I’m sorry to hear that. Try talking to a counselor or therapist. I felt the same way for a long time and I’ve gradually worked up the confidence to express how I feel and express my emotions. It was really hard and took a lot of work (and therapy and medication) and I feel completely empowered now. It’s a great feeling.
My parents and school teachers and peers made it very clear to me that if you show emotion such as sadness, jealousy, frustration, fear, or anxiety, you were not living up to being a male and thus are weak and deserving of punishment, physical violence, and social isolation and ridicule.
Maybe it’s different there, I don’t know. Or maybe it was a different era? I grew up in the 80s and I just never have gotten that sort of impression from the people around me and I am not one to hide my emotions.
It was the early 2000s. Teachers would say things like “you’re acting like a girl, show everyone you are a man” and whatnot. Guess you got lucky and I’m glad to hear it.
Not really, it was supposed to be a person so above the “alpha beta” bullshit, not caring about how people perceive them, that they wrap around the “spectrum” in front of “alpha”. It was meant to be a comedic / sarcastic way to rebuke toxic standards, but it was assimilated into the general “philosophy” of it.
And why would you be ridiculed and scorned for opening up emotionally?
because people are mean and repeat the mean things that have been done to them, and difficult emotions make people uncomfortable and one way to avoid them is punishing people who do open up
not literally punished, but socially responded to negatively. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t experienced it much (and even then, I still struggle to open up), but it’s a very real thing. For men, one umbrella term that includes this concept is “toxic masculinity”
Yeah, I guess all I can say is I’ve been lucky too. I’ve just never noticed any serious repercussions for showing my emotions. All I can think is that, since I was a pretty unpopular kid growing up, I gave so little of a shit about what the sort of people who would think negatively of me opening up emotionally would think about me that I just didn’t notice it even though it was happening. It would have just been one more dickhead move to ignore.
Your evidence is… the comment i responded to? Not very compelling. It doesn’t feature you giving any sympathy, just saying you don’t get it. And the implication thus far is that you simply can’t conceive of it happening. Not the most empathetic stance, is it?
It reminds me of the guys that claim sexism no longer exists, asking “but where is there any sexism?” And then shooting down all examples as not counting, continuing to ask “where is this sexism?”
Well then I guess it’s good that I’m not asking for sympathy. Just an explanation. Thankfully, people other than you were kind enough to give explanations.
I have no idea why you thought I claimed you were looking for sympathy. You must not have actually read it properly. I said you are not giving sympathy. And yeah - I didn’t give you an explanation, exactly because other people have. That’s kinda the point I was making - others have already explained it to you, and your bewildered “oh golly gee, people aren’t that mean!” attitude struck me as resisting to believe people can actually be so cruel. Not just aghast at it, but refusing to actually believe they are telling the truth and not just mistaken.
Acting confused in the face of someone telling you their problems, and responding that you’ve never experienced that, gives off the vibe that you don’t believe them. Remember, my first didn’t say that you were actually being hostile. I said you were starting to sound hostile. It was a warning. Can we leave this yet? It’s really not that important.
You’re the one who revived this after three days, so you tell me. Can we leave this? You apparently thought it was important enough to come back to days later.
What point do you think you’re making? That I should check the age of replies in my inbox before replying to them? What age is the max - 2 days or something? I didn’t know how old it was.
EDIT: I just checked - nope, you are the one who waited 3 days to reply.
Also, nice distraction technique, changing the subject. So you’re not going to contest the tone that your comment conveyed? That is as much of an admission as I need.
EDIT: I just checked - nope, you are the one who waited 3 days to reply.
What it looks like, after I have actually bothered really check (unlike you) is that it took three days for reddthat.com and lemmy.world to sync up.
Also, nice distraction technique, changing the subject.
I didn’t change the subject, I directly addressed something you said, which was: “Can we leave this yet? It’s really not that important.” Accusing someone of distracting or changing the subject when they respond to something you said is highly dishonest, and I think you know that.
So you’re not going to contest the tone that your comment conveyed?
I will contest your subjective interpretation of my “tone” (I’m not even sure how you can get someone’s tone from text) when you accept that my only intent here was to understand something I didn’t understand. Something you have yet to accept.
So do you want this to end or not? The fact that you keep replying suggests you don’t. Prove me wrong and don’t reply to this.
What it looks like, after I have actually bothered really check (unlike you) is that it took three days for reddthat.com and lemmy.world to sync up.
Nice unsupported claim. I see a comment of mine with a comment of yours replying three days later. No ambiguity there.
I didn’t change the subject, I directly addressed something you said,
Good that you said “something”, you slippery devil, because it indeed was one thing among many, the others of which you ignored.
Accusing someone of distracting or changing the subject when they respond to something you said is highly dishonest, and I think you know that.
It’s not dishonest when I mean it. And I do, because you laser focused on that one statement while ignoring the others. And this being a new subject, unrelated to the actual conversation (which, may I remind you, is about your comment appearing to be hostile, and not about how long people take to reply!!) it is clearly dishonest of you to ignore the original subject to focus in on this. My statement earlier was simply an aside, which it was it was tacked on to the end.
I will contest your subjective interpretation of my “tone”
All interpretations are subjective. I see you’re trying to muddy the waters here.
(I’m not even sure how you can get someone’s tone from text)
Yet another attempt to weaken my statement without addressing it.
when you accept that my only intent here was to understand something I didn’t understand.
Did I say otherwise? No. So why should I recant a statement I didn’t make?
So do you want this to end or not?
Of course.
The fact that you keep replying suggests you don’t.
How so? Prove that.
Prove me wrong and don’t reply to this.
“Prove you don’t want me to rob you and give me your money willingly.”
Like I thought. You don’t want it to end so you replied to me again. You can’t get over this idea that I just didn’t understand something. You are so fixed on this weird ‘tone’ idea of yours. Believe it or not, you can’t always accurately guess a person’s tone over text that way because, believe it or not, you can’t hear vocal inflections over text.
And this time it took a day to sync up.
Your instance is shit.
Looking forward to your next irate reply to sync up next Tuesday.
why would you be ridiculed and scorned for opening up emotionally?
Not to sound like a blue-haired liberal, but at least in my neck of the woods, toxic masculinity is to blame. Like, one of my favorite internet folk got bullied off the internet recently for saying he likes girls a little too enthusiastically. Some dudes will absolutely tear you apart if you are a man that exhibits anything other than stoic passivity.
Sigma Males are what those guys who used to call themselves Alpha Males now call themselves, because everyone started making fun of them for calling themselves Alpha Males.
No, it’s worse. Alpha is actually the first letter in the Greek alphabet (unlike Sigma), should have went with Omega if they really wanted to change that.
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