Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

psypost.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 191 posts

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#121

Post by zelphirkalt »

thrwaway223 wrote: post #53
dijit wrote: post #9

Only half? Thats a really wide range too. By 90 it is increasingly likely your spouse and close friends are mostly dead. My emotional support network consists of two people, my long-term partner and my parent(s). My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal). Only your parents might love you unconditionally, and they have a pretty decent head start wit…

Well for me, half of 0 is still 0 and I'm not even 30 yet. > My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal). I haven't told anyone but a therapist the abuse I've been facing from a partner because it would break my parents heart. I've been back-stabbed now 3 times from different people I was closest with relationship or friendship-wise over the past dec…

For many people telling the stories is a form of processing them, or processing their experiences in different ways than they have before.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#122

Post by pessimizer »

watwut wrote: post #100
kelseyfrog wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a trans women, I have a unique perspective on how gender impacts social relations having lived life in each of the two worlds. Like commenters above mention, emotional support is table stakes in friendship among women. It is a kinder, gentler world - the kind of world you perhaps remember growing up in. That world still exists, but it's typically not accessible to men once they reach adulthood. How could men acces…

What is emotional vulnerability?

Female stereotyping.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#123

Post by nadermx »

avtar wrote: post #111
nadermx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> And if she leaves me, it's because I failed in some way or another With all due respect, chances are this view won't be helpful in the long run. It's challenging enough to influence our own minds or predict with certainty what journeys they'll embark on, let alone assume we can be responsible for another person's happiness.

I don't mean I failed to make her happy. I mean I failed in asserting myself or sacrificing my happiness for her. As her happiness generally feeds of mine.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#124

Post by constantcrying »

watwut wrote: post #116
constantcrying wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to talk to my friends about many things, my emotions just do not include that and at no point in my adult life have I ever felt any inclination to do so.

You have never talked about being angry, about being happy? Those are emotions. And I see men writing about feeling lonely on hacker news all the time. Developers talk about being frustrated by tasks. Frustration is an emotion.

>You have never talked about being angry, about being happy?

No. Why would I?

>Developers talk about being frustrated by tasks. Frustration is an emotion.

But they do not seek emotional support, they seek advice on how to overcome that frustration.

>And I see men writing about feeling lonely on hacker news all the time.

Coincidentally I have also never felt lonely.

Not once in my life have I felt the need to externalize my emotions. Of course I have had problems in my life, which I talked about with parents and friends, but my emotions where never part of that.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#125

Post by breaker-kind »

nadermx wrote: post #83
purple-leafy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sadly true, my long term partner left me last night. I really thought it would go the distance, and I’m almost not sad - it’s just typical

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#127

Post by iterance »

sosuke wrote: post #58
iterance wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally I'd say I can't imagine living with like, one or two people I turn to for emotional support. Would be a nightmare. I know probably 20 or 30 people I could turn to if I needed something, even just to vent. I wouldn't even necessarily say I'm that close with most of them. It's sort of just... table stakes?

Imagine three other possibilities: You have a dozen people who would give you emotional support but you don't ask for any because you aren't sure you could give emotional support in return. You have a dozen people you think might give you emotional support but you don't want to burden them with your problems. You have a dozen people that would give you emotional support, maybe once, but you are too afraid to burn the…

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I just don't worry about it that much these days. What you're describing - the fear of overburdening or burning bridges, the uncertainty about what I can give back - I dunno. I had that, at one point, too. A LONG time ago. Middle school, high school maybe. But many years of being shown I can count on the people around me, and that I'm better at giving support in kind than I think, has made it less of a serious worry.

Of course there are limits, and they have to be respected. "Do not discuss rope in the house of a hanged man." But that's why there's so much breadth. If I can't talk about it with my partner, or my close friends are involved, I can almost always find someone willing to hear me out. Someone it's appropriate to go to support for.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#128

Post by pizzadog »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #94
kevwil wrote: post #75

Imagine having someone, anyone, that you felt comfortable sharing your feelings with. Amazing. I've known my best friend for 50 years now, literally since kindergarten. One person. I probably wouldn't talk about my top 5% of private feelings with him, not sure why. I've been married 28 years now. She doesn't understand me at all, and doesn't want to see or hear any "weakness" from me. So what the f@#$ is an emotional…

Your comment mirrors my experience with both close friends and a spouse. One time my now ex-wife asked why I don't share my feelings more. When I did she said she felt unsafe and we started talking about her instead. In my anecdotal experience men are routinely trained not to talk about their troubles and emotions. Even if I had some form of emotional support I am not sure I would know how to open up. And I am not su…

Yeah... it's strange. Every partner I've had has been someone very aware (to the point of reading books about it in a few cases) of gender issues and the issues with our social norms. But all of them still followed this same trend. Dealing with their emotions was priced in - I was expected to do it. Dealing with my emotions was too scary, too burdensome, there was always some excuse to recenter it on her instead. And the horrifying thing would be when they bring it up later as ammunition for some petty argument. It gives you the sense that they hear these things and hold them like grudges. It makes you never want to open up ever again.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#129

Post by stevenAthompson »

matrix87 wrote: post #54

Once you're an adult, do you even need one in the first place? I'm 24, I don't go to anyone for help pretty much ever, I just follow my own goals. That's gotten me way farther than most people I know I don't think this talk about "male emotional support networks" is actually intended to help men, it's meant to infantilize them. They'd be better off just buying into the nietzschean "support yourself" type of worldview

> it's meant to infantilize them

There are a few assumptions embedded within this statement.

Firstly, you assume that 'they' have an intent other than the stated one, without explaining who 'they' may be, why 'they' would want to do this, and that 'they' have managed to be the only large group of humans to ever keep a secret successfully.

Secondly, you imply that 'being infantalized' would somehow be harmful to you, and that it might reduce your ability to care for yourself.

I suspect that as a relatively young person you've realized that you are an adult, but not what that actually means yet. It means that YOU get to help decide what being an adult means, and how other adults should be judged.

If living an isolated life brings you joy somehow, that's fine. We aren't all wired the same. However, the rest of us are starting to realize it doesn't have to be that way, and as your fellow adults we don't have to do it the same way our largely miserable, broken, and frightened grandparents did.

Re: Emotional support across adulthood: A 60-year study of men’s social networks

#130

Post by thfuran »

dijit wrote: post #93
horrible-hilde wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you even want unconditional love? Are you planning on abusing and taking advantage of your spouse? People who want this are not ready for marriage.

Maybe I want to be vulnerable sometimes, or weak sometimes, or to have unfinished opinions on things and be listened to in good faith without risking an entire relationship because I would like to talk about it. Like privacy, people can come up with nice catch-alls like “nothing to hide”, but the default is not abuse.

This goes way beyond merely conditional love. If you can't reasonably expect to be listened to in good faith, you have an outright toxic relationship.
Post reply on HN