Most of us were not taught the language of emotions growing up. But it doesn’t mean we feel less. Sometimes it means we feel so much, we don’t even know how to process it out loud.
I wish more women understood that for many of us, vulnerability isn’t loud. It’s the silence between actions, the pauses where we’re trying to trust that it’s safe to be seen.
What’s your experience been?
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I honestly reject the premise that most of us weren’t taught it. We were taught it, but most of us had at least one if not many experiences of women weaponizing it against us and/or breaking up with us over it.
Usually if Im quiet Im content. Hanging out with your mates you can sit at a table with beers and not say a word for 10 minutes. With the gf you have to fill every silence with chatter, or else she thinks somethings wrong.
Just stop gaslighting us, that’s all. We don’t lack the ability to express ourselves, women just love projection.
IDK, I process and express emotions just fine. To anyone, I might seem to be as emotional as a rock, but that is by design, and there is 1 big reason: I don’t trust you. For me to be trully emotional around you, you probably have to be my love interest, a romantic partner and we need to have a deep connection.
That we’re not broken women that need fixing. We are both socialized (generally by women heh) and genetically built to process and display emotions different.
I wish women understood that it’s ok for their man to have feelings different from their own and that it’s ok to offer empathy even if they don’t feel the same. Similarly, if women want to play language games when were trying to express something, they should expect that were just going to quit trying. Again, it’s ok you didn’t like the phrasing or the word choice, you should have enough emotional intelligence to hear the message I am sending. If you make the priority about controlling our language as oppose to hearing our message, then we’ll know that you’re not actually interested in hearing from us and trying to figure out how to dismiss the situation.
Talking about my problems doesn’t make me feel better unless the listener makes an effort to help me solve said problems.
That men very rarely play games emotionally. If we say we like you, we like you. If we are quiet, we aren’t sulking, nothing is “wrong”, we literally are not thinking about anything many times. If we continue to make effort to talk to you, we like you. If we stop making effort for an extended period of time, we are probably over whatever “we were”.
If we don’t respond immediately, we are busy and will likely respond when we are done.
Very rarely do we actually want to be “just friends” with a woman, we are hoping that at some point, through familiarity and simple presence you may give a chance to be more than friends. If you have a male friend that you think is “just a really good friend”, at least 50% chance he wants to F if you give him the chance.
We can and will F you, and not necessarily LIKE you or want anything more.
Majority of men understand the “language of emotions” but a man cannot act out on emotion and should not. Men on average from my personal experience manage a range of emotions better than women do. A man is meant to be a mountain not a volcano. A women’s tool is poison, words kill or words give life, they’re either poison or fruit. Well unfortunately most women prefer to use words as poison and thus why most men don’t act out emotionally and society as a whole no one wants to deal with someone who cant manage their own emotions. It isnt everyone else’s job around you to manage your emotions.
I wish that they knew that they aren’t always the cause nor the solution to why we feel the way we do and that inserting themselves into why we feel how we do really just creates a whole new problem. Because not only do we have to deal with how we feel, we then have to deal with how she feels about how we feel.
Its fine to just let us be for a day or two. We’ll come to you if we need help processing things.
Listen to me, not that fucked up version of me you’re always talking to in your head.
We simply do not have the burden of needing to focus on feelings or emotions. Stop trying to squeeze water from a rock. We are different and that is ok. We don’t need to be soft, feely, or process our pain. We get through things by creating the next good time. Some get stuck in addiction and those guys need behavioral modification that usually revolves around a traumatic event. They are stuck, but they cannot feel their way out, the must move that boulder through grit.
Look at actions more than words. If he randomly shows up with flowers or you casually mention you haven’t eaten some food you like in a while in the middle of the day and that very evening he shows up with it for dinner that’s him loving you, even if he doesn’t say it.
If he tells you something very personal and maybe embarassing and you dismiss or criticize it, he’ll think twice before opening up to you again.
I think it would be easier if more women understand that men generally don’t seek to vent but to get help or input. I told my girlfriend about something terrible that happened, and she just said “I’m sorry that happened. What do you want from me?”, and I asked “maybe you could take care of the social interactions and practical tasks for today, so I can just relax”, and she did, and said she was available to talk if I wanted to. That felt pretty good. Clarifying need, and offering practical solution as desired.
Just because a lot of men are emotionally constipated man children doesn’t mean we all are. A lot of us are actually very emotionally intelligent and empathetic.
I’m convinced most women have never seen their dads cry, and when/if they did their mom’s reaction to it was probably anything but supportive. Most women I meet these days don’t have dads. So their image of what men are came from a combination of “as seen on tv” and their mom’s endless string of boyfriends.
I was counter to what op says. I was a rather emotional child and was taught that it’s ok to cry and things like that. That is until it actually happened in public or with women/partners. That’s what taught me it’s not ok. That’s when I started wishing I got some of this “toxic masculinity” passed down from my father as everyone likes to claim happens. It’s not toxic masculinity, it’s a valuable lesson, society and especially women hates weak men.
I’m also convinced that women only want the illusion of being let in because it makes them feel special, more important to him than anyone else. It’s not about EQ, his emotional health or anything else she just wants to feel more special, more important. Same thing with getting married, not having a paternity test, or prenup, it’s all about making her feel special.
Sometimes when we say “I’m fine,” what we really mean is “I’ve eaten 3-day-old pizza in the dark and accepted my fate.”
Our deepest emotional expression is sending a meme at 2 AM. That is the cry for help.
If a man builds you a shelf without being asked, he basically just proposed. That’s our love language: unsolicited carpentry.
Your premise is wrong. Men do express their emotions, and when they do it positively society benefits off it a lot.
Precisely the passion that moves the modern world is Men’s passion. Ideas, jobs no one wants to do, projects, risk takes, etc. are men’s way to express emotion and feel alive. Women express them in other ways, but that does not make men’s ways any worse.
Men don’t go to work in a meat factory for love to their job, but for love to their families and for a better future. Men express their love providing, being generous, having fun, creating surprises.
I honestly just hang out with the boys and have a few beers when shit’s going on and any of us need to talk about stuff going on in our lives. They listen, understand, and offer feedback or advice instead of gaslighting or saying “ummm actually…”.
I just wish women would make up their mind with what they want from men when it comes to their emotions.
We suppress the emotion and we get told to speak our minds and “explain how we feel” more often.
Then we explain how we feel more often and voice our emotions and they stay away from us for being “over emotional and weak”.
And then we say all of this and women just try to pretend this never happens and that it’s an exaggeration.
Literally can’t win.
We do it differently not incorrectly and trying to be more like women usually damages rather than improves us.
I can’t speak for men but for me, I can’t be vulnerable right now, while I’m vulnerable. I need to do it in a couple hours or days after it’s a bit in the past. Honestly no idea how to be vulnerable in the moment of vulnerability. It might sound weird to say but I just don’t do it and don’t know what I could change to do it. Plus I’m terrified of hurting (emotionally) my loved ones so if it’s in the moment I don’t know how I’d portray my vulnerability without hurting them.
What exactly does “process” an emotion mean? Articulate it? Act on it? Remove it? Acknowledge it?
Most woman cant handdle a man being feminine vulnerable.
Personally, I don’t experience this gendered difference in emotional expression in my personal relationships with women. I just express my emotions openly and transparently with words and so do most of the women I engage with. I know what many people try to tell me are inherent communication differences between genders, especially on social media. And especially people who have obvious glaring communication issues in their own interpersonal relationships, both men and women I am not particularly close to. But I don’t experience it in the relationships I am regularly engaged in. From my vantage point, it just seems more like socialized gender roles and expectations people seem to completely resign themselves to without doing any actual work to improve their own communication skills, men or women.
I wish they understood that men have a profile of emotions and emotional expression that isn’t a woman’s and shouldn’t have to be warped into a woman’s native language and understanding.
I’m so god-damned tired of everyone talking about how men can’t handle or process emotions or that we are so overwhelmed by them that we don’t know what to do and blah fucking blah blah. We do all of the time, but no one gets it . They don’t. Trying to get through important and emotional conversations with women is difficult because they don’t understand and make room for a man’s brand of feelings. Plus, it’s deflection city and accountability is a tooth pull.
Men aren’t physically vulnerable for the most part. In addition, our egos don’t let us be mentally vulnerable. These are both in contrast with women who outwardly speak about being physically vulnerable and don’t have the testosterone fueled egos to make them mentally vulnerable. This translates to their having experience with vulnerability in general and our not.
Women talk about being afraid of men. Men have that same fear about being emotionally vulnerable. The song Behind Blue Eyes by The Who does a great job of talking about it.
> What’s your experience been?
Women get turned off by “showing vulnerability” or “sharing your feelings” from what I’ve experienced personally
Yeah, on reddit and the internet there’s all sorts of virtue-signalling about “men need to express their feelings more” going on but in a real-life scenario it usually just backfires on the man. Most of these female redditors posting about wanting their man to be vulnerable or “express his emotions” probably react negatively themselves to the actual act happening in real-life… they probably can’t help it and it’s an automatic reflex of sorts
It seems like virtue-signalling simply for the sake of fishing for ‘likes’ or similar attention on social media, because at best the woman is turned off by it (…in a real-life scenario) or at worst she breaks up with him due to losing attraction
I’m sure caring/empathetic women exist who don’t mind their man “opening up” to them or “expressing his vulnerabilities” to her, I’m just saying they’re clearly in the minority/exception to the rule of the average woman (which is turned off by it)
I disagree with the feel less thing. I can tell you hormones make a huge difference. When I was on TRT it would cause me to feel way less emotions, whereas being off it I felt way more emotions. I do agree that processing emotions can be a challenge. Often times I have to tell people I don’t fully understand how I’m feeling yet so i need to take some time to reflect and get the whole picture. Also as someone with adhd, what I’m feeling in the moment may not be how I’m feeling overall.
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I kind of don’t buy into the whole “men aren’t taught about their emotions”
I think it’s mostly women not getting our emotional expression, telling us we don’t express our emotions, and then we believe them.
As an example…when my grandma died, I felt sad and thought about what I could do with that sadness. And I thought what my grandma would want most is for me to comfort my mother and let her know I’m OK so she has space to grieve too. It felt more emotionally in line with my feelings to do that small gesture than to cry or anything.
My gf at the time thought I was being weird and never asked how I was doing.
I think women broadly don’t appreciate that kind of emotional expression. My dad knew in a split second what I was thinking and feeling. That gf will probably never understand.
What is emotional availability?
We understand emotions just fine, we just don’t express them. I cant speak for others, but an ex absolutely weaponized my emotions and pretty much fucked my shit up.
I’ve been with my now wife almost 6 years, and It took 5 of those, and having 2 kids together, for me to start showing a little vulnerability.
Be patient and you’ll get what you want, just remember there’s as many bad women out there fucking up men, as there are bad men out there doing the same to you.
MODS!!!!
You let this post through when it’s the 1000th time it has been asked
But when I ask which side of the underwear is the correct way with the maximum of two people ever asking it , it’s not allowed cause it’s repetitive!! -_-
It’s not that we’re taught it. The link between the emotional and verbal centers in the brain literally forms later in men. Like 30s IIRC
For me it’s that some people do legitimately feel less.
Any strong emotional response I might have is locked under so many layers of protective jadedness and detachment that even the lock picking lawyer would have a hard time getting in. Getting your shit pushed in for the 50th time for displaying an emotion, literally any emotion, will do that to you.
So don’t expect much in the way of emotional availability because it’s just not there anymore.
I did something that hurt a woman i was casually seeing for 3 years.
I lied to her why. She waited 2 days then told me calmly that she was confused and hurt. Was everything ok?
She didnt yell nothing. I kept repeating the lie. A few days later she wished me happy father’s day and I couldn’t say thank you.
Sometimes you dont do things to control or be hurtful. I only learned a certain way from my parents. Its hard to trust when the 2 people you most are supposed to trust fail you
When we say “Hey what’s wrong?” We already KNOW there is something wrong 99% of the time, your face and behaviour tell us so even if we might not know what is wrong.
Though what it really means is “Hey, it looks like something is wrong, and as I’m not a mind reader and think differently than you, I’m letting you know that I’m open to talking about it, I don’t like seeing you unhappy, let’s solve it together.”
And you answering “Nothing” is sending a signal that you don’t want to talk about it and at the same time shutting us down for the next time we see you upset or sad, because we will get another “Nothing”. And then you cry because we didn’t ask what’s wrong…
Personally I ask twice but there won’t be a third time if your answer is “Nothing”. We all said communication is key right….?