Truth is the second option one is just a normal ass guy. Everyone has emotions and needs. The fact is it's still taboo to be a "man" and have emotions.
Like honestly tell me any other option on there is preferable to someone with emotions... She acting like women don't require the same thing? Gtfoh. It's not even a bad thing. It's just a human thing.
What she's referring to isn't the same as having emotions. She means the people who expect everyone around them, especially their romantic partner, to manage their emotions for them. Plenty of women do it, too.
I don't know anyone like that. I do know we are plenty of people who are drama queens.
But that's not really the same thing as having emotions people with functional emotions are actually fine, it's the ones that don't have emotions but do have an awful lot of opinions that are the problem.
No, that's the narcissist. She's referring to having to help someone with their emotional needs. Sounds moreso like she needs to work on her own if it's laborious to support her partner emotionally.
Who said anything about that? You can share your emotions with your partner in a way where you don't expect them to be your personal therapist. Generally, it's healthy to have a support network, preferably not just one person and especially not just one person who isn't even a professional.
When you share your feelings with a therapist, that exchange is in one direction, you should never have to emotionally support your therapist. That is however not how it should be with a partner, in a romantic relationship both people should be able to share their emotions and receive support, and that isn't possible if one person is treating the other as if they were a therapist and not giving them the space to share their emotions in turn.
Most things in life are about balance, just because you don't agree with something all the way one side (e.g. there is no way to create an unhealthy relationship dynamic by sharing your emotions, regardless of how you do it) doesn't mean that you agree with something all the way to the other side (i.e. you shouldn't give two shits about your partner's emotional well-being).
in a romantic relationship both people should be able to share their emotions and receive support
Expecting your partner to be your personal therapist is not cool
I was replying to someone up there who was shitting on men with emotions. Because they equated having them with being a bad partner. My point is that emotions are normal and wanting an emotionally supportive partner isn't the same as treating them like a therapist.
one of the main points and benefits of a relationship is being able to share problems with someone else and have someone that could cheer you up or to share excitement with
'emotional labor' is for actual jobs, especially customer service type jobs
Relationships only really feel like jobs in this way when you feel your effort is not being reciprocated. Doing emotional labour for your partner is not exhausting if you feel like you are equally pulling each other up.
She's referring to overly emotional men, who need extra attention; guys who can't handle failure or rejection, who have a bad day at work and then can't help around the house at all at night and who expect their partner to take care of them, regardless of how their partner's day went. I know the type of dude she's talking about and I wouldn't want my daughter to bring one home. Dude needs a mother not a partner.
Nope this is a list of all the men available, like she said. She's painting all emotional men with the same brush. There are good men and bad men in each of those categories she listed, but she thinks we're all bad.
So I cry and need a hug sometimes? Emotional labor. I can describe the full range of emotions I feel to a partner and deal with them in a healthy way? Gross.
Yes, I suppose we could just become more silent and withdrawn, couldn't we?
Let me try a different tack. I know I have issues. I've been working on myself for years. As men, we mostly experience negative reinforcement with emotional growth.
But if we are trying to get healthy, how are we supposed to respond to that kind of invalidating talk, inside our own heads? What if the woman saying that kind of stuff isn't just venting her frustration onto the internet, what if she's saying it to us, in a relationship? Does that kind of talk inspire us to improve or push us into darker places? Is complaining about us like this in any way helping to improve the way men and women interact?
Once again you're making it the woman's job to help you improve yourself. You're going to see and hear things that put you in a dark place. That's life. Bringing yourself back to a middle ground of contendedness requires constant self work.
I'm sorry you have problems. Not everyone breaks the wheel.
So she wants a guy with a low sex drive, who she doesnt have to have any emotional attachment to, but who emotionally invested in her, that doesnt have any self confidence, and doesnt know any feminist theory so he cant tell he's in a toxic relationship and doesnt treat her like "shit" (an equal)
When did she say she wanted a man with low sex drive? Being a porn addict doesn't mean you have a high sex drive. It means you're addicted to pornography.
When did she say any of what you wrote? Have you heard of being an even-tempered man who has sex with women but doesn't degrade them or neg them in order to do it, who doesn't need to trauma-dump on their gf because they've already worked through their shit? Your inference into what she posted tells us more about you than her.
Yes please take my dumb lemmy comment about a dumb 4chan post about a dumb tweet extremely seriously and try to start an argument with me by attacking my character. That's a very good use of your time.
I’m not saying I agree with the meme, but that part makes sense to me. Am I really the only one who has met both types of dysfunctional people? Some people are extremely emotionally demanding, where they need constant reassurance and support, and others are completely detached, so that there’s hardly emotional connection at all.
Being healthy is almost always about achieving the mean between extremes.
Well then that’s because you had a READING FAIL or you’re playing syntax argument and pretending that you’re confused.
Of course It wouldn’t make sense if you stopped reading after the first two words out of two entire sentences. Each point had descriptions but you’re ignoring them just to launch into a pitchfork argument. This is ‘Syntax’ argument. That’s some bad actor energy right there at worst. red herring argument at best.
So you’re Confused? Go back and reread for more than two words per line. Sound it out loud if you’re still ‘confused’. Talk to an English teacher if need be.
But personally I don’t believe you are confused. Not today, lil incel. Ya blocked.
It's kinda exhausting seeing progressive language constantly used to rag on men. I want men to be anti-racist / feminist / LGBT allies / etc. I get that there are a lot of problems with many streams of masculinity and people who have been hurt by those have a right to complain, but goddamn. I would not expect lots of women to be attracted to a movement that constantly complains about women.
That's why a lot of people oppose third wave feminism. It stop being about uplifting women and about pushing men down to achieve the goals. It forgot that the original goal was to raise the standards for everyone to equality.
A lot of males face issues that women face as well. But when there's a portion of people basically saying you're scum for being born a man.... It's very tiring and eventually it starts to feel like "well if you don't care about me, why should I keep caring about you?"
when there's a portion of people basically saying you're scum for being born a man
There is no way of changing these people’s minds, they invariably tend to be zero-sum absolutionists. Any attempt to prove them otherwise will only trigger their victimization complexes.
The only effective strategy is to not engage in the first place, to avoid having anything to do with them even if they are blood and especially if they can be easily avoided.
Unfortunately, this attitude is also held by the vast majority of vocal feminists… which, if you are actively dating, ought to make this one of the first red flags you should be looking for to make women self-select themselves out of contention.
After all, you don’t want to be with someone who hates you for what you are. Leave those venomous vipers on the branch, where they belong.
And yes, this entire strategy works equally as well in the other direction, for women. The difference is that women are far more effectively avoiding men with these red flags than men are at avoiding women with these red flags. Far too many men are far too thirsty to think straight where women are concerned.
I've heard similar things from women when I was in college, and not someone joking around or being ironic.
This whole thread seems filled with people who view men as victims of something. They aren't.
This is a thread of men supporting each other emotionally, and venting about how society largely disregards any problems that affect primarily men. There are a few shithead bigots who are gonna try to shove in their vile opinions, but they're all pretty down voted and a small minority. All the top level discussion seems pretty reasonable to me, and venting about the very thing you're doing with this statement.
Men, as a group, are not general victims of anything they didn't choose.
I don't think the young men in Russia who were forcefully conscripted and sent to die in the Ukrainian war (or a Russian prison) chose to do so. You can't just generalize the struggles of an entire demographic and brush them aside as their fault. It reminds me of the rhetoric of women being sexually assaulted because they dressed a certain way. It's extremely sexist and gets us absolutely nowhere, only pushing people further into extremes.
Men, in general, have higher job mortality rates, higher suicide rates, shorter life expectancy, and higher homelessness rates to name a few things. None of us "chose" this. However, because the problems affect men they're often swept aside.
You can benefit from a system in some ways while still being a victim of it in others. I completely agree that much more work needs to be done for women and people of color, and that there are much worse/more skewed injustices that they face (which is why that's where society's focus is/should be right now). However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't acknowledge the struggles men face when they're brought up.
If men feel like their struggles are not being acknowledged enough, all they have to do is acknowledge them. I mean, we do live in a pretty patriarchal society.
Someone, somewhere, says this unironically. If you want to avoid pedantic arguments about the meanings of words, use "virtually no one in real life says this." When you say "no one says this," two or three examples of people saying it is evidence against you. When you say "virtually no one says this in real life," those two or three examples become evidence that it's hard to find people actually saying it
The problem is people like Ethan (as well as many feminists) dont understand what privilege theory actually is.
I think its always best to explain it with disabilities first.
Like you, as an abled body person, have certain advantages in life over someone who has to use a wheelchair. Even if the guy in a wheelchair becomes a multimillionaire tech CEO and you are homeless, you still have that "privilege" over him in that the world is built to suit you much more than it is him as wheelchair access is often an after-thought , you have more potential job opportunities than he does and people consider you "normal" vs the guy in the wheelchair always being associated with his disability.
You do not automatically live a life of luxury just because you have the "privilege" of an able body, just like with male privilege, or white privilege or any other privilege. It just means you have less obstacles getting in the way of your success.
Yes but a lot of people seem to think that if you have less obstacles in your way that means that no one should be concerned about the obstacles that still are in your way.
Just because life is theoretically more difficult for one class of person does not mean that another class of person cannot be allowed to also experience difficulties.
People who were not privileged use it as a weapon to hit everyone else over the head, even when it's inappropriate. Especially when it's inappropriate.
People who were not privileged use it as a weapon to hit everyone else over the head, even when it's inappropriate. Especially when it's inappropriate.
I think it's important to state that isn't not people who aren't privileged in general that do this but a very small minority. And its often people who are actually very privileged that try to leverage the one aspect in which they're not, that do this.
Please remember that the nature of the internet means you see the loud and angry people (as well as trolls) what more often than anyone else.
Well, if we're generalizing THAT much, the dating pool for guys is just as bad.
We've got:
-women who will go out with you just for a free dinner date, then never talk to you again
-women who are looking for sugar daddies
-women obsessed with their socials (IG, TikTok, etc)
-women so unnatural you question they can still be considered human (lip fillers, butt lifts, boob jobs, have you ever heard of the term "Bimbofication"?)
-all of the above
In reality, there are so many more people in this world that don't fit any of these categories on the men or women side. It's just that a lot of the "dating pool" she's talking about is centered around dating apps. The real world is so much more diverse.
I was with a girl in her room and when she started teaching me about astrology, I just bursted out laughing with how dumb it was. Basically, what you just said before but 10x worse with this girl, there were rocks fucking everywhere. I'm suprised Hank from Breaking Bad didn't show up.
Women's behavior towards men's emotions is like...it's their very very favorite TV show, but they hate almost all of the episodes. They want you to be emotional, they want you to be in touch with your feelings...until you actually do, and she throws the remote through the screen because it's not one of the very few episodes of this show that she likes.
There are words I just don't say out loud in any context anymore because of this. "Love" is one of them. One of my exes would throw a three act opera of a shit fit if I said something like "I love jalapenos on pizza" because "You'll say you love PEPPERS but not ME!" Well yeah, Tiffany; 1 because the word has different meanings when applied to food vs applied to a person, and 2 we've been dating for five weeks at this point; I'm still in the stage of trying to determine if you're sane enough to get serious with, and early exit polls aren't looking very promising." So I say things like "I really enjoy jalapenos on pizza" and I sound like a cyborg but I'm not sitting through another fucking meltdown like that.
Its just a litany of performative complaints to get attention. Standard Social Media interaction bait. More people respond, your metrics go up, more businesses are willing to give you money to do native advertising on their behalf.
Emotional Labor is for the individual to do. If you feel like you need help, that's what a therapist is for. Do you expect a gf to be your therapist? Sharing and expressing feelings is a normal part of a relationship, but expecting your SO to also be your own personal therapist is completely unhealthy. Everyone has their own emotional Labor to do, why should anyone else (who's not a therapist) be expected to do yours?
I'm talking about an unhealthy codependency that can happen when someone with a developed fight-response pairs with someone with a developed fawn-response. It sounds like you two have a healthy relationship where you can discuss each other's problems with each other freely. Which is good.
Personally, no I wouldn't expect my partner to unravel my own personal cPTSD for me. I would work on it myself and with a therapist need be. Discussing my progress and thoughts on my own cPTSD and hearing my partner's is a healthy thing to do.
Sharing and expressing feelings is a normal part of a relationship, but expecting your SO to also be your own personal therapist is completely unhealthy
I literally said that. The difference is sharing your own progress in a healthy way compared to expecting your SO to do the progress for you
The amount of “don’t sexualize me” women who then turn around and post explicit and obvious thirst traps is crazy.
The problem is that they’re talking to two completely different and separate groups of men: the bottom-90%, and the top-10%, respectively. They just don’t provide any such context, which turns this behaviour from mere hypocrisy into blatantly cruel hypocrisy.
they’re talking to two completely different and separate groups of men
I mostly see them talking to women, with the message being to hyper-individualize and consider everyone else as nothing more than an object of exploitation (because that's how everyone sees you).
"Get the Top 10% Dude" messaging isn't even really about the subset of men in question. Its just about extracting stuff from the highest value targets. It is the deep commodification of relationships.
I feel your explanation is equally as valid and likely (if not more so) as mine, you’re just seeing things from a different perspective.
isn't even really about the subset of men in question. Its just about extracting stuff from the highest value targets.
Except the highest value targets tend to be the top-10% of men, which is why women tend to be deeply offended if anyone from the lower-90% actually makes an approach - dealing with that interruption is a massive waste of her time and efforts, which can be better spent targeting those high-value men and extracting value from them.
Hence that “don’t sexualize me” messaging - it’s meant to dissuade the low-value truly-nice guys (the non-sociopaths) who actually value and obey the wishes of women. It ensures that they self-select themselves out of contention for her attentions without her having to expend any energy on them, specifically.
women tend to be deeply offended if anyone from the lower-90% actually makes an approach
That has not been my experience. The single friends I know aren't looking for a Top 10% Man nearly so much as they are looking for a guy who will just act normal. Don't be a giant horndog. Don't get violent when you're upset. Don't flake on dates. Don't ask me to pay for everything.
Unfortunately, they're all on the dating websites, and those sites are flooded with fuckbois, creeps, and assholes. Folks who, very likely, consider themselves in the Top 10%, but can't maintain a relationship because they are so toxic.
it’s meant to dissuade the low-value truly-nice guys (the non-sociopaths) who actually value and obey the wishes of women
It isn't meant to dissuade them because they're invisible to people who spend all their time looking for love on these social media sites. The struggle to find nice, chill, normal guys is real. What's more - and what really staggered me when we were hanging out - was how social media has degraded her ability to just... flirt with people in public. We were at a bar and there was a guy she saw who she thought was cute. And my wife goes over to tell him, "My friend thinks your cute can she buy you a drink?" and he says yes and comes over to chat, and she fucking flubs it! Just wiffs so hard! Complete emotion seize up. This woman is in her 30s and has hooked up online a thousand times, but as soon as she's not using her phone she just face-plants.
Its the fucking apps, man. They are obliterating the ability for people to form normal human relationships. These social media gurus are feeding on that negative energy, and people are falling for it because they've forgotten how to communicate with one another normally.
You really don't need to be in this mythical elite to get a girl. There are so many women who would love to have a bog-standard normal human dude. They aren't trying to dissuade these people. They have just lost the social skills necessary to make a healthy human connection. All they know how to do anymore is hit the "Fuck Me" button and hope someone else hits it back.
No no, there's tons and tons of scam accounts that all use the same pictures of a hot Asian supermodel, who all try to get you to buy them 10k of Bitcoin in exchange for the promise of a handy or whatever
She wants you to be emotionally available for her, but not to be emotionally available for you. Avoid these people, men or women, for anything you're not absolutely forced to.
I think she's talking about people who need to be constantly emotionally validated, which can absolutely be emotionally draining, especially if you're working through shit yourself.
Like, if your partner has BDD and you have to have a conversation argument with them multiple times a day defending them from their own self loathing, that's exhausting after a few years.
Online is a perfect haven for predators so I cant fault her for acknowledging there are some if not many awful people out there(which are in all walks of life and not just preying on young women). If there weren’t there would be no need for moderators. So okay…Good for her for setting some standards but like she could just acknowledge it with her friends over coffee or have a p2p chat about it and maybe put together a game plan and do more deep dive on how to get more aware of when she’s getting used and tuck that away into her back pocket and rely on it when she needs and not set out to ‘teach all men a lesson about young women to be nicer only to them’.
Cuz if you start announcing things like she did and just going ‘no users!’ On a public profile this is just lazy filtering and airing personal baggage. At the very least you still have to give people a chance not to tick those boxes or get some counselling if you start predicting the worst of an entire group and start getting exclusionary and generalizing who’s victimized and who’s predatory based on age and gender like this.
People calling the effort you put in to support your partners, friends and family "emotional labor" are either blatantly misinformed or people who want a pass on not giving a shit about their "close ones".
Emotional labor, as a term, was created to explain the difficulties and effort someone has to engage in to regulate their emotions when they're constantly dealing with the suffering of other people during work. It's valid, just as long as you use it in its appropriate context. This dumbass appropriation of the term by a certain branch of liberals is like if someone used the physical concept of entropy to justify why they're never getting out of depression.
If someone only wants emotionless relationships with people they only interact with for their own benefit, and never giving a care in turn, that's legitimate, as long as they don't lie about their intentions. But that might also explain why this Hannah at the OP cannot find a good partner.
We all have mental disorders. Fuckin everybody does. Especially those considered normal. If you have no problems fitting into this corpo hellscape, you're nuts.
It works well as a metaphor, which is why people might be fooled to think there might be a direct parallelism without understanding the insurmountable differences between both (depression may be very hard to get out of if you're in a downwards spiral, but definitely possible, while entropy is literally an inevitability of the Universe, as far as our understanding of physics goes) which is why I compared it to the popular appropriation of emotional labor, which notices the poetic similarity but is unable to understand the actual differences between both.
Tribalism is based on empathy towards other tribe members. Capitalism, ironically, goes against this: tribal bonds take a back seat to economic interest.
Humans are, in fact naturally empathetic. It's why we pack-bond with anything with a name.
It's not a matter of expanding it. Humans developed to have tribes of 2-300 people, and as a species we haven't done well past that. Look how society started turning to shit once we could communicate globally with millions of people.
We didn't learn to love and accept everyone, we just formed echo chambers (tribes) and turned the dial up on the hate.
What you're looking for is something like globalism, which goes against human nature.
Dunbar's number is 150, I believe. But that's the limit for ""real"" people, with names and addresses and birthdays. The magic is, however, they don't need to all be real: a nation is a tribe, and nations can hold millions. You just need a few real people that you take as a stand in for all the others, and then keep doing it untill it encompasses the whole of humanity.
I say "just", it's not like it's that easy, but it's doable.
Capitalism really couldn't happen to this degree until industrialism became a thing.
I mean, all you have to do is look at all of recorded human history to see that we're not an altruistic or compassionate species. A person might be altruistic or compassionate, but people aren't. If people were, communism would actually work.
Regardless, tribalism isn't a good thing because you end up with 'that persons skin color is different from mine and that's bad.'
Communism works for small communities, like 2-300 people (which incidentally is the size of the tribes we developed to be part of).
And while altruistim and compassion have existed, they're by no means traits in the majority of humans. Humans are selfish, greedy animals. Some of us might realize this and work to be better, but that means we're fighting our natural tendencies.
Easy, just go bi and date other women. You still have the option for men.
Edit also it’s unfair to say what she’s saying anyways. I almost feel like your dating pool options or choices are more a reflection of you than other people. Or idk, maybe some people get unlucky.
if i tried to comfort you about it, though, wouldn't that just perpetuate and enable the problem?
...actually no, i can't even joke about it. I'm sorry people left you feeling emotionally abandoned, bro. It's not fair that you get put under this double standard. The fact is, everyone needs emotional labor. Another word for emotional labor is goddamn fucking empathy and SOME PEOPLE don't want to show any toward men.
THOSE people don't matter. The kind of woman who would look at you as a burden would, in fact, be a burden upon you.
You are worthy of love. You are worth the investment of psychological and emotional energy. You have value even above and beyond intrinsic value as a human being. And if you were here, I'd be taking us both out for tacos and/or ice cream right goddamn now.
Another word for emotional labor is goddamn fucking empathy and SOME PEOPLE don't want to show any toward men.
The very people screaming the loudest about “toxic masculinity” being a problem in men, are invariably the ones imposing it the most fiercely upon men, as this woman is doing.
You have no idea what is meant with emotional labour. I wish people would at least try to look something up before just reading into it whatever they like. This comment section is unhinged.
I think this statement about emotional labour is being misinterpreted and knee jerk reactioned. People are getting angry and jumping to conclusions about men not being allowed to have emotions, but that isn’t it.
Of course partners are supposed to support each other. What this is talking about is someone who prioritizes their emotional needs over the other person the majority of the time to the detriment of the relationship. Your partner is there to be your partner - the role of full time therapist is above their pay grade. And I’m wondering whether this is highlighted as an issue because men are less likely to seek therapy where needed and rely on their partner for this. Helping your partner through issues is one thing but sometimes it’s healthy and necessary to zoom out and get perspective from a professional. This happened in my relationship and I had to honestly and kindly say I don’t have the expertise to help you with this issue. I’m willing to hold space for you and sit with you as you navigate it but you do need the help of a professional to unpack this.
Have you ever had a friend who every time you hang out with and the whole time it’s them talking about themselves and their issues to the point where they don’t even show any interest in you. You’re effectively acting like that person’s therapist 100% of the time.
I had an ex brother in law like this. He had many mental health challenges but everything was 100% about him all the time for the whole family. His likes, his dislikes, his issues, his interests. He’d ask a short how are you and dive right into all his shit. If the event or conversation didn’t revolve around him, he would leave and disengage. It sucks the air out of the room and it’s fucking exhausting for everyone.
If people are going to Twitter expecting nuanced, perfectly balanced and fleshed out essays then that’s an internet literacy problem. Men give all sorts of opinions on the internet about how women should be, dress, look, have sex, etc - I don’t see how this is any different.
I’d agree with her opinion in the context that it’s the same for any friendship, or relationship honestly. If you are so sensitive and vulnerable with me all the time that it’s unbalanced and I have no room to have and express my own emotions then it is not a friendship that is worth keeping. It’s not black and white be a stone or be a puddle. It’s that relationships are built on empathy and empathy is an exchange. Just as I hold space to help you through your issues, you too need to hold space for me.
There was a post on I saw on Lemmy a while ago of an OP asking for friends in a local community because they lacked friends due to a laundry list of baggage and mental health issues - they felt that friendship could solve those. The issue is why would anyone see that and be like wow that is a fun positive person I want to be around, I’m totally equipped to handle all of that. No - the solution was why doesn’t that OP go to a therapist or support group and work on those issues first where it is possible to find community related to those particular issues.
The basis of any relationship can’t be one party constantly being the pump-up person and emotional cheerleader for the other party, which is a role that women fall into A LOT. This goes both ways obviously no matter what your gender, but women in my experience tend to spread out their emotional support needs across a larger network - friends, family, therapists etc. It’s actually become something my sister and I have noticed with our guy friends - they like hanging out with us because we do talk about our emotions, and they feel freer to talk about theirs. However, no one person monopolizes the conversation.
I have another friend who every time she shows up to a party she talks about all of her past trauma. It’s a lot. We have sat with her on multiple occasions but the friend group now has to move her along from talking about it because it can easily spiral and become the basis for the whole night. This person needs therapy in a big way and we have encouraged this. But if the relationship is one sided and you’re not having fun and getting anything out of it, what do you do? How do you proceed if this person won’t also follow through to do the work on themselves? A quote that struck me lately: “Mental health is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.”
If men are getting out of toxic masculinity and are not equipped to be in a healthy relationship they need to seek therapy for help with that. It is above any partner’s pay grade to shepherd them through that alone if they do not also have the support of a therapist.
How many times on the internet do I see “Your wife/gf isn’t having sex? Break up with her!” There could be many reasons for this. If there is a libido mismatch, if there’s something mentally or physically wrong. If the non-sexual partner isn’t willing to do the work on themselves to arrive at a compromise, isn’t seeking outside help, and then wants the sexual partner to do all of the work 100% of the time, then yeah what exactly do people expect the sexual partner to do other than break up?
I think there’s a balance here. I have the gut reaction to the concept as you do, but I’ve also on too many occasions put too much on loved ones and had to learn to not take more than my fair share and I’ve had a partner who was constantly in need of emotional assistance and it was exhausting.
It should be like money between friends. If you’re keeping count a problem is happening, maybe it’s that someone didn’t contribute their fair share enough that you noticed and it’s starting to put a burden on others or maybe you’re overly commoditizing your relationships.
I definitely think there is an over commodification of relationships problem on the left at the moment. But I think the root causes are a little that everyone is spread thin and exhausted and also that we’ve gotten words for these ways in which some people take too much and our communities have gotten weak. A strong community defaults to giving what is needed, but recipients make a point to return contributions with what they can give.
It is a labor and some people do take more than their fair share. As a man this term did help me understand some people who left me feeling completely drained every time I hung out with them.
Eh, the Twitter person can go fuck themselves. Both partners deserve emotional support and comfort. That's what being in a partnership is about. Just because men are pigeonholed by toxic masculinity doesn't mean we don't need emotional validation.
Yeah she sounds absolutely unhinged. I don’t expect my SO to manage my emotions for me, but I absolutely rely on her for emotional support, just as she relies on me for the same. Living is hard but we make it better by experiencing life together.
This post could be reversed in gender and be women who:
Expect to have NSFW social accounts and contacts while being in a committed relationship
Need constant emotional or financial support and are unable to manage their own emotions, usually in a parasitic manner of being overtly dependent
Think their relationships are a competition, so they both need to constantly “one up” each other on things like physique, income, accomplishments, and often compare their partners on that “scale” to other potential partners
Play hard to get and expect constant work from one side of the relationship while maintaining an aloof effort themselves
Support feminism and equality in a way that is “treat me like a queen and not an equal, showering me with gifts and affection purely because I am a woman”
I think everyone could benefit from following the lyrics in Bo Burnham’s song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=llGvsgN17CQ
Be a loving human toward your partner, and expect them to do the same
Expect to have NSFW social accounts and contacts while being in a committed relationship
That's fine if both parties agree on it. Not everyone is into classic possessive monogamy.
Support feminism and equality in a way that is “treat me like a queen and not an equal, showering me with gifts and affection purely because I am a woman”
That's not feminism, though. That's just idealised misandry.
I think everyone could benefit from following the lyrics in Bo Burnham’s song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=llGvsgN17CQ Be a loving human toward your partner, and expect them to do the same
Absolutely. That dude is wise way beyond his years, an excellent showman and hilarious to boot ❤️
Eh, I wouldn't take that at face value. Sometimes women use that "emotional labor" line when they're the ones who expect a ton of emotional labor from their male partner but have no desire to give any effort the other way. I'm not gonna try to claim that's the norm or whatever but it does happen.
As a woman whose had the same struggle it really does suck, but I can say from personal experience it can be improved and there are ways to deal with it.
I’ve been on both sides of it actually and I think I learned this behavior from my parents who I grew up comforting.
One big piece of advice I have is that it’s too easy to flip between extremes here. The response to close off doesn’t help. I have two big techniques that’re helping me here: cbt practice, and pre processing. The latter is basically I step away from loved ones when I’m having too much emotions. Sometimes that means taking a walk without my phone, sometimes it’s locking myself in a room to cry. I get the big stuff out of the way so I can share my feelings while they’re at a manageable level.
Sure, but the further you move toward the tails of the distribution the stronger the competition. All men will date short women, but short men can only date shorter women and they're still at a disadvantage. Tall women have a similar problem - they only want men who are taller than them, which just happen to be the most attractive men for every other woman they're competing with, too.
I thought the last one was just conservatives making stuff up until I joined Lemmy.
Don't get me wrong, the woman in the tweet is awful, especially the part about hating men who dare to have emotions, but I'm responding purely to the last thing on this list.
A lot of Lemmy users seem to think all they need to do to be immune to misogyny is to be leftist. It's just been getting real tiring for me browsing this site seeing men be praised for things they at the same time put women down for. Not that men shouldn't be praised for these things, but the double standard here is immense.
The major one I've noticed is putting down women for having a preference on height or even dick size, but men are allowed to only want big boobs or petite women because it's "a natural expression of human sexuality."
There's also that I've seen several times men on here complaining when women are given safe spaces and resources specifically for them, like job fairs and such, and the comments being filled with how it should have been open to men as well because not doing so is sexist, meanwhile being totally ok and even ecstatic when a resource is opened specifically for men.
Like, I'm trans. I've lived on the other side of the coin. I'm glad men around here have a safe space to display their frustrations and discuss men's issues that in most places you'd be crucified for even mentioning. I just wish this could be a safe space for both genders, not just the one who holds the majority. There are a lot of times I feel straight up unwelcome on Lemmy simply because I'm a women.
My 2c on this, I wish people would understand that a lot of women have similar struggles, same for men, and having spaces for those experiences to be shared with people who understand is really important.
I think the issue is it feels pretty othering when I've had experiences similar and feel like I'm not allowed to share them (without a lot of angry stares) because I'm not the correct gender.
I know there have been cases of women's spaces being taken less seriously, but I don't remember any specifics. Do you have any examples that come to mind?
It'd take me ages to find the post, but a while back, there was a post about a job fair for women getting overrun by a tidal wave of men. The comments were filled with people trying to justify it, such as saying that it was illegal and sexist to host a job fair for women only, and people even the slightest bit upset that a job fair for women was overrun by men abusing the legal loophole that they technically couldn't be kicked out got down voted way to the bottom of the thread.
I found the post https://lemmy.world/post/6206801 and here https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/508848
Yeah I guess you have to see it firsthand. I've heard tons of comments like "women just aren't built for STEM" etc which these events are trying to show is wrong. It is probably a little unfair to the individual but good for society as a whole when talented women don't see a field is 90% men and decide it's not worth dealing with the boys club.
I do wanna point out, the most upvoted comments seem to have the same sentiment of this actually is important and a good thing to have for women. Definitely quite a few with a high score that say the opposite though...
That is the post I was talking about. I did forget about the few higher pro-woman comments. I guess I tend to remember the bad more than the good.
Still unpleasant how many people around here are completely ok with stuff like that though, but I suppose it's worth focusing on the positive.
Comments like that are utter trash. Only an incel believes in that BS. It's as if they never knew that one of, if not the first programmers, was Ada Lovelace.
Basically what I'm saying is some things need to cater to specific crowds to function. We don't need to get rid of the law, we need to adapt it (tbh, I don't think we should have to do that either, I think people should respect when something's not made for them on their own, but that won't happen.)
I'm not just talking about things like this job fair. I'm talking about shelters for abused people as well. I might just be imagining it because it was so long ago that I read it, but I remember cases of shelters for abused men getting shut down for discriminating against women, which is ridiculous because those shelters are gender divided for a reason.
In this case, these kind of job fairs are to help more women get into male dominated fields, which is really tough because of the amount of abuse and discrimination they get in those fields.
Men and women in a general sense experience different kinds of societal issues and need to be allowed to have safe spaces away from each other.
As a male, while I do not support men breaking into that job fair, I can understand their frustrations.
There should be some limited spaces for people of one gender to stay without the other, but that should be things like shelters and other places for people in mentally vulnerable position caused by people of opposite gender, and it shouldn't grow into a gendered separation.
Jobs should be available for everyone, and if females get less access to jobs, job market needs to be regulated to remove sources of said discrimination, without creating bigger discrimination (like outright blocking other gender's access to same jobs).
General-purpose gendered spaces (like quite a few barbershops for males or certain feminist cafes for females) only breed more resentment and stereotypical thinking about the other gender, as there is no one to correct them and no counterexamples to be seen. Besides, gender separation makes places that can be important for a person closed from them for immutable reasons, which is a clear case of discrimination and is not cool.
I agree with you for the most part, but in practice it's way more difficult to regulate out discrimination if you don't first have enough women (or other minorities in other cases) working in the field to function as a support network. Even if you get the job at that point, if you're not made to feel welcome there there's a solid chance you're not gonna keep that job, because nobody wants to deal with that every day.
I don't like the idea of restricting men from the same opportunity, but there isn't much other solution until the playing field is made more even.
As far as your last paragraph goes, pretty much in full agreement. When I say men and women need safe spaces away from each other, I don't mean they should be secluded from each other, which is what places like that tend to cause. I mean things like support groups, friends they can vent to, and even online forums and such specifically for them. There still needs to be plenty of exposure in our daily lives though to the issues of men, women, and minorities.
My issues with Lemmy primarily come from the fact that the site is massively male dominated, which means it's become largely an echo chamber. People here as a result have become much more sensitive to men's issues, which is a good thing, but the tradeoff is that there's virtually nobody stepping in for women's issues, sometimes even going as far as to deny the issue even exists. I know the rest of the internet is often the other way around, but I really wish we could have at least one space somewhere on the internet where both men and women are allowed to say things like "this makes me uncomfortable" or "this makes me feel ashamed of my body" and be taken seriously.
I was really hoping Lemmy would be that space when I first signed up, and it was really disappointing to realize what it was actually like. Luckily, there are some instances out there that are more balanced on that, but I'd rather not have to turtle up in one of them.
Thanks for your points. While I stand by my position of regulation over reverse discrimination, I understand where you're coming from here.
I'd like to point one thing out, however, and it stems directly from the intersection of abovementioned issue and the one you raise about Lemmy.
The place is certainly male-dominated, and yes, this can make local ethos more male-centric and masculist. Also as you rightfully mentioned, Lemmy is one of the few avenues where such thought can be propagated efficiently and not be overwhelmed in the oblivion by feminist/conservative voices.
We are, generally, in the minority, yet when we get to concentrate our voices somewhere - like Lemmy - and dominate small part of the Internet you belong to, this naturally makes you uncomfortable.
That happens because you'd like to have an equal footing everywhere, and don't want to be discriminated against even in a small alcove that is this place.
We don't want that, either. We don't want to be discriminated against somewhere just because males historically dominate in other place. We don't want to lose access to our dreams and jobs (in the abovementioned case) because previous generation has screwed it up the other way around. Many of us, however, are perfectly happy to promote a healthier workplace ethic, including towards women, and popularize females working in male-domimated spaces. This way is sometimes more rocky, but it is fair and it allows to even things out without having to radicalize and tilt scales towards the domination of the other gender.
Should "male job fairs" appear for female-dominated jobs, I'll also stand against it, despite the knee-jerk to give males preference at taking new places to balance it out quicker and promote the new culture.
With that being said, I welcome you here on Lemmy and hope more feminist and generally female voices will join in. I'm also happy to promote feminist initiatives in this place (without forgetting masculist ones), so hit me up if something crosses your mind.
That wasn't a loophole, what that event was doing was open and naked gender discrimination and their ban on men was legally unenforceable. The law was on their side. What women should do in retaliation is bum rush those men's clubs where all the power decisions are made by the top 1% of men. Fun fact the dean of my uni's computer science dept was a woman, and decades later it still is. THEY have a crucial role in recruiting women students, it begins at the start of the pipeline.
I hope it's not rude that I checked your profile and saw your explanation. I can see how I might have misinterpreted that. The way I interpreted the "sensitive men" and "emotional labor" part was as reinforcing the toxic masculine stereotype that men are supposed to just "man up" and not show emotion. Unfortunately, that's an aspect of toxic masculinity upheld by women just as much as men.
The major one I’ve noticed is putting down women for having a preference on height or even dick size, but men are allowed to only want big boobs or petite women because it’s “a natural expression of human sexuality.”
I see men being constantly shamed and catching blowback for those preferences. I mean we can't hope to succeed in shaming women into wanting short men or poor men, etc. but shouldn't the same rule apply to men? More insane is that wanting a tall man is more "legitimate" than wanting big boobs or athletic build in women. The rules are constantly altered to justify all women's preferences and demonize men's.
Also as a man you can be banned from Reddit not for saying "no trans woman" but just for saying "I want a cis woman". Feminist subreddits will go for your head, too. (Don't get me wrong if one of my kids is dating a trans person I will support them totally also.) I've gotten the vibe that you risk your account here over that, too.
You are correct that in most environments, it is the other way around. In most places, women wanting tall men is considered normal and acceptable, but men having any preference at all is not. My point was not about how things are in society as a whole, but how things are on the larger Lemmy instances. However, even that seems to have rapidly changed since I made this comment. There was a thread about men's issues I saw recently that didn't devolve into "this is why women are awful" and actually stayed on topic, and that was really nice to see.
What I was frustrated about was that there was no space where both men's and women's preferences were respected, and also not resorting to body shaming when people do not meet those preferences. Lemmy is primarily dominated by men, which naturally makes it easier to talk about men's issues without being shamed for it, but it did lead, for a while, to women's issues not only being overlooked, but also often being intentionally ignored or outright shamed, mostly because men could not understand these issues they'd never experienced, so they didn't feel as real (which is largely the same reason women often have trouble respecting men's issues.)
I'm guessing it has to do with Lemmy's population finally growing again and new perspectives being thrown into the mix, but I've noticed a lot more empathy about gendered issues lately, which is nice to see.
As far as whether you risk your account for only wanting cis women, probably depends heavily on the instance. A shocking amount of the time people use preference as a cover for bigotry, so I wouldn't be surprised if some mods are heavy on the trigger finger when it comes to that. Not that there's not legit reasons to not want to date trans women. We can't provide biological children and a large portion of us have no desire to "fully" transition, which are both reasonable reasons to not want to be with a trans woman (and of course that's not an exhaustive list of every valid reason.) It's just often people who say that mean they don't view trans women as actual women and don't want to date them because they're "not gay."
You are correct that in most environments, it is the other way around. In most places, women wanting tall men is considered normal and acceptable, but men having any preference at all is not. My point was not about how things are in society as a whole, but how things are on the larger Lemmy instances. However, even that seems to have rapidly changed since I made this comment. There was a thread about men’s issues I saw recently that didn’t devolve into “this is why women are awful” and actually stayed on topic, and that was really nice to see.
I used to be a MRA until Trump happened and the gender loyalism just got too much to handle. I can't put up with gender jingoism ("my gender, right or wrong") nonsense from either side. I had to part ways for good when they started saying the 19th should be revoked. "This is why wo/men are awful" is basically saying one sucks at vetting people without actually saying one sucks at vetting people.
As for women wanting tall men, or men not wanting fat women for that matter, the ramifications of said preference leaves a lot of men and women out in the cold, but what can you do? Freedom to choose who you want to be intimate with is sancrosanct. Depressing (I got a 12 year old son aging into this shithole situation) but can't be fixed because it isn't biology, it goes way deeper than that, it's spiritual. What can and must be fixed, though, is the shaming: shit like "Fat shaming month" or women walking up in bars using measuring tape to see a guy's actual height. The "fat women / short men kill yourselves" shit that sometimes flourishes unchecked in social media before admins step in and nix it long after it has hit a ton of eyeballs.
There is a prevalent culture of shaming someone for what they can't help or can't easily help and then acting like they are the problem when you cause them to have insecurities related to that. Full scale industrialized cultural-level gaslighting without apology. We need to end that... but how? It's like it's also part of our spiritual zeitgeist. I mean some of us are aware and awake, but overall? Might as well say everyone stop being human. But it's also spiritually embedded for those who are awake to refuse to stop fighting the good fight. That windmill will see no peace from my lance.
As far as whether you risk your account for only wanting cis women, probably depends heavily on the instance. A shocking amount of the time people use preference as a cover for bigotry, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some mods are heavy on the trigger finger when it comes to that. Not that there’s not legit reasons to not want to date trans women. We can’t provide biological children and a large portion of us have no desire to “fully” transition, which are both reasonable reasons to not want to be with a trans woman (and of course that’s not an exhaustive list of every valid reason.) It’s just often people who say that mean they don’t view trans women as actual women and don’t want to date them because they’re “not gay.”
I have a special pile of beef for the whole "you're dating a trans woman hahahaha you suck" mentality. Mods and admins being trigger happy af about trans issues is an affront, but so is that. I'm buying plenty of lances for tilting against that windmill, too. Break one, I come back with another...
The major one I’ve noticed is putting down women for having a preference on height or even dick size, but men are allowed to only want big boobs or petite women because it’s “a natural expression of human sexuality.”
That's not the way I remember it. I remember being told that men having or expressing physical preferences in women was a terrible thing to do, being called a sexist, shallow pig, etc. This has been a female talking point basically my entire life. Then I remember being rejected for being 5'7". You know how we live in a world with 5 websites, each one is full of pictures of the other 4? I think I saw a Facebook post of a Tweet on Reddit that said [woman]: Grey sweatpants are for men with DICK, not men with peepee. [man]: But if I said tight jeans are for girls with ass, not long backs, I'd be the asshole.
I find that level of sheer hypocrisy is pretty effective at eroding my capacity for empathy.
Want another example? How about this cycle:
How dare men rely on only their romantic partners for emotional support. Men should support each other goddess dammit!
Men create spaces to gather and share activities.
-- If activity is not socially acceptable, I'll use the example of tabletop gaming in the 80's and 90's: "EWW look at the nerds and their pathetic nerd shit! Get lost, losers!"
-- If activity is or becomes socially acceptable, and especially if it starts building money or prestige, I'll use the example of video games in the 2000's and 2010's: "This environment isn't suitable for women! I demand you change it to accommodate my needs and tastes."
Why the fuck don't men make and keep friendships with other men? I just don't fucking get it.
And for some reason they expect me to automatically give a damn when the Republicans take their rights away?
Women are very vocal about not being on my side. So guess what? I'm not on theirs. Gasp.
If you feel unwelcome on Lemmy just for being a woman, as far as I'm concerned you can go somewhere else.
Your concerns for a lot of your life experiences are completely valid, but when you make the jump from "a lot of women have been assholes to me" to "women are assholes", you fall into the same pitfall people are criticizing in this thread. There are a lot of women who are assholes. There are a lot of men who are assholes. Let's criticize those behaviors, and make society a little bit better insofar we're able to, rather than join their ranks.
Everyone is shallow, that's not exclusive to any gender. Some people are shitty, others can have hard-line views due to experienced trauma. Doesn't mean you should generalize, men and women are not monoliths. Just trying to understand the lived experience of the other side goes a long way.
I find that level of sheer hypocrisy is pretty effective at eroding my capacity for empathy.
Jesus Christ, dude. Learn some reading comprehension.
Judging by how the votes in this thread are going, my lived experience isn't worth considering, so I now have no intention of considering anyone else's. Fuck empathy. It's not worth trying.
You’re talking about the most shallow, vapid women out there. The women i’ve met have generally never talked like that. So no, you don’t get a pass to hate on women just because you saw some FB memes that hurt your fee fees…
And for some reason they expect me to automatically give a damn when the Republicans take their rights away?
I give a damn about Republican douchebaggery because I'm not like those kinds of people, I don't want to be a monster like them. I want to be able to look in the mirror and see someone who's better than that. How women react will never affect me acting on my morals, they don't control me.
Uhh you can switch the genders and it wouldn’t be a lie. Except the last part would be “still treats other races like shit”. In my experience many “woke” women are covert racist, especially against Asian men. Even some “woke” Western Asian women can be pretty racist against Asian men.
Even some “woke” Western Asian women can be pretty racist against Asian men.
FTFY.
My wife is Asian, and has seen this in her own female relatives and community friends who have immigrated here or have been born here. None of them would ever debase themselves that far to be with an Asian man unless he was loaded AF.
And my BiL has only ever had one Asian woman take any interest in him, despite being one hell of a handsome man… last time he visited China, he was frequently mistaken for a movie star or a model.
Well yeah. The sane ones aren’t looking for relationships because of a combination of the world being on fire, money being worthless and nigh-impossible to obtain, and trauma from past toxic relationships. They decided to focus their efforts on their own lives rather than someone else’s.
Either that, or they don’t even need to date, because someone in their friend group snapped them up. Either or, really.
I mean I think this post/the responses proves that people are more attracted to good personalities than 'conventional attractive' looks, but that's just my opinion
Read a story about Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump one day wonder. He set up a meet and greet for sugar daddies and potential babies at his restaurant. He'd invite 20 males and 30 females, so the daddies could instantly see who was the most desperate.
"You're not good/popular with women? Sucks to suck you're not allowed to tend to your needs apply that desire to toxicity towards women by working out and feeling entitled to women because you work out instead!"
I don't know what you are saying here. What huge anti porn push? And your quote... I don't think I understand it. 'apply that desire to toxicity towards women by working out'... what does that mean? There's a grammar problem there, and I'm not sure what it should say. I might guess 'desire for toxicity' - but is that really a thing? Do people desire toxicity?
I have lots of female friends and from their stories in the dating scene, this is not far from reality. Of course, it's meant as a sort of social-commentary joke, so there's exaggeration and oversimplification, but there's a substrate of truth to to it.
What's best about the post is the second part. That personality-profile to social media link is spot on LOL
Girl, if this is the way you view the dating pool, then maybe MGTOW has a valid point or three to consider.
I may have stepped off the dating field nearly thirty years ago, but in terms of the gratuitous misandry that I have seen as of the last decade or so, even if I were to become widowed I doubt I would ever want to step back onto it. The juice is just not worth the squeeze if I am seen as “the enemy” and facing unjustified hostility and adversarial arrogance long before you even get to know me.
maybe MGTOW has a valid point or three to consider.
No. Just no. Don't even consider it. Broken clock being right twice a day.
I went down that pipeline simply because on the surface it presents itself as something to help men gain independence from relationships, but the hate and vitriol there and the rest of the manosphere is more misandrist and misogynist than anything this random woman can ever do.
If you went to most redpill communities, I would absolutely agree with you. It’s often really hard to tell them apart from feminist communities in terms of their rage and hate against the other gender.
However, out of sheer curiosity I have poked my nose into and lurked on a number of MGTOW communities that are refreshingly supportive and which do their best to help men move past the rage phase into more productive paths. Mainly because rage generally isn’t conducive to sustained and healthy self-improvement… and if you’re still obsessed with women in any way, you are pretty much failing at “going your own way”.
I actually know a few MGTOW, and aside from ignoring what society and women demand of them, you would never know they were MGTOW. They don’t talk about women. They don’t get upset over what women do or say. They just don’t want to have anything to do with women because they have much better things to do with their lives.
And when women complain to all and sundry that they just want to be left alone, isn’t MGTOW doing exactly what women want -- leaving them TF alone? How could that be in any way a bad thing?
While there can be some healthy trends in these online communities, we should look at it from other angles as well. How does it compare to just getting therapy? Does growing some emotional intelligence turn men into incel terrorists the way a blackpill site might? How do these communities loom from the outside?
Let's assume that the toxic males among MGTOW are just a loud minority. Why would you still want to hang out there? There's plenty of supportive spaces, both online, and IRL that don't include men who call women trash. Tolerance of intolerance and all that.
If MGTOW stuck to the goal stated in their name, I'd have been happy to stay with them. But even the most reasonable men I found who identified as MGTOW often had sexist tendencies.
But most MGTOW don't leave women alone. They lurk and comment in communities for women, they post under every article or post they find about women, they try to spread their misogyny whenever they have a chance.
When you are MGTOW, why do you care so much about what someone writes about dating? Why the need to be so angry about it? It doesn't effect you, so why does it enrage you when women talk about their struggles with dating or life?
Yes. My excuse is that I moved to Canada from Iran where men and women are segregated, but when I wanted to learn about women and their experiences I made the mistake of going to men to hear about them... as if women can't speak.
The root of the problem is that MGTOW recognizes a lot of issues men face that plenty of people on the left even deny with virulence. Of course, what MGTOW offers as a "solution" is misogyny that only serves to make everyone more miserable, but the young fools who see someone offering them a hand don't know that, and it's very rare for them to even hear any alternative narrative that empathizes with their issues.
what MGTOW offers as a "solution" is misogyny that only serves to make everyone more miserable
So when women go their own way they are lauded and celebrated, but when men do the exact same thing, it’s somehow misogyny??
You can’t have the exact same strategy be lauded on the one hand and vilified on the other, purely based on the gender of the person implementing that strategy.
That’s the dictionary definition of gender bigotry, and is at the core of pretty much every reason why men go their own way.
By "MGTOW" I don't refer to the literal definition, but what you can find the movement is in practice for the vast majority of their members. A woman who goes through the same thought patterns explicitely because they're become misandric deserves the same criticism.
This is for young women, so probably not at all your dating pool if you become widowed after thirty years of marriage.
Dating is very different later in life. My dad was widowed in his mid fifties, and he pointed out that instead of looking for someone for all the milestones, he was just looking for someone he enjoys spending time with. He didn’t even need to agree with them about religion, because they’re almost definitely not raising kids together.
It's never been a better time to be a tall, rich white guy. My short kings are scaring off more pussy than a vacuum cleaner. 5'10? Now take off them high lifts and come correct. Profile picture ten years out of date and now you fat as shit, did you think your bankrupt luddite charisma would win her over?
Truth is the second option one is just a normal ass guy. Everyone has emotions and needs. The fact is it's still taboo to be a "man" and have emotions.
Like honestly tell me any other option on there is preferable to someone with emotions... She acting like women don't require the same thing? Gtfoh. It's not even a bad thing. It's just a human thing.
What she's referring to isn't the same as having emotions. She means the people who expect everyone around them, especially their romantic partner, to manage their emotions for them. Plenty of women do it, too.
I don't know anyone like that. I do know we are plenty of people who are drama queens.
But that's not really the same thing as having emotions people with functional emotions are actually fine, it's the ones that don't have emotions but do have an awful lot of opinions that are the problem.
No, that's the narcissist. She's referring to having to help someone with their emotional needs. Sounds moreso like she needs to work on her own if it's laborious to support her partner emotionally.
Expecting your partner to be your personal therapist is not cool but it's also not necessarily narcissism.
Ah, so they key is to have your own therapist, and a partner that doesn't give two shits about your emotional well being. gotcha.
cuz being an emotionally supportive partner means becoming their personal therapist. cool cool, you sound fun
Who said anything about that? You can share your emotions with your partner in a way where you don't expect them to be your personal therapist. Generally, it's healthy to have a support network, preferably not just one person and especially not just one person who isn't even a professional.
When you share your feelings with a therapist, that exchange is in one direction, you should never have to emotionally support your therapist. That is however not how it should be with a partner, in a romantic relationship both people should be able to share their emotions and receive support, and that isn't possible if one person is treating the other as if they were a therapist and not giving them the space to share their emotions in turn.
Most things in life are about balance, just because you don't agree with something all the way one side (e.g. there is no way to create an unhealthy relationship dynamic by sharing your emotions, regardless of how you do it) doesn't mean that you agree with something all the way to the other side (i.e. you shouldn't give two shits about your partner's emotional well-being).
I was replying to someone up there who was shitting on men with emotions. Because they equated having them with being a bad partner. My point is that emotions are normal and wanting an emotionally supportive partner isn't the same as treating them like a therapist.
Who was shitting on men with emotions? I haven't seen that at all.
We agree on that, you can do one without doing the other.
one of the main points and benefits of a relationship is being able to share problems with someone else and have someone that could cheer you up or to share excitement with
'emotional labor' is for actual jobs, especially customer service type jobs
Yea, but if you're trauma dumping on your partner every time you see them that's not healthy or fair to them.
Oh so that's why relationships feel like jobs.
Only if you're doing them wrong
Relationships only really feel like jobs in this way when you feel your effort is not being reciprocated. Doing emotional labour for your partner is not exhausting if you feel like you are equally pulling each other up.
She's referring to overly emotional men, who need extra attention; guys who can't handle failure or rejection, who have a bad day at work and then can't help around the house at all at night and who expect their partner to take care of them, regardless of how their partner's day went. I know the type of dude she's talking about and I wouldn't want my daughter to bring one home. Dude needs a mother not a partner.
Nope this is a list of all the men available, like she said. She's painting all emotional men with the same brush. There are good men and bad men in each of those categories she listed, but she thinks we're all bad.
So I cry and need a hug sometimes? Emotional labor. I can describe the full range of emotions I feel to a partner and deal with them in a healthy way? Gross.
You have a victim mentality. You are looking for this stuff and you're finding it. The post does not say that.
"As we seek so shall we find."
I know who I am. I'm just reading what she said. That's the dating pool.
Let me ask you this:
How could a decent man possibly respond to a post like that without being lumped into it, like you just did to me?
They could not respond, just be present at home with their family.
Yes, I suppose we could just become more silent and withdrawn, couldn't we?
Let me try a different tack. I know I have issues. I've been working on myself for years. As men, we mostly experience negative reinforcement with emotional growth.
But if we are trying to get healthy, how are we supposed to respond to that kind of invalidating talk, inside our own heads? What if the woman saying that kind of stuff isn't just venting her frustration onto the internet, what if she's saying it to us, in a relationship? Does that kind of talk inspire us to improve or push us into darker places? Is complaining about us like this in any way helping to improve the way men and women interact?
Once again you're making it the woman's job to help you improve yourself. You're going to see and hear things that put you in a dark place. That's life. Bringing yourself back to a middle ground of contendedness requires constant self work.
I'm sorry you have problems. Not everyone breaks the wheel.
So she wants a guy with a low sex drive, who she doesnt have to have any emotional attachment to, but who emotionally invested in her, that doesnt have any self confidence, and doesnt know any feminist theory so he cant tell he's in a toxic relationship and doesnt treat her like "shit" (an equal)
So just a vibrator and a dozen Facebook huns.
Sounds like she'll shout: "worship me as I am your goddess" and "I demand tribute" on a regular basis.
Is that not a normal thing to do?
That depends, are you a goa'uld?
Depends on the context.
In the bedroom: yes
In a Porsche showroom: no
Some guys are into that
Just do a hit and run, bro 😂
Tell me you've never actually dated a grown-up woman before.
When did she say she wanted a man with low sex drive? Being a porn addict doesn't mean you have a high sex drive. It means you're addicted to pornography.
When did she say any of what you wrote? Have you heard of being an even-tempered man who has sex with women but doesn't degrade them or neg them in order to do it, who doesn't need to trauma-dump on their gf because they've already worked through their shit? Your inference into what she posted tells us more about you than her.
Yes please take my dumb lemmy comment about a dumb 4chan post about a dumb tweet extremely seriously and try to start an argument with me by attacking my character. That's a very good use of your time.
Hmm I think you might be some of the red flags she’s talking about especially the manipulative one.
She literally said she doesn't want a guy who is sensitive and doesn't want a guy who is emotionally distant. Make it make sense.
I’m not saying I agree with the meme, but that part makes sense to me. Am I really the only one who has met both types of dysfunctional people? Some people are extremely emotionally demanding, where they need constant reassurance and support, and others are completely detached, so that there’s hardly emotional connection at all.
Being healthy is almost always about achieving the mean between extremes.
Well then that’s because you had a READING FAIL or you’re playing syntax argument and pretending that you’re confused.
Of course It wouldn’t make sense if you stopped reading after the first two words out of two entire sentences. Each point had descriptions but you’re ignoring them just to launch into a pitchfork argument. This is ‘Syntax’ argument. That’s some bad actor energy right there at worst. red herring argument at best.
So you’re Confused? Go back and reread for more than two words per line. Sound it out loud if you’re still ‘confused’. Talk to an English teacher if need be.
But personally I don’t believe you are confused. Not today, lil incel. Ya blocked.
That seems a bit hard on the dudes.
It's kinda exhausting seeing progressive language constantly used to rag on men. I want men to be anti-racist / feminist / LGBT allies / etc. I get that there are a lot of problems with many streams of masculinity and people who have been hurt by those have a right to complain, but goddamn. I would not expect lots of women to be attracted to a movement that constantly complains about women.
That's why a lot of people oppose third wave feminism. It stop being about uplifting women and about pushing men down to achieve the goals. It forgot that the original goal was to raise the standards for everyone to equality.
A lot of males face issues that women face as well. But when there's a portion of people basically saying you're scum for being born a man.... It's very tiring and eventually it starts to feel like "well if you don't care about me, why should I keep caring about you?"
There is no way of changing these people’s minds, they invariably tend to be zero-sum absolutionists. Any attempt to prove them otherwise will only trigger their victimization complexes.
The only effective strategy is to not engage in the first place, to avoid having anything to do with them even if they are blood and especially if they can be easily avoided.
Unfortunately, this attitude is also held by the vast majority of vocal feminists… which, if you are actively dating, ought to make this one of the first red flags you should be looking for to make women self-select themselves out of contention.
After all, you don’t want to be with someone who hates you for what you are. Leave those venomous vipers on the branch, where they belong.
And yes, this entire strategy works equally as well in the other direction, for women. The difference is that women are far more effectively avoiding men with these red flags than men are at avoiding women with these red flags. Far too many men are far too thirsty to think straight where women are concerned.
No people in the real world say this. This is something that exists purely in social media and the anonymous Internet.
This whole thread seems filled with people who view men as victims of something. They aren't.
A man can be a victim, sure.
Men, as a group, are not general victims of anything they didn't choose.
I've heard similar things from women when I was in college, and not someone joking around or being ironic.
This is a thread of men supporting each other emotionally, and venting about how society largely disregards any problems that affect primarily men. There are a few shithead bigots who are gonna try to shove in their vile opinions, but they're all pretty down voted and a small minority. All the top level discussion seems pretty reasonable to me, and venting about the very thing you're doing with this statement.
I don't think the young men in Russia who were forcefully conscripted and sent to die in the Ukrainian war (or a Russian prison) chose to do so. You can't just generalize the struggles of an entire demographic and brush them aside as their fault. It reminds me of the rhetoric of women being sexually assaulted because they dressed a certain way. It's extremely sexist and gets us absolutely nowhere, only pushing people further into extremes.
Men, in general, have higher job mortality rates, higher suicide rates, shorter life expectancy, and higher homelessness rates to name a few things. None of us "chose" this. However, because the problems affect men they're often swept aside.
You can benefit from a system in some ways while still being a victim of it in others. I completely agree that much more work needs to be done for women and people of color, and that there are much worse/more skewed injustices that they face (which is why that's where society's focus is/should be right now). However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't acknowledge the struggles men face when they're brought up.
If men feel like their struggles are not being acknowledged enough, all they have to do is acknowledge them. I mean, we do live in a pretty patriarchal society.
Men are not a monolith. Many men would like their struggles acknowledged, while other men verbally abuse them for doing so.
Someone, somewhere, says this unironically. If you want to avoid pedantic arguments about the meanings of words, use "virtually no one in real life says this." When you say "no one says this," two or three examples of people saying it is evidence against you. When you say "virtually no one says this in real life," those two or three examples become evidence that it's hard to find people actually saying it
You are right.
Yeah, everyone knows it's so easy being male that literally anything bad that ever happens to one has to be 100% their own fault.
Not particularly realistic, but people go ahead and "know" it anyway.
When h3h3 wasn't what it is now, on one of these cases/stories Ethan said something like:
"I'm sure many white males are watching this with their average to below average life, and ask: Where is my privilege?"
And yeah there is truth in that...
The problem is people like Ethan (as well as many feminists) dont understand what privilege theory actually is.
I think its always best to explain it with disabilities first.
Like you, as an abled body person, have certain advantages in life over someone who has to use a wheelchair. Even if the guy in a wheelchair becomes a multimillionaire tech CEO and you are homeless, you still have that "privilege" over him in that the world is built to suit you much more than it is him as wheelchair access is often an after-thought , you have more potential job opportunities than he does and people consider you "normal" vs the guy in the wheelchair always being associated with his disability.
You do not automatically live a life of luxury just because you have the "privilege" of an able body, just like with male privilege, or white privilege or any other privilege. It just means you have less obstacles getting in the way of your success.
Yes but a lot of people seem to think that if you have less obstacles in your way that means that no one should be concerned about the obstacles that still are in your way.
Just because life is theoretically more difficult for one class of person does not mean that another class of person cannot be allowed to also experience difficulties.
People who were not privileged use it as a weapon to hit everyone else over the head, even when it's inappropriate. Especially when it's inappropriate.
I think it's important to state that isn't not people who aren't privileged in general that do this but a very small minority. And its often people who are actually very privileged that try to leverage the one aspect in which they're not, that do this.
Please remember that the nature of the internet means you see the loud and angry people (as well as trolls) what more often than anyone else.
Well the average person is pretty stupid, so I'm not surprised
Fitting since it's a discussion about dating pool. It's not pretty out there for guys
Cause thats unusual...
I have no idea who this chick is, but it aint exactly a string of hits for us guys out here either. People suck in general.
Well, if we're generalizing THAT much, the dating pool for guys is just as bad.
We've got:
-women who will go out with you just for a free dinner date, then never talk to you again
-women who are looking for sugar daddies
-women obsessed with their socials (IG, TikTok, etc)
-women so unnatural you question they can still be considered human (lip fillers, butt lifts, boob jobs, have you ever heard of the term "Bimbofication"?)
-all of the above
In reality, there are so many more people in this world that don't fit any of these categories on the men or women side. It's just that a lot of the "dating pool" she's talking about is centered around dating apps. The real world is so much more diverse.
How about “astrology and crystals are my personality”
I was with a girl in her room and when she started teaching me about astrology, I just bursted out laughing with how dumb it was. Basically, what you just said before but 10x worse with this girl, there were rocks fucking everywhere. I'm suprised Hank from Breaking Bad didn't show up.
Jesus Christ Marie, they're minerals!
Hank was busy with a PTSD episode that day...
E: apparently I can't spell a 4-letter word.
Your forgetting the "I have sex" girl.
Having sex is basically her whole personality.
Those women are the worst. Where do they hang out so I can avoid them?
So she's complaining about sensitive guys, but also doesn't want them to be emotionally distant.
Basically wants the guy to do the "emotional labour" but not do any herself.
How to phrase this...
Women's behavior towards men's emotions is like...it's their very very favorite TV show, but they hate almost all of the episodes. They want you to be emotional, they want you to be in touch with your feelings...until you actually do, and she throws the remote through the screen because it's not one of the very few episodes of this show that she likes.
There are words I just don't say out loud in any context anymore because of this. "Love" is one of them. One of my exes would throw a three act opera of a shit fit if I said something like "I love jalapenos on pizza" because "You'll say you love PEPPERS but not ME!" Well yeah, Tiffany; 1 because the word has different meanings when applied to food vs applied to a person, and 2 we've been dating for five weeks at this point; I'm still in the stage of trying to determine if you're sane enough to get serious with, and early exit polls aren't looking very promising." So I say things like "I really enjoy jalapenos on pizza" and I sound like a cyborg but I'm not sitting through another fucking meltdown like that.
Its just a litany of performative complaints to get attention. Standard Social Media interaction bait. More people respond, your metrics go up, more businesses are willing to give you money to do native advertising on their behalf.
Trolling has become incredibly easy on the modern internet. It was always pretty easy, but I feel like it used to have to have more juice, you know?
People used to be less jaded and fewer interactions used to be with LLMs.
Emotional Labor is for the individual to do. If you feel like you need help, that's what a therapist is for. Do you expect a gf to be your therapist? Sharing and expressing feelings is a normal part of a relationship, but expecting your SO to also be your own personal therapist is completely unhealthy. Everyone has their own emotional Labor to do, why should anyone else (who's not a therapist) be expected to do yours?
uhhh, yeah, my wife and i try to be the best therapist we can be for each other. not wanting to do that for the person you love seems weird to me.
I'm talking about an unhealthy codependency that can happen when someone with a developed fight-response pairs with someone with a developed fawn-response. It sounds like you two have a healthy relationship where you can discuss each other's problems with each other freely. Which is good.
Personally, no I wouldn't expect my partner to unravel my own personal cPTSD for me. I would work on it myself and with a therapist need be. Discussing my progress and thoughts on my own cPTSD and hearing my partner's is a healthy thing to do.
Because part of a healthy relationship involves sharing with your partner and helping them through their struggles, emotional or otherwise?
I literally said that. The difference is sharing your own progress in a healthy way compared to expecting your SO to do the progress for you
Relationships are emotional labor on both sides
Maybe she should find someone outside those social media pools then.
Social Media Influencer: "All men are trash. Everyone I meet just wants to stare at me, fuck me, or use me as a trophy."
Same Social Media Influencer: "Five Amazing Tricks to instantly get a stud's attention. When his friends see you with him, they will be so jealous!"
The amount of “don’t sexualize me” women who then turn around and post explicit and obvious thirst traps is crazy.
The problem is that they’re talking to two completely different and separate groups of men: the bottom-90%, and the top-10%, respectively. They just don’t provide any such context, which turns this behaviour from mere hypocrisy into blatantly cruel hypocrisy.
I mostly see them talking to women, with the message being to hyper-individualize and consider everyone else as nothing more than an object of exploitation (because that's how everyone sees you).
"Get the Top 10% Dude" messaging isn't even really about the subset of men in question. Its just about extracting stuff from the highest value targets. It is the deep commodification of relationships.
I feel your explanation is equally as valid and likely (if not more so) as mine, you’re just seeing things from a different perspective.
Except the highest value targets tend to be the top-10% of men, which is why women tend to be deeply offended if anyone from the lower-90% actually makes an approach - dealing with that interruption is a massive waste of her time and efforts, which can be better spent targeting those high-value men and extracting value from them.
Hence that “don’t sexualize me” messaging - it’s meant to dissuade the low-value truly-nice guys (the non-sociopaths) who actually value and obey the wishes of women. It ensures that they self-select themselves out of contention for her attentions without her having to expend any energy on them, specifically.
That has not been my experience. The single friends I know aren't looking for a Top 10% Man nearly so much as they are looking for a guy who will just act normal. Don't be a giant horndog. Don't get violent when you're upset. Don't flake on dates. Don't ask me to pay for everything.
Unfortunately, they're all on the dating websites, and those sites are flooded with fuckbois, creeps, and assholes. Folks who, very likely, consider themselves in the Top 10%, but can't maintain a relationship because they are so toxic.
It isn't meant to dissuade them because they're invisible to people who spend all their time looking for love on these social media sites. The struggle to find nice, chill, normal guys is real. What's more - and what really staggered me when we were hanging out - was how social media has degraded her ability to just... flirt with people in public. We were at a bar and there was a guy she saw who she thought was cute. And my wife goes over to tell him, "My friend thinks your cute can she buy you a drink?" and he says yes and comes over to chat, and she fucking flubs it! Just wiffs so hard! Complete emotion seize up. This woman is in her 30s and has hooked up online a thousand times, but as soon as she's not using her phone she just face-plants.
Its the fucking apps, man. They are obliterating the ability for people to form normal human relationships. These social media gurus are feeding on that negative energy, and people are falling for it because they've forgotten how to communicate with one another normally.
You really don't need to be in this mythical elite to get a girl. There are so many women who would love to have a bog-standard normal human dude. They aren't trying to dissuade these people. They have just lost the social skills necessary to make a healthy human connection. All they know how to do anymore is hit the "Fuck Me" button and hope someone else hits it back.
also raving communists
and Star Trek utopists
No no, there's tons and tons of scam accounts that all use the same pictures of a hot Asian supermodel, who all try to get you to buy them 10k of Bitcoin in exchange for the promise of a handy or whatever
Still would.
Requirements:
Woman (optional)
“No one wants to date me, it must be their fault.”
That comes with other connotations so we’ll say it’s just a joke for right now.
Awknowledging men don't have many options isn't the same thing as blaming women for the situation.
Well, that post is a straight flush of red flags.
Thinking that someone else having emotions is work is definitely a major one.
Also I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, if I'm emotional I'm bad, if I'm cold and distant I'm bad, what she want?
She wants you to be emotionally available for her, but not to be emotionally available for you. Avoid these people, men or women, for anything you're not absolutely forced to.
I think she's talking about people who need to be constantly emotionally validated, which can absolutely be emotionally draining, especially if you're working through shit yourself.
Like, if your partner has BDD and you have to have a
conversationargument with them multiple times a day defending them from their own self loathing, that's exhausting after a few years.I read this to refer to the way overly emotional guys that cannot handle failure or rejection.
Online is a perfect haven for predators so I cant fault her for acknowledging there are some if not many awful people out there(which are in all walks of life and not just preying on young women). If there weren’t there would be no need for moderators. So okay…Good for her for setting some standards but like she could just acknowledge it with her friends over coffee or have a p2p chat about it and maybe put together a game plan and do more deep dive on how to get more aware of when she’s getting used and tuck that away into her back pocket and rely on it when she needs and not set out to ‘teach all men a lesson about young women to be nicer only to them’.
Cuz if you start announcing things like she did and just going ‘no users!’ On a public profile this is just lazy filtering and airing personal baggage. At the very least you still have to give people a chance not to tick those boxes or get some counselling if you start predicting the worst of an entire group and start getting exclusionary and generalizing who’s victimized and who’s predatory based on age and gender like this.
People calling the effort you put in to support your partners, friends and family "emotional labor" are either blatantly misinformed or people who want a pass on not giving a shit about their "close ones".
Emotional labor, as a term, was created to explain the difficulties and effort someone has to engage in to regulate their emotions when they're constantly dealing with the suffering of other people during work. It's valid, just as long as you use it in its appropriate context. This dumbass appropriation of the term by a certain branch of liberals is like if someone used the physical concept of entropy to justify why they're never getting out of depression.
If someone only wants emotionless relationships with people they only interact with for their own benefit, and never giving a care in turn, that's legitimate, as long as they don't lie about their intentions. But that might also explain why this Hannah at the OP cannot find a good partner.
If your partner has a mental illness/disorder, then being in a relationship with them can absolutely involve emotional labor.
We all have mental disorders. Fuckin everybody does. Especially those considered normal. If you have no problems fitting into this corpo hellscape, you're nuts.
It works well as a metaphor, which is why people might be fooled to think there might be a direct parallelism without understanding the insurmountable differences between both (depression may be very hard to get out of if you're in a downwards spiral, but definitely possible, while entropy is literally an inevitability of the Universe, as far as our understanding of physics goes) which is why I compared it to the popular appropriation of emotional labor, which notices the poetic similarity but is unable to understand the actual differences between both.
Mind to explain how?
I certainly dislike people who have neat little boxes to put other people in. I know it's a human thing, still think it's detrimental.
It's not a human thing. Humans are natural empathizers. It's a capitalism "you're your job and your khakis" thing.
Theres some tendency towards tribalism that is probably a human thing though right? Wasn't that the main social unit for humans through prehistory?
Social units existing in the first place requires some level of empathy. Tribalism is just selective empathy, not the absence of it.
Yes. Humans definitely aren't altruistic or empathetic, as a whole.
That's because we're just animals. I would say it this way: humans are not instinctually altruistic but are capable of being rational.
Which isn't any better and may actually be worse: we can be rational, but we can also rationalize our instincts.
Yeah communism famously doesn't allow for punishing people for intrinsic traits
Empathy is a learned behaviour.
Lol, humans are inherently tribalistic.
Capitalism is actually normal human behavior. There's a reason it has to be regulated.
Tribalism is based on empathy towards other tribe members. Capitalism, ironically, goes against this: tribal bonds take a back seat to economic interest.
Humans are, in fact naturally empathetic. It's why we pack-bond with anything with a name.
They're naturally empathetic to their tribe, but not to others. Tribalism isn't a good thing.
Tribalism is the root of the entire GOP platform of hate. Racism, anti-LGBT, etc. are all because humans are tribalistic.
Tribalism is bad, but the tribe existing at all is empathy in action. Once the tribe is there, it's just a matter of expanding it.
It's not a matter of expanding it. Humans developed to have tribes of 2-300 people, and as a species we haven't done well past that. Look how society started turning to shit once we could communicate globally with millions of people.
We didn't learn to love and accept everyone, we just formed echo chambers (tribes) and turned the dial up on the hate.
What you're looking for is something like globalism, which goes against human nature.
Dunbar's number is 150, I believe. But that's the limit for ""real"" people, with names and addresses and birthdays. The magic is, however, they don't need to all be real: a nation is a tribe, and nations can hold millions. You just need a few real people that you take as a stand in for all the others, and then keep doing it untill it encompasses the whole of humanity.
I say "just", it's not like it's that easy, but it's doable.
Capitalism really couldn't happen to this degree until industrialism became a thing.
I mean, all you have to do is look at all of recorded human history to see that we're not an altruistic or compassionate species. A person might be altruistic or compassionate, but people aren't. If people were, communism would actually work.
Regardless, tribalism isn't a good thing because you end up with 'that persons skin color is different from mine and that's bad.'
Communism works for small communities, like 2-300 people (which incidentally is the size of the tribes we developed to be part of).
And while altruistim and compassion have existed, they're by no means traits in the majority of humans. Humans are selfish, greedy animals. Some of us might realize this and work to be better, but that means we're fighting our natural tendencies.
Easy, just go bi and date other women. You still have the option for men.
Edit also it’s unfair to say what she’s saying anyways. I almost feel like your dating pool options or choices are more a reflection of you than other people. Or idk, maybe some people get unlucky.
Yeah she's gonna have a rough time
The dating pool for young men is literally
-OF models
-"Sensitive" girls you have to perform constant emotional labor for
-Narcissistic (if not sociopathic) insta models
-Emotionally abusive manipulators
-Spambots
Add gold diggers to the list
Gold diggers are not in the pool for non-rich
I hate that I’m the second, and so aggressively that it’s hurt relationships before
if i tried to comfort you about it, though, wouldn't that just perpetuate and enable the problem?...actually no, i can't even joke about it. I'm sorry people left you feeling emotionally abandoned, bro. It's not fair that you get put under this double standard. The fact is, everyone needs emotional labor. Another word for emotional labor is goddamn fucking empathy and SOME PEOPLE don't want to show any toward men.
THOSE people don't matter. The kind of woman who would look at you as a burden would, in fact, be a burden upon you.
You are worthy of love. You are worth the investment of psychological and emotional energy. You have value even above and beyond intrinsic value as a human being. And if you were here, I'd be taking us both out for tacos and/or ice cream right goddamn now.
The very people screaming the loudest about “toxic masculinity” being a problem in men, are invariably the ones imposing it the most fiercely upon men, as this woman is doing.
You have no idea what is meant with emotional labour. I wish people would at least try to look something up before just reading into it whatever they like. This comment section is unhinged.
I think this statement about emotional labour is being misinterpreted and knee jerk reactioned. People are getting angry and jumping to conclusions about men not being allowed to have emotions, but that isn’t it.
Of course partners are supposed to support each other. What this is talking about is someone who prioritizes their emotional needs over the other person the majority of the time to the detriment of the relationship. Your partner is there to be your partner - the role of full time therapist is above their pay grade. And I’m wondering whether this is highlighted as an issue because men are less likely to seek therapy where needed and rely on their partner for this. Helping your partner through issues is one thing but sometimes it’s healthy and necessary to zoom out and get perspective from a professional. This happened in my relationship and I had to honestly and kindly say I don’t have the expertise to help you with this issue. I’m willing to hold space for you and sit with you as you navigate it but you do need the help of a professional to unpack this.
Have you ever had a friend who every time you hang out with and the whole time it’s them talking about themselves and their issues to the point where they don’t even show any interest in you. You’re effectively acting like that person’s therapist 100% of the time.
I had an ex brother in law like this. He had many mental health challenges but everything was 100% about him all the time for the whole family. His likes, his dislikes, his issues, his interests. He’d ask a short how are you and dive right into all his shit. If the event or conversation didn’t revolve around him, he would leave and disengage. It sucks the air out of the room and it’s fucking exhausting for everyone.
If people are going to Twitter expecting nuanced, perfectly balanced and fleshed out essays then that’s an internet literacy problem. Men give all sorts of opinions on the internet about how women should be, dress, look, have sex, etc - I don’t see how this is any different.
I’d agree with her opinion in the context that it’s the same for any friendship, or relationship honestly. If you are so sensitive and vulnerable with me all the time that it’s unbalanced and I have no room to have and express my own emotions then it is not a friendship that is worth keeping. It’s not black and white be a stone or be a puddle. It’s that relationships are built on empathy and empathy is an exchange. Just as I hold space to help you through your issues, you too need to hold space for me.
There was a post on I saw on Lemmy a while ago of an OP asking for friends in a local community because they lacked friends due to a laundry list of baggage and mental health issues - they felt that friendship could solve those. The issue is why would anyone see that and be like wow that is a fun positive person I want to be around, I’m totally equipped to handle all of that. No - the solution was why doesn’t that OP go to a therapist or support group and work on those issues first where it is possible to find community related to those particular issues.
The basis of any relationship can’t be one party constantly being the pump-up person and emotional cheerleader for the other party, which is a role that women fall into A LOT. This goes both ways obviously no matter what your gender, but women in my experience tend to spread out their emotional support needs across a larger network - friends, family, therapists etc. It’s actually become something my sister and I have noticed with our guy friends - they like hanging out with us because we do talk about our emotions, and they feel freer to talk about theirs. However, no one person monopolizes the conversation.
I have another friend who every time she shows up to a party she talks about all of her past trauma. It’s a lot. We have sat with her on multiple occasions but the friend group now has to move her along from talking about it because it can easily spiral and become the basis for the whole night. This person needs therapy in a big way and we have encouraged this. But if the relationship is one sided and you’re not having fun and getting anything out of it, what do you do? How do you proceed if this person won’t also follow through to do the work on themselves? A quote that struck me lately: “Mental health is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.”
If men are getting out of toxic masculinity and are not equipped to be in a healthy relationship they need to seek therapy for help with that. It is above any partner’s pay grade to shepherd them through that alone if they do not also have the support of a therapist.
How many times on the internet do I see “Your wife/gf isn’t having sex? Break up with her!” There could be many reasons for this. If there is a libido mismatch, if there’s something mentally or physically wrong. If the non-sexual partner isn’t willing to do the work on themselves to arrive at a compromise, isn’t seeking outside help, and then wants the sexual partner to do all of the work 100% of the time, then yeah what exactly do people expect the sexual partner to do other than break up?
The whole concept of emotional labour is designed to sell therapy.
I think you've got a point here:
LABELING it "Emotional Labor" commoditizes it - turns a natural process of humanity into a product. To be sold.
I think there’s a balance here. I have the gut reaction to the concept as you do, but I’ve also on too many occasions put too much on loved ones and had to learn to not take more than my fair share and I’ve had a partner who was constantly in need of emotional assistance and it was exhausting.
It should be like money between friends. If you’re keeping count a problem is happening, maybe it’s that someone didn’t contribute their fair share enough that you noticed and it’s starting to put a burden on others or maybe you’re overly commoditizing your relationships.
I definitely think there is an over commodification of relationships problem on the left at the moment. But I think the root causes are a little that everyone is spread thin and exhausted and also that we’ve gotten words for these ways in which some people take too much and our communities have gotten weak. A strong community defaults to giving what is needed, but recipients make a point to return contributions with what they can give.
Along with everything else, yes.
It is a labor and some people do take more than their fair share. As a man this term did help me understand some people who left me feeling completely drained every time I hung out with them.
Eh, the Twitter person can go fuck themselves. Both partners deserve emotional support and comfort. That's what being in a partnership is about. Just because men are pigeonholed by toxic masculinity doesn't mean we don't need emotional validation.
Yeah she sounds absolutely unhinged. I don’t expect my SO to manage my emotions for me, but I absolutely rely on her for emotional support, just as she relies on me for the same. Living is hard but we make it better by experiencing life together.
This post could be reversed in gender and be women who:
I think everyone could benefit from following the lyrics in Bo Burnham’s song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=llGvsgN17CQ Be a loving human toward your partner, and expect them to do the same
That's fine if both parties agree on it. Not everyone is into classic possessive monogamy.
That's not feminism, though. That's just idealised misandry.
Absolutely. That dude is wise way beyond his years, an excellent showman and hilarious to boot ❤️
Yeah. She doesn't exactly come off great lol
Eh, I wouldn't take that at face value. Sometimes women use that "emotional labor" line when they're the ones who expect a ton of emotional labor from their male partner but have no desire to give any effort the other way. I'm not gonna try to claim that's the norm or whatever but it does happen.
As a woman whose had the same struggle it really does suck, but I can say from personal experience it can be improved and there are ways to deal with it.
I’ve been on both sides of it actually and I think I learned this behavior from my parents who I grew up comforting.
One big piece of advice I have is that it’s too easy to flip between extremes here. The response to close off doesn’t help. I have two big techniques that’re helping me here: cbt practice, and pre processing. The latter is basically I step away from loved ones when I’m having too much emotions. Sometimes that means taking a walk without my phone, sometimes it’s locking myself in a room to cry. I get the big stuff out of the way so I can share my feelings while they’re at a manageable level.
Me, an emotionally distant narcissistic porn addict: get on my level nerds
Dating pool for young men is great tho. Women pick you literally if you're tall enough for their favourite shoes
Well, it's great if you're tall enough I guess.
Have you tried not being short?
No, but I've tried not being tall. Big success there.
I was expecting a small success on that regard
Surely you just need to pick someone who's shorter than you. Everyone's tall it's just a matter of perspective.
Sure, but the further you move toward the tails of the distribution the stronger the competition. All men will date short women, but short men can only date shorter women and they're still at a disadvantage. Tall women have a similar problem - they only want men who are taller than them, which just happen to be the most attractive men for every other woman they're competing with, too.
I dated a woman 8" taller than me. It's not impossible just find ones that aren't shallow.
Sure, and sometimes older women marry younger men. That doesn't make it common or realistic.
Ok, keep lumping everyone into a box and being a bitter asshole then. IDK what else to tell you.
I've been on my tippy toes, yes.
Still short as shit
Yeah it kinda sucks.
As a 6 foot tall socially awkward aneurotypical conventionally unattractive guy, I can assure you being tall is not a free ticket to getting laid
*if you’re attractive
Lemmy wins again. This time it's the dating game!
Some of us like nerds.
Sure, guys named Bill.
Deominous likes nerds
I thought the last one was just conservatives making stuff up until I joined Lemmy.
Don't get me wrong, the woman in the tweet is awful, especially the part about hating men who dare to have emotions, but I'm responding purely to the last thing on this list.
A lot of Lemmy users seem to think all they need to do to be immune to misogyny is to be leftist. It's just been getting real tiring for me browsing this site seeing men be praised for things they at the same time put women down for. Not that men shouldn't be praised for these things, but the double standard here is immense.
The major one I've noticed is putting down women for having a preference on height or even dick size, but men are allowed to only want big boobs or petite women because it's "a natural expression of human sexuality."
There's also that I've seen several times men on here complaining when women are given safe spaces and resources specifically for them, like job fairs and such, and the comments being filled with how it should have been open to men as well because not doing so is sexist, meanwhile being totally ok and even ecstatic when a resource is opened specifically for men.
Like, I'm trans. I've lived on the other side of the coin. I'm glad men around here have a safe space to display their frustrations and discuss men's issues that in most places you'd be crucified for even mentioning. I just wish this could be a safe space for both genders, not just the one who holds the majority. There are a lot of times I feel straight up unwelcome on Lemmy simply because I'm a women.
My 2c on this, I wish people would understand that a lot of women have similar struggles, same for men, and having spaces for those experiences to be shared with people who understand is really important.
I think the issue is it feels pretty othering when I've had experiences similar and feel like I'm not allowed to share them (without a lot of angry stares) because I'm not the correct gender.
I know there have been cases of women's spaces being taken less seriously, but I don't remember any specifics. Do you have any examples that come to mind?
It'd take me ages to find the post, but a while back, there was a post about a job fair for women getting overrun by a tidal wave of men. The comments were filled with people trying to justify it, such as saying that it was illegal and sexist to host a job fair for women only, and people even the slightest bit upset that a job fair for women was overrun by men abusing the legal loophole that they technically couldn't be kicked out got down voted way to the bottom of the thread.
I found the post https://lemmy.world/post/6206801 and here https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/508848 Yeah I guess you have to see it firsthand. I've heard tons of comments like "women just aren't built for STEM" etc which these events are trying to show is wrong. It is probably a little unfair to the individual but good for society as a whole when talented women don't see a field is 90% men and decide it's not worth dealing with the boys club.
I do wanna point out, the most upvoted comments seem to have the same sentiment of this actually is important and a good thing to have for women. Definitely quite a few with a high score that say the opposite though...
That is the post I was talking about. I did forget about the few higher pro-woman comments. I guess I tend to remember the bad more than the good.
Still unpleasant how many people around here are completely ok with stuff like that though, but I suppose it's worth focusing on the positive.
Comments like that are utter trash. Only an incel believes in that BS. It's as if they never knew that one of, if not the first programmers, was Ada Lovelace.
Basically what I'm saying is some things need to cater to specific crowds to function. We don't need to get rid of the law, we need to adapt it (tbh, I don't think we should have to do that either, I think people should respect when something's not made for them on their own, but that won't happen.)
I'm not just talking about things like this job fair. I'm talking about shelters for abused people as well. I might just be imagining it because it was so long ago that I read it, but I remember cases of shelters for abused men getting shut down for discriminating against women, which is ridiculous because those shelters are gender divided for a reason.
In this case, these kind of job fairs are to help more women get into male dominated fields, which is really tough because of the amount of abuse and discrimination they get in those fields.
Men and women in a general sense experience different kinds of societal issues and need to be allowed to have safe spaces away from each other.
As a male, while I do not support men breaking into that job fair, I can understand their frustrations.
There should be some limited spaces for people of one gender to stay without the other, but that should be things like shelters and other places for people in mentally vulnerable position caused by people of opposite gender, and it shouldn't grow into a gendered separation.
Jobs should be available for everyone, and if females get less access to jobs, job market needs to be regulated to remove sources of said discrimination, without creating bigger discrimination (like outright blocking other gender's access to same jobs).
General-purpose gendered spaces (like quite a few barbershops for males or certain feminist cafes for females) only breed more resentment and stereotypical thinking about the other gender, as there is no one to correct them and no counterexamples to be seen. Besides, gender separation makes places that can be important for a person closed from them for immutable reasons, which is a clear case of discrimination and is not cool.
I agree with you for the most part, but in practice it's way more difficult to regulate out discrimination if you don't first have enough women (or other minorities in other cases) working in the field to function as a support network. Even if you get the job at that point, if you're not made to feel welcome there there's a solid chance you're not gonna keep that job, because nobody wants to deal with that every day.
I don't like the idea of restricting men from the same opportunity, but there isn't much other solution until the playing field is made more even.
As far as your last paragraph goes, pretty much in full agreement. When I say men and women need safe spaces away from each other, I don't mean they should be secluded from each other, which is what places like that tend to cause. I mean things like support groups, friends they can vent to, and even online forums and such specifically for them. There still needs to be plenty of exposure in our daily lives though to the issues of men, women, and minorities.
My issues with Lemmy primarily come from the fact that the site is massively male dominated, which means it's become largely an echo chamber. People here as a result have become much more sensitive to men's issues, which is a good thing, but the tradeoff is that there's virtually nobody stepping in for women's issues, sometimes even going as far as to deny the issue even exists. I know the rest of the internet is often the other way around, but I really wish we could have at least one space somewhere on the internet where both men and women are allowed to say things like "this makes me uncomfortable" or "this makes me feel ashamed of my body" and be taken seriously.
I was really hoping Lemmy would be that space when I first signed up, and it was really disappointing to realize what it was actually like. Luckily, there are some instances out there that are more balanced on that, but I'd rather not have to turtle up in one of them.
Thanks for your points. While I stand by my position of regulation over reverse discrimination, I understand where you're coming from here.
I'd like to point one thing out, however, and it stems directly from the intersection of abovementioned issue and the one you raise about Lemmy.
The place is certainly male-dominated, and yes, this can make local ethos more male-centric and masculist. Also as you rightfully mentioned, Lemmy is one of the few avenues where such thought can be propagated efficiently and not be overwhelmed in the oblivion by feminist/conservative voices.
We are, generally, in the minority, yet when we get to concentrate our voices somewhere - like Lemmy - and dominate small part of the Internet you belong to, this naturally makes you uncomfortable.
That happens because you'd like to have an equal footing everywhere, and don't want to be discriminated against even in a small alcove that is this place.
We don't want that, either. We don't want to be discriminated against somewhere just because males historically dominate in other place. We don't want to lose access to our dreams and jobs (in the abovementioned case) because previous generation has screwed it up the other way around. Many of us, however, are perfectly happy to promote a healthier workplace ethic, including towards women, and popularize females working in male-domimated spaces. This way is sometimes more rocky, but it is fair and it allows to even things out without having to radicalize and tilt scales towards the domination of the other gender.
Should "male job fairs" appear for female-dominated jobs, I'll also stand against it, despite the knee-jerk to give males preference at taking new places to balance it out quicker and promote the new culture.
With that being said, I welcome you here on Lemmy and hope more feminist and generally female voices will join in. I'm also happy to promote feminist initiatives in this place (without forgetting masculist ones), so hit me up if something crosses your mind.
That wasn't a loophole, what that event was doing was open and naked gender discrimination and their ban on men was legally unenforceable. The law was on their side. What women should do in retaliation is bum rush those men's clubs where all the power decisions are made by the top 1% of men. Fun fact the dean of my uni's computer science dept was a woman, and decades later it still is. THEY have a crucial role in recruiting women students, it begins at the start of the pipeline.
What tweet are you reading?
I hope it's not rude that I checked your profile and saw your explanation. I can see how I might have misinterpreted that. The way I interpreted the "sensitive men" and "emotional labor" part was as reinforcing the toxic masculine stereotype that men are supposed to just "man up" and not show emotion. Unfortunately, that's an aspect of toxic masculinity upheld by women just as much as men.
I see men being constantly shamed and catching blowback for those preferences. I mean we can't hope to succeed in shaming women into wanting short men or poor men, etc. but shouldn't the same rule apply to men? More insane is that wanting a tall man is more "legitimate" than wanting big boobs or athletic build in women. The rules are constantly altered to justify all women's preferences and demonize men's.
Also as a man you can be banned from Reddit not for saying "no trans woman" but just for saying "I want a cis woman". Feminist subreddits will go for your head, too. (Don't get me wrong if one of my kids is dating a trans person I will support them totally also.) I've gotten the vibe that you risk your account here over that, too.
You are correct that in most environments, it is the other way around. In most places, women wanting tall men is considered normal and acceptable, but men having any preference at all is not. My point was not about how things are in society as a whole, but how things are on the larger Lemmy instances. However, even that seems to have rapidly changed since I made this comment. There was a thread about men's issues I saw recently that didn't devolve into "this is why women are awful" and actually stayed on topic, and that was really nice to see.
What I was frustrated about was that there was no space where both men's and women's preferences were respected, and also not resorting to body shaming when people do not meet those preferences. Lemmy is primarily dominated by men, which naturally makes it easier to talk about men's issues without being shamed for it, but it did lead, for a while, to women's issues not only being overlooked, but also often being intentionally ignored or outright shamed, mostly because men could not understand these issues they'd never experienced, so they didn't feel as real (which is largely the same reason women often have trouble respecting men's issues.)
I'm guessing it has to do with Lemmy's population finally growing again and new perspectives being thrown into the mix, but I've noticed a lot more empathy about gendered issues lately, which is nice to see.
As far as whether you risk your account for only wanting cis women, probably depends heavily on the instance. A shocking amount of the time people use preference as a cover for bigotry, so I wouldn't be surprised if some mods are heavy on the trigger finger when it comes to that. Not that there's not legit reasons to not want to date trans women. We can't provide biological children and a large portion of us have no desire to "fully" transition, which are both reasonable reasons to not want to be with a trans woman (and of course that's not an exhaustive list of every valid reason.) It's just often people who say that mean they don't view trans women as actual women and don't want to date them because they're "not gay."
I used to be a MRA until Trump happened and the gender loyalism just got too much to handle. I can't put up with gender jingoism ("my gender, right or wrong") nonsense from either side. I had to part ways for good when they started saying the 19th should be revoked. "This is why wo/men are awful" is basically saying one sucks at vetting people without actually saying one sucks at vetting people.
As for women wanting tall men, or men not wanting fat women for that matter, the ramifications of said preference leaves a lot of men and women out in the cold, but what can you do? Freedom to choose who you want to be intimate with is sancrosanct. Depressing (I got a 12 year old son aging into this shithole situation) but can't be fixed because it isn't biology, it goes way deeper than that, it's spiritual. What can and must be fixed, though, is the shaming: shit like "Fat shaming month" or women walking up in bars using measuring tape to see a guy's actual height. The "fat women / short men kill yourselves" shit that sometimes flourishes unchecked in social media before admins step in and nix it long after it has hit a ton of eyeballs.
There is a prevalent culture of shaming someone for what they can't help or can't easily help and then acting like they are the problem when you cause them to have insecurities related to that. Full scale industrialized cultural-level gaslighting without apology. We need to end that... but how? It's like it's also part of our spiritual zeitgeist. I mean some of us are aware and awake, but overall? Might as well say everyone stop being human. But it's also spiritually embedded for those who are awake to refuse to stop fighting the good fight. That windmill will see no peace from my lance.
I have a special pile of beef for the whole "you're dating a trans woman hahahaha you suck" mentality. Mods and admins being trigger happy af about trans issues is an affront, but so is that. I'm buying plenty of lances for tilting against that windmill, too. Break one, I come back with another...
That's not the way I remember it. I remember being told that men having or expressing physical preferences in women was a terrible thing to do, being called a sexist, shallow pig, etc. This has been a female talking point basically my entire life. Then I remember being rejected for being 5'7". You know how we live in a world with 5 websites, each one is full of pictures of the other 4? I think I saw a Facebook post of a Tweet on Reddit that said [woman]: Grey sweatpants are for men with DICK, not men with peepee. [man]: But if I said tight jeans are for girls with ass, not long backs, I'd be the asshole.
I find that level of sheer hypocrisy is pretty effective at eroding my capacity for empathy.
Want another example? How about this cycle:
And for some reason they expect me to automatically give a damn when the Republicans take their rights away?
Women are very vocal about not being on my side. So guess what? I'm not on theirs. Gasp.
If you feel unwelcome on Lemmy just for being a woman, as far as I'm concerned you can go somewhere else.
Your concerns for a lot of your life experiences are completely valid, but when you make the jump from "a lot of women have been assholes to me" to "women are assholes", you fall into the same pitfall people are criticizing in this thread. There are a lot of women who are assholes. There are a lot of men who are assholes. Let's criticize those behaviors, and make society a little bit better insofar we're able to, rather than join their ranks.
Based response.
Jesus Christ, dude. Learn some empathy
Everyone is shallow, that's not exclusive to any gender. Some people are shitty, others can have hard-line views due to experienced trauma. Doesn't mean you should generalize, men and women are not monoliths. Just trying to understand the lived experience of the other side goes a long way.
Jesus Christ, dude. Learn some reading comprehension.
Judging by how the votes in this thread are going, my lived experience isn't worth considering, so I now have no intention of considering anyone else's. Fuck empathy. It's not worth trying.
Oh grow up, what are you? An angsty teenager?
Life isn’t that hard.
You’re talking about the most shallow, vapid women out there. The women i’ve met have generally never talked like that. So no, you don’t get a pass to hate on women just because you saw some FB memes that hurt your fee fees…
They didn't say those weren't true women, this is not how no true scotsman works
I'd ask who hurt you but evidently it's just yourself
I give a damn about Republican douchebaggery because I'm not like those kinds of people, I don't want to be a monster like them. I want to be able to look in the mirror and see someone who's better than that. How women react will never affect me acting on my morals, they don't control me.
That's why I date women
Fewer porn addicts?
Gr8 b8 m8
Uhh you can switch the genders and it wouldn’t be a lie. Except the last part would be “still treats other races like shit”. In my experience many “woke” women are covert racist, especially against Asian men. Even some “woke” Western Asian women can be pretty racist against Asian men.
FTFY.
My wife is Asian, and has seen this in her own female relatives and community friends who have immigrated here or have been born here. None of them would ever debase themselves that far to be with an Asian man unless he was loaded AF.
And my BiL has only ever had one Asian woman take any interest in him, despite being one hell of a handsome man… last time he visited China, he was frequently mistaken for a movie star or a model.
Thats weird, where im from Asian women overwhelmingly date asian men.
Well yeah. The sane ones aren’t looking for relationships because of a combination of the world being on fire, money being worthless and nigh-impossible to obtain, and trauma from past toxic relationships. They decided to focus their efforts on their own lives rather than someone else’s.
Either that, or they don’t even need to date, because someone in their friend group snapped them up. Either or, really.
Or they are not conventionally attractive, and that of course that makes them worse than nothing...
I mean I think this post/the responses proves that people are more attracted to good personalities than 'conventional attractive' looks, but that's just my opinion
To be fair: the Lemmy user base is demonstrably not representative of the entire population.
She forgot creepy old rich guys.
Read a story about Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump one day wonder. He set up a meet and greet for sugar daddies and potential babies at his restaurant. He'd invite 20 males and 30 females, so the daddies could instantly see who was the most desperate.
Dang! That's filthy as fuck. That said, I wouldn't expect anything less from the "Mooch."
I think this huge anti porn push is funny.
"You're not good/popular with women? Sucks to suck you're not allowed to tend to your needs apply that desire to toxicity towards women by working out and feeling entitled to women because you work out instead!"
I don't know what you are saying here. What huge anti porn push? And your quote... I don't think I understand it. 'apply that desire to toxicity towards women by working out'... what does that mean? There's a grammar problem there, and I'm not sure what it should say. I might guess 'desire for toxicity' - but is that really a thing? Do people desire toxicity?
I haven't seen a big anti-porn push from women, myself... Conservatives, on the other hand...
I have lots of female friends and from their stories in the dating scene, this is not far from reality. Of course, it's meant as a sort of social-commentary joke, so there's exaggeration and oversimplification, but there's a substrate of truth to to it.
What's best about the post is the second part. That personality-profile to social media link is spot on LOL
It isn't.
Both reddit and 4chan = porn addict.
4chan is also ' just a joke' racist.
Is porn addict now equal to is aware of its existence, because the word addict really has a meaning, and people seem to be using it wrongly
1, 2, 5 - all me. Gotta be strategic about it, the more pools I appear in the higher are my chances.
Started to post cringe memes on Linkedin, recently. Anyone got tips on how to get on Insta? Do I really have to hit the gym?
Learn to cook and post food pictures. Would probs work instead of the gym. Oh and keep a super clean kitchen and wear a bunch of joke aprons.
I mean knowing how to cook well is definitely an attractive trait in a spouse.
Fuck I m the first one, well at least I m not on 4chan
Doesn't everyone fall into one of these categories? Are there more people?
Stereotyping is cool and funny. I don't see a problem. I expect the next post to be all the worst versions of women and nobody will criticize.
Win the dating game, lose the game. Yes, guess which I just lost
God damn it I just lost the game
huh?
Aww, a youngster just lost the game for the first time.
Pretty sure the Twitter ones outdated
Recently dodged a bullet like that.
We only started texting recently after some dating app chatting, and it started after the second text.
We never even saw each other face to face.
I feel ya. 😩
Girl, if this is the way you view the dating pool, then maybe MGTOW has a valid point or three to consider.
I may have stepped off the dating field nearly thirty years ago, but in terms of the gratuitous misandry that I have seen as of the last decade or so, even if I were to become widowed I doubt I would ever want to step back onto it. The juice is just not worth the squeeze if I am seen as “the enemy” and facing unjustified hostility and adversarial arrogance long before you even get to know me.
No. Just no. Don't even consider it. Broken clock being right twice a day.
I went down that pipeline simply because on the surface it presents itself as something to help men gain independence from relationships, but the hate and vitriol there and the rest of the manosphere is more misandrist and misogynist than anything this random woman can ever do.
If you went to most redpill communities, I would absolutely agree with you. It’s often really hard to tell them apart from feminist communities in terms of their rage and hate against the other gender.
However, out of sheer curiosity I have poked my nose into and lurked on a number of MGTOW communities that are refreshingly supportive and which do their best to help men move past the rage phase into more productive paths. Mainly because rage generally isn’t conducive to sustained and healthy self-improvement… and if you’re still obsessed with women in any way, you are pretty much failing at “going your own way”.
I actually know a few MGTOW, and aside from ignoring what society and women demand of them, you would never know they were MGTOW. They don’t talk about women. They don’t get upset over what women do or say. They just don’t want to have anything to do with women because they have much better things to do with their lives.
And when women complain to all and sundry that they just want to be left alone, isn’t MGTOW doing exactly what women want -- leaving them TF alone? How could that be in any way a bad thing?
While there can be some healthy trends in these online communities, we should look at it from other angles as well. How does it compare to just getting therapy? Does growing some emotional intelligence turn men into incel terrorists the way a blackpill site might? How do these communities loom from the outside?
Let's assume that the toxic males among MGTOW are just a loud minority. Why would you still want to hang out there? There's plenty of supportive spaces, both online, and IRL that don't include men who call women trash. Tolerance of intolerance and all that.
If MGTOW stuck to the goal stated in their name, I'd have been happy to stay with them. But even the most reasonable men I found who identified as MGTOW often had sexist tendencies.
But most MGTOW don't leave women alone. They lurk and comment in communities for women, they post under every article or post they find about women, they try to spread their misogyny whenever they have a chance.
When you are MGTOW, why do you care so much about what someone writes about dating? Why the need to be so angry about it? It doesn't effect you, so why does it enrage you when women talk about their struggles with dating or life?
You really don’t know what MGTOW means, do you? Or are you intentionally tarring everything with the same brush in your manufactured outrage?
If you do it right and actually go your own way you don't hang around the "manosphere" or whatever it's called these days.
Yes. My excuse is that I moved to Canada from Iran where men and women are segregated, but when I wanted to learn about women and their experiences I made the mistake of going to men to hear about them... as if women can't speak.
The root of the problem is that MGTOW recognizes a lot of issues men face that plenty of people on the left even deny with virulence. Of course, what MGTOW offers as a "solution" is misogyny that only serves to make everyone more miserable, but the young fools who see someone offering them a hand don't know that, and it's very rare for them to even hear any alternative narrative that empathizes with their issues.
So when women go their own way they are lauded and celebrated, but when men do the exact same thing, it’s somehow misogyny??
You can’t have the exact same strategy be lauded on the one hand and vilified on the other, purely based on the gender of the person implementing that strategy.
That’s the dictionary definition of gender bigotry, and is at the core of pretty much every reason why men go their own way.
By "MGTOW" I don't refer to the literal definition, but what you can find the movement is in practice for the vast majority of their members. A woman who goes through the same thought patterns explicitely because they're become misandric deserves the same criticism.
This is for young women, so probably not at all your dating pool if you become widowed after thirty years of marriage.
Dating is very different later in life. My dad was widowed in his mid fifties, and he pointed out that instead of looking for someone for all the milestones, he was just looking for someone he enjoys spending time with. He didn’t even need to agree with them about religion, because they’re almost definitely not raising kids together.
Dating pool for hetero men: "Women who do not say 'literally' "
s/twitter/fediverse/
Search your feelings, you know it to be true
Women talk shit until they need something off the top shelf.
She sounds like the girl from Sens8 that was with the two gay Mexican dudes.
I'm not that manipulative, come on
Babe, you're imagining things again! Come on, I never said that...
I'm all of the above. Should I be concerned ?
Yes
Oh right and which one posts on True Social because I reckon that she'll think those guys are the best.
What are "emotionally distant manipulators?" Some sort of emotionless man that tricks women into sex? Is that not the same as the sociopath?
It's time for you to quit porn boys
It's never been a better time to be a tall, rich white guy. My short kings are scaring off more pussy than a vacuum cleaner. 5'10? Now take off them high lifts and come correct. Profile picture ten years out of date and now you fat as shit, did you think your bankrupt luddite charisma would win her over?