- somehow try to convince ourselves and the people around us that we are worth something. Some do that by joining an extreme political movement, see my post on the Flemish group Schild en Vrienden, some do that by showing off their muscles (as my dad did when he was 35), some do it by trying to make as much money as possible (that’s the road I am on)or showing off their skills, some try it by owning a fancy car, beating others at games or by having a fancy house or other possessions. Some try to sleep with as many women as possible (tried that, makes you feel good for a while, tends to anger lots of folks though and it takes up an exorbitant amount of time).
- The louder and tougher we act the more insecure we are. Funny how women don’t see through that and fall for vain guys (and won’t even admit they fall for them)
- Especially today examples of super succesful guys fly all around us and we wish it would be us hitting the jackpot. Not Bill Gates, not Zuckerberg, not Musk, etc We want to make it. And even if we claim we are satisfied with a simple, insignificant life that we won’t be remembered for, inside we suffer. We all suffer if we’re not top of the food chain. I swear you can measure this in blood tests, how good a guy feels about himself, I swear their will be a strong link with where he sees himself on the social ladder.
- The struggles of today’s men aren’t that much different from guys in ancient times. We want to shine. If we’re honest. We want to be hot shots. And in the end, of course, we are just average. And especially in today’s society most jobs require our feminine side. We have to smile when we don’t want to smile, be polite at all times, and we are forced to hunt paper, not deer. Plus we hardly ever are part of a team that depends on every member for its sheer survival. Maybe men today are kinda sad, because their material comfort is almost a guarantee, but spiritually there’s nothing, no happiness, a void, they don’t feel part of a larger community, they are on their own. So many of us become so, so vain and arrogant to delude ourselves that we are great, that we are special. But we are mostly missing a collective set of values. That explains the rise of extremist groups, they provide that higher common goal. Today’s goals are individual goals. It explains why Trump’s slogan ‘make America great again’ was so great again, the people who voted for them are the victims of hyperindividualism, but they don’t realize that, Trump in his slick, instinctive way gave the down-trodden a common goal again, however vaguely defined, emotionally it was magnetic. Important note: often we want to shine so much that we will do anything that will get us applause, meaning that in the long run we end up with lives we don’t want, we just got them while running after other people’s approval.
- We don’t have rite of passage, a ceremony, a test, that shows us the older men accept us, as boys, as men. So important, so lacking in our culture. We also don’t pass on a clear set of values to boys anymore.
- We often think about giving society a positive direction, but we are distracted and in the end choose to invest our energy in other things, making excuses for our lack of engagement.
- Most guys struggle with the confines of monogamy that society demands. This is to keep society safe. Without monogamy 15 percent of guys would get about 80 percent of the women. This would destabilize society. Monogamy is a compromise. For women it’s a disturbing idea that men, almost all men, start very actively thinking about sex with other women after about two years of sex with the same woman, if not sooner.
- The happiest guys I meet are devout Catholics. I don’t agree with the Catholic Church -although I’ve always had some sympathy for the Jesus character- but the deeply Catholic guys I meet are a bit more cheerful than the others. They struggle with all of the above, but they seem to accept their lowly status more easily. You know, they can say that everything is God’s will and not see everything as personal failure or personal triumph, it’s just God’s will either way. It also makes sleeping around with other women impossible as the Catholic faith is like some spiritual chastity device. I don’t envy them, but they deal with all these struggles in a spiritual way. I’d rather get wet from pussy than from holy water though. I’ve tried both and the former makes me way happier. There’s also something unexplored about Catholic guys, Catholicism is so restrictive that you can’t even be open to every facet of your own soul. You have to repress a lot. So maybe all the cheerfulness is only superficial.
- We struggle with sex. A lot. Even the guys you think aren’t. There really are some things men will never share with a woman. I’ve heard some pretty sad shit from guys over the years. The only time I was very close to full sexual satisfaction was when there were so many women in my life I didn’t have time to sleep anymore and practically passed out any time I went to sit or lie down. Blissful years. But so, so, so time-consuming. At one point I lost all my money on women, to keep this life-style going. If I had understood money making better back then I might still be leading a life like that. Anyway, you can’t talk to women about sex, when it comes to sex they can only think in stereotypes and polygamy a fate worse than death to them. I already know that this point will be the only one to get spirited reactions.
- We struggle with the legacy of our fathers. Who they were. What they passed on. What they wanted us to be. We carry their insecurities around, their regrets, their dissapointments, and those of their fathers. It’s a damn heavy burden.
- We think about leaving a legacy
- We think about how we are so small and if we are stupid and aggressive enough we delude ourselves into thinking we are important by posing with manly stuff like guns or other masculinity symbols
- We try to be perfect
- If we’re smart enough we try to endear ourselves by being the first to openly list our many mistakes. A tactic that can backfire
- In the end we are desperate to be loved, to be respected, to be accepted as valuable members of a community, desperate for growth, and scared shitless that we might look foolish in other people’s eyes. And yes, we do feel a strong need to make women happy, but we also desperately long for variety and excitement. A different smell, different movements, different preferences. It’s a fight, to give up the life magnifying variety for dull stability and security and some respect. Monogamy to some degree earns you the respect of society. Society is the result of caging men and men willingly undergoing that submission. If we don’t we get chaos, violence, danger, randomness. So the men who submit to this are rewarded by ‘respectability’. It’s a poor compensation for living your life like an adventurer, but most men accept it. Though they will almost be conflicted about it.
- The simpler you are as a guy the better your chance at happiness
- I personally struggle with knowing my male friends’ sexual secrets and then meeting their girlfriends who live in the illusion that their guy doesn’t ‘cheat’. I don’t hypocrisy and I don’t like illusions, I’ve lost all my mine and I get annoyed from people who still live in theirs. I keep my mouth shut, of course. No good could come from telling them.
- We do deal with values. We want to be knights. Protect the weak. Save the damsel in distress. Rescue the princess. Fight off the barbarians. Not an easy aspiration in a time of desk jobs… But not entirely impossible either. There are many ways to protect the weak and save princesses. In fact, I think at the moment I might be saving a princess just by being her English and using the lessons to really listen to her and value her.
- If you’re a guy with a big appetite and huge desires and big expectations and want to fulfill your potential then you are in for a steep climb…
So, let the hate mail arrive, because that’s also part of it, women think what a man should be like and they find it hard to accept us the way we are. To be fair to women though, us guys are equally clueless about dealing with women.
PS I selected this picture from Dances with Wolves because I feel John Dunbar’s quest in that movie is very similar to what guys are looking for, to some degree at least.
Well, this moment had to come. I think I will stop to try understand men. And its good. Would be more fun to still discover something new in man´s behavior and way of thinking.
Just sometimes it comes to me like men are thinking too much. Uselessly too much.
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I agree. I’ve always worried way too much, about the most widely diverse topics. But how to stop?
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Just stop to understand each step of man doing. Maybe also stop to trying predict what is going to be next step. Men are complicated, they need to feel they are appreciated by their women and loved. They just sometimes forget, we need exactly same stuff.
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True
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I mean, if you are trying to read in your partner and predicting what is going to do, even it didnt happen yet, you can have totally different reaction, as if you just would wait and then spontaneously react. I will try it this way for while and compare. I feel im going to be nicely suprised. I think same pattern comes about women.
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Veronika says that Slovak guys don’t flirt, that they just try to be funny around Slovak women and if they laugh then they assume they have a chance. So when foreigners do flirt with her she finds it interesting to observe. What do you think?
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In my life discovery and observation myself, as a man, I’ve noticed for a very long time since my military days in my early twenties was this: Men appear to let others define them as a man. We are generations of men raised by women in the absence of a father/male/man in some cases. The mother tries to raise a man. When the father is present he may not have known anything about being a father. My own challenges used to be trying to fit an already unclear image and expectation of what and who a man is. Is it masculinity? Is it a deep voice? Is it a stoic expression? Womanizer?
So, far I only know that MALE is my gender. Being a man seems to be a different definition to different races, cultures and all other sub-titles and labels. For some men their challenge is simply a woman. That challenge can be simply to “get” one. Any one.
All genders tend to try to define the roles of the opposite gender and therefore the challenge to some appears to try to be what will attract someone.
If a female tells a male he is not a man, it can be insulting if that man is not grounded or he seriously has no fucking idea whom he might be as a man nor has he ever really tried to tap into it.
As a man in his fifties, I’ve tried to fit into a social circle of other men and do man things. WTF is that?
Some women try to emasculate men. Some men try to dominate women.
But a solitary man is somewhat of an enigma. I know.
Can the real challenge simply be to just be your own man? I don’t seek approval of any gender to be me.
I’ve been told I’m not a real man because I choose not to be in the company of a bunch of drinking drunk men and talk about women and bone up around them then go home and bone the wife, girlfriend, or whatever because I was out with the guys, chatting about females and got boned up. That’s like OK, dude is it the talk or are we really just making each other hard.
So, my own male personal challenges again were and still are at times, simply just to be my OWN man. Go my own way.
Ask yourself a question? When you want to have a male child, a son; ask why?
To carry on the family name? Is that it? Or as a man do you know enough about yourself to raise a self confident man?
There isn’t a woman out there who doesn’t think that she can make a male a man. A husband a good husband or she can change him into something that she would like him to be.
Lastly, let me be real. For many of us males, if we were to lose our genitalia then what would our challenge be? Some of us men are so attached to that thing and defined and challenged by it that even when it is not functioning we still won’t go seek a physician, because a man is too embarrassed to seek medical care. Is our challenge to get it up and keep it and rack up the number of lays? Is it our stamina we boast about to each other? Yes, dammit I can be cynical. I’m older now and have been through that insecure emotional shit.
A man’s challenge today is to challenge his-self to discover and be himself.
Hang in there young men. It becomes clearer with age. Sometimes, but not for everyone.
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