HealthyGamerGG - Too soft to be a real man

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

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Except the feedback of other people, accept the constructive criticism of other people, grow as a human being and grow towards what you want to be. I feel like I'm too soft to be a real man. In my day-to-day life, I do consider myself happy, but there are some things I struggle with. This is such a great intro, right? It's like acknowledging that there's some good stuff and some bad stuff. Fantastic. All my life, I was told I'm not a real man because of my personality traits, mostly by my family.

Growing up with two hyper-masculine military brothers didn't help that at all. As a kid, I liked dolls, makeup, as well as soccer and cars. Growing up, I wanted to be a firefighter and fashion designer at the same time. Toys didn't have a gender to kid me. Neither did colors. Whatever was fun was what I did. Now as an adult, I still like Disney, books, and cute things. I love romance novels, I journal, I light candles for relaxation, and I dress up for fun.

Sad movies make me cry. I prefer cuddling over sex, and most of my friends are women. In my friend group, people call me the therapist friend because I always try to listen and help others. When someone else is struggling, I immediately recognize that and try to comfort them. But my own problems can't deal with that. Looks like you're masculine after all, bro. I've been called unmanly for that tune. It's mistaken.

It's the other way. All that femininity makes me feel inferior. As hard as I try, I can't be the top. tough man my brothers are. And believe me, I tried. I tried so hard. When I was younger, crying was basically forbidden in my household. Not even my grandma's funeral made me cry. And that's how much I repressed my emotions. While my brothers are literally fighting wars halfway across the world, I cry because a Disney movie made me sad. That's how pathetic I am. And I know intellectually that I know that it's not true. Emotions and being in touch with them is a good thing. I'm aware that

thinking being feminine makes me pathetic is super sexist and outdated. I don't know that it's outdated because a lot of people feel that way. But I can't help it. Every day I feel like the masculine world is pushing me under and leaving me behind. The expectations put on men just aren't something I can follow and it feels like I'm failing my social role every day. This, by the way, is a common shared experience of very manly men. I will have you know. The fact that I am very much bisexual does not help. That's just another thing feminizing me. Okay. So there's so much to talk about here. And I'm going to toss out a disclaimer because when it comes to issues of gender, not just gender identity, but gender perceptions, gender experiences, I know the community has sometimes had divisive responses.

And at the same time, like, we're going to charge right in, not knowing what on earth we're doing, we're going to try to address this person's problem because that's what we're here for, even if we're incompetent at it. And because the reason is simple, right? Because this person's problems exist. Like, this happens all the time. And it's not just like a male issue. So this is from the perspective of a bisexual man who does not feel manly enough. But I have talked to and worked with women who suffer from the same problem, right?

They're like not feminine enough. Like, it was fine when they were kids, but especially in the workplace. you have all kinds of like masculine traits, which they get pooped on for, primarily by other women, by the way, but also by men. So they run into misogy and other kinds of things.

So it is a very common, unfortunate experience that we have traditional gender roles and that if you don't fall into your traditional gender role, you tend to get judged for it, right? And this is where I know that we say that like this kind of stuff like is outdated, but it's not outdated.

If it was outdated, like this person wouldn't feel this way. Y'all get that? this is very much in vogue. Like gender norms, asking people to adhere to gender norms, like we call it outdated. We say that we're past it, but we're not actually past it, right? As a society, we're not actually past it. That's why these people feel this way. I know it's kind of bizarre, but like that's actually the truth.

You know, and this is not, I'm not trying to, so like there are a couple of disclaimers. So the first is like, I need to be able to make. a statement about one gender independent of another gender. Not all things that involve one gender have to be done in reflection of another gender. Right. So we have to be able to like comment that, for example, like let's just use one example, which I'm maybe it will alienate people, but that's why I'm picking it. So if we talk about sexual assault, right? So like sexual assault, so men underreport their sexual result and also get treated differently and don't get as much they don't get very much support for reporting sexual assault.

Now, we can talk about that, and even I was about that, they don't get as much support as women, but I don't even know if that's a fair statement. But the key thing is if we're talking about sexual assault for men, a lot of people may say, but sexual assault is a problem for women as well, which I completely agree with, right? So you can also make the argument that women under, I mean, not argument, this is scientifically true, women under report sexual assault.

There are all kinds of negative consequences for women who suffer from sexual assault. My point is that we have to be able to talk about each gender and the problems that they face without it reflecting or being compared to the other gender. This isn't a competition of which gender is the most screwed. Maybe it is in other places. But what we're here to do is help individuals. And if gender is a part of the problem that you have, then so be it. Then we're going to try to support you in that. So we always want to try to do in this community, and I hope you all have seen this.

It's like anytime someone comes on to interview, we're not trying to look. we're just trying to help a human being. That's what this entire community is about. Just trying to help a human being. And however their problems manifest is like what we're going to deal with. Okay. So big disclaimer. Second thing, here we go. So the real challenging thing here is that, you know, when I first read this, I started thinking a lot about dating, right, and being acceptable in a dating environment. but the more that I don't know quite why I thought about this because this person doesn't this person doesn't talk at all about finding a partner right so I don't know exactly why my mind went there but I think it's kind of like an interesting point which we'll talk about in a second

but I think at the end of the day you know if you are unhappy with your gender or not your gender because this person has a firm gender identity right so they identify as a man they're just not a very masculine man. So, like, what do you do if you're not a masculine man? So the first thing is just from a dating standpoint, okay, is like, I don't think this person realizes, and this, this is anecdotal, okay, not scientific. But, like, I'm so curious if we can just poll, like, women who are watching this, like, what percentage of you would be willing to date this person? Like, would you date this person? Yes or no? I guess it doesn't have to be women, because the person's bisexual. So what percentage of you would be willing to date this person? Right? Can we actually

grab a poll and take a look at that because I think that's interesting. So a big part of this is that when you grow up with a family that is unaccepting of who you are, then, you know, you have these two hypermasculine brothers. You like things that are traditionally like not liked by men. And so you come across as feeling inferior. And then what happens is you project that feeling of inferiority like on to other people. And since you don't feel like a man, you're going to feel like other people are not going to like you because you're a man. You're not a man or you're not manly enough. Now, that makes perfect sense actually because that's the way you got treated, right? So when you liked dolls and makeup as a kid, your family taught you that that is unacceptable, that people,

you will be negatively judged for liking these things, whereas you have these two hypermasculine military brothers. Which, by the way, from an evolution, this is not actually true, but I'm just going to meme here for a second. You know, so what happened during the Vietnam War is all the manly military men went to Vietnam and then a lot of them died in wartime. And all the hippy, peace-loving men stayed here and they had a lot of sex and procreated with a lot of people.

And so genetically, like, I don't even know that that masculine military is the right. So 70% of people are saying, yes, they would date this person. Right? So anyway, it's interesting. So 70% of people, like literally, it's exactly 70%. People would say, yeah, I'm down to date this person. So I think it's interesting because when our family, when we grow up a particular way and we're judged by our family for a particular trait or like judged by the original people that we kind of grow up with, not just family, but it can be close friends. We tend to feel like ashamed of ourselves that we shouldn't, you know, be this thing. Whereas like, you know, I, you know, I, This also is more personal experience, but, you know, I have a number of female friends, less so now, but like maybe 10 years ago. I'm thinking about a couple in particular, who would love to date someone like this, okay? And the reason they would love to date someone like this is, is there was a time where several of my friends in a very, like, you know, token kind of very dehumanizing way, wanted a gay best friend, like my female friends. and they like love the idea of like a gay best friend in the way that it was portrayed in all the movies.

And so then there are even one or two my friends who would try to like date gay, like they would start hanging out with gay people and they would fall in love with them and they would try to convert them. Like I actually know people that did this. Okay. So I'm not saying that that's good or anything. It's just personal experience. And so the interesting thing here is that you have a lot of those characteristics and at the same time like you're bisexual. So it's totally fine. So like you're in a lot of ways you were like the dream partner from a.

group of women that I was friends with like a decade ago, right? And, and so it's, it's, it's, it's like, my point is that anytime you feel bad about yourself, you are likely to project that onto other people, right? Like, you are going to be afraid that you're going to be judged for being the person that you are. But the truth of the matter is that like, it's the other way around, right? The truth of the matter is that you are who you are. depending on who you seek out, you will find people who will accept you for who you are. So your masculinity doesn't necessarily like, you may do some things that are traditionally masculine, some things that are not traditionally masculine. And if you want to do more masculine things, then by all means, go and do more masculine things.

You know, learn how to change attire or whatever it is that masculine people do. Go learn how to chop firewood and grill. You know, like, if that's what you want to do, like, go do that. If you genuinely enjoy doing those things, then I'd say go do those things. But if you don't enjoy doing those things, then like, that's okay, right? I think thankfully, there are people out there who will probably accept you for the things that you enjoy doing. So a lot of people, you know, find someone, find people who like romance novels and, like, who cares if they're men or women?

Like, who cares? Right? If you like dressing up for fun, like hang out with other people who dress up for fun. Like, who cares? So this is where when we ask that question, who cares in a rhetorical sense? I think, like, who cares is you? right? So you are taught to care. Your family cares. You care. Right. So it's not like no one cares. Clearly someone cares. And so I think if you are someone who's like very, very concerned about, you know, the way that you view your masculinity, like I think that's okay too. So I know it sounds kind of weird, but I would start by sort of accepting your lack of acceptance towards yourself, right? So start by acknowledging that like, you know, you're actually quite masculine when it comes to. to suppressing your emotions, you know, not managing your own problems and suppressing the things

that bother you. Like, that's very masculine. So good job. So I think this is the kind of thing where, you know, even if you just feel like you're not very masculine, like it's okay to not be happy with yourself. But I would also go towards understanding, like, where does this lack of acceptance coming from? Because this is self-judgment just like any other, right? Like, what bothers you about the way that you are. What makes it hard for you to accept yourself for the way that you are? Because I think sometimes, as this person kind of says, like, they're actually pretty happy in their day life. It sounds like they read romance novels and get dressed up and have a good time. So what is it that you're really looking for? Are you looking for your family's acceptance?

And since they don't accept you, that you're not going to accept yourself? And so that can be really challenging. Like, that's where maybe some mourning needs to happen, right? Like, maybe you need to really think through that. Absolutely something you can also talk to a therapist about. I would go therapist more so than coach in this situation. But, you know, I think it's okay to not be manly. And like, if you're not happy with not being manly, then that's okay, too. So if you're not happy with your unmanliness, then by all means change it. But if you're okay with it, but you're concerned about other people judging you for it, which is probably the case, it's okay for also for you to be concerned about other people's judgment, right? Because that's the way

the world is. Like, everyone's going to judge you. Like, that's what people do. And so the hard thing here is that, you know, becoming comfortable in your own skin is like the process of like letting go of other people's judgment, but that's not easy, right? It's actually quite hard. And it's like against the grain. The reason that we can, I mean, the fact that people care more about judgment than they do about their internal sense of self-worth is the whole reason that like social media is successful. If we really cared about ourselves more than we care about what other people think about us, then no one would be on social media. But the reason it's so successful is because as human beings, we care more about what other people think about us than what we think about

ourselves. Because social media is all about advertisement instead of truth. Right? The person who truly cares about themselves doesn't care about advertising because they're comfortable in who they are. So I think there's a lot of stuff about you that is far from outdated. In fact, it's a very common experience. You're concerned about how you're being perceived, how you're being judged. I don't know what that means for you in terms of finding a romantic partner. I don't know if that's something you get concerned about.

I don't know if you feel like you're not manly enough next to your hyper-masculine brothers. But then the other big question that you have to ask yourself is why is being manly a good thing? Why do you place value on being manly over not being manly? Like these are the kinds of questions you really have to ask yourself, right? If you want to understand what introspection is, it's like going through the process of questioning your assumptions. Like, where do you get the idea to value manliness

over non-manliness? Because what I'm hearing is like, I mean, you have plenty of manly things that you like, right? So you like cars and soccer. You just like non-manly things too, which is okay, right? That's totally fine. But it can be hard because there's a lot of self-judgment. a lot of self-judgment. And that's what we're really seeing here. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the expectations put on men just aren't something I can follow, and it feels like I'm failing in my social role every day. Manly men feel this too.

So, like, let's just talk about this for a second. So if we look at, like, social expectations, right? So I think one of the biggest problem that men are running through right now is that, like, social expectations have changed somewhat, but have not changed, like, fully. So I'll give you guys a simple example. So, you know, women in the workplace is now, like, completely normal, which is a good thing, right? So you have, like, women like CEO of Healthy Gamer as a woman, right? So I'm employed by my wife, right? So there's like all kinds of changes happening in the world, and I think those are good.

The reason I'm employed by my wife instead of the other way around is because she's better at the job than I am. Like, she's a better boss than I am. I'm better at taking orders and she's better at giving them. Easy, right? So that's true. That's the way things are. And at the same time, I think sometimes men are still adversely judged in a way that doesn't fully compensated for the rise of women in the workplace. I have nothing against the rise of women in the workplace.

I think the challenge that men face is the consequences of that. So, for example, a lot of women will still have the idea that men should earn more than they do than the women do. Right. So like that was of acceptable assumption when there wasn't some degree of equality in the workplace, right? So like that's where things are challenging, right? So I don't know if you're a man and you kind of say that you don't want to have a job ever and you want to be a homemaker, I don't know how much society would accept you. I would suspect that they wouldn't accept you much. This also comes from anecdotal experience. So I'm not saying that this is right or wrong. This is just my personal experience of like, listening to conversations and stuff. Generally speaking, when I have female friends or family members, like when I have male friends or family members and they date someone who does not,

is not professionally successful, that seems to be like societally accepted, at least culturally or within my social circle. I'm not saying about society as a whole. I can't comment on that. But I've not seen the opposite is true. Where like, you know, if you're a dude and you just tell people like, in fact, quite the contrary, what I'll hear from a lot of people, like women is like women that I personally know is that if a dude does not have a promising professional

career that their female friend can do better than that right so there's an implicit value judgment based on that like placed on on that difference so I think that's unfortunate like I also have met plenty of people who are comfortable with the man being the house husband or whatever right and I think that would be fun and fair I think but it's it's a challenge that people face. Now, this does not mean that women don't face challenges as well. Right. So if you're a woman in the dating world, dick picks, right? I don't think that men have anything in the realm of like whatever category dickpicks are in. Women clearly have it worse there. Right? And so, so maybe not. Maybe I'm just alienating everybody. My point, once again,

is that we don't have to like look at the struggles of one particular gender and at the same time, like make comparisons to the other gender. I'm not saying men have it easier than women on the whole, on the whole, or vice versa. Right? I think this is where like each gender, as gender norms are changing within our society, each gender is having to go through this process of like identity reformation. Right? As we are mourning and grieving the gender traditions of the past and modernizing, like there are going to be all kinds of changes.

And as a society, as we start to go through some of these changes, it leaves people, like this really stuck, right? Because, like, how manly do I need to be? Well, that's a good question. Like, I don't know, because things seem to be changing. On the one hand, they think that these ideas are super sexist and outdated, whereas I'd say that, like, actually the fact, you know, we all claim to be like an equal society, but misogyny is in an all-time high, right? Like, sexism towards men is, like, also appears to be in an all-time high. Maybe it's not. Maybe, I guess, misogyny is maybe not at an all-time high. It certainly feels that way. in terms of just an observer of like women's experiences right now.

And so I think this is the kind of thing where you just got to think a little bit about, you know, who do you want to be? And if who you want to be does not live up to your expectations, then where do you get your expectations? Do you really want to hold on to your expectations? Or these fair expectations? And as we start to go through this process of like looking at the origins of your self-judgment, that's ultimately how you'll be free.

because my recommendation to this person would be, it sounds like you're an awesome person who has copy-pasted the judgment of gender identity from your family into your own mind. And as you copy-pasted it, you actually don't have a problem with it, but you've just got this copy-pasted judgment like programming in your head.

And based on that programming, like you tend to fall short. But if you actually look at your life, it seems like you consider yourself pretty happy. And if you want to be more manly, then be more manly. But if you don't want to be more manly and you don't enjoy being manly,

then don't be manly. Right? And this gets to the really modern interpretation of things. It's like, where did we get the idea that like romance novels are manly things? I mean, not manly things or feminine things. That candles and relaxation is like only for women. Like what, you know,

dressing up for fun is like, where does that idea come from? Right? So that's like, this is where the whole point of recontextualizing our gender in Rome, which I'm a huge fan of, is that like, you should be. being what you want, whether you're man or a woman, whatever. And the unfortunate thing,

whether you're a man or a woman, is that society is not going to be entirely happy with you being what you want. Right? Society is not going to be happy with men who like romance novels and candles. And society is not going to be happened with women who are CEOs. And that's okay. They can go fuck themselves, right? We're going to be happy and we're going to live our life. And we're going to stop catering to the judgments of other people. Like, you can cater to them to a certain degree if you want to, like, go for it. I'm not saying be a mean person, but I'm saying at the end of the day, it's like your life and you've got to live it the way that you want to. And if other people don't want to accept that, like, I'm not saying that you shouldn't,

you know, sometimes people use this kind of doctrine as like, if people don't accept me the way I am, they can go eff themselves. So I'm going to be an asshole all the time. That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about these broad-scale gender norms, right? You should listen to other people's feedback, by all means. Like, I'm not saying, like, go do whatever you want to, whenever you want to, to, to whomever you want to. That's half the problem with sexism in the world right now. Is that kind of crap goes on? And at the same time, like, there's a difference between sort of like societally adhering to some kind of weird, projected, amorphous, abstract ideal of manliness and specific feedback from a person.

Right? Do you guys get the difference there? Like, I'm saying when you want to live your life, you want to live it like, live to your own standards. And if someone gives you specific feedback about something, maybe you should take that seriously. But don't try to live your life based on some abstract idea of what you think it should be. Like, that's the failing strategy. Except the feedback of other people, accept the constructive criticism of other people, grow as a human being and grow towards what you want to be.

That's what I'd say. How many people have I alienated? Have I alienated everyone now? Should we have just stayed away from that one? I don't know, man. I feel like, so this is a challenge with gender dynamics. It's so easy to alienate people, but like this is the challenge I face is like, sure, it's easy to alienate people, but it's a huge problem for like everyone out there.

So like, what are we going to do about it? Like, we can't just not talk about it and risk not. I mean, like, sure, we're going to piss people off and then you guys are going to give us criticism and then we're going to integrate it and then we're going to try to do better. Right? And we're going to continue screwing up because like I hate to break this deal, but I'm not an expert in gender dynamics. I did not go to an Indian ashram for seven years and study gender dynamics.

What I discovered at the bottom of the ashram after seven years is that all gender is false. The true self has no gender. And the rest of it is all crap. We construct. Like, you're a human. Like, we can all agree

what's a good human and what's a bad human. The moment you add the gender construct to it, suddenly the answer starts changing. That doesn't make any sense. Like, you can be a good person or bad person. It doesn't matter what your gender is. And once we start bucketing people based on these constructs, it's like, oh, this person is a woman, therefore I shall send her a picture of my penis. That's sexist.

Not because it's a woman, but because you're treating women differently for men. Right? Like, do what is the good thing? I mean, don't actually do this, but either send dick picks to everyone or don't send them to anyone. right? And you don't send dickpicks to your mom or your friends. Therefore, you know it's bad, right? If you don't do it to your mom, you shouldn't do it to the...

I'm just going to stop. Oh, God. What have I got myself into? All right. Snuff. You guys get that I have a real point here? Right? But, like, it's really, like, you know, you know what's good.

And just because someone has a gender doesn't mean that you should change your behavior towards them just because of the gender. That's the key thing. You know what's good. You know what's bad. So you should behave that way towards everyone. Their genitals do not affect the way that you interact with them. Right? So like, if you're playing a video game and you have someone on your team who is a woman, like you don't change the way you play the game. You're all, we're all fucking here to play Dota. So just play Dota. Right? If they feed and mid, then flame them like you would. anyone else. But don't flame them because they're a woman. Flame them because they suck at mid. Right? Don't friend them afterward. Don't try to hit them up for a conversation. Like there's, you don't friend mids who feed. You put them on your block list, which is exactly what you should do. Right? That's that's meaning of equality is like treating all humans the same.

So we should do that. Right? And even even more good to not flame them in. That's the right move. Be like, hey, man, like, I know it sucks. We'll win. Stay positive.