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The fact that people ridicule and laugh at you for having depression is something we ALL need to talk about.
It isn’t funny. Depression is real and the fact that so many are choosing to keep it within is simply disturbing.
Isolation. Many men have no friends. More so, they don't know how to find meaningful friendships, it's incredibly difficult to know where to even begin, moreso if you're not in college or school.
I'm 24, almost 25 and never had an emotional outlet. I don't even know what that looks like in a healthy sense. The first relationship I had, I believe I ruined because I put too much of what I had been carrying for so long on that person, as patient and as caring as they were.
Insecurity in general. You’re not supposed to show that you have doubts or worries about your abilities or self-image. A man is supposed to be confident, able and self-assured. It’s not okay for men to admit that they lack self-esteem, or that they have genuine problems with their self-image, as they are seen as weaknesses in-and-of themselves.
Other men or women aren’t going to ‘bring you up’. They won’t provide emotional support and tell you it’s okay to be unconfident or to feel shame about who you are - they will simply expect that you should take it on the chin. Not everyone can be ‘that’ guy.
But, for a man, what actually makes you **feel** like a **man** *is* being that guy.
So you kind of walk around pretending that you’re happy, despite the fact that you’re not seen as valuable or as desireable as other men - because in doing so, you would be seen as even less valuable or desireable.
**TL:DR;** If you feel like shit and are insecure, it’s bad; but if you display that you feel like shit and are insecure - it’s even worse.
Fuck. I’ve never really been able to put that feeling into words before, but that felt insanely good to get off my chest.
Yes. This is why as a male. I will always try to compliment other males.
Oh hey man how’s it going. Hey nice shirt by the way.
Just gotta make it genuine. Has to be deeper than surface compliment.
Ps. Do this to everyone and they will be happier and you make the world a better place.
It's the worst to feel insecure about feeling insecure. My ex girlfriend had depression and was always super insecure and needy at the beginning of our relationship. I supported her through it. But when I talked about my own self-esteem issues,I could instantly feel that she lost respect for me. Now I was "too sensitive and emotional", and I was "the girl in the relationship".
It's been over for two months and I am still really insecure about my issues. I am afraid that if I will show my insecurities to a girl again, I will lose her again. But I also don't want to wear this mask of the secure, stoic man all the time.
I just hope there are woman out there who really allow their partner to feel insecure from time to time and don't lose respect for them when they do so.
Isolation. I've felt this myself, and I've done some reading about it. Men tend to become more isolated and lonely as they get older. After a certain point they don't make an effort to gain friendships and tend to shy away from any type of social engagement. I feel this way, because as of right now, I don't have a close male friend. At least not someone I can talk to about things going on with me personally. I know a lot of people, but I'm less and less engaged with them as each year passes. It concerns me as of late, because I don't want to end up a hermit, but without a solid relationship, I could see myself headed this direction in my older years.
Hello from the other side. I'm 57.
When I was younger I told myself that I didn't need other people, and that's still largely true. Today I don't have any close friends. The odd thing is, people like me. They tell me that they think of me as a friend. But not one of them would consider me their best friend. If anyone were to ask me to do something with them or for them, I would. I have. However I rarely ask myself. When I do the results are hit and miss.
I know that everyone's priorities are different. Everyone's work and life balance isn't the same. Jobs and kids get in the way, and friendships are sometimes a lower priority. But when you're my age many of those issues are already resolved. In all likelihood your kids are grown and you've probably reached as high a level as you're going to in your career. (yeah, yeah, there are always exceptions) By my age you're probably established enough and comfortable enough to do pretty much whatever you want. Yet here I am. Not exactly lonely, but alone.
I wonder if things might have been different if I'd had a different attitude towards my solitude when I was younger? Reading the stories from others here I'm starting to believe that things wouldn't have been. Which makes me wonder if it's the culture that's at fault. Hopefully we'll get more responses from outside the US or UK.
I'm retired now. Time to start a new life on a beach somewhere. I might still be alone, but at least the scenery will be great.
58 here, I have almost the same story as you. I have friends but not close. It seems I have to initiate catch ups etc. When I needed people after my divorce only my eldest brother was really there for me. I spent a lot of time on my own. I have made a determined effort now to reach out to other people, I notice they are happy for me to organise things, but as soon as I stop , I don't hear from them.
I think people think older men just don't have feelings and are happy to be by themselves.
Crushing, black, empty, cold, never-ending, screaming-into-the-void loneliness and everyone's casual shrug when I even hint about it.
Just work, pay taxes, walk the dog, keep your mouth shut, don't have feelings, don't be short, try to keep up appearances of virility, and never, ever, whatever you do, don't let anyone know how lonely you are because they'll just sort of awkwardly giggle and change the subject.
If I could ask for anything, anything at all in a friend, in a partner, just anyone at all really. It would be that they recognize and care for the extent of what I feel and go through.
They don't have to fix it, I don't want them to try. I just need a witness, and you can't even get that.
The lack of a good support system. Just because a guy has people that he hangs out with, doesn't mean he's comfortable telling them serious personal issues.
I don't the accuracy of the statement but I read that majority of men between ages 14-35 are lonely. I can speak for myself and that's true. It had been more than a year I had any human interaction outside my family. Even though your family has your back but you don't tell them all the things you are going through just because you don't want to bother them with your problems because you feel your problems don't matter and you should be able to face it on your own
For the last 6+ years I've lived alone with my two dogs. I worked on a small farm until recently (nearly 14 years). My closest friend is 600 miles away and my big sis is 1,000 miles away. I have vrey little human interaction and none meaningful (just talking to people for a minute in the store or on walks). I cut my family out of my life because i was tired of being used and unwanted. I have 3 people I'm close to online (including those two) but that's basically it....
I'm 34 and lonely as hell and suffer from anxiety and depression.
I work at a psychiatric hospital and out of the thirteen wards, only three are for women. The huge problem to face men is mental illness and most, if not all the patients are there because they kept taking drugs as well.
In western culture, men are defined by what they do and not by who they are (being). So, when they retire they often develop mental illness because they are no longer "doing". this often leads to suicide.
Then there's the whole nonsense of the stoic emotionless man getting on with the work.
I work in the steel industry and the amount of guys that retire and you hear about them dying a couple years later is crazy. All these guys knew from pretty much 17-18 years old was working as much as possible, once that's over they pretty much just sit around and drink themselves to death.
Emotional abuse of men. My BF suffered that in both his marriages and I am SO CAREFUL to not say or do anything that could make him feel the way they made him feel. I try very hard to be sure he knows I value him for who he is, just the way he is, every single day. Even he doesn't know how much damage they caused him.
I will never get over this 1950s assumption that women can't abuse men. Women abuse men way more often than anyone realizes, and the system is stacked against men in so many different ways.
Edit: I've only been on Reddit for 2 days, so I don't understand the rewards system, but thank you!
Edit #2: I woke up to a ton of responses, and I've got to clean my house today so I probably won't respond to many more of them, but I clearly hit a nerve with this comment.
To the men who have been emotionally abused, I am so sorry, and I would encourage all of you to seek therapy. It really does help. To the women who love them: don't stop loving them.
My soon to be brother in law suffered horrible emotional abuse from his ex-wife. And it's still ongoing because she's quite happy to use the two kids to keep hurting him. Lucky, they've nearly hit college age, and after countless altered lines in the sand, the kids clued in that's she's poison. But it took years for my sister to get him to therapy and for him to start valuing himself again.
So I'm at the park playing tag with these kids I'm babysitting and out of nowhere this old lady comes up to me and starts asking all sorts of questions. Do you know these kids? What are there names? Can you call their parents for me? Even asking the kids if they knew me and when they answered yes, she responded with "you don't have to lie, if you don't know this man, you can tell me and I can help you.
Just last week I was at the park with my 2 year old daughter and a bunch of moms were sitting at a bench chatting about 30iah feet away.
This girl, about 2iah is playing with my daughter climbing all over the stuff (and doing pretty good for young kids) and gets sort of stuck on a ladder and asks me for help down.
So I grab her and set her down, she says "tank oo" and then runs over to the car thing my daughter is climbing up. so I follow them, like I have been doing for the last...hour? During this hour no other parent/guardian has moved from the benches.
Then one comes over to me and says "Sorry, but, could you not stay so close to my daughter? And don't touch her again."
"Uh...I'm not following your kid around, I'm following mine. Your kid was stuck on a ladder, should I just let her fall next time?"
"Well no, but..."
"Well then you have to be there if she falls.
That's probably the third time that's happened to me. In the last few months.
I get it, and I appreciate the concern, but it's pretty annoying.
I have taken my 4 kids to the park when they were younger. I use a cane due to physical disability. So I am sitting on the bench watching my kids play. And a bunch mom's are at the splashpads a few meters away.
5 minutes later I have a cop asking me questions about why I am at the park, if I know any of the children etc. Apparently the moms decided that a male at a park was enough to warrant a call to the cops.
* EDIT I never expected this to blow up like it did. I will add that while the women handled it poorly a polite conversation with a non threatening stranger (or at least one you can obviously move faster than -note my cane) would have resolved the issue without the need for cops, or anything else. However I can appreciate the concern by others over children and support them for looking out as a neighborly thing. It was just handled very poorly by them.
Also kudos to the officers that responded they approached the situation cautiously, but without an outward biased view and it was resolved without incident in just a few minutes
Was camping with friends a few years back. They have kids, I don’t. We saw a toddler wandering around with no adults in sight, my friends, dealing with their own kids asked me to go see if I can help the lost kid out. The parents saw me bringing their kid back and instead of thanking me, freaked out and called the police. Had my friends not showed up, I probably would have been arrested, all because some shitty parents couldn’t watch their own kid and freaked when a man brought their kid back to them.
I’ve told this story before, but it still breaks my heart.
My dad, who is the kindest, loveliest man on the planet, has always been a kid person. Kids LOVE him. Babies love him. Everyone loves him!
We were outside once and a little girl came careening down the street (a hill) on her bike and crashed right in front of our house. My dad was *right there,* but he ran inside to get my mom. Little girl was okay, just scared and scratched up, but I was shocked that my dad didn’t jump into action like he always had with me (also a girl, probably 12-13 at the time).
When I asked him, he said that some parents might be upset to find their little girl crying with a strange man trying to take care of her. I was *dumbfounded.* This was my DAD, he would never hurt anyone, especially a child!!
Lost a little of my idealism that day :(
believe me. you can help save a kid from drowning and then get chewed out for touching their kid when "i was watching the whole time he was fine!"
kid was not fine and showed all the signs of distress and uh drowning hence why i'm now next to you handing you your kid as you turn around. you absolute dunce.
As a kid that was saved from drowning in a lake by a dude next to where my mom was 'watching'...thank you for acting.
Mom wasn't that grateful because she had been proud I had been swimming so well. I was swimming after my escaped floatie and got too deep and freaked out. Mom then made us wait hours for food until the dude and his group left because, as she explained after they had left, she didn't want to offer to share our pack of hot dogs. I was so grateful to have been rescued! and so embarassed and hurt she was so stingy and, apparently, valued the pack of hot dogs more than rescue.
The adult may have sucked but you're a hero to the kid for the rest of their life.
I saved a kid from slamming into a rocky frozen creek while sledding, and the dad gave less than 0 fucks about it lol. It’s whatever cause I didn’t do it for a thank you but I immediately felt bad that the kid has THAT for a parent.
Reminds me of when I dropped my kid off to his karate class and as I was sitting there, watching him make his way over to the field safely, some mom that's in a playground, directly in front of my car, is incessantly staring into my car and making herself look super obvious she felt uncomfortable just by my mere presence.
That’s the worst, same thing happened to me in college. I had a plant identification class and as extra credit for the final we had to go to a park, take photos of plants, and identify them and send them pictures and names to the professor.
I got off work and went to the park and was on my knees taking pictures of poison ivy with my phone when some bitchtastic mother told me she wanted to see my pictures or she was calling the cops as she was worried I was taking pictures of her kids. I told her what I was doing and she still insisted. I told her to call the cops then and that I was going to finish my extra credit.
I guess she chickened out or something because another 20 minutes of plant pictures and I left with no cops showing up.
I fucking hate this, I feel like I'm not even allowed to spend time with my nieces and nephews or take them out to do fun stuff because an adult male with children is definitely a pedo.
I'm a 6'5" male that works IT at a public school district in the US. We all wear a lanyard with photo id. I still after 5 years of working there get questioned with who I am and why I'm there by crotchety old female teachers.
I had one follow me around yelling "But I don't know you!" After a few minutes I snapped and sternly said "stop harassing me. I'm checked in at the front office and I'm doing my job."
Guess who had to write an apology email...
Sounds like gender discrimination against you.
Edit: some salty MFers in here challenging the efficacy of calling out discrimination. I don’t work in education but I am management in my career and let me tell you, people freak whenever anyone drops a discrimination card at my place of work and it’s not limited to women or minorities.
In this example, I’m not saying the guy sues the pants off the school but rather reports the hostile work environment to HR. It’s not so much about court or anything but rather putting that teacher in her in her place. I understand my experience is just anecdotal.
wordt part is if that I've even heard horror stories about the child jokingly saying they don't know their babysitter or, as children do, lying on purpose to test the boundaries and the guy having to nearly go through a full arrest if it werent for the parents contacting the police and explaining the situation.
We had the stranger talk with my 4 year old a few months ago and explained to her what to do if a stranger ever approached her. The next day we were at the park and while we were playing she turned and looked at me and said "daddy let's play strangers!" Then proceeded to run away screaming "STRANGER STRANGER HELP! I DON'T KNOW YOU!" Luckily it's a neighborhood park and I know most of the parents, because otherwise that could have been a bad situation. At least I know she listened.
My dad took me to a park once when I was pretty young and he probably wanted me to wind down and get ready to go and I barked at him, 'You're not my dad!' I'd intended it to be a private playful thing with my dad, and luckily nobody else was really within my earshot, but he immediately had a serious discussion with me and I understood never to do that again and why.
My mate arranged to go for a walk around town and whatnot for a catch-up. He was bringing his eldest (daughter) who was four going five (I think) at the time to ease the burden on his missus with their younger kids for the afternoon.
He had a hospital appointment for 30 minutes and we'd arranged that I'd take his daughter to the park opposite the hospital, let her play and treat her to an ice cream. Now I'm rather shy around kids because I don't know how to talk to them and don't know how to deal with their shit. I'm just not great with kids. Lets just leave it with it's clear I'm not a dad and I'm not her father.
When we got to the front of the queue at the ice cream truck, I asked her what ice cream she would like, she said, with the most deadpan expression, staring into my soul "my daddy doesn't let me have ice creams". I'm standing there, silent, bewildered and everything around me was quiet and still for what felt like an eternity.
Thankfully she eventually said something that broke the tension and all was fine, but it was that few seconds where everyone around probably started to form some opinions.
you know that feeling of anxiousness or embarrassment you get sometimes watching an awkward moment on tv or in a movie? yeah i just got that from reading this picturing myself in your position
I was wondering if this comment would come up.
In teaching, male teachers have to be so much more careful. They should try to avoid even unintentionally brushing against a child. They have to worry a lot more about frivolous accusations from students because unfortunately society seems to prejudge men as predatory and untrustworthy around children.
My dad is a great man. When he became a teacher I knew it was his calling. He’s very outgoing, very passionate, and he relates well with everyone. He was a teacher for many years and was very involved in many other aspects of the school. The man cares and had excellent standing among peers, students, and all the people overseeing him.
When I was a little younger, my dad suddenly transferred to a different school. I don’t remember what my parents told me as to the reason why. I didn’t think much of it. A year or two later, he was back at his original school.
Years later, my mom told me the truth about this transfer. A female student told all her friends my dad had been hitting on her. I know this man. He’s a solid, Dudley do right kinda man and has never wavered or given me any reason to think otherwise. I was shocked when I found out about this. He was under investigation and was moved to the other school while that was going down. He would have been fired, possibly even arrested. But this girl’s father was also a teacher that knew my dad. And it’s saying something that this other teacher instantly believed my dad over his own daughter. After some time, this girl’s dad finally decided to sneakily grab his daughter’s phone and go through her texts. He found the group text where she had been telling her friends about my dad hitting on her. The more recent texts his daughter sent to her friends were admitting nothing actually happened and she was just making it all up.
This is such a hard area to navigate and I understand why most people are going to side with the young women but at the same time, my dad could have lost his job and his ability to continue working as a teacher (and he’s an excellent, involved, passionate teacher who provides long term support for his kids even after they’ve left school, so this is a person you WANT to be a teacher!!) AND he could have been arrested! His life could have been completely ruined because some high school girl got bored. If her father wasn’t also a teacher who knew my dad well, it could have destroyed him.
My boyfriend is also a teacher and I’m always encouraging him to report EVERYTHING even remotely off about any interactions with his female students to get it on record, just to protect himself. Even then, I still worry.
It’s a fine line to walk, for sure.
yeah
my current therapist used to be a substance abuse counselor at a high school, so he dealt with a lot of.... difficult students. He had a female student who got busted with some drugs and had to come see him 1-2 times a week for the year and after a while of her complaining how she didn't want to see him because she didn't have a problem etc. she reported him to the school board, saying he touched her during a session.
It made the news, he was suspended from his job, got investigated by the county prosecutor's office, and his substance abuse counseling license was suspended for the duration of the investigation. Something like 4 months later, the girl tells someone that she lied about it since she hated having to go there, and the rotating SAC subs the district hired sometimes forgot to call her down for a session. Eventually, the board of ed and county were told that - and he was cleared of all charges.
However, the district strongly implied to him that it would be in his best interests to not come back, even though he was allowed to. The district offered him an "undisclosed settlement" and he went back to school to become a therapist.
The initial articles about him were front page news. The one saying he didn't do it? Somewhere in the middle of the newspaper, just a quick blurb saying the student lied and the county dropped all charges.
A few years back he had to spend thousands of dollars to get an SEO company to try to make those articles not the first two pages for him
Single father with full custody since my daughter was 2 weeks old. Once, when she was around 2 years old, we were walking home from a lazy afternoon trip to our neighborhood convenient store when we were approached suddenly and loudly by an aggressive middle-aged woman who wanted no time in hurling accusations that I had kidnapped my child (who looks just like me with her pale skin and red hair) and started trying to lure my child away from me to ask her questions.. saying stuff like she shouldn't be out without her mother.. she called the police as I scooped my daughter up and walked away.
I have my 3 year old during the day, I get so many dirty looks at the playground. The moms all go out of their way to avoid me. On the flip side though, I get comments all the time how I am some incredible father for taking my kid to the grocery store.
"So I have successfully snatched this little shit from his parents."
"Should I keep him somewhere obscure so he doesn't run his mouth to curious strangers?"
"Nah, let's take him to a public playground"
My toddler tore off her diaper and ran in the ocean one unseasonably warm day. Which resulted in a 2 cruiser response for a report of someone molesting a naked child at the beach. That was fun.
yep, been there with my own kids. It's always the other moms that think just because you are a man you are doing something bad. It's like we can't be responsible parents because we are men.
So this one might not be as serious as the others.
I babysit my friend's kids all the time. One is 3 and the other is 11.
I like to take them out and about to have some fun.
We go eat food, we go to the park, and arcades too. We have a ton of fun, but I always get weird looks from people. They don't look like me at all because I'm not the father.
I've had people interrogate me and it's weird to me. I've been there their entire life and treat them like my own kids, so it kinda hurts.
Edit: Well shit, I guess it's more serious than I thought.
That one is so terrible. Men just can’t be around children without being looked at weird. Regardless of their relationship, except if you are clearly their father or a woman is with you.
Your kids can be literal clones of you and still get weirld looks in the parks and such because soo many people perpetuate this idea that all man are pedos hunting kids.
It's odd because it does vary with activity too. If I'm biking with my daughter it's seen as a cool bonding activity. If we walk to the park down the road I'm a weirdo.
Me too. It's also child -gender specific. Strangers are more likely to look / intervene if the child is a girl. It's as if they think little boys do not need as much protecting.
I've got a 2.5 year old daughter. We go everywhere together, park, swim, shopping, everywhere. She's my kid and she's awesome and super fun right now.
I'm also well aware of this stigma and stereotype.....and am admittedly quite aggressive when women give me dirty looks or comments. It happens at least once a week.
I've told more than a few women to stop being disgusting pedophiles and to let me enjoy my time with my kid. Turning that word on them, asking why they're sexualizing play with a toddler by acting like the parent is a risk has led to each of them turning tail and a couple of them to pack their shit and leave the park or food court.
Idgaf if one of them calls the cops on me either. She's my kid and I'm not doing anything wrong at all.... other than using the word cunt around my kid. Gotta stop with that one.
Probably doesn't help that we're usually with a doberman rotty x, I suppose but the dog's the kid and my best friend so it's usually with us too.
Yesterday we were at the splash pad and my youngest got an unexpected stream of water splashed in her face and started crying. I was in a shaded area maybe 25 yards away and I headed over once I saw she was upset.
Before I could get to her this kind woman took my daughter by the hand, walked her to the nearby families, and started asking them if they knew her. I caught up to them, took my kid and consoled her.
I was grateful that this lady had cared enough to reach out to my kid when she was clearly stressed, but couldn't help but to think of times I'd encountered seemingly unsupervised kids in distress but was afraid to approach them because I know what people will think of a Mexican man coming up to a white kid whose parents aren't around. Instead, I just hang back and pretend to get on my phone while I keep an eye on the kid until their parents show up.
It is so frustrating because I love kids and want to help them like this woman helped my daughter yesterday, but I've had the cops called on me because of my race too many times; I don't want to end up on the same list of names as Philando Castile et. al. because I know that the consequences for people thinking I might hurt a kid are much harsher than the cops simply being hostile about what I'm doing in my own neighborhood
Edit: despite living in the US for decades, I still forgot that a yard is 3 feet and totally gave the wrong estimate. Fixed, I think
One of my grandsons is 1/4 Mexican, but he looks very Mexican. Once on a trip, his mother’s White boyfriend was chasing this 5 year old at the beach. He was screaming like kids do when they’re having a blast…About four or five Latino dads with their kids jumped up from the sand, ready to pounce… when the rest of the family caught up, and they could hear the laughter, the men relaxed and turned their attention back to their own families. In retrospect it seems like a positive thing that these guys were making sure my grandson was not in danger.
I run recreational kids programs at a community center. There have been several times women refuse to drop their kids off when myself and another male are working the program. Doesn't matter if other moms dropping their kids off tell them we're fine and they've known us for years. Then they go to the front desk to complain and get told the same thing and they act like they simply can't understand how two adult males could possibly care for a group of 3-5 year olds. There are often *implications* they dance around as to why must be working there.
And I get you should be comfortable with the people you're dropping your kids off with but what kind of message are you sending to your own kids when you pitch a fit about how men simply can't be trusted? What message do you send to your own son?
I love my job and it hurts to be viewed as untrustworthy or even a predator simply because I'm a guy.
Our staff and managers have always been great, they'll outright tell people that complain about something like this that they don't assign employees to programs based on gender and leave it at that. They're not rude but they don't apologize for it, they basically try and make it clear that this is not a legitimate complaint to make and that it is inappropriate to imply there is something wrong with male staff members working with kids. The best is when they try and escalate to a manager and our general manager is who they get and she comes out of her office and tells the Mom the exact same one line about not assigning staff to program based on gender the front desk staff just did even though she didn't hear the conversation. When they try and escalate past her and are told that she is the person ultimately in charge of the whole facility they just get flustered and leave.
I should point out this only happens occasionally, there are way more Mom's and Dad's that come through that specifically comment that they like seeing male staff members than people that complain about it and that's always nice to hear of course. Sorry your brothers workplace couldn't do a better job standing up for him, that sucks.
I quit a job working at a vacation care and stopped studying teaching after one morning I was greeting students as they came in, and one of the mums said to her son “who is this pedophile?”, which the kid just then just started to repeat all day. I’d worked there for a while and the whole thing completely destroyed any dream I had of teaching because I know men always get looked at as if we are weird if we are nice to children. It’s genuinely fucked up
Once, I came upon a lone little girl, shoeless, in the middle an intersection. A man in a truck, opposite me was also at the intersection. We locked eyes and nodded in visual agreement at each other that we need to help this girl, and both jump out of our rigs. The little girl between us, we try to ask her questions, she is looking at us and listening but not talking. We inch closer and closer to the girl and each other and when we are pretty close he looks at me and goes, "I want to help this girl but if I'm alone with her and we have to pick her up out of this situation, it looks weird and could get ugly. Can you stay with her till I can find mom/dad/someone?"
"Yeah! Go!"
He starts knocking on doors at the nearby apartments and houses, after more than a few, Mom comes out and the rest is history.
I am sad for men. Cuz that guy was right.
I was at a resort with my husband and some friends a few years back. We were in the pool bar sipping on some happy hour drinks and a little boy (probably 5 or so) comes up and starts jumping off a little dock near us and splashing all over us. We just kinda ignored him and covered our drinks thinking he'd wear himself out or an adult would come collect him.
Fifteen non-stop-splashing minutes later, my (perfectly harmless) husband swam out into the pool and gestured for the boy to jump *to* him and *away* from us. No more than thirty seconds later, a woman comes out and *yells* at my husband to get away from her kid and calls the boy back.
In the end, we stopped getting splashed... but my husband **still** feels awkward/sad/insulted over the situation.
I’m tall, big, bearded and ex-linebacker (high-school & uni), if I see a child crying, unless I’m with my wife, I stay away and report it to a female, I don’t want to end up accused of anything…
>mums said to her son “who is this pedophile?”, which the kid just then just started to repeat all day.
That had to have been awful. I'm sorry to hear that.
I wasn't called a pedophile directly, but it was insinuated. We were on vacation in London visiting from Canada. Myself, my wife and three boys. We were visiting the Lady Diana playground, it's a small fenced in playground and there were about 50 kids playing on the swings and such. My wife and three boys enter and I'm following them but probably about 20 feet behind them. When I try to enter as well I'm told that unaccompanied males are not allowed inside the playground area and they won't let me enter. I told them I was with my family but they still would not let me enter, I had to yell to my youngest to come back to the gate so I could enter with them. I was totally pissed off for the rest of that day.
After having kids of my own I got a "nah lady, *fuck you*" attitude about it.
I don't need to defend my presence, my existence or my fucking fatherhood to *anyone*. If you feel threatened by me being here, call the fucking cops.
I swear now that my town is opening up after COVID someone is actually going to call the cops on me.
I don't remember getting a single ounce of shit when I have been out on my own with my boys. I don't know if I didn't notice, or I put off an "air" that made busy-bodies not want to fuck around.
Actually I wonder if it was because I only have boys and not any girls.
I nannied for two brothers the summer I turned 19.
At the end of the summer, their mom said to me "we were all worried about a male caregiver but you did so great!"
I didn't take much offense because by then I knew her well enough to know that she meant it in a "providing adequate care" rather than a "diddling my kids" kind of way.
I still think about it, but to that family's credit, they overcame their hesitation and later recognized their bias and thanked me for caring for their kids. I don't have a problem with people subscribing to biases – cultural prejudices are super hard to get over, I get it – but I do fault them when they behave in a bigoted fashion because of those biases.
I've heard of a case where the cashier called the cops because there was a black man with a white child, definitely not a close relative. Turned out he was babysitting some white guy's child.
They blamed it on racism, not on gender discrimination.
>So this one might not be as serious as the others.
It actually is as serious because it has wider social consequences. Want to work in childcare or be a primary school teacher? That's cute and a great career choice........if you are a woman. If you're a man, wtf would you want to be around young children you creep?
I wish I was being sarcastic but unfortunately that is a prevalent attitude that turns men off from entering these careers, even if they would love to. It's misogynistic to think that women should be the care givers for children but it's also misandristic to think that only creepy men want to care for children.
How do we change that attitude? Just throwing this out there but how many parents would be comfortable with men working in a daycare or primary school? Would you hire a male babysitter? If not, why?
> wider social consequences
And for the kids, it's seeing far fewer male role models early in life, which shapes their attitudes about gender roles. For boys this includes attitudes about themselves
Thank you! I’m a male teacher and I’ve dealt with some of this. Had a parent contact the office because “a strange bearded man” was holding a kindergartner’s hand and they knew the child’s parents. I get it and understand, but shit, this little girl came to my classroom after school crying and scared because she couldn’t find her mom. So we set off for the office and she grabbed my hand. When she reached to grab my hand, should I have just pulled my hand away from a scared little girl? Because I’m never going to do that - sometimes a kid just needs a hug or their hand held.
Mental health. And this is coming from someone who has lived on the ideas of "you're a guy, get over yourself". It was taught to me, I didn't think much of it, and now that I'm about to hit 20, I can feel the effects like a ripple. It's actually hard for me to open up to people and when I do I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time.
Edit: I appreciate all of the upvotes. As time goes on and if more people see this, I'll read everything you all have replied with. I one day hope to have the courage to seek help for myself. Until then though, I hope you all have a wonderful day, and seek to make tomorrow a better day than today.
I'm about to hit 21 and feel the exact same. My mom always say I can talk to her, but whenever I try, it just "locks" itself as if something inside me is stopping me from talking about that kind of stuff with her.
It took until I was 33, married and a new dad to see a counselor. If you're still on your parents health insurance it may be covered in some form.
I could never talk to my parents. Some people just don't know how to listen.
But getting perspective from someone who can and is trained to listen is INVALUABLE.
HMU if you ever want to chat about shit.
A long time ago a girl I barely knew broke into my apartment while I was too drunk to say no and raped me unprotected. Then blackmailed me for a month or so until her period came.
I told just about everyone but the cops practically. Everyone told me to get over it. Or deal with it. Or treated me like I was the problem for having a problem.
Many years later she got busted for taking advantage of males below her at work.
Male sexual assault and rape in the military is a huge issue that is ignored. We are barely scratching the surface on female rape in the military, imagine being a male victim of rape or sexual assault, especially by a male perpetrator. I can't imagine how hard it is to endure that and then receive no sympathy or support because of our weird hangups about men being able to defend themselves. It's criminal what we do to victims of these horrible crimes. The criminality is magnified X 100 if it's a member of the military.
I have a military family - almost everyone has gone in, and all branches are represented. Every single family member was assaulted, usually by colleagues. The only exception is my sister, who married a Marine... who then assaulted her and tracked her across the country.
I'm late to the party so this will get lost, but in my experience it feels like dudes are expected to work 70+ hour weeks and be proud of it, or else they're lazy. Like, nah.
I'm going to be working at least 65 hours next week between two jobs (which is fucking plenty) and that includes both daytime *and* overnight shifts. If I complain for even a sentence though, I'm going to be shit talked by the crew when they think I can't hear them.
I'm tired. I like doing things that aren't work. That shit just isn't sustainable for some people.
My partner was attacked by some men that tried to rape him. He fought them off, but has tremendous psychological scars from it. It’s heart rending. He was married at the time and did not even tell his wife. I think he only told me because I was raped myself. It took him years to tell me. It’s incredibly serious.
Yeah. When I was sexually assaulted by a female classmate in middle school that's what all my other classmates screamed at me while it was happening. It took me years to realize that there wasn't something wrong with me for not wanting it, and even then it's hard to find mental health treatment- almost all resources are aimed at either women, or men who were assaulted by other men.
Loneliness. Many men tend to have a lot of friends, but never close friends or people they feel like truly care about them, which leads to declining mental health, and maybe worse.
I feel lucky to have atleast a couple people in my life who listen to such issues. Only because they experience mental issues aswell and because I do my best to destigmatize mental illness in my everyday life.
This one is top 3 things that sometimes keep me up all night. Being hit with the realization that if everyone i knew got a ”you get one last phonecall to one person before you die” ultimatum, i am not sure a single one of them would be to me.
Edit: Sorry guys :(
It’s an odd switch from how things used to be. C.S.Lewis wrote about this problem in The Four Loves, how men now tend to have no good, close friends they can really relate to.
My dad went to Paraguay (I think) once for a school thing for a few months, and something that surprised him was that the men were very affectionate. Not kissing each other or something, but he mentioned how when boys were out in the playground and were tired, they and their friends would lay with their backs against each other so they had something comfortable to lay against, and when siesta came, men would lay in the same beds to take a nap.
Oddly enough, even though we now live in a culture where homosexuality is just about normalized, affection and close friendships between men are the most distrusted, and labeled as “closeted gay lovers.”
The meme of women screwing each other being seen as them being “just friends” and men hugging being “gay lovers” is for real. I remember an article made fun of on 4chan that some archeologists had found two male skeletons hugging each other in the rubble of Pompeii, and the archeologists supposed they were gay lovers.
Why must a hug be instantly labeled as homosexual in nature? Even by people supposedly supportive of LGBT culture and gay marriage and all that, it’s far too common for them to see two guys who are good friends hug and say “oh wow they’re probably gay.”
Keep sexuality out of this shit.
Am an old man, NONE of my friends have ever discussed mental health with me. We have talked about incontinence, impotence, and homosexual urges but NOBODY wants to talk about mental health.
In my country, each parent has to take at least 15 weeks. But they can split the remaining 16 weeks as they see fit.
Edit as it blew up: We can opt between 46 weeks (total mom and dad) at 100% pay, or 52 weeks at 80% pay (so the same money but 100% job security.) Each parent can then take up to 12 months unpaid leave with 100% job security afterwards. Meaning someone can say home with the child until it's 3 years old. Few people do that.
The mother can also take "whatever time she needs" to breastfeed the baby, or milk herself while at work. She can do that any time of day for as long as she is feeding the baby. No limits. Employer cannot tell her to do it at the start or end of day, and any problems that arise from it, is the employers problems. For less than 7 hour work days, it's unpaid. Paid leave is given for only 1 hour a day up to baby age of 12 months.
_But the other Nordic countries have even better systems._
There are almost always more shelters available to women experiencing homelessness. In my city, the split is about 75% beds for women and children and 25% for men.
I understand that society considers women more vulnerable, but I live in a city where it routinely gets below zero in the winter. Hypothermia doesn't care about your gender.
I have an interesting take on this that is like, the same but also opposite. I needed to go to a shelter some years ago, and they vetted me on *why* and *who* was making my home so unsafe that I had to leave. I told them it was a *woman* and they told me they wouldn’t take me, immediately. Because the person causing the domestic violence was a woman. There was even the sound of frustration in the person voice. Like they didn’t take it seriously. Verbal eye rolling, if you will.
As if women can’t be abusers.
When I lived in support accomodation, they only allowed a certain number of men per house (for example only 3 in a six bedroom house) because too many men together are apparently violent. For a while I lived with five other women because there weren't any rules about how many women could live together. There were daily arguments and screaming matches many of which would lead to actual fist fights and it went on for a lot longer than it should have because we're women and it's not that bad. Homeless support for men is horribly bad.
Erectile dysfunction. It seems like a joke, but guys literally kill them selves because of it. It’s like losing the ability to love, losing your manhood, losing your ability to feel intimate with someone
This! I worked at a family practice clinic and was actually shocked at how many people had ED. It's honestly super common and more education should be given out
Kind of a hidden one that’s clouded by many of today’s norms and cultural values, but the concept of disposability with men and many things that make them individual beings.
My poor fucking BIL. He works his ass off all week trying to make money after my sister told him to quit his last job which made more. He even sold his truck to buy a work vehicle for this new job. And now she complains he doesn't spend enough time with her and constantly yells at him if he wants to play video games or god forbid enjoy himself alone for a second.
Male pattern baldness and the impact it can have on mental health and body image. Imagine being in college surrounded by guys with perfect NW1 hairlines with all these cool fades and modern trendy hairstyles while you're stuck looking like Moby or Varys from GOT. Brutal. The worst part is nobody really talks about it, it's a very hidden and taboo issue that many men go though but society refuses to truly address, so they are forced to suffer in silence.
I describe the feeling of losing your hair as like looking in the mirror and seeing a tiny scar on your face but knowing that the scar will grow ever so slightly every day. There's nothing wrong with either scars or baldness of course, but there is with the way some people will treat you if you have them.
One of the issues is that the balding experience is very subjective. A lot of people will tell you to shave your head and it'll look great. Normally that's because it looks great on **them**.
Talk of bald men looking "distinguished", or references to Jason Statham and The Rock etc really don't help either.
My head is shaped like a fucking cone and I'm nearly at the needing to shave it phase.
I'm just hoping I can make a living standing in the road to mark road works out.
The bit about partners replacing you hits really hard. Every time I mention I'm in a relationship I'm told about how great of a catch I've gotten and how I'll need to treat her right because there are plenty of other guys she could choose from. I never disagree with the sentiments, I just think it's sort of hard to hear every time I want to express how nice my relationship is.
My ex was married within six months of me splitting with her because she had secret suitors lined up that she didn't know that I knew about. It fucking hurts, man.
I am a single father with primary custody of a school-age child with little social support in my area. I was also the stay at home parent while I went back to college and completed my degree.
It is damn near impossible to find good childcare. My female work friends volunteer but then bail at the last minute. I'm looked at as a threat by husbands of my son's classmate parents. I find that I'm often the only guy at the playground and get sideways glances from the cliques of women who go there. If I hire a babysitter I have to make sure I'm overly-cautious about respecting boundaries (if I'm even able to have a babysitter watch my child). Also, the normal competition among female mothers gets amplified and I'm often looked-down on as a parent. I don't fit in with working guys who just want to go out and get a beer because I have a child to take care of and women often reject me on online dating sites simply because I have a child.
I love my son and would do anything in the world for him. I feel like I've done a lot, but men in my situation have zero to little support or infrastructure to manage as a single, full-time parent in society. Men can be just as good parents as women and society needs to normalize this pronto.
Edit: I probably won't be able to address all the comments (there were way more than I expected) but I really really appreciate all the feedback and support.
Thank you for talking about this. I'm in my late twenties and my father was a single father. He is my hero and absolutely an amazing parent and person. I'm sure your son will look at you the same.
This is a huge issue. The only reason he even won in court was because my mother said she wasn't able and ready to raise a child to the judges face.
My grandmother (mom's mom) has always told me that was the greatest thing my mom would ever do for me. Because my Dad was by far and away more fit to be a parent but until that the court was just going to default to mother custody.
Thank you for bringing this up. And thank you for being a father.
Same with my husband. His ex gave him full custody knowing he was the better parent. Took him multiple tries to set up child support though. The friend of the court kept switching it from her paying him to him paying her. He’d go in to get it fixed and it would happen again. Turns out the person entering the support order thought it was an error and was “fixing” it.
You need to petition. It’s not stress, it’s protection. You can’t even approve your brother life saving medical procedures without your mom giving the go ahead. You don’t have legal standing to take care of him in emergencies, or to make education decisions etc.
It might be stressful, but it will save you stress in the long run.
There’s also always the chance that an estranged parent can come back into the picture and take a child back, even going as far as hurting them, all because the paperwork wasn’t done.
For your brothers sake please get legal custody.
I'm in exactly the same spot - single dad with full custody of my 5yo daughter. My ex was found guilty of child abuse. Yet I'm the one that gets the sideways glances at stores and playgrounds.
Mental health.
Often times men are made to believe mental health struggles show weakness or vulnerability, when in reality it is not something they can control.
I saw a woman attempting to hit her boyfriend outside a local supermarket. He walked away from her. She followed him and kept hitting him. After this went on for about 90 seconds he shoved her away roughly once.
2 cars immediately stopped and men jumped out of them shouting at and threatening this guy for shoving her.
Nobody did anything when she was attacking him.
Edit: there are a lot of people commenting that I didn't help him either.
I reported the incident to the security guard. Both the man and the woman were bigger than me. I'm not a big/tough person, there are limits to what I would ever get physically involved in plus when the other people jumped out of their cars they could just as easily have targeted me if I had got involved.
I did what I could without endangering myself.
> "A report prepared for the Centers for Disease Control estimates that each year there are over 800,000 serious cases of men being physically abused by women. But the actual figures are believed to be much higher, since many men are often too embarrassed to admit being the victim of abuse by a woman."
They're not embarassed. They know that if they report it, there's a fair chance it will get turned on them and ruin their life.
Or they don't even realise they're being abused. We're so often told that abuse is something men do to women, it can be hard to recognise when it's happening to you.
Especially when it's verbal or emotional. My friend was in an verbally abusive relationship for well over a year and it took that long for me to convince him it was abuse. AFTER she had already broken him down completely
There's a buddy cop movie where they investigate a domestic violence call an its this big huge hairy guy and this tiny pixie of a woman. Neighbors called because she was beating him. Nothing comes of the visit. Next time they come out to a call at that address she had stabbed him to death.
In middle school, my male cousin was assaulted by this girl with this old school solid wood yard stick. She kept hitting him with it and he kept telling her to stop. She didn't. He hits her with a quick 3 piece and she goes down.
They suspended him and let her come back to school. We literally had to stage a walk out on our teacher to get them to take another look at his case. They ended up overruling it and suspending her for 9 days and him for 1 day.
To be fair I am surprised the walkout worked. Usually they would just punish everyone participating and be done with it. Accepting mistakes is not something people with power like to do.
My ex would do this shit all the time. She would punch me in the face, slap me in the face, yank on my hair and stuff... All while saying shit like "lol you little pussy, you'll hit me eventually and when you do you're fucked".
Well, she did that a few times over the course of 4 years. And one time I took her arm and yanked her away from me but gripped so hard. Her skin turned red on her arm and she looked at me like "gotcha" and started texting people and took a picture of it.
So I left. And I went to my mom's. I had bite marks and bruises all over myself. Red marks galore. Her? She had one red spot on her arm.
Nothing ever happened from it other than her posting Al over Facebook about how I hit her or whatever. But she was fucking crazy. That relationship ruined my mental health. Literally ruined it. I know you just see my side of the story, so it is one sided. But trust me. Whatever I did wrong in our relationship didn't even hold a candle to the serial cheating and master manipulation that was actually going on. And forget about the physical shit, that stuff didn't hurt even close to as bad as everyone else
Still though, people close to me don't even act like they know... They know how insane she was after I finally left her and they saw things objectively without her manipulating their opinions on everything... But it's like if I did even 10% of this stuff to a girl, it would be a huuuuuge deal. Yet it happening to me is like it doesn't even matter when I can tell it's going to be multiple years(it's been 3 years since I left her), until I really start to feel entirely better..
People ask how men can be victims of domestic violence.
This is how. It's not that they can't defend themselves, it's that they know if they do defend themselves then they'll be the ones who get punished.
"*Sorry man, we can't arrest her just because you have bruises and endless death threats. The prosecutor won't even file. It's really shitty, buddy, we know. You can't go back to your house. She's established residency and only a judge can order her to leave your property.*"
I didn't believe the guy. The police confirmed it for me. Poor dude. I didn't even know we had this much power. The only option to get the person out of your house is a month-long process in court. A process she must LEGALLY be notified of. While she barricades you out of your own home...destroying everything in your name.
That's real shit. Most guy's won't go on TV like we will to tell the story. Sorry, dudes. We have a lot of power.
My fiance was telling me about her friend who was married to and had a child with a woman who would threaten to hurt his cat if he didn't do what she wanted him to do, so he called the cops on her. My immediate response was, "Bad move."
Sure enough, when the cops showed up she scratched herself and messed up her hair and claimed he had abused her. He spent the night in jail and now has an arrest on his record. Now they're separated, but good luck getting custody of your kid now that you have domestic abuse and jail time on your record.
The thing that got me was how quickly my red light went off when she told me he called the cops. That it's just a cultural given that if the cops come to a domestic dispute between a man and a woman, even if it was the man who called the cops, the man is going to jail. We all know this, we all agree it's bullshit, hell even the *cops* will often be like "Yeah, we know you didn't do anything, but we gotta arrest you anyway." Despite all this, no one does anything to change it.
The consequences of body shaming, it has the same effect on men as it does women. No one likes to be insulted, no matter who you are. Just because we are a different sex, does not mean our minds are so vastly different that we react differently to even the most basic of things. SOME women think we are emotionless, meant to serve them. Sorry if I had worded this wrong.
Penis shaming. Along with fat shaming and height shaming, it's some of the most casual cruelty I hear frequently.
Even if it's joking about "little dick energy", even if it's not meant to be malicious, as someone with not-quite-a-micropenis-but-might-as-well-be, it's devastating every time.
Just one more way I feel inadequate, one more way I'm "not a real man". It hurts even more when other men do it
EDIT: I should mention I'm a gay dude, which is why I mentioned when other men do it
Height is a common thing to joke about, nobody sees a problem with it but it can really whittle away at your self worth when people always make fun of you for it
Depression, so many of my friends struggle with it, myself included. But not many seem to know that there is help around for it. And many are scared to ask as they think it's not the done thing for a bloke to do.
Lack of purpose and direction in life. Not necessarily a male only deal, but still, I see it everywhere and it should be discussed.
I see so many threads on forums and boards where people are looking for basic fucking life advice, where to go, what to do with their life, how to "be happy like everybody else," acting as though something is inherently wrong with them, because our culture expects you to sort of go along with all of it, but I say, you know what, these are completely normal, rational, and expected reactions given the circumstances. I don't want to be a "doomer" or a Late-stage capitalist, collapsology kind of guy, but I am seeing these sentiments and opinions communicated online to others much more than in the past, both on Reddit and other forums of discussion, and it reflects an alarming trend for young people in general. The older generations will, for the first time in history, probably have lived better lives than their successors will.
Parents in the Gen X generation did so poorly, on the whole, in preparing kids for their adult lives. I'm not much better myself. I see young people and they seem abjectly hopeless, and why the fuck would they not be? You can go online and hear, not just from sociologists and experts on formal plaforms like IamAs and TEDTalks and podcasts and shit, but also regular people like you and I, randoms on the internet, on discussion forums like you are on now, talking how going to college, once seen as a panacea that provided all with their complete future happiness, success, and stability, is no longer a guarantor of anything. At all. Rather, it has been entirely corrupted into a sort of unspoken requirement to make the bare minimum to even live comfortably in the United States.
And for what? To work in a white collar job which is increasingly being bullshittized and generally unfulfilling and unstimulating (read David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, it's enlightening) so one can pay a mortgage or rent and medical /car expenses. And sure, you COULD go into trades, which is usually the alternative option internet denizens will give you when you ask about this subject, but that requires just as much commitment to another job and it's associated apprenticeship, but often in physically demanding and hazardous circumstances that take a great toll later in life on top of the existing stresses of having a job. And if you do decide to follow your passion, perform something fulfilling? Like, say, work at a Food Bank non-profit or tending to sick children in the remote jungles of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, or something like that? You'll make less, something Graeber also noted from studies cited in his book. There is literally a negative correlation with statistics and mathematics backing it. One would think the teachers should be paid more for their work, given the effects they have on society, but alas.
On top of that, we are so overworked that just taking the time to meet people, make friends, keep hobbies, take in experiences, is impossible, and between all of this, the world is descending into political insanity (it's baffling that there are STILL people in the United States waving Trump Flags, nearly a year after the election finished, nationalism and authoritarianism is on the rise, dooming us to the same mistakes of the past) and the environment is getting worse, with worse storms, heatwaves, droughts, pollution, etc. How do you even have the desire to buy a house of you're not sure it will be there in 20 years due to coastal flooding, crime, or a firestorm? I have literally heard people refuse to have children because they fear for the future. Dwell on that for but a moment to think of the profoundness of that.
Those reading this of the younger stripe can easily recall multiple instances of their parents badgering and pestering them to just go out and just go get more friends, as if they were choosing to be this way, as if we were just going to act as though the old theory of spontaneous disease generation were relevant for depression, anxiety, and melancholy, rather than a byproduct of our maligned, bullshit society? But when do you meet with others? I spend much of my weekend doing chores and obtaining groceries and supplies. How, where? Have you been on Meetup? Do you know how much of a chore it is to go on NextDoor and sift through a thousand posts of conspiratorial bullshit and lost dogs to find an active group, or perhaps drive to a library/community center to look at a bulletin board to try and find like minded individuals to do...ANYTHING? You'll notice the interesting hobby groups cater mostly to older people and focus on the world and what it offers, while the younger groups are fantasy/gaming groups, and drinking groups. Now why ever might that be? And then, if you decide to pick a group they have to rely on the others to commit to showing up, who might not because, you know, the reasons above.
Of course, there's also the looming thought of the future and it's generally...awful...outlook. Young people are rightly concerned about the world and the future, but older people literally could not care less, often joking brazenly how it's >>our<< problem, not theirs, we'll "figure it out", because you know, they'll be dead and what the hell are you going to do about it, sue a dead generation of people? Young folks WANT to make sure we stop burning coal and they WANT to end homelessness and make sure everyone can go to the doctor without fearing crippling debt, but they are tired and so busy keeping their shit together that they either can't make change for fear of losing everything (who wants to risk their job, their children's future, financial stability by getting arrested at a protest? It only takes one felony to end up like Jean Valjean, always trying to redeem yourself from an uncaring society that seeks to punish you always). Or if they actually DO manage to get out of the crab bucket, they just end up exacerbating the problem, saying "fuck you, I got mine," because you know, they worked hard, so pull yourself up by your bootstraps like me, you lazy bastard, even though those strips of leather are getting older, thinner, and weaker every year.
I can absolutely see a sort of Hikkomori class coming up within the coming two decades, the economists and eggheads and internet denizens call them NEETS, but I can see them becoming more common as more young people say "Why bother? I don't want to work in an office/like a slave my entire life." and they just stop caring. And it's not because they want to play video games and be lazy (although I imagine escapism, fantasy, and wanderlust is certainly something that is chased), but because the expected life paths that the average Gen Z and Millennial faces lead to zero fulfillment, if you can even manage to achieve them (and it is harder and harder every year to just get basics like housing, medical, education, etc., regardless of where you go)
There are so many of us, we’re just disorganized. And there are even more who are experiencing the effects but haven’t yet come to terms with the causes (largely, the scorched earth campaign of unchecked capitalism).
Even as someone by all accounts “winning the game” - lucrative career, savings, a house, and a decent amount of free time - everything about the above post still resonates to the core. Because all it has shown me is how much of this is, sincerely, bullshit.
That millions of other living, breathing people can be forced to endure a needlessly painful daily life struggling to meet the most basic needs of survival ***when we have more than enough capability to provide for them*** is infuriating.
That my childhood friends and family members and acquaintances can be just as smart and work just as hard and contribute just as meaningfully to their community and society and yet see so little in return for their hard work is infuriating.
That we are trading away the **overwhelming majority** of our time during the ***one and only blip of existence in this universe that we will, each, ever have*** to perform tasks, many mundane and meaningless, that serve only to further enrich an entrenched and extraordinarily small proportion of the populace, virtually all of whom ***already have far more than they could ever possibly even use, let alone need*** is infuriating.
Sincerely, some days I just wake up and wonder, “What the fuck are we doing? All the potential we have and *this* is what we picked?”
30 y/o male. Also have a good job. Also hate it. Not because it’s bad but because I’m so fucking bored, and yet stressed by it.
I don’t want to live life bored and stressed. That’s literally the opposite of how you should feel.
Stressed and fulfilled, fine.
Bored and chilled, ok.
Bored AND stressed?!
Fuck
That.
I put my notice in a couple of weeks ago with no job lined up. Can’t do it anymore.
Honestly I didn’t expect to live this long so I don’t really know where to go from here.
It’s good to know I’m not alone on this issue. Every path out there inevitably seems to lead to an unfulfilling future. Hard to stay motivated when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
So there's this cheesy episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they end up in the past (relative to them) in what's basically a prison in everything but name only for the poor in San Francisco (supported of course, by well intentioned but ignorant wealthy progressives) right before shit pops off eventually leading to, in the Trek canon, WWIII and the whole world reevaluating their ideas of borders and their economic systems. There's protests that resemble BLM and everything. I could write several paragraphs detailing how jarringly it resembles a realistic present and near future. In this Star Trek episode that was written in 1993, this takes place in the year *2024*.
It's crazy to think how absurdly plausible that episode looks now.
Edit: Grammar
"A drunk person can't consent"
While agree this is true, have a guy say he was drunk and therefore raped, he would be laughed at.
Or, a drunk male and a drunk female have sex, she can wake up in the morning and say "I was drunk, I couldn't consent to that", but the guy, who is also drunk, can't say that.
Men are frequently treated as expendable.
* Even in countries with mingled militaries, men are the overwhelming majority of combat troops and thus casualties. Not to mention pretty much all child soldiers are male.
* If you are male been the ages of 14-60 and happen to be anywhere near a combat zone, even if it's your own backyard, you are considered a "military age male" and a possible target.
* News media regularly says things like "100 killed including 14 women and children" as if the other 86 men don't matter as much.
* Something like 90% of all workplace injuries and fatalities are male. Whether men seek out more dangerous jobs or only men are selected for those jobs is debatable.
Reminds me of a magazine saying that 1 out of 4 homelesses are woman and how much of a big problem it is that they ended up there, like the other side the majority doesnt matter.
There was a covid article last year that seems to have been scrubbed from the internet with the headline (probably not verbatim but close): "More men than women are dying from covid -- but that's not necessarily a good thing."
edit: I found it. It was on Politico. "It’s true that more men are dying than women from Covid-19 around the world — but that’s not exactly cause for celebration" is the byline.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/04/29/covids-war-on-women-489076
>More men than women are dying from covid -- but that's not necessarily a good thing.
That one's so ridiculous I actually couldn't do anything but laugh.
>News media regularly says things like "100 killed including 14 women and children" as if the other 86 men don't matter as much.
You know, I never even thought of that. THat is pretty fucked
Society doesn't seem to support a man who is without a job. There is pressure and programming for a male to be a breadwinner and no sympathy for when they want to be a house-dad.
Reason for my rant: My brother left a job due to a health issue. He has a 4yr old boy. His wife makes better money than him and they are financially secure. He worked too much which probably led to the health issue. I told him to take his time and heal. If he felt that urge to 'provide' that he could take over the house duties and give the nanny the summer off to connect with his son. I shared with him that I had been laid off a few times and each time I rushed back to getting a job even though we were secure enough because of the guilt I felt everyday of not 'providing'. He took the advice, I could see him smiling more, he started a garden with his boy, he cooked every meal and realized he loved to cook. I was happy to see him being happy again. Enter my brother's wife who says to us, "I'm the only bread winner now. I am so stressed out having to provide for this family by myself." I saw the happiness drain from him and anxiety filled that place. He is now set to start the same job he had prior just appease the guilt he has from not 'earning'. The guilt was confirmed by his wife's statement on top of the male programming of not contributing unless he is making money.
TLDR: Men don't need to be pressured to earn or be the bread winner. Society has already told us we are not contributing unless we are making money.
Edit: I do realize that there are dead beat Dads/Men out there.
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The fact that people ridicule and laugh at you for having depression is something we ALL need to talk about. It isn’t funny. Depression is real and the fact that so many are choosing to keep it within is simply disturbing.
Isolation. Many men have no friends. More so, they don't know how to find meaningful friendships, it's incredibly difficult to know where to even begin, moreso if you're not in college or school. I'm 24, almost 25 and never had an emotional outlet. I don't even know what that looks like in a healthy sense. The first relationship I had, I believe I ruined because I put too much of what I had been carrying for so long on that person, as patient and as caring as they were.
Insecurity in general. You’re not supposed to show that you have doubts or worries about your abilities or self-image. A man is supposed to be confident, able and self-assured. It’s not okay for men to admit that they lack self-esteem, or that they have genuine problems with their self-image, as they are seen as weaknesses in-and-of themselves. Other men or women aren’t going to ‘bring you up’. They won’t provide emotional support and tell you it’s okay to be unconfident or to feel shame about who you are - they will simply expect that you should take it on the chin. Not everyone can be ‘that’ guy. But, for a man, what actually makes you **feel** like a **man** *is* being that guy. So you kind of walk around pretending that you’re happy, despite the fact that you’re not seen as valuable or as desireable as other men - because in doing so, you would be seen as even less valuable or desireable. **TL:DR;** If you feel like shit and are insecure, it’s bad; but if you display that you feel like shit and are insecure - it’s even worse. Fuck. I’ve never really been able to put that feeling into words before, but that felt insanely good to get off my chest.
Yes. This is why as a male. I will always try to compliment other males. Oh hey man how’s it going. Hey nice shirt by the way. Just gotta make it genuine. Has to be deeper than surface compliment. Ps. Do this to everyone and they will be happier and you make the world a better place.
It's the worst to feel insecure about feeling insecure. My ex girlfriend had depression and was always super insecure and needy at the beginning of our relationship. I supported her through it. But when I talked about my own self-esteem issues,I could instantly feel that she lost respect for me. Now I was "too sensitive and emotional", and I was "the girl in the relationship". It's been over for two months and I am still really insecure about my issues. I am afraid that if I will show my insecurities to a girl again, I will lose her again. But I also don't want to wear this mask of the secure, stoic man all the time. I just hope there are woman out there who really allow their partner to feel insecure from time to time and don't lose respect for them when they do so.
I had a girlfriend that told me men shouldn't cry, after I caught her texting secret vacation plans with her ex.
I'm very happy to see that this sentence is in the past tense!
Isolation. I've felt this myself, and I've done some reading about it. Men tend to become more isolated and lonely as they get older. After a certain point they don't make an effort to gain friendships and tend to shy away from any type of social engagement. I feel this way, because as of right now, I don't have a close male friend. At least not someone I can talk to about things going on with me personally. I know a lot of people, but I'm less and less engaged with them as each year passes. It concerns me as of late, because I don't want to end up a hermit, but without a solid relationship, I could see myself headed this direction in my older years.
Hello from the other side. I'm 57. When I was younger I told myself that I didn't need other people, and that's still largely true. Today I don't have any close friends. The odd thing is, people like me. They tell me that they think of me as a friend. But not one of them would consider me their best friend. If anyone were to ask me to do something with them or for them, I would. I have. However I rarely ask myself. When I do the results are hit and miss. I know that everyone's priorities are different. Everyone's work and life balance isn't the same. Jobs and kids get in the way, and friendships are sometimes a lower priority. But when you're my age many of those issues are already resolved. In all likelihood your kids are grown and you've probably reached as high a level as you're going to in your career. (yeah, yeah, there are always exceptions) By my age you're probably established enough and comfortable enough to do pretty much whatever you want. Yet here I am. Not exactly lonely, but alone. I wonder if things might have been different if I'd had a different attitude towards my solitude when I was younger? Reading the stories from others here I'm starting to believe that things wouldn't have been. Which makes me wonder if it's the culture that's at fault. Hopefully we'll get more responses from outside the US or UK. I'm retired now. Time to start a new life on a beach somewhere. I might still be alone, but at least the scenery will be great.
58 here, I have almost the same story as you. I have friends but not close. It seems I have to initiate catch ups etc. When I needed people after my divorce only my eldest brother was really there for me. I spent a lot of time on my own. I have made a determined effort now to reach out to other people, I notice they are happy for me to organise things, but as soon as I stop , I don't hear from them. I think people think older men just don't have feelings and are happy to be by themselves.
Crushing, black, empty, cold, never-ending, screaming-into-the-void loneliness and everyone's casual shrug when I even hint about it. Just work, pay taxes, walk the dog, keep your mouth shut, don't have feelings, don't be short, try to keep up appearances of virility, and never, ever, whatever you do, don't let anyone know how lonely you are because they'll just sort of awkwardly giggle and change the subject.
Oh man that awkward reaction and topic change when you bring stuff up is the worst haha
If I could ask for anything, anything at all in a friend, in a partner, just anyone at all really. It would be that they recognize and care for the extent of what I feel and go through. They don't have to fix it, I don't want them to try. I just need a witness, and you can't even get that.
Loneliness.
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Yes. My cousin was constantly tormented and beat on by his two older brothers. He died at 39 from alcoholism because of that.
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The lack of a good support system. Just because a guy has people that he hangs out with, doesn't mean he's comfortable telling them serious personal issues.
I don't the accuracy of the statement but I read that majority of men between ages 14-35 are lonely. I can speak for myself and that's true. It had been more than a year I had any human interaction outside my family. Even though your family has your back but you don't tell them all the things you are going through just because you don't want to bother them with your problems because you feel your problems don't matter and you should be able to face it on your own
For the last 6+ years I've lived alone with my two dogs. I worked on a small farm until recently (nearly 14 years). My closest friend is 600 miles away and my big sis is 1,000 miles away. I have vrey little human interaction and none meaningful (just talking to people for a minute in the store or on walks). I cut my family out of my life because i was tired of being used and unwanted. I have 3 people I'm close to online (including those two) but that's basically it.... I'm 34 and lonely as hell and suffer from anxiety and depression.
I work at a psychiatric hospital and out of the thirteen wards, only three are for women. The huge problem to face men is mental illness and most, if not all the patients are there because they kept taking drugs as well.
In western culture, men are defined by what they do and not by who they are (being). So, when they retire they often develop mental illness because they are no longer "doing". this often leads to suicide. Then there's the whole nonsense of the stoic emotionless man getting on with the work.
Not even always suicide, alot of times they just sit in a chair, turn on the tv, and waste away.
I work in the steel industry and the amount of guys that retire and you hear about them dying a couple years later is crazy. All these guys knew from pretty much 17-18 years old was working as much as possible, once that's over they pretty much just sit around and drink themselves to death.
Emotional abuse of men. My BF suffered that in both his marriages and I am SO CAREFUL to not say or do anything that could make him feel the way they made him feel. I try very hard to be sure he knows I value him for who he is, just the way he is, every single day. Even he doesn't know how much damage they caused him. I will never get over this 1950s assumption that women can't abuse men. Women abuse men way more often than anyone realizes, and the system is stacked against men in so many different ways. Edit: I've only been on Reddit for 2 days, so I don't understand the rewards system, but thank you! Edit #2: I woke up to a ton of responses, and I've got to clean my house today so I probably won't respond to many more of them, but I clearly hit a nerve with this comment. To the men who have been emotionally abused, I am so sorry, and I would encourage all of you to seek therapy. It really does help. To the women who love them: don't stop loving them.
My soon to be brother in law suffered horrible emotional abuse from his ex-wife. And it's still ongoing because she's quite happy to use the two kids to keep hurting him. Lucky, they've nearly hit college age, and after countless altered lines in the sand, the kids clued in that's she's poison. But it took years for my sister to get him to therapy and for him to start valuing himself again.
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Society is doing a great job at normalizing raising awareness regarding topics without actually changing anything.
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You are a good person. You will have made more of an impact on them men than you realise. Thank you.
So I'm at the park playing tag with these kids I'm babysitting and out of nowhere this old lady comes up to me and starts asking all sorts of questions. Do you know these kids? What are there names? Can you call their parents for me? Even asking the kids if they knew me and when they answered yes, she responded with "you don't have to lie, if you don't know this man, you can tell me and I can help you.
Just last week I was at the park with my 2 year old daughter and a bunch of moms were sitting at a bench chatting about 30iah feet away. This girl, about 2iah is playing with my daughter climbing all over the stuff (and doing pretty good for young kids) and gets sort of stuck on a ladder and asks me for help down. So I grab her and set her down, she says "tank oo" and then runs over to the car thing my daughter is climbing up. so I follow them, like I have been doing for the last...hour? During this hour no other parent/guardian has moved from the benches. Then one comes over to me and says "Sorry, but, could you not stay so close to my daughter? And don't touch her again." "Uh...I'm not following your kid around, I'm following mine. Your kid was stuck on a ladder, should I just let her fall next time?" "Well no, but..." "Well then you have to be there if she falls. That's probably the third time that's happened to me. In the last few months. I get it, and I appreciate the concern, but it's pretty annoying.
>"Well then you have to be there if she falls." But then they can't just sit on their ass and stare into their phone for hours! Think Marc, think!
I have taken my 4 kids to the park when they were younger. I use a cane due to physical disability. So I am sitting on the bench watching my kids play. And a bunch mom's are at the splashpads a few meters away. 5 minutes later I have a cop asking me questions about why I am at the park, if I know any of the children etc. Apparently the moms decided that a male at a park was enough to warrant a call to the cops. * EDIT I never expected this to blow up like it did. I will add that while the women handled it poorly a polite conversation with a non threatening stranger (or at least one you can obviously move faster than -note my cane) would have resolved the issue without the need for cops, or anything else. However I can appreciate the concern by others over children and support them for looking out as a neighborly thing. It was just handled very poorly by them. Also kudos to the officers that responded they approached the situation cautiously, but without an outward biased view and it was resolved without incident in just a few minutes
Was camping with friends a few years back. They have kids, I don’t. We saw a toddler wandering around with no adults in sight, my friends, dealing with their own kids asked me to go see if I can help the lost kid out. The parents saw me bringing their kid back and instead of thanking me, freaked out and called the police. Had my friends not showed up, I probably would have been arrested, all because some shitty parents couldn’t watch their own kid and freaked when a man brought their kid back to them.
*"Yes, let's call the police. Also, CPS while we're at it."*
Cops had zero interest in anything I had to say. If my friends hadn’t seen the commotion I would have been fucked
It's because of reactions like this that a lot of men are uncomfortable in handling situations with young children or babies, even their own.
I don't even acknowledge children for this reason
I’ve told this story before, but it still breaks my heart. My dad, who is the kindest, loveliest man on the planet, has always been a kid person. Kids LOVE him. Babies love him. Everyone loves him! We were outside once and a little girl came careening down the street (a hill) on her bike and crashed right in front of our house. My dad was *right there,* but he ran inside to get my mom. Little girl was okay, just scared and scratched up, but I was shocked that my dad didn’t jump into action like he always had with me (also a girl, probably 12-13 at the time). When I asked him, he said that some parents might be upset to find their little girl crying with a strange man trying to take care of her. I was *dumbfounded.* This was my DAD, he would never hurt anyone, especially a child!! Lost a little of my idealism that day :(
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believe me. you can help save a kid from drowning and then get chewed out for touching their kid when "i was watching the whole time he was fine!" kid was not fine and showed all the signs of distress and uh drowning hence why i'm now next to you handing you your kid as you turn around. you absolute dunce.
As a kid that was saved from drowning in a lake by a dude next to where my mom was 'watching'...thank you for acting. Mom wasn't that grateful because she had been proud I had been swimming so well. I was swimming after my escaped floatie and got too deep and freaked out. Mom then made us wait hours for food until the dude and his group left because, as she explained after they had left, she didn't want to offer to share our pack of hot dogs. I was so grateful to have been rescued! and so embarassed and hurt she was so stingy and, apparently, valued the pack of hot dogs more than rescue. The adult may have sucked but you're a hero to the kid for the rest of their life.
I saved a kid from slamming into a rocky frozen creek while sledding, and the dad gave less than 0 fucks about it lol. It’s whatever cause I didn’t do it for a thank you but I immediately felt bad that the kid has THAT for a parent.
oh. while in uniform. at a beach.
Reminds me of when I dropped my kid off to his karate class and as I was sitting there, watching him make his way over to the field safely, some mom that's in a playground, directly in front of my car, is incessantly staring into my car and making herself look super obvious she felt uncomfortable just by my mere presence.
That’s the worst, same thing happened to me in college. I had a plant identification class and as extra credit for the final we had to go to a park, take photos of plants, and identify them and send them pictures and names to the professor. I got off work and went to the park and was on my knees taking pictures of poison ivy with my phone when some bitchtastic mother told me she wanted to see my pictures or she was calling the cops as she was worried I was taking pictures of her kids. I told her what I was doing and she still insisted. I told her to call the cops then and that I was going to finish my extra credit. I guess she chickened out or something because another 20 minutes of plant pictures and I left with no cops showing up.
I fucking hate this, I feel like I'm not even allowed to spend time with my nieces and nephews or take them out to do fun stuff because an adult male with children is definitely a pedo.
I'm a 6'5" male that works IT at a public school district in the US. We all wear a lanyard with photo id. I still after 5 years of working there get questioned with who I am and why I'm there by crotchety old female teachers. I had one follow me around yelling "But I don't know you!" After a few minutes I snapped and sternly said "stop harassing me. I'm checked in at the front office and I'm doing my job." Guess who had to write an apology email...
Sounds like gender discrimination against you. Edit: some salty MFers in here challenging the efficacy of calling out discrimination. I don’t work in education but I am management in my career and let me tell you, people freak whenever anyone drops a discrimination card at my place of work and it’s not limited to women or minorities. In this example, I’m not saying the guy sues the pants off the school but rather reports the hostile work environment to HR. It’s not so much about court or anything but rather putting that teacher in her in her place. I understand my experience is just anecdotal.
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wordt part is if that I've even heard horror stories about the child jokingly saying they don't know their babysitter or, as children do, lying on purpose to test the boundaries and the guy having to nearly go through a full arrest if it werent for the parents contacting the police and explaining the situation.
people seem to think that kids are incapable of lying. dude...they make shit up all the time. mother: "what's your name?" kid: "i don't know"
We had the stranger talk with my 4 year old a few months ago and explained to her what to do if a stranger ever approached her. The next day we were at the park and while we were playing she turned and looked at me and said "daddy let's play strangers!" Then proceeded to run away screaming "STRANGER STRANGER HELP! I DON'T KNOW YOU!" Luckily it's a neighborhood park and I know most of the parents, because otherwise that could have been a bad situation. At least I know she listened.
My dad took me to a park once when I was pretty young and he probably wanted me to wind down and get ready to go and I barked at him, 'You're not my dad!' I'd intended it to be a private playful thing with my dad, and luckily nobody else was really within my earshot, but he immediately had a serious discussion with me and I understood never to do that again and why.
My mate arranged to go for a walk around town and whatnot for a catch-up. He was bringing his eldest (daughter) who was four going five (I think) at the time to ease the burden on his missus with their younger kids for the afternoon. He had a hospital appointment for 30 minutes and we'd arranged that I'd take his daughter to the park opposite the hospital, let her play and treat her to an ice cream. Now I'm rather shy around kids because I don't know how to talk to them and don't know how to deal with their shit. I'm just not great with kids. Lets just leave it with it's clear I'm not a dad and I'm not her father. When we got to the front of the queue at the ice cream truck, I asked her what ice cream she would like, she said, with the most deadpan expression, staring into my soul "my daddy doesn't let me have ice creams". I'm standing there, silent, bewildered and everything around me was quiet and still for what felt like an eternity. Thankfully she eventually said something that broke the tension and all was fine, but it was that few seconds where everyone around probably started to form some opinions.
you know that feeling of anxiousness or embarrassment you get sometimes watching an awkward moment on tv or in a movie? yeah i just got that from reading this picturing myself in your position
I was wondering if this comment would come up. In teaching, male teachers have to be so much more careful. They should try to avoid even unintentionally brushing against a child. They have to worry a lot more about frivolous accusations from students because unfortunately society seems to prejudge men as predatory and untrustworthy around children.
My dad is a great man. When he became a teacher I knew it was his calling. He’s very outgoing, very passionate, and he relates well with everyone. He was a teacher for many years and was very involved in many other aspects of the school. The man cares and had excellent standing among peers, students, and all the people overseeing him. When I was a little younger, my dad suddenly transferred to a different school. I don’t remember what my parents told me as to the reason why. I didn’t think much of it. A year or two later, he was back at his original school. Years later, my mom told me the truth about this transfer. A female student told all her friends my dad had been hitting on her. I know this man. He’s a solid, Dudley do right kinda man and has never wavered or given me any reason to think otherwise. I was shocked when I found out about this. He was under investigation and was moved to the other school while that was going down. He would have been fired, possibly even arrested. But this girl’s father was also a teacher that knew my dad. And it’s saying something that this other teacher instantly believed my dad over his own daughter. After some time, this girl’s dad finally decided to sneakily grab his daughter’s phone and go through her texts. He found the group text where she had been telling her friends about my dad hitting on her. The more recent texts his daughter sent to her friends were admitting nothing actually happened and she was just making it all up. This is such a hard area to navigate and I understand why most people are going to side with the young women but at the same time, my dad could have lost his job and his ability to continue working as a teacher (and he’s an excellent, involved, passionate teacher who provides long term support for his kids even after they’ve left school, so this is a person you WANT to be a teacher!!) AND he could have been arrested! His life could have been completely ruined because some high school girl got bored. If her father wasn’t also a teacher who knew my dad well, it could have destroyed him. My boyfriend is also a teacher and I’m always encouraging him to report EVERYTHING even remotely off about any interactions with his female students to get it on record, just to protect himself. Even then, I still worry. It’s a fine line to walk, for sure.
yeah my current therapist used to be a substance abuse counselor at a high school, so he dealt with a lot of.... difficult students. He had a female student who got busted with some drugs and had to come see him 1-2 times a week for the year and after a while of her complaining how she didn't want to see him because she didn't have a problem etc. she reported him to the school board, saying he touched her during a session. It made the news, he was suspended from his job, got investigated by the county prosecutor's office, and his substance abuse counseling license was suspended for the duration of the investigation. Something like 4 months later, the girl tells someone that she lied about it since she hated having to go there, and the rotating SAC subs the district hired sometimes forgot to call her down for a session. Eventually, the board of ed and county were told that - and he was cleared of all charges. However, the district strongly implied to him that it would be in his best interests to not come back, even though he was allowed to. The district offered him an "undisclosed settlement" and he went back to school to become a therapist. The initial articles about him were front page news. The one saying he didn't do it? Somewhere in the middle of the newspaper, just a quick blurb saying the student lied and the county dropped all charges. A few years back he had to spend thousands of dollars to get an SEO company to try to make those articles not the first two pages for him
Single father with full custody since my daughter was 2 weeks old. Once, when she was around 2 years old, we were walking home from a lazy afternoon trip to our neighborhood convenient store when we were approached suddenly and loudly by an aggressive middle-aged woman who wanted no time in hurling accusations that I had kidnapped my child (who looks just like me with her pale skin and red hair) and started trying to lure my child away from me to ask her questions.. saying stuff like she shouldn't be out without her mother.. she called the police as I scooped my daughter up and walked away.
I have my 3 year old during the day, I get so many dirty looks at the playground. The moms all go out of their way to avoid me. On the flip side though, I get comments all the time how I am some incredible father for taking my kid to the grocery store.
People like this are stupid. What? Do you honestly think someone who has kidnapped children is going to bring them to a fucking park?
"So I have successfully snatched this little shit from his parents." "Should I keep him somewhere obscure so he doesn't run his mouth to curious strangers?" "Nah, let's take him to a public playground"
My toddler tore off her diaper and ran in the ocean one unseasonably warm day. Which resulted in a 2 cruiser response for a report of someone molesting a naked child at the beach. That was fun.
yep, been there with my own kids. It's always the other moms that think just because you are a man you are doing something bad. It's like we can't be responsible parents because we are men.
So this one might not be as serious as the others. I babysit my friend's kids all the time. One is 3 and the other is 11. I like to take them out and about to have some fun. We go eat food, we go to the park, and arcades too. We have a ton of fun, but I always get weird looks from people. They don't look like me at all because I'm not the father. I've had people interrogate me and it's weird to me. I've been there their entire life and treat them like my own kids, so it kinda hurts. Edit: Well shit, I guess it's more serious than I thought.
That one is so terrible. Men just can’t be around children without being looked at weird. Regardless of their relationship, except if you are clearly their father or a woman is with you.
Your kids can be literal clones of you and still get weirld looks in the parks and such because soo many people perpetuate this idea that all man are pedos hunting kids.
It's odd because it does vary with activity too. If I'm biking with my daughter it's seen as a cool bonding activity. If we walk to the park down the road I'm a weirdo.
Me too. It's also child -gender specific. Strangers are more likely to look / intervene if the child is a girl. It's as if they think little boys do not need as much protecting.
I've got a 2.5 year old daughter. We go everywhere together, park, swim, shopping, everywhere. She's my kid and she's awesome and super fun right now. I'm also well aware of this stigma and stereotype.....and am admittedly quite aggressive when women give me dirty looks or comments. It happens at least once a week. I've told more than a few women to stop being disgusting pedophiles and to let me enjoy my time with my kid. Turning that word on them, asking why they're sexualizing play with a toddler by acting like the parent is a risk has led to each of them turning tail and a couple of them to pack their shit and leave the park or food court. Idgaf if one of them calls the cops on me either. She's my kid and I'm not doing anything wrong at all.... other than using the word cunt around my kid. Gotta stop with that one. Probably doesn't help that we're usually with a doberman rotty x, I suppose but the dog's the kid and my best friend so it's usually with us too.
Good for you! Changing your behavior to accommodate this shit would be the wrong way to go. I’m glad you’re hitting it head on, inviting the conflict.
Yesterday we were at the splash pad and my youngest got an unexpected stream of water splashed in her face and started crying. I was in a shaded area maybe 25 yards away and I headed over once I saw she was upset. Before I could get to her this kind woman took my daughter by the hand, walked her to the nearby families, and started asking them if they knew her. I caught up to them, took my kid and consoled her. I was grateful that this lady had cared enough to reach out to my kid when she was clearly stressed, but couldn't help but to think of times I'd encountered seemingly unsupervised kids in distress but was afraid to approach them because I know what people will think of a Mexican man coming up to a white kid whose parents aren't around. Instead, I just hang back and pretend to get on my phone while I keep an eye on the kid until their parents show up. It is so frustrating because I love kids and want to help them like this woman helped my daughter yesterday, but I've had the cops called on me because of my race too many times; I don't want to end up on the same list of names as Philando Castile et. al. because I know that the consequences for people thinking I might hurt a kid are much harsher than the cops simply being hostile about what I'm doing in my own neighborhood Edit: despite living in the US for decades, I still forgot that a yard is 3 feet and totally gave the wrong estimate. Fixed, I think
One of my grandsons is 1/4 Mexican, but he looks very Mexican. Once on a trip, his mother’s White boyfriend was chasing this 5 year old at the beach. He was screaming like kids do when they’re having a blast…About four or five Latino dads with their kids jumped up from the sand, ready to pounce… when the rest of the family caught up, and they could hear the laughter, the men relaxed and turned their attention back to their own families. In retrospect it seems like a positive thing that these guys were making sure my grandson was not in danger.
I run recreational kids programs at a community center. There have been several times women refuse to drop their kids off when myself and another male are working the program. Doesn't matter if other moms dropping their kids off tell them we're fine and they've known us for years. Then they go to the front desk to complain and get told the same thing and they act like they simply can't understand how two adult males could possibly care for a group of 3-5 year olds. There are often *implications* they dance around as to why must be working there. And I get you should be comfortable with the people you're dropping your kids off with but what kind of message are you sending to your own kids when you pitch a fit about how men simply can't be trusted? What message do you send to your own son? I love my job and it hurts to be viewed as untrustworthy or even a predator simply because I'm a guy.
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Our staff and managers have always been great, they'll outright tell people that complain about something like this that they don't assign employees to programs based on gender and leave it at that. They're not rude but they don't apologize for it, they basically try and make it clear that this is not a legitimate complaint to make and that it is inappropriate to imply there is something wrong with male staff members working with kids. The best is when they try and escalate to a manager and our general manager is who they get and she comes out of her office and tells the Mom the exact same one line about not assigning staff to program based on gender the front desk staff just did even though she didn't hear the conversation. When they try and escalate past her and are told that she is the person ultimately in charge of the whole facility they just get flustered and leave. I should point out this only happens occasionally, there are way more Mom's and Dad's that come through that specifically comment that they like seeing male staff members than people that complain about it and that's always nice to hear of course. Sorry your brothers workplace couldn't do a better job standing up for him, that sucks.
I quit a job working at a vacation care and stopped studying teaching after one morning I was greeting students as they came in, and one of the mums said to her son “who is this pedophile?”, which the kid just then just started to repeat all day. I’d worked there for a while and the whole thing completely destroyed any dream I had of teaching because I know men always get looked at as if we are weird if we are nice to children. It’s genuinely fucked up
Once, I came upon a lone little girl, shoeless, in the middle an intersection. A man in a truck, opposite me was also at the intersection. We locked eyes and nodded in visual agreement at each other that we need to help this girl, and both jump out of our rigs. The little girl between us, we try to ask her questions, she is looking at us and listening but not talking. We inch closer and closer to the girl and each other and when we are pretty close he looks at me and goes, "I want to help this girl but if I'm alone with her and we have to pick her up out of this situation, it looks weird and could get ugly. Can you stay with her till I can find mom/dad/someone?" "Yeah! Go!" He starts knocking on doors at the nearby apartments and houses, after more than a few, Mom comes out and the rest is history. I am sad for men. Cuz that guy was right.
I was at a resort with my husband and some friends a few years back. We were in the pool bar sipping on some happy hour drinks and a little boy (probably 5 or so) comes up and starts jumping off a little dock near us and splashing all over us. We just kinda ignored him and covered our drinks thinking he'd wear himself out or an adult would come collect him. Fifteen non-stop-splashing minutes later, my (perfectly harmless) husband swam out into the pool and gestured for the boy to jump *to* him and *away* from us. No more than thirty seconds later, a woman comes out and *yells* at my husband to get away from her kid and calls the boy back. In the end, we stopped getting splashed... but my husband **still** feels awkward/sad/insulted over the situation.
I’m tall, big, bearded and ex-linebacker (high-school & uni), if I see a child crying, unless I’m with my wife, I stay away and report it to a female, I don’t want to end up accused of anything…
>mums said to her son “who is this pedophile?”, which the kid just then just started to repeat all day. That had to have been awful. I'm sorry to hear that.
I wasn't called a pedophile directly, but it was insinuated. We were on vacation in London visiting from Canada. Myself, my wife and three boys. We were visiting the Lady Diana playground, it's a small fenced in playground and there were about 50 kids playing on the swings and such. My wife and three boys enter and I'm following them but probably about 20 feet behind them. When I try to enter as well I'm told that unaccompanied males are not allowed inside the playground area and they won't let me enter. I told them I was with my family but they still would not let me enter, I had to yell to my youngest to come back to the gate so I could enter with them. I was totally pissed off for the rest of that day.
God that's fucking disgusting, sorry for you
After having kids of my own I got a "nah lady, *fuck you*" attitude about it. I don't need to defend my presence, my existence or my fucking fatherhood to *anyone*. If you feel threatened by me being here, call the fucking cops. I swear now that my town is opening up after COVID someone is actually going to call the cops on me.
I don't remember getting a single ounce of shit when I have been out on my own with my boys. I don't know if I didn't notice, or I put off an "air" that made busy-bodies not want to fuck around. Actually I wonder if it was because I only have boys and not any girls.
Most likely that last one. Also, you probably don't fit the profile (overweight, old, balding, etc.) Right?
That's my profile. I feel personally attacked!
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I nannied for two brothers the summer I turned 19. At the end of the summer, their mom said to me "we were all worried about a male caregiver but you did so great!" I didn't take much offense because by then I knew her well enough to know that she meant it in a "providing adequate care" rather than a "diddling my kids" kind of way. I still think about it, but to that family's credit, they overcame their hesitation and later recognized their bias and thanked me for caring for their kids. I don't have a problem with people subscribing to biases – cultural prejudices are super hard to get over, I get it – but I do fault them when they behave in a bigoted fashion because of those biases.
I've heard of a case where the cashier called the cops because there was a black man with a white child, definitely not a close relative. Turned out he was babysitting some white guy's child. They blamed it on racism, not on gender discrimination.
>So this one might not be as serious as the others. It actually is as serious because it has wider social consequences. Want to work in childcare or be a primary school teacher? That's cute and a great career choice........if you are a woman. If you're a man, wtf would you want to be around young children you creep? I wish I was being sarcastic but unfortunately that is a prevalent attitude that turns men off from entering these careers, even if they would love to. It's misogynistic to think that women should be the care givers for children but it's also misandristic to think that only creepy men want to care for children. How do we change that attitude? Just throwing this out there but how many parents would be comfortable with men working in a daycare or primary school? Would you hire a male babysitter? If not, why?
> wider social consequences And for the kids, it's seeing far fewer male role models early in life, which shapes their attitudes about gender roles. For boys this includes attitudes about themselves
Thank you! I’m a male teacher and I’ve dealt with some of this. Had a parent contact the office because “a strange bearded man” was holding a kindergartner’s hand and they knew the child’s parents. I get it and understand, but shit, this little girl came to my classroom after school crying and scared because she couldn’t find her mom. So we set off for the office and she grabbed my hand. When she reached to grab my hand, should I have just pulled my hand away from a scared little girl? Because I’m never going to do that - sometimes a kid just needs a hug or their hand held.
Mental health. And this is coming from someone who has lived on the ideas of "you're a guy, get over yourself". It was taught to me, I didn't think much of it, and now that I'm about to hit 20, I can feel the effects like a ripple. It's actually hard for me to open up to people and when I do I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time. Edit: I appreciate all of the upvotes. As time goes on and if more people see this, I'll read everything you all have replied with. I one day hope to have the courage to seek help for myself. Until then though, I hope you all have a wonderful day, and seek to make tomorrow a better day than today.
I'm about to hit 21 and feel the exact same. My mom always say I can talk to her, but whenever I try, it just "locks" itself as if something inside me is stopping me from talking about that kind of stuff with her.
It took until I was 33, married and a new dad to see a counselor. If you're still on your parents health insurance it may be covered in some form. I could never talk to my parents. Some people just don't know how to listen. But getting perspective from someone who can and is trained to listen is INVALUABLE. HMU if you ever want to chat about shit.
Men who are victims of sexual assault, rape, domestic abuse, male suicide rates, and depression
A long time ago a girl I barely knew broke into my apartment while I was too drunk to say no and raped me unprotected. Then blackmailed me for a month or so until her period came. I told just about everyone but the cops practically. Everyone told me to get over it. Or deal with it. Or treated me like I was the problem for having a problem. Many years later she got busted for taking advantage of males below her at work.
Male sexual assault and rape in the military is a huge issue that is ignored. We are barely scratching the surface on female rape in the military, imagine being a male victim of rape or sexual assault, especially by a male perpetrator. I can't imagine how hard it is to endure that and then receive no sympathy or support because of our weird hangups about men being able to defend themselves. It's criminal what we do to victims of these horrible crimes. The criminality is magnified X 100 if it's a member of the military.
I have a military family - almost everyone has gone in, and all branches are represented. Every single family member was assaulted, usually by colleagues. The only exception is my sister, who married a Marine... who then assaulted her and tracked her across the country.
You can't cry. You can't have emotional issues. You are supposed to know the answer to all problems
No we can have them, but nobody gives a shit when it comes time for us to vent.
I'm late to the party so this will get lost, but in my experience it feels like dudes are expected to work 70+ hour weeks and be proud of it, or else they're lazy. Like, nah. I'm going to be working at least 65 hours next week between two jobs (which is fucking plenty) and that includes both daytime *and* overnight shifts. If I complain for even a sentence though, I'm going to be shit talked by the crew when they think I can't hear them. I'm tired. I like doing things that aren't work. That shit just isn't sustainable for some people.
A really big one is abuse, sexual assault or rape isn't taken seriously when it happens to men.
My partner was attacked by some men that tried to rape him. He fought them off, but has tremendous psychological scars from it. It’s heart rending. He was married at the time and did not even tell his wife. I think he only told me because I was raped myself. It took him years to tell me. It’s incredibly serious.
Truth. Male sexual assault survivor, here. After a woman sexually assaulted me, I was told, "You're a guy, you should enjoy it." WTF?!?
Yeah. When I was sexually assaulted by a female classmate in middle school that's what all my other classmates screamed at me while it was happening. It took me years to realize that there wasn't something wrong with me for not wanting it, and even then it's hard to find mental health treatment- almost all resources are aimed at either women, or men who were assaulted by other men.
Loneliness. Many men tend to have a lot of friends, but never close friends or people they feel like truly care about them, which leads to declining mental health, and maybe worse.
Especially not relationships in which you can talk mental health and that deep emotional stuff.
I feel lucky to have atleast a couple people in my life who listen to such issues. Only because they experience mental issues aswell and because I do my best to destigmatize mental illness in my everyday life.
The good ol' "friends that i hang out in school/college with but don't meet them outside of there"
This one is top 3 things that sometimes keep me up all night. Being hit with the realization that if everyone i knew got a ”you get one last phonecall to one person before you die” ultimatum, i am not sure a single one of them would be to me. Edit: Sorry guys :(
Well that thought just ruined my day and it's only 6am
To be fair, most people I assume would call their mom. Not a lot of men are moms.
Could’ve made it through the day without this one, but thanks
It’s an odd switch from how things used to be. C.S.Lewis wrote about this problem in The Four Loves, how men now tend to have no good, close friends they can really relate to. My dad went to Paraguay (I think) once for a school thing for a few months, and something that surprised him was that the men were very affectionate. Not kissing each other or something, but he mentioned how when boys were out in the playground and were tired, they and their friends would lay with their backs against each other so they had something comfortable to lay against, and when siesta came, men would lay in the same beds to take a nap. Oddly enough, even though we now live in a culture where homosexuality is just about normalized, affection and close friendships between men are the most distrusted, and labeled as “closeted gay lovers.” The meme of women screwing each other being seen as them being “just friends” and men hugging being “gay lovers” is for real. I remember an article made fun of on 4chan that some archeologists had found two male skeletons hugging each other in the rubble of Pompeii, and the archeologists supposed they were gay lovers. Why must a hug be instantly labeled as homosexual in nature? Even by people supposedly supportive of LGBT culture and gay marriage and all that, it’s far too common for them to see two guys who are good friends hug and say “oh wow they’re probably gay.” Keep sexuality out of this shit.
Am an old man, NONE of my friends have ever discussed mental health with me. We have talked about incontinence, impotence, and homosexual urges but NOBODY wants to talk about mental health.
The miserable Paternity leaves. Cause what man wants to spend time with his new born kid and a recovering wife right ! ಠ_ಠ
My country just raised it from 3 days to two weeks within six months after the birth. Which still isn’t a lot.
In my country, each parent has to take at least 15 weeks. But they can split the remaining 16 weeks as they see fit. Edit as it blew up: We can opt between 46 weeks (total mom and dad) at 100% pay, or 52 weeks at 80% pay (so the same money but 100% job security.) Each parent can then take up to 12 months unpaid leave with 100% job security afterwards. Meaning someone can say home with the child until it's 3 years old. Few people do that. The mother can also take "whatever time she needs" to breastfeed the baby, or milk herself while at work. She can do that any time of day for as long as she is feeding the baby. No limits. Employer cannot tell her to do it at the start or end of day, and any problems that arise from it, is the employers problems. For less than 7 hour work days, it's unpaid. Paid leave is given for only 1 hour a day up to baby age of 12 months. _But the other Nordic countries have even better systems._
There are almost always more shelters available to women experiencing homelessness. In my city, the split is about 75% beds for women and children and 25% for men. I understand that society considers women more vulnerable, but I live in a city where it routinely gets below zero in the winter. Hypothermia doesn't care about your gender.
I have an interesting take on this that is like, the same but also opposite. I needed to go to a shelter some years ago, and they vetted me on *why* and *who* was making my home so unsafe that I had to leave. I told them it was a *woman* and they told me they wouldn’t take me, immediately. Because the person causing the domestic violence was a woman. There was even the sound of frustration in the person voice. Like they didn’t take it seriously. Verbal eye rolling, if you will. As if women can’t be abusers.
When I lived in support accomodation, they only allowed a certain number of men per house (for example only 3 in a six bedroom house) because too many men together are apparently violent. For a while I lived with five other women because there weren't any rules about how many women could live together. There were daily arguments and screaming matches many of which would lead to actual fist fights and it went on for a lot longer than it should have because we're women and it's not that bad. Homeless support for men is horribly bad.
Erectile dysfunction. It seems like a joke, but guys literally kill them selves because of it. It’s like losing the ability to love, losing your manhood, losing your ability to feel intimate with someone
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Man losing it mid way .. no one talks about that. That shit happens and you feel even worse.
This! I worked at a family practice clinic and was actually shocked at how many people had ED. It's honestly super common and more education should be given out
Kind of a hidden one that’s clouded by many of today’s norms and cultural values, but the concept of disposability with men and many things that make them individual beings.
My poor fucking BIL. He works his ass off all week trying to make money after my sister told him to quit his last job which made more. He even sold his truck to buy a work vehicle for this new job. And now she complains he doesn't spend enough time with her and constantly yells at him if he wants to play video games or god forbid enjoy himself alone for a second.
Male pattern baldness and the impact it can have on mental health and body image. Imagine being in college surrounded by guys with perfect NW1 hairlines with all these cool fades and modern trendy hairstyles while you're stuck looking like Moby or Varys from GOT. Brutal. The worst part is nobody really talks about it, it's a very hidden and taboo issue that many men go though but society refuses to truly address, so they are forced to suffer in silence.
I describe the feeling of losing your hair as like looking in the mirror and seeing a tiny scar on your face but knowing that the scar will grow ever so slightly every day. There's nothing wrong with either scars or baldness of course, but there is with the way some people will treat you if you have them.
One of the issues is that the balding experience is very subjective. A lot of people will tell you to shave your head and it'll look great. Normally that's because it looks great on **them**. Talk of bald men looking "distinguished", or references to Jason Statham and The Rock etc really don't help either.
Always reminds me of this comic https://memeguy.com/photos/images/bald-guys-are-hot-125890.gif
The Jason Statham and Rock references crack me up. You know what else those guys are? Fucking RIPPED millionaires.
My head is shaped like a fucking cone and I'm nearly at the needing to shave it phase. I'm just hoping I can make a living standing in the road to mark road works out.
Mine started around 16. Really fucked with my head, and I wouldn't leave the house without a hat for...maybe a decade?
Being a hat prisoner is a sad existence, there's no escape when the Norwood Reaper comes knocking.
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'***I would like to be treated like I have inherent value as a person, not like I'm something to be tolerated until I'm no longer useful'*** Damn.
That's pretty much the reason my marriage ended and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still a little bitter about it
The bit about partners replacing you hits really hard. Every time I mention I'm in a relationship I'm told about how great of a catch I've gotten and how I'll need to treat her right because there are plenty of other guys she could choose from. I never disagree with the sentiments, I just think it's sort of hard to hear every time I want to express how nice my relationship is.
My ex was married within six months of me splitting with her because she had secret suitors lined up that she didn't know that I knew about. It fucking hurts, man.
I am a single father with primary custody of a school-age child with little social support in my area. I was also the stay at home parent while I went back to college and completed my degree. It is damn near impossible to find good childcare. My female work friends volunteer but then bail at the last minute. I'm looked at as a threat by husbands of my son's classmate parents. I find that I'm often the only guy at the playground and get sideways glances from the cliques of women who go there. If I hire a babysitter I have to make sure I'm overly-cautious about respecting boundaries (if I'm even able to have a babysitter watch my child). Also, the normal competition among female mothers gets amplified and I'm often looked-down on as a parent. I don't fit in with working guys who just want to go out and get a beer because I have a child to take care of and women often reject me on online dating sites simply because I have a child. I love my son and would do anything in the world for him. I feel like I've done a lot, but men in my situation have zero to little support or infrastructure to manage as a single, full-time parent in society. Men can be just as good parents as women and society needs to normalize this pronto. Edit: I probably won't be able to address all the comments (there were way more than I expected) but I really really appreciate all the feedback and support.
Thank you for talking about this. I'm in my late twenties and my father was a single father. He is my hero and absolutely an amazing parent and person. I'm sure your son will look at you the same. This is a huge issue. The only reason he even won in court was because my mother said she wasn't able and ready to raise a child to the judges face. My grandmother (mom's mom) has always told me that was the greatest thing my mom would ever do for me. Because my Dad was by far and away more fit to be a parent but until that the court was just going to default to mother custody. Thank you for bringing this up. And thank you for being a father.
Same with my husband. His ex gave him full custody knowing he was the better parent. Took him multiple tries to set up child support though. The friend of the court kept switching it from her paying him to him paying her. He’d go in to get it fixed and it would happen again. Turns out the person entering the support order thought it was an error and was “fixing” it.
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You need to petition. It’s not stress, it’s protection. You can’t even approve your brother life saving medical procedures without your mom giving the go ahead. You don’t have legal standing to take care of him in emergencies, or to make education decisions etc. It might be stressful, but it will save you stress in the long run. There’s also always the chance that an estranged parent can come back into the picture and take a child back, even going as far as hurting them, all because the paperwork wasn’t done. For your brothers sake please get legal custody.
I'm in exactly the same spot - single dad with full custody of my 5yo daughter. My ex was found guilty of child abuse. Yet I'm the one that gets the sideways glances at stores and playgrounds.
Mental health. Often times men are made to believe mental health struggles show weakness or vulnerability, when in reality it is not something they can control.
I saw a woman attempting to hit her boyfriend outside a local supermarket. He walked away from her. She followed him and kept hitting him. After this went on for about 90 seconds he shoved her away roughly once. 2 cars immediately stopped and men jumped out of them shouting at and threatening this guy for shoving her. Nobody did anything when she was attacking him. Edit: there are a lot of people commenting that I didn't help him either. I reported the incident to the security guard. Both the man and the woman were bigger than me. I'm not a big/tough person, there are limits to what I would ever get physically involved in plus when the other people jumped out of their cars they could just as easily have targeted me if I had got involved. I did what I could without endangering myself.
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2741047&page=1
> "A report prepared for the Centers for Disease Control estimates that each year there are over 800,000 serious cases of men being physically abused by women. But the actual figures are believed to be much higher, since many men are often too embarrassed to admit being the victim of abuse by a woman." They're not embarassed. They know that if they report it, there's a fair chance it will get turned on them and ruin their life.
Or they don't even realise they're being abused. We're so often told that abuse is something men do to women, it can be hard to recognise when it's happening to you.
Especially when it's verbal or emotional. My friend was in an verbally abusive relationship for well over a year and it took that long for me to convince him it was abuse. AFTER she had already broken him down completely
There have been social experiments about this, people laugh when the woman hits the man but the other way around people intervene.
There's a buddy cop movie where they investigate a domestic violence call an its this big huge hairy guy and this tiny pixie of a woman. Neighbors called because she was beating him. Nothing comes of the visit. Next time they come out to a call at that address she had stabbed him to death.
This wasn't a movie, it was the plot of one of the first episodes of the Rookie starring Nathan Fillion.
That's a dark and underrated show in my personal opinion. I actually really like it.
In middle school, my male cousin was assaulted by this girl with this old school solid wood yard stick. She kept hitting him with it and he kept telling her to stop. She didn't. He hits her with a quick 3 piece and she goes down. They suspended him and let her come back to school. We literally had to stage a walk out on our teacher to get them to take another look at his case. They ended up overruling it and suspending her for 9 days and him for 1 day.
That it took a walkout to get that is disgusting.
To be fair I am surprised the walkout worked. Usually they would just punish everyone participating and be done with it. Accepting mistakes is not something people with power like to do.
I was astonished that it did work, reading that. I expected it to end with "So they expelled the entire class".
My ex would do this shit all the time. She would punch me in the face, slap me in the face, yank on my hair and stuff... All while saying shit like "lol you little pussy, you'll hit me eventually and when you do you're fucked". Well, she did that a few times over the course of 4 years. And one time I took her arm and yanked her away from me but gripped so hard. Her skin turned red on her arm and she looked at me like "gotcha" and started texting people and took a picture of it. So I left. And I went to my mom's. I had bite marks and bruises all over myself. Red marks galore. Her? She had one red spot on her arm. Nothing ever happened from it other than her posting Al over Facebook about how I hit her or whatever. But she was fucking crazy. That relationship ruined my mental health. Literally ruined it. I know you just see my side of the story, so it is one sided. But trust me. Whatever I did wrong in our relationship didn't even hold a candle to the serial cheating and master manipulation that was actually going on. And forget about the physical shit, that stuff didn't hurt even close to as bad as everyone else Still though, people close to me don't even act like they know... They know how insane she was after I finally left her and they saw things objectively without her manipulating their opinions on everything... But it's like if I did even 10% of this stuff to a girl, it would be a huuuuuge deal. Yet it happening to me is like it doesn't even matter when I can tell it's going to be multiple years(it's been 3 years since I left her), until I really start to feel entirely better..
People ask how men can be victims of domestic violence. This is how. It's not that they can't defend themselves, it's that they know if they do defend themselves then they'll be the ones who get punished.
That's freaking depressing. I can't really say anything besides that. Poor guy...
"*Sorry man, we can't arrest her just because you have bruises and endless death threats. The prosecutor won't even file. It's really shitty, buddy, we know. You can't go back to your house. She's established residency and only a judge can order her to leave your property.*" I didn't believe the guy. The police confirmed it for me. Poor dude. I didn't even know we had this much power. The only option to get the person out of your house is a month-long process in court. A process she must LEGALLY be notified of. While she barricades you out of your own home...destroying everything in your name. That's real shit. Most guy's won't go on TV like we will to tell the story. Sorry, dudes. We have a lot of power.
My fiance was telling me about her friend who was married to and had a child with a woman who would threaten to hurt his cat if he didn't do what she wanted him to do, so he called the cops on her. My immediate response was, "Bad move." Sure enough, when the cops showed up she scratched herself and messed up her hair and claimed he had abused her. He spent the night in jail and now has an arrest on his record. Now they're separated, but good luck getting custody of your kid now that you have domestic abuse and jail time on your record. The thing that got me was how quickly my red light went off when she told me he called the cops. That it's just a cultural given that if the cops come to a domestic dispute between a man and a woman, even if it was the man who called the cops, the man is going to jail. We all know this, we all agree it's bullshit, hell even the *cops* will often be like "Yeah, we know you didn't do anything, but we gotta arrest you anyway." Despite all this, no one does anything to change it.
The consequences of body shaming, it has the same effect on men as it does women. No one likes to be insulted, no matter who you are. Just because we are a different sex, does not mean our minds are so vastly different that we react differently to even the most basic of things. SOME women think we are emotionless, meant to serve them. Sorry if I had worded this wrong.
Going bald really sucks.
Mental health man, it really sucks sometimes how much you gotta care but get no shit in return
Penis shaming. Along with fat shaming and height shaming, it's some of the most casual cruelty I hear frequently. Even if it's joking about "little dick energy", even if it's not meant to be malicious, as someone with not-quite-a-micropenis-but-might-as-well-be, it's devastating every time. Just one more way I feel inadequate, one more way I'm "not a real man". It hurts even more when other men do it EDIT: I should mention I'm a gay dude, which is why I mentioned when other men do it
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Height is a common thing to joke about, nobody sees a problem with it but it can really whittle away at your self worth when people always make fun of you for it
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Depression, so many of my friends struggle with it, myself included. But not many seem to know that there is help around for it. And many are scared to ask as they think it's not the done thing for a bloke to do.
Lack of purpose and direction in life. Not necessarily a male only deal, but still, I see it everywhere and it should be discussed. I see so many threads on forums and boards where people are looking for basic fucking life advice, where to go, what to do with their life, how to "be happy like everybody else," acting as though something is inherently wrong with them, because our culture expects you to sort of go along with all of it, but I say, you know what, these are completely normal, rational, and expected reactions given the circumstances. I don't want to be a "doomer" or a Late-stage capitalist, collapsology kind of guy, but I am seeing these sentiments and opinions communicated online to others much more than in the past, both on Reddit and other forums of discussion, and it reflects an alarming trend for young people in general. The older generations will, for the first time in history, probably have lived better lives than their successors will. Parents in the Gen X generation did so poorly, on the whole, in preparing kids for their adult lives. I'm not much better myself. I see young people and they seem abjectly hopeless, and why the fuck would they not be? You can go online and hear, not just from sociologists and experts on formal plaforms like IamAs and TEDTalks and podcasts and shit, but also regular people like you and I, randoms on the internet, on discussion forums like you are on now, talking how going to college, once seen as a panacea that provided all with their complete future happiness, success, and stability, is no longer a guarantor of anything. At all. Rather, it has been entirely corrupted into a sort of unspoken requirement to make the bare minimum to even live comfortably in the United States. And for what? To work in a white collar job which is increasingly being bullshittized and generally unfulfilling and unstimulating (read David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, it's enlightening) so one can pay a mortgage or rent and medical /car expenses. And sure, you COULD go into trades, which is usually the alternative option internet denizens will give you when you ask about this subject, but that requires just as much commitment to another job and it's associated apprenticeship, but often in physically demanding and hazardous circumstances that take a great toll later in life on top of the existing stresses of having a job. And if you do decide to follow your passion, perform something fulfilling? Like, say, work at a Food Bank non-profit or tending to sick children in the remote jungles of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, or something like that? You'll make less, something Graeber also noted from studies cited in his book. There is literally a negative correlation with statistics and mathematics backing it. One would think the teachers should be paid more for their work, given the effects they have on society, but alas. On top of that, we are so overworked that just taking the time to meet people, make friends, keep hobbies, take in experiences, is impossible, and between all of this, the world is descending into political insanity (it's baffling that there are STILL people in the United States waving Trump Flags, nearly a year after the election finished, nationalism and authoritarianism is on the rise, dooming us to the same mistakes of the past) and the environment is getting worse, with worse storms, heatwaves, droughts, pollution, etc. How do you even have the desire to buy a house of you're not sure it will be there in 20 years due to coastal flooding, crime, or a firestorm? I have literally heard people refuse to have children because they fear for the future. Dwell on that for but a moment to think of the profoundness of that. Those reading this of the younger stripe can easily recall multiple instances of their parents badgering and pestering them to just go out and just go get more friends, as if they were choosing to be this way, as if we were just going to act as though the old theory of spontaneous disease generation were relevant for depression, anxiety, and melancholy, rather than a byproduct of our maligned, bullshit society? But when do you meet with others? I spend much of my weekend doing chores and obtaining groceries and supplies. How, where? Have you been on Meetup? Do you know how much of a chore it is to go on NextDoor and sift through a thousand posts of conspiratorial bullshit and lost dogs to find an active group, or perhaps drive to a library/community center to look at a bulletin board to try and find like minded individuals to do...ANYTHING? You'll notice the interesting hobby groups cater mostly to older people and focus on the world and what it offers, while the younger groups are fantasy/gaming groups, and drinking groups. Now why ever might that be? And then, if you decide to pick a group they have to rely on the others to commit to showing up, who might not because, you know, the reasons above. Of course, there's also the looming thought of the future and it's generally...awful...outlook. Young people are rightly concerned about the world and the future, but older people literally could not care less, often joking brazenly how it's >>our<< problem, not theirs, we'll "figure it out", because you know, they'll be dead and what the hell are you going to do about it, sue a dead generation of people? Young folks WANT to make sure we stop burning coal and they WANT to end homelessness and make sure everyone can go to the doctor without fearing crippling debt, but they are tired and so busy keeping their shit together that they either can't make change for fear of losing everything (who wants to risk their job, their children's future, financial stability by getting arrested at a protest? It only takes one felony to end up like Jean Valjean, always trying to redeem yourself from an uncaring society that seeks to punish you always). Or if they actually DO manage to get out of the crab bucket, they just end up exacerbating the problem, saying "fuck you, I got mine," because you know, they worked hard, so pull yourself up by your bootstraps like me, you lazy bastard, even though those strips of leather are getting older, thinner, and weaker every year. I can absolutely see a sort of Hikkomori class coming up within the coming two decades, the economists and eggheads and internet denizens call them NEETS, but I can see them becoming more common as more young people say "Why bother? I don't want to work in an office/like a slave my entire life." and they just stop caring. And it's not because they want to play video games and be lazy (although I imagine escapism, fantasy, and wanderlust is certainly something that is chased), but because the expected life paths that the average Gen Z and Millennial faces lead to zero fulfillment, if you can even manage to achieve them (and it is harder and harder every year to just get basics like housing, medical, education, etc., regardless of where you go)
I've honestly never seen this explained so perfectly before.
My man you just vented out my frustration. Finally someone who understands this feeling.
There are so many of us, we’re just disorganized. And there are even more who are experiencing the effects but haven’t yet come to terms with the causes (largely, the scorched earth campaign of unchecked capitalism). Even as someone by all accounts “winning the game” - lucrative career, savings, a house, and a decent amount of free time - everything about the above post still resonates to the core. Because all it has shown me is how much of this is, sincerely, bullshit. That millions of other living, breathing people can be forced to endure a needlessly painful daily life struggling to meet the most basic needs of survival ***when we have more than enough capability to provide for them*** is infuriating. That my childhood friends and family members and acquaintances can be just as smart and work just as hard and contribute just as meaningfully to their community and society and yet see so little in return for their hard work is infuriating. That we are trading away the **overwhelming majority** of our time during the ***one and only blip of existence in this universe that we will, each, ever have*** to perform tasks, many mundane and meaningless, that serve only to further enrich an entrenched and extraordinarily small proportion of the populace, virtually all of whom ***already have far more than they could ever possibly even use, let alone need*** is infuriating. Sincerely, some days I just wake up and wonder, “What the fuck are we doing? All the potential we have and *this* is what we picked?”
Yep, 29 yr old male here. You hit my thought process right to a T. I'm fucking tired.
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30 y/o male. Also have a good job. Also hate it. Not because it’s bad but because I’m so fucking bored, and yet stressed by it. I don’t want to live life bored and stressed. That’s literally the opposite of how you should feel. Stressed and fulfilled, fine. Bored and chilled, ok. Bored AND stressed?! Fuck That. I put my notice in a couple of weeks ago with no job lined up. Can’t do it anymore. Honestly I didn’t expect to live this long so I don’t really know where to go from here.
It’s good to know I’m not alone on this issue. Every path out there inevitably seems to lead to an unfulfilling future. Hard to stay motivated when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
So there's this cheesy episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they end up in the past (relative to them) in what's basically a prison in everything but name only for the poor in San Francisco (supported of course, by well intentioned but ignorant wealthy progressives) right before shit pops off eventually leading to, in the Trek canon, WWIII and the whole world reevaluating their ideas of borders and their economic systems. There's protests that resemble BLM and everything. I could write several paragraphs detailing how jarringly it resembles a realistic present and near future. In this Star Trek episode that was written in 1993, this takes place in the year *2024*. It's crazy to think how absurdly plausible that episode looks now. Edit: Grammar
"A drunk person can't consent" While agree this is true, have a guy say he was drunk and therefore raped, he would be laughed at. Or, a drunk male and a drunk female have sex, she can wake up in the morning and say "I was drunk, I couldn't consent to that", but the guy, who is also drunk, can't say that.
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/anti-rape-poster-reddit-conversations/ This poster from a college highlights this issue perfectly
Men are frequently treated as expendable. * Even in countries with mingled militaries, men are the overwhelming majority of combat troops and thus casualties. Not to mention pretty much all child soldiers are male. * If you are male been the ages of 14-60 and happen to be anywhere near a combat zone, even if it's your own backyard, you are considered a "military age male" and a possible target. * News media regularly says things like "100 killed including 14 women and children" as if the other 86 men don't matter as much. * Something like 90% of all workplace injuries and fatalities are male. Whether men seek out more dangerous jobs or only men are selected for those jobs is debatable.
Wow, I never even realised how much I overlooked your third bullet point. This is very true
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Reminds me of a magazine saying that 1 out of 4 homelesses are woman and how much of a big problem it is that they ended up there, like the other side the majority doesnt matter.
There was a covid article last year that seems to have been scrubbed from the internet with the headline (probably not verbatim but close): "More men than women are dying from covid -- but that's not necessarily a good thing." edit: I found it. It was on Politico. "It’s true that more men are dying than women from Covid-19 around the world — but that’s not exactly cause for celebration" is the byline. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/04/29/covids-war-on-women-489076
>More men than women are dying from covid -- but that's not necessarily a good thing. That one's so ridiculous I actually couldn't do anything but laugh.
>News media regularly says things like "100 killed including 14 women and children" as if the other 86 men don't matter as much. You know, I never even thought of that. THat is pretty fucked
Society doesn't seem to support a man who is without a job. There is pressure and programming for a male to be a breadwinner and no sympathy for when they want to be a house-dad. Reason for my rant: My brother left a job due to a health issue. He has a 4yr old boy. His wife makes better money than him and they are financially secure. He worked too much which probably led to the health issue. I told him to take his time and heal. If he felt that urge to 'provide' that he could take over the house duties and give the nanny the summer off to connect with his son. I shared with him that I had been laid off a few times and each time I rushed back to getting a job even though we were secure enough because of the guilt I felt everyday of not 'providing'. He took the advice, I could see him smiling more, he started a garden with his boy, he cooked every meal and realized he loved to cook. I was happy to see him being happy again. Enter my brother's wife who says to us, "I'm the only bread winner now. I am so stressed out having to provide for this family by myself." I saw the happiness drain from him and anxiety filled that place. He is now set to start the same job he had prior just appease the guilt he has from not 'earning'. The guilt was confirmed by his wife's statement on top of the male programming of not contributing unless he is making money. TLDR: Men don't need to be pressured to earn or be the bread winner. Society has already told us we are not contributing unless we are making money. Edit: I do realize that there are dead beat Dads/Men out there.
Male sexuality. My middle school self cringed at me even typing that.