Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#131

Post by bencollier49 » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:37 AM UTC

monksy wrote: post #90

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the men's spaces before? Legitimate question as I may be too young to have known them.

Gentlemen clubs, country clubs, bars (although I don't think it should have been single gender), other than this.. I can't name many of the other ones. They were mostly gone by the time I became an adult. Anyways, I have heard of discrimination that men have faced when trying to create "safe"/support groups that were men only.

The Freemasons are still here, and though numerically shrinking as postwar members pass on, we're experiencing a renaissance as a new generation of men come through with a greater interest in the spiritual and philosophical aspects of the craft.

Would recommend it wholeheartedly.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#132

Post by geitir » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:39 AM UTC

oriel wrote: post #93

Having gone through this retreat (the NWTA) with the MKP, I can easily point to it as the most legitimate and profound event I've had/attended in my life. Its important to take in context, I'm in my mid 30s, and was emotionally ready for the messages and teachings. Doing the work in a safe space was nothing short of life changing. In my work life, personal life, and love life. And most of all for my own quality of li…

When you think of the typical archetype for men learning to cope with emotion, it's generally by overcoming personal hardship or difficult challenges through perseverance. But we see where this fails in situations where you have no control such as in a warzone, as there is no real way to overcome. Maybe addressing emotions directly, after the fact as it were, culturally signifies that the individual failed to overcome the situation from which the pain originated, and since there is a huge association in Western culture between masculinity and self competence, the stigma is now against an individual's entire masculinity.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#133

Post by DollarGuru » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #86

bmarquez wrote: post #3

I participated in men's work, not specifically the ManKind Project but a closely related organization. I personally found it helpful doing weekly check-ins and having people holding me accountable to my goals. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "A…

To your point, that same stigma about LGBT guys being weak, feminine, and emotional is one of the many factors that stops a lot of people from coming out too.

Its understandable why we make those assumptions because those camp and effeminate LGBT members stand out so much.

The LGBT members that don't have those characteristics you would never know they were LGBT.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#134

Post by jancsika » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:47 AM UTC

pubby wrote: post #48

Female sexual attraction favors secure men who don't talk feelings. This results in men feeling unable to express their emotions around their significant other. On the other side, male sexuality selects based on looks more than anything. Feminism calls the latter shallow and toxic, but truthfully both should have that label. Neither is serving society or evolution well anymore. But what can we do? Sexual attraction i…

> But what can we do?

If only there were a way of approaching these problems in a clever and playful manner.

You can almost imagine a forum full of such problem solvers helping each other work around the seeming limitations of our physical hardware.

Almost.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#135

Post by bonniemuffin » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 12:54 AM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #130

bmarquez wrote: post #3

I participated in men's work, not specifically the ManKind Project but a closely related organization. I personally found it helpful doing weekly check-ins and having people holding me accountable to my goals. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "A…

Our society will always value men who are confident, this is so much deeper to me than being scared to share your feelings because “it’s gay”. Women are attracted to confidence, employers reward confidence, hiring managers are impressed by confidence. Vulnerability and weakness are just not rewarded for men or women, but especially for men.

I want to push back on your assertion that vulnerability is inherently equivalent to weakness. Our society currently says it is, but I could equally imagine a future in which being vulnerable and honest about your feelings is seen as a feat of strength and courage -- because it DOES take a lot of courage, and even confidence, to be open and honest about your feelings.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#136

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #130

bmarquez wrote: post #3

I participated in men's work, not specifically the ManKind Project but a closely related organization. I personally found it helpful doing weekly check-ins and having people holding me accountable to my goals. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "A…

Our society will always value men who are confident, this is so much deeper to me than being scared to share your feelings because “it’s gay”. Women are attracted to confidence, employers reward confidence, hiring managers are impressed by confidence. Vulnerability and weakness are just not rewarded for men or women, but especially for men.

Confidence and vulnerability aren't opposites. The confidence that comes from going through vulnerability and coming out stronger is worth more than the facade style of confidence, which covers unprocessed weakness.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#137

Post by abathur » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

I don't want to go around picking on specific comments or arguments, but I still wanted to address what reads like a lot of insecurity and scar tissue, here...

- It's better to understand people than to not understand them. Averages and stereotypes are not a great way to understand individual people.

- If you want to understand why a person did or thinks something, a good place to start is with a generous assumption that you might have done or thought the same if you had the same experiences. Reflect on what sort of experiences might fulfill this statement.

- Assume completely understanding an intelligence is impossible. If you haven't before, pay close attention to your internal narrative(s) until you catch yourself telling yourself a story about why you did or said or thought something. This is you, reflecting on what sorts of experiences led you to do or think something. This is evidence that we don't understand our own intelligence.

- Don't be surprised if you find you are less generous when reflecting on what experiences lead you to do something than you are to others. You have, after all, been trying to understand why you do what you do your entire life. Look for opportunities to show yourself (and, more importantly, your internal narratives) that you care. This may feel stupid. Reflect on what experiences might lead you to think it is stupid to show yourself that you care.

- If you are more generous with yourself, you aren't giving the rest of us enough credit. We all contain multitudes.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#138

Post by davesque » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

I guess it's a balance. Sometimes, you need to face what you're feeling. Other times, you need to avoid getting caught up in it and just press forward. I suppose it might also depend on the character of the feeling. Some feelings seem more honest and connected to something bigger. Other feelings can just torment a person and are like energy traps e.g. feelings of jealousy about not going to an elite college (I've struggled with this a lot. And, as the years go by, I realize more and more that I don't want to waste my time with it). I guess it's up to every person to figure out which is which in their own mind.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#139

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:05 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #34

johnny22 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men aren't sharing feelings in a way I understand most of the time, and I'm one of them. I could never get my friends to truly open up unless it was a one on one conversation.

That's not how men process things. Men process things by trying to eliminate perceived unnecessary information and take action. Women are more inclined to want to sit down and discuss all the details of whatever is going on, many of those details the man would not perceive as useful. This is the age old men vs women problem where women feel like men don't want to talk about problems/feelings and men feel like women j…

If you're going to draw the line that way, then I'm more on what you call the 'man' side in not liking to talk about problems/feelings much. But if that leads you (speaking generally—I don't mean you personally) to deny your pain and avoid your demons, then you are doomed to repeat the same painful loop forever, and ultimately to inflict your unprocessed pain on those closest to you. That's a situation that calls for eliminating unnecessary information and taking action if ever there was one. What's needed are ways of taking that action, i.e. processing things, i.e. facing-healing-overcoming rather than denying, which actually work.

Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)

#140

Post by roganartu » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 1:11 AM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #47

whatshisface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the healthier people have by definition less emotional suffering, then of course they're going to complain less.

I second this. We all have unique brains, and it seems to me that some people are naturally less prone to anxiety than others. I know plenty of people who seem to have naturally low anxiety, and as far as I can tell, they never needed to have some profound realization to become like this, they were likely born this way, they have lucky genetics. Anxiety means your brain has more of a tendency to worry about potential…

I'll throw my anecdotal experience in life thus far in the ring. I turned 30 this year and I haven't really ever experienced anything more than mild stress, and even that is fairly infrequent (once or twice a year at most, and always because there is something that a reasonable person would say is worth stressing over).

I have been this way my entire life and as far as I'm aware it didn't come about from some life experience, I think I was just born like this. My mother used to laugh that everything was "like water off a duck's back" to me.

All throughout school and University I never once was stressed about any piece of assessment or any exams. There were a few I was woefully unprepared for and knew I would likely fail, but it never really bothered me. It wasn't that I didn't care, I just never saw the point in worrying as worrying is never going to change anything.

My wife is the opposite. She stresses about everything, many things that are completely out of her control. I have learnt a lot about how to support someone in that frame of mind, even when I don't understand why they are stressed.

This does have downsides. Many people, especially in professional contexts, mistake my stress free and easygoing nature as laziness. I also have relatively low empathy, though I'm not sure if that's a side effect, cause, or completely unrelated.