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

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

#131

Post by purple-leafy »

nadermx wrote: post #123
avtar wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is how I feel, I sacrificed a lot of my sanity and happiness to support them, and the spotlight was always on me as I was sad and stressed in the end.

I think going forward I will always put myself first

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

#132

Post by horrible-hilde »

swatcoder wrote: post #95
formerly_proven wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's supposed to be a joke but it actually encapsulates one of the core issues about this already on the language level, men thinking they'd "get" something out of thin air. Do you think women have 31.41x larger emotional support networks out of thin air? Of course not, they put the effort in. Men don't.

Compassion is helpful here. Consider that many men (among others) don't consciously experience regular or frequent need for verbal or tactile emotional support as such, so they don't get a lot of practice culturing it as a skill, either as a giver or receiver, and don't often get to feel out which people in their network are going to be well-suited for it anyway. Infrequent needs are hard to "work on" and often benef…

The person, above you, is responding as such because the framing is very passive, it sounds like it’s everyone else’s responsibility which will not help men because they have to show up. The title should “Men are not maintaining or making friendships”

They do show up at my art and DnD meetups and some of them can barely talk, at first, but after a while you can see them start to come out of their shell, I find it takes about two years before their lives become transformed.

But again, they have to show up and thats on them.

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

#133

Post by popularonion »

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…

> You have a dozen people that would give you emotional support, maybe once, but you are too afraid to burn the single emotional support coupon until its more important.

This is real. I went through an emotional crisis last year and reached out to a few friends and family for support. My choice to do that has left those relationships more distant, if not permanently damaged.

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

#134

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #114
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

I think that this ideology is one of reasons why men get less emotional support and why many cant provide it. They cant provided because they don't want to, because they look down on people who want or need it. And consequently they cant really talk openly with other men, because they will look down at them. > Once you're an adult, do you even need one in the first place? Yes adults need it. Humans are animals like t…

[deleted]

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

#135

Post by matrix87 »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #129
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,…

Looks like you read through my bullshit

The point of those beliefs is simple: that's what it takes to get results in this economic system. It's toxic fuel. Whether or not it makes sense is irrelevant

In this economic system, everyone is a free agent trying to maximize their own wealth, but at the same time we have a need for support. People can simultaneously be wolves and sheep

I'm not saying that people shouldn't confide in each other. I'm saying that in this fucked up world, you need both. One side comes naturally because we don't come out of the womb scheming, the other is a hard truth that we all have to make peace with. If you want to keep your stuff, you have to fight for it. Toxic masculinity isn't some pointless evolutionary quirk, it's solving a specific problem in the circle of life

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

#136

Post by sumeno »

constantcrying wrote: post #65
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

Yes, I don't even know what "emotional support" would look like. I have never wanted to externalize my emotions and the idea of talking to my friends about my feelings seems utterly bizarre.

This is the saddest thing I've read on HN and that's saying something

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

#137

Post by em-bee »

swatcoder wrote: post #105
watwut wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women do not build these networks by needing frequent emotional support. It is build on mundane stuff, when you do not need support, when no one need support. The emotional support thing is a consequence of building relationships when you do not need help, when you are fine. If you build them only when you need emotional support, you will be perceived as needy and people will get tired of it.

If that's all it was, there'd be no distinction at all. Men, broadly, have plenty of "relationships" that they invest themselves in and are extremely loyaly to. What the study was about, and the discussion is about, is emotional support, and that quality is often not seen (or at least acknowledged) in the intense, loyal, committed, and earnestly worked on relationships that men do form, because its only one quality a…

the distinction is that men are raised not to show emotions. so when women are with their female friends, and the need for emotional support arises, they can open up because they were raised to know that this is acceptable, and they can just expect that most of their friends will be supportive.

men's friends on the other hand, don't at all mean that they can open up and get emotional support from them. they have to go an extra step in their friendships to find those that they can get emotional support from.

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

#138

Post by em-bee »

purple-leafy wrote: post #131
nadermx wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is how I feel, I sacrificed a lot of my sanity and happiness to support them, and the spotlight was always on me as I was sad and stressed in the end. I think going forward I will always put myself first

i hear you. here is what i came up with as a good way to put it: i can't be expected to take care of my family and my kids if i am not well myself. people (especially in china) tell me (and others) that parents need to sacrifice their own well being for their children, and my response is, if i give up my own well being then my children will suffer. they say, i need to be strong for them and for my partner. but i can only be strong if i am healthy. if you like a metaphor: on an airplane they always tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. that's what this is. i keep myself healthy, to get the energy i need to be strong for my family.

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

#139

Post by hobs »

passwordoops wrote: post #36
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…

> My long term partner loves me conditionally I've come to learn the only unconditional love is that between parent-child

The number of parents I have seen disinherit their children for something that literally is equivalent (and actually once was) "when they moved out when they were 18 they didn't clean up their room enough" is in the dozens, there's no such thing as unconditional anything in this world.

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

#140

Post by weddpros »

passwordoops wrote: post #36
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…

> My long term partner loves me conditionally I've come to learn the only unconditional love is that between parent-child

Maybe only parent-child can be unconditional, but it doesn't imply ALL parent-child love is unconditional though
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