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A cognitive bias with a reification fallacy in common speech. “Scientists say…”, “Everyone believes…”, " All of Lemmy knows…"…
The prideful tough guy front masking all emotion (besides anger) was enough reason for me to leave an all-male facility.
Bragging about sexual conquests.
If I wanted to know about your sex life I’d ask for your Only Fans.
O Hai, how is your sexlyfe?!
Oh hi, Mark.
It has to be
Hailol. Nothing else conveys the Wiseau-nessYeah I hear that.
Do you know about life???
I honestly don’t see them. If anything I feel men are being forced to be more fragile, just to be more accepted and this has only backfired. Now more and more men are getting depressed and dating less than ever.
Motherfucker it’s finally getting to be more acceptable to be vulnerable and it’s fucking REFRESHING. It took a lot of undoing the damage done by people like you who insist men stay strong at all times for me to finally accept my emotions and feel them. It’s sick. I’m not angry all the time any more. I feel like a real human being for once. Try it out.
Your insult was uncalled. I’m not talking with you, if that’s your “better you”
It’s true in some circles.
I honestly don’t see them. If anything I feel men are being forced to be more fragile, just to be more accepted and this has only backfired
Yeah, huge surprise you don’t see any of the toxic traits if you think men are being “forced to be more fragile” and that’s why you aren’t dating as much.
They are
Who is “they”
Illumimati.
Men were just as depressed before, the only difference is now we admit to it.
And there’s this whole thing with correlation and causation.
In the midst of a million different other potential causes, they are identifying “masculine fragility” as the big contributor to depression? Not missing data points, not social media, not the momentum of societal change in the last 30y, not socioeconomic factors, potential comorbidities as contributors, increasingly inflammatory politics, globalization as a whole, …
It’s so dumb to single this out. Sure some people need more confidence, but being “more masculine” sounds like the worst plan ever to gain healthy confidence. If you have problems with your confidence there’s usually other factors at play and the most efficient way to improve is to seek a therapist and sort your life or your brain out.
Same goes for dating by the way. A million factors that are potentially contributing to that one, and that’s a two player game, so even more factors to consider.
This comment, hell this whole thread, is enormously insightful and productive. It feels like a genuine discussion of men’s issues that isn’t on the offensive as it often feels when masculinity is the topic. Thank you and all commenters like you who took the time to make a good point.
Agreed. Normally I just upvote, but your post deserves more
No one is forcing men to be more fragile.
Losing your sense of self in response to criticism is one mark of a man who’s been failed by his upbringing. Mistakes aren’t flaws if you learn from them, and so an identity can only become fragile if it is too brittle to endure change.
Friend if that is your current experience with same sex relationships then maybe it might be time to branch out a little bit and start talking to new groups.
Ngl your current one, to me, sounds a little depressing
I agree with the effects you’re seeing but not the cause.
Women’s liberation changed how women are presented in society. It fundamentally changed what it means to be a woman.
Men never went through that. At the moment, we sorta can’t. If I were to create a “men’s liberation" group, it would quickly be taken over by Incels. Hard-core feminists would also stir up a fuss that this group was exclusionary to them. So we are kind of stuck.
Manhood needs to be redefined, because many of the classic male role definitions no longer apply. men can be sensitive where historically they’ve been expected to be stoic. Men can raise children when classically they have been breadwinners while the women raise children.
I think these are all great changes, but we haven’t been able to redefine manhood in the same way that the feminists were able to redefine womanhood.
I don’t have a good answer, we are somewhat handcuffed by the expectation to fulfil classic roles, along with new expectations to be more modern feminist-aware, sensitive men. The two are not compatible enough to make for a nice midpoint.
There are some good men’s lib groups, but they take diligence so that they don’t fall to the incels. The one on reddit was actually pretty decent (prob still is but I haven’t checked in awhile), and there are a couple on lemmy but they’re not really active
I’ve yet to see any decent ones
I don’t know if we have to make a societal decision to change the definition of manhood. I think just by accepting that men can be sensitive, and don’t have to be bread winners, more men will fill those roles (and not feel like they have to hide it). And as time goes on, the more men live like that, the more the definition of manhood will change in its own.
We need to free ourselves from the shackles of roles-past.
That’s what feminism did.
So what if I’m not the breadwinner?
So what if I cry at sappy moments in movies?
So what if I need validation for my feelings?
Society is still okay with pushing this onto men, and it needs a moment of unity to say “this does not define me as a man”
I’d argue that the definition of manhood is changing.
That men perform childcare tasks was unheard of two generations ago, especially with babies like changing diapers. You can be a man while maintaining a household when that was women’s work before.
The need to make everything into a competition or to one-up any story or anecdote.
That’s nothing!
Ever seen a group of guys stuck in a terminal one-downsmanship spiral of mutual unaccountability?
It’s epic bro. Totally blows the doors off your example.
That reminds me of a story, buddy and me fell overboard and when someone threw us a lifesaver he bet me I couldn’t lap the boat before getting rescued. Long story short we did six laps and we’re both dead now.
Oh yeah?? Well, when I fall overboard, I drown! (Because I can’t swim)
Ngl that’s pretty hardcore
I know plenty of women who do the same
Case in point.
I know more jk
Were talking about the fellas, why even bring this up besides as some weird defensive thing?
BUT THE WAHMENS
That’s the joke.
I hope.
Well, men do it better
I’d say because if we’re trying to find things unique to guys it’s relevant to point out when it isn’t unique.
Not understanding boundaries and not having/setting them and respecting others’.
You don’t owe shit to anyone and if they make you feel bad, they are often manipulating you. What you choose to do needs to be a hard yes from yourself otherwise its going through motions and can often be inauthentic which is inherently harmful to your sense and integrity of Self
People naturally test these limits and breach them all the time so it happens but you must train yourself to assert your will for yourself and how you respond to trespasses by setting those limits and then strongly upholding them when it comes time to address the opposing force, definitely for those who continue despite knowing the rules of the game you’ve set for yourself
to combine all 3 of the above, i worked with a joe rogan bro who would come up and show me a video of him having abusive sex with a hidden camera footage that the partner wasnt even aware of, to brag about his weekend conquest, then tell me how he stole her soul with surprise anal. then he dared me to show him something better next week.
Wat, people that ridiculous exist?
Satire probably
No I can confirm guys like this exist
I’m not sure why this is a thing more men do, but I can’t agree more. Generally, I associate this kind of behavior with poor emotional intelligence so good advice for literally any kind of relationship with anyone.
Dudes that nitpick jokes.
meta
Customers hitting on people at their job.
Was eating lunch at a bar one time when three dude bros came in and started hitting on the bartender. They weren’t overly aggressive but it was obnoxious.
She handled it really well. She looked each of them in the eye, smiled, introduced herself and shook each of their hands in turn. She stated she was a professional and appreciated being treated like one. She was friendly but firm.
Shut them right the fuck up. They behaved much better after that.
She has done countless subsequent women a huge favour.
This one’s a pet peeve, especially if the guy is with me.
IMO it’s one of the easiest ways to discover your friend likely has zero game with women who aren’t paid to be nice to them. But that also means it’s a good opportunity to help the friend figure out why they’re striking out all the time and maybe in the process help them be less of a bore.
Btw, if you’re a guy reading this and feel called out, you might be thinking
“What, so bartenders and waitresses are totally off-limits?”
Of course not. You can shoot your shot, just stay holstered until the bill is paid and/or they’re off the clock. (Unless they fire first, then good luck.)
Making fun of people for admitting they don’t know things.
I wish more guys just said they didn’t know something instead of clearly not knowing what they’re talking about and running their mouth based on vibes
A friend of mine keeps doing this. He’ll pretend to be an expert of fucking anything, and you can generally tell immediately that he doesn’t know shit. When he goes on about things that I actually do know things about it’s unbearable, and of course his ego is too fragile to handle being told he’s wrong.
We have a lot of impressive common friends with awesome general knowledge, and I frequently wonder how the hell we have the patience to keep him around. My general knowledge is shite, but at least I’m quite open about being ignorant.
He’s hyper sensitive about social situations, yet introducing him to new people is almost always embarrassing.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is a professional psychologist.
Wait what’s wrong with psychologists? I respect them for not killing themselves from having to deal with other people’s psychological problems.
Yeah, it’s an important and challenging job, and I have several friends who are psychologist.
It is, however, a bit of a stereotype that a lot of people who choose to become psychologists are often to some degree themselves viable clients. Perhaps wanting to understand themselves is a motivation to study it in the first place.
They can still do an amazing job, but I think a lot of psychologist find themselves in a Pagliacci situation where they can help anyone but themselves.
I know one of these. He’s extremely insecure and has other issues but he will talk about ANYTHING as if he were an expert
Your friend is Jordan Peterson
Thank god he is guaranteed to hate Jordan Peterson - he has redeeming qualities as well. But reading back my comment it’s uncanny how much it sounds like him.
I have a friend like this but he’s fortunately self aware enough to confess that he just like lecturing when you call him on something. It’s almost endearing
In eighth grade I got into an argument on the bus, precursor to the Internet, with a kid about my ignorance of sex. He drew a picture of a diaphragm and ridiculed me for not knowing what it was.
Thought of another trait that is as toxic as it is annoying: apparently a man must outwardly show how attracted he is to “hot” women around him or he must be gay, and apparently that in itself is also implied to be a disappointment.
God, that’s so weird. A boomer aged progressive will some times point out hot women to me. Not even in his age group. It really is just hard coded in that whole generation.
But then when he does it in front of his girlfriend, he’s being unfaithful. But if he doesn’t express interest in other women then his opinion on his partner’s hotness doesn’t matter because he must not be into women or he’s not macho enough since macho people are supposed to ogle women.
God I’m glad I’m not closeted anymore…(I’m polyamorous, agender, and pansexual).
Not a guy, but the one that really gets me is willfully incompetence - particularly around household or family chores (and the mental load associated with them).
I work from home so I typically do the majority of the cleaning; I don’t mind because I’m a bit of a clean freak anyway.
What I found odd is when my wife’s family from Mexico were visiting she turned into a maid and would shoo me away from things like washing a single dish (for example).
Not sure if it was cultural or what but it definitely threw me off — I don’t want her family thinking I’m making her do everything all the time.
100% a cultural thing. Depending on what part of Mexico they’re from, she may not want them to know that you do any chores. If a woman can’t handle all of the chores herself, it’s seen as a failing.
Super fucked up, but Latin America is in fact super fucked up.
Oh, that’s interesting. Could be a family thing. Could also be just a good host thing.
It’s called “brokedishing” and choosing the right dish to break is an art form.
Damn, that’s way catchier than weaponized incompetence.
Yeah, sorry but this one is just counterproductive. Guys just don’t give a fuck. No one is going around “ooh, what if I pretend I can’t do this task so she then has to do it”. That’s just patriarchy and gender roles for you. Maybe try to have a conversation about the subject of chores without sticking the “you’re evil” tag on the other person. Well, for anything in life really. Also mental load is there for anyone, I see no point in bringing it up in this context. The dudes have to deal with a fair share of mental load as well, specially with all the emotional neglect and immaturity.
What in the Sam Hill …
“Guys don’t give a fuck.”
That’s it. That’s the toxic trait right there.
“Guys don’t give a fuck.”
That’s it. That’s the toxic trait right there.
I worry you may be misinterpreting the phrase in its particular context, and I’d hate to see that happen.
Kudos for weaving in the toxic trait of infantilizing women.
This is why I think weaponized incompetence is a better term than willful incompetence.
I don’t think it’s even always intentional, conscious, or willful. It’s just, well, “not giving a fuck”, and getting away with it because women are always around to deal with their shit.
Agree about it not always being explicitly thought about. Weaponed also seemed to imply some sort of thought to me, but I couldn’t land on a good word.
Prepared to be roasted alive for this opinion but studies (undoubtedly of white, middle class, US undergrads) seem to indicate women find clutter and messes more psychologically distressing than men do.
I’m a man but I’ve had many deadbeat guys as roommates and I am definitely far more bothered by messes and clutter than they were so I kind of get this.
If you are the “mind it more” person, you will find yourself rage cleaning because the other person can wait you out as long as they want if they are taking you for granted and not concerned you’ll leave over this.
So there are two toxic traits here:
-
A willingness to wait out chores even if you know it’s angering people you are with.
-
A kind of willful blindness. “Honestly, I didn’t think it was that bad.”
The second one might be worse.
The first is excusable (plausible deniability) with the “men are oblivious” defense if the aggrieved party is not being overt in their request that a chore be done.
The second is a person (some women obviously do this, too) refusing to learn to empathize and recognize when things are getting to the point where it’s bothering the other person. From an interpersonal perspective this is probably more infuriating over the years.
The second is
a personTWO PEOPLE refusing to learn to empathize and recognize when things are getting to the point where it’s bothering the other person.ftfy. I’m sick of society always thinking that men have to learn how to be cleaner. Maybe women should learn how to not freak out over a little mess sometimes.
The onus should not be 100% on men to change. It should be a compromise, and part of it is women learning to relax and undo the ingrained “everything must look perfect” toxic baggage that they have, just as much as men need to learn not to live in a pigsty just because mom isn’t around to clean up after you.
I think you have a point, and it is indeed something different - if two people live together and simply have different preferences or care about different things, it’ll of course lead to some friction.
I think this goes both ways in most relationships. I keep bothering my girlfriend about the bathroom sink and the office desk we share; she complains about me keeping half dirty (half clean) clothes in a pile in the bedroom. That’s not what it’s about, though I think it can get easily confused.
It’s more about the “I don’t know how to use the washing machine/book bus tickets/change bags in the vacuum cleaner/cook a pie/change bedsheets/clean the toilet/make a vinegrette/change diapers/whatever”, where instead of an emphasis on learning the skill it’s only left to the other person.
It’s not all men, but it is common. I think it’s a systematic issue that men don’t carry the full responsibility for. They’re raised by mothers who do everything for them, and while their sisters are taught how to take care of themselves they are simply left to “be boys”. And then they go out in the world and find a woman who can effectively replace their mothers.
It’s the kind of guys who move away from home but keep going back to their mothers whenever they need laundry done.
I think the first trait is worse than the second. Waiting to do a chore knowing (1) it needs to be done, and (2) the other person will do it if you hold out long enough is such a jerk move. Although the second isn’t awesome either. I think it is safe to say, don’t do either of these things.
-
This is a pattern I’ve seen repeatedly.
Guys find themselves desperate to get laid, and that desperation comes across in all of their interactions with women, who don’t like feeling that they’re being treated like a vending machine, which leads to the guy being rejected for reasons that he doesn’t entirely understand.
He gets in a relationship with someone, finally, and everything is great for a while. Then he realizes that women are talking and flirting with him more than they ever have before, and isn’t sure why, but he enjoys it. He doesn’t understand that, because he is in a relationship, he has stopped being desperate and weird, and is now actually having real conversations with women about mutually interesting topics.
Surrounded by women that are (seemingly) available, he either breaks up with his SO, asks for some sort of open arrangement, or tries to cheat. Unfortunately, for reasons that he still doesn’t understand, as soon as he’s available for sex, women start being turned off by him again (if not to quite the degree they were before) and, again, he finds it difficult to get laid.
From here, guys often fall into some incel-style evolutionary psychology explanation for things, regularly cheat on everyone that they’re with, or gradually becomes aware of the pattern.
If they become aware of the pattern, they can begin to manage it and reduce the desperate, salesman vibe that they give off. As they become more confident and relaxed, it becomes clear to women that they’re perfectly comfortable going home alone or just being friends, which allows them to have more meaningful relationships and, incidentally, more sex with people they like.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk on the origin and mating behavior of the involuntarily celibate.
I think you’re confusing incels with dudebros
Problem # 2,846 that would be solved if everyone wasn’t so hung up on monogamy
With polyamory, Brokeback Mountain is a light hearted comedy about some queer friends who like to escape to the woods sometimes.
Bullying.
Seeing regular masculinity as toxic. Just out right judging people for not being more feminine and doing normal guy stuff.
Like bunch of guys joking around having fun. "Oh that’s toxic masculinity.
Yeah, I kind of agree. Toxic masculinity is a thing, but it doesn’t mean all masculinity is automatically toxic.
Then again, usually when I’m hanging out with guys and the testosterone level runs a bit high, someone will crack a joke about it and we’ll laugh at ourselves.
I think having a fragile ego and not being able to joke about yourself and/or your masculinity probably does make it on in the toxic list.
Most of the people I work with these days have fragile egos. It’s a big problem.
“Check out my hotsauce collection!” or otherwise making mundane things into competitions.
So I think I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t think having hobbies is the issue here.
You do see this a lot when guys are talking and someone brings up a sort of niche hobby (tech, fan bases, something that requires a lot of knowledge)
Guys will all show interest but not want to be talked down to or mansplained to on a topic they’re passionate about (yes ladies we experience it too)so they overcorrect and try to prove their knowledge real fast.
This sometimes leads to a sort of feedback loop where the other person thinks they’re trying to one up them and tries to be the more knowledgeable one and on and on, I’ve seen so many guys do this, that’s why I avoid talking about hobbies with IRL friends (looking at you RuneScape)
…ok, I’ve never considered hot sauce as something to collect.
But I DO collect amiibo. And if I owned my own house you can bet there would be a whole room where I display them.
Whats wrong with feeling proud of your collecting habbits?
Filthy habbitses…
But it make food taste better.
I guess it’s bordering on being literal poison. Chilli peppers have evolved specifically to be inedible by mammals. So I guess being obsessed with hot sauce is not a toxic trait per se, but it’s in the neighborhood.
More seriously though, I love spicy food, but not all food is supposed to be spicy. Leave other favours room to breathe as well.
To me, just that statement reads like collecting something, being proud of it, and wanting to start a conversation or find shared interest in it rather than some competition. Maybe I’m lacking context?
If you use hot sauce so slowly you can keep a collection going, you’re doing it wrong.
I’m picky about which hot sauce goes with which foods, so I have a ton of hot sauces “in use” in my refrigerator at any given time.
Using them almost constantly, I don’t feel I’m doing it wrong.
But maybe I’m misunderstanding “collection” — would this be a ton of unopened bottles kept somewhere?
I guess the latter was my assumption. I, like you, have several in rotation. Usually 3-4 “super hots” from Puckerbutt, some interesting ones, a couple Asian-style options, a Louisiana style, and, during pepper season, a fermented style of my own creation.
But I just use them all the time on almost every meal. It would never really occur to me to bring them all out and put them on the table and be like, “behold, my collection,” though I guess when I have people over and I cook/grill, I bring a few out and let people know the heat range if they want any. But that’s kind of what you do with condiments, and no one would say “he’s showing off his bbq condiment collection” if I brought out a few styles of bbq sauce.
I guess I just envisioned some guy with a room dedicated to his shelves of unopened hot sauce like those dudes that collect unopened toys. Lol
Feeling slightly attacked, I’m big on the hot sauce but are people making this competitive? I don’t understand, is hot sauce rare in some places?
