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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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tak…

You are reading into “we get”, a perhaps shortened phrase (“we get to have”, i.e. “that’s an option for us?”) which is obviously useful in such a sardonic reply. This was interpreted as a joke but for some reason this person still ran with the entitlement shtick.

And since we’re playing language/interpretation games: this attitude that men in particular feel entitlement in this area is backlash against people writing about problems that men have is if it isn’t simply and narrowly a problem of the individual. It starts like this:

- Initially it’s taboo

- Then it’s a topic about how men are failing as individuals

- Then it gets seen as a sociological problem (a sociological problem can still be an individual problem in other contexts, it’s a lens)

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

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> What does it look like? Checking in on friends, learning to open up yourself, increasing emotional intelligence, learning how to hold space and reflectively listen. My female friends frequently remind me to check in on my male friends, and it’s valuable to reflect on why I don’t make the effort and what it would take to get me to change. Being more vulnerable would only improve my life and yet it feels so difficult…

[flagged]

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it look like? Checking in on friends, learning to open up yourself, increasing emotional intelligence, learning how to hold space and reflectively listen. My female friends frequently remind me to check in on my male friends, and it’s valuable to reflect on why I don’t make the effort and what it would take to get me to change. Being more vulnerable would only improve my life and yet it feels so difficult…

[flagged]

> No, it doesn't. Will this madness stop some day?

Many people disagree. You will either have to make peace with that or be a miser, I guess.

As for the rest, I suggest you take that red pill out of your mouth. The only thing it’s doing is poisoning you and robbing you of meaningful human connection.

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

#164

"However, generalized responses, such as “family” or “friends,” as well as mentions of non-human sources like pets, were excluded from formal analyses." They excluded everyone that had a large support network from the study.

Oh, that explains it. I was sitting here wondering how anyone has only two to begin with.

> I was sitting here wondering how anyone has only two to begin with.

They might have zero for that matter since they might have a wife and 2.5 kids and living parents and the necessary number of close friends but be emotionally closed off to all of those. Does that explain things for you?

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> No, it doesn't. Will this madness stop some day? Many people disagree. You will either have to make peace with that or be a miser, I guess. As for the rest, I suggest you take that red pill out of your mouth. The only thing it’s doing is poisoning you and robbing you of meaningful human connection.

> As for the rest, I suggest you take that red pill out of your mouth.

Talking about men opening up, but only if the problem is them. I suggest you the same. Stop hating men for no reason.

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it doesn't. Will this madness stop some day? Many people disagree. You will either have to make peace with that or be a miser, I guess. As for the rest, I suggest you take that red pill out of your mouth. The only thing it’s doing is poisoning you and robbing you of meaningful human connection.

> As for the rest, I suggest you take that red pill out of your mouth. Talking about men opening up, but only if the problem is them. I suggest you the same. Stop hating men for no reason.

[deleted]

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

#167
As a teenager I would confide in my mom. Then sometimes she would just tell random people about it. Oh, I was not supposed to do that?

I vented my inter-personal frustration once to a friend and he dismissed it as just normal behavior on the part of the other person. The problem then is that the cat is out of the bag. It’s just left hanging there. Wishing it never got out.

I had a woman colleague. She started venting about the work to the point that it felt like it was crossing into “emotional support”. I reciprocated a bit. Then I felt like she left me hanging a bit too much. But again: cat was out of the bag, no way to take it back now. I quit 1.5 years ago but I still feel annoyed by that.

I don’t have an emotionally rich interpersonal life so there isn’t many anecdotes.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> What does it look like? Checking in on friends, learning to open up yourself, increasing emotional intelligence, learning how to hold space and reflectively listen. My female friends frequently remind me to check in on my male friends, and it’s valuable to reflect on why I don’t make the effort and what it would take to get me to change. Being more vulnerable would only improve my life and yet it feels so difficult…

[flagged]

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

#169
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you think it is sad?

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that explains it. I was sitting here wondering how anyone has only two to begin with.

> I was sitting here wondering how anyone has only two to begin with. They might have zero for that matter since they might have a wife and 2.5 kids and living parents and the necessary number of close friends but be emotionally closed off to all of those. Does that explain things for you?

No, it doesn't explain shit. You've only provided answers to "what?" questions, not "why?" questions.

Next question.

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