this is too personal, but is there lingering pain and regret after the fact? Like, do you think back to times you got angry with a girlfriend, for example, and feel regret or sadness that you weren't able to handle it better? Do you feel bad for potentially hurting the feelings of your exes? I'm trying to crawl inside a man right now basically and see what's it's like to be him and how he hurts. You can always message me or tell me to shut up, either is fine

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Forgive me if this is too personal, but is there lingering pain and regret after the fact? Like, do you think back to times you got angry with a girlfriend, for example, and feel regret or sadness that you weren't able to handle it better? Do you feel bad for potentially hurting the feelings of your exes? I'm trying to crawl inside a man right now basically and see what's it's like to be him and how he hurts. You can always message me or tell me to shut up, either is fine

Yeah, I've regretted getting angry on a few occasions. I've definitely felt guilty about it afterwards.

These days I'm much less angry than I used to be. I kind of see a lot of shit as being doled out relatively equally, so I don't feel especially shortchanged by some of the difficult stuff I had to deal with growing up. Somehow that takes the sting out of everything... if life is unfair, at least it's not unfair just for me.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Yeah, I've regretted getting angry on a few occasions. I've definitely felt guilty about it afterwards.

These days I'm much less angry than I used to be. I kind of see a lot of shit as being doled out relatively equally, so I don't feel especially shortchanged by some of the difficult stuff I had to deal with growing up. Somehow that takes the sting out of everything... if life is unfair, at least it's not unfair just for me.

That's a good point and a lesson learned as we age and mature.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

That's a good point and a lesson learned as we age and mature.

A lot of what would made me angry had to do with when people perceived me a certain way that I didn't like; seeing me that way felt to me felt to be a betrayal of the basis for that relationship, as though what it was based on was false. If they perceived me as odd or different just like everyone else, then what was the point of it all? That really upset me.

I kind of sought out being different at the time, though; and I don't think I was accepting the consequences for that. I'm probably still a little odd, but it just is. It's not part of my identity anymore or anything. If I'm odd, it's no longer something that's unique to me alone, so I think somebody saying something like that to me would bother me a lot less.