Boys Don't Cry. Girls Do.

[Staples]

10 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

What about all of Kobe Bryant's best friends including Shaq and Michael Jordan crying over the tragic death of Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna?

That's a good counter example. But note how contextually they actually gain favours by crying in that moment? 

Its too tragic to be completely cold.

They are 'leading' people through the grief. And they are still quite composed. They are displaying masculine competence even while crying.

It would be very different if Michael were hiding in the crowd balling his eyes out like a baby.

Edited Thursday at 01:17 AM by Staples

[Thought Art]

49 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's exactly what's needed for weak confused boys.

I say counter-balancing things to correct for imbalances, depending on the situation. 

Always note the context of the topic I am posting in.

This thread needed a dose of masculine realness.

I find it odd I have to overexplain this.

No, you were being sort of a jerk tbh from my view. But if you wanna explain and excuse it away that’s up to you. 

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

No, you were being sort of a jerk

A deliberate style was used to make a point.

Meow!

Edited Thursday at 01:48 AM by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

@Candle Ultimately you gotta be strong enough to be yourself and face yourself. 
 

Man or woman life is tough. As a man, being strong is fulfilling and a healthy expression. 
 

Men and women play different social and biological roles. Worth contemplating and facing these facts without liberal fantasies. 

Ultimately this is about you figuring out you, and developing a healthy and functional emotional behaviour that works for you and your life. 

Often men are in survival positions where crying cannot happen. Consider your own survival needs. 

I personally, am man and I rarely cry or feel the need to. But, if I need to I would do it in private. 

How other men and women see you when you cry is a fact of life. And, again is contextual. 
 

Crying is a pretty feminine thing. If you value seeing yourself as a masculine and strong guy it would make sense a crying man is ugly. Crying is sort of ugly either way though. 

Edited Thursday at 01:56 AM by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura Fair… 

Huh, 

Edited Thursday at 01:56 AM by Thought Art

[The Crocodile]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

A deliberate style was used to make a point.

Meow!

You have to explain why there's so much footage of you crying.

Look at these handsome men. They have hair. They're gonna beat you up.

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, The Crocodile said:

You have to explain why there's so much footage of you crying.

Maybe that's something for Emerald to explain 

[Tristan12]

48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

But your previous post on this very thread said that poor psychological health is just the price you pay to be a man... and that they shouldn't cry or be in touch with their emotions. And "don't be a pussy."

It's exactly what's needed for weak confused boys.

I say counter-balancing things to correct for imbalances, depending on the situation. 

Always note the context of the topic I am posting in.

This thread needed a dose of masculine realness.

I find it odd I have to overexplain this.

I think in some cases the kind of tough-love masculine approach you're suggesting could be helpful, but I think most of the time it's not. In some cases, it will do a lot more harm than good. Sometimes what's needed is a gentle, loving, empathetic approach, and that can heal the weakness and fear in a man, and make it so that he can then be tough, strong, and not a pussy, and he won't need to be told that he needs to toughen up after that.

Even if you take that masculine "don't be a pussy, get over it" type of approach, and it works and helps a guy, I think more often than not you're just covering up insecurities and deeper psychological issues. Boys need to be allowed to cry so that they can face and resolve their insecurities and emotional issues, then once that's done, they could be expected to be tough and strong most/all of the time, and it wouldn't be so toxic or destructive to them, because they'd genuinely be capable of being that way at that point.

There are lots of guys who are strong, confident, and wouldn't be seen crying, but they are also toxic, abusive assholes, because they have unresolved psychological issues. Telling them to not be a pussy and that they're not allowed to cry pulls them farther away from healing those issues.

Crying, being emotional, these do often go against masculinity, but these things need to be allowed for men to heal and reach a state of wholeness and health, so that they can ACTUALLY be strong and masculine, and not just throw up a facade and appear that way, but be filled with fear and insecurity deep down.

I feel like the "toughen up, don't be a pussy" approach is ineffective and outdated. Society has treated men that way for a long time, and men in today's world are far from being in any state of health. Clearly that approach doesn't work.

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Tristan12 said:

I feel like the "toughen up, don't be a pussy" approach is ineffective and outdated.

I wasn't advocating for it. I was pointing out why it exists.

Descriptive vs prescriptive.

Don't you ever wonder, Why is Andrew Tate so popular?

Some grist for your contemplation mill.

Edited Thursday at 02:16 AM by Leo Gura

[The Crocodile]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I wasn't advocating for it. I was pointing out why it exists.

Descriptive vs prescriptive.

Don't you ever wonder, Why is Andrew Tate so popular?

Some grist for your contemplation mill.

Because no one's doing physical violence against him or his fans.

Or verbally abusing them.

[Raze]

18 minutes ago, Tristan12 said:

I feel like the "toughen up, don't be a pussy" approach is ineffective and outdated. Society has treated men that way for a long time, and men in today's world are far from being in any state of health. Clearly that approach doesn't work.

How do you know that’s the cause of the issues? Some evidence suggests us doing it less is the problem. 

[Tristan12]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

But your previous post on this very thread said that poor psychological health is just the price you pay to be a man... and that they shouldn't cry or be in touch with their emotions. And "don't be a pussy."

It's exactly what's needed for weak confused boys.

Aren't you advocating for it here?

[ricachica]

I like to talk a lot from personal experience...but when my current boyfriend and I were not yet together and just talking as friends(we were starting to have attraction towards each other at this point but very subtly put), I took my attraction towards him much more seriously after he cried from a talk we were having. Before this, I was wondering if my attraction towards him was just physical, but after this, I knew I cared for him much more than that as it didn't put me off. If anything it made me think of him more and I wanted to take the next steps more seriously.

To this day though...he's rarely ever teared up much again and I would say he's fairly masculine when it comes to his emotions. Also believes men shouldn't cry much as it makes them seem weak etc... I tried to let him know that him crying that first time actually was a plus for me...but he didn't seem to understand or buy into it. He is open to expressing anger much more often which is fine, but is quiet and keeps to himself if sad. It's been hard to get him to feel comfortable enough to open up in his sadness, and he usually transforms it into anger.

Alternatively, I had a girl best friend in elementary school that I stopped being friends with after some years because this girl would cry fairly often and was hypersensitive. Even at school and in front of people. This put me off, even though she was a girl. Same with a woman best friend I had 2 years ago, who broke down crying hard on my own birthday because a 2 month open relationship side-partner she had said they no longer wanted to see her (she already had a partner and so did that person....nothing about this was serious). I had to stop being friends with her due to how unmanageable and inappropriate I found her crying to be.

I definitely find crying to be important, I love crying myself, but I find that the context and extent of the crying to be more important than the gender of who is crying...

Edited Thursday at 02:28 AM by ricachica

[integral]

If you ever dated some women and you cry in front of them you'll quickly realize the mistake that was made. They do not have tolerance to deal with your emotions and they lose respect for you in the long term even if they won't understand that they lost respect for you in that moment. They might even support you in the moment but some part of her creates distance because she feels uncertainty because you're making her feel unstable and not acting like a container to support her throughout life.

Does this sound like your girlfriend?: She must have processed her own trauma, developed strong emotional regulation, and moved beyond societal conditioning about gender roles. She needs to have cultivated genuine empathy, emotional intelligence, and the ability to hold space without judgment. Her own sense of safety and stability must come from within rather than depending solely on her partner's stoic strength. She should have worked through any unconscious biases about masculinity and vulnerability, developed secure attachment patterns, and built enough internal resilience to remain grounded when her partner shows emotion. This requires having faced and integrated her own shadows, fears, and insecurities. She needs to understand that true strength includes the full range of human emotion and that supporting vulnerability requires wisdom, not just comfort with emotions.

Most people are at a very low stage of development and are operating completely unable to escape these basic masculine /feminine role play.

The masculine and feminine roleplay is happening because the woman is relying on the man to provide stability and the man is relying on the woman to provide emotional nourishment and nurturing energy

Edited Thursday at 02:38 AM by integral

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Tristan12 said:

Aren't you advocating for it here?

To create a good man requires going through a hardening phase and then a softening phase.

Today man men skip the hardening phase and go straight to the softening phase, which leads to all these pathetic Incel and Blackpill type men. And men who don't even know if they're men.

Edited Thursday at 02:38 AM by Leo Gura

[gambler]

Too many men have fallen in love with their feminine side.
Men don't cry is like a preventive measure from what comes from this over-correction. As mentioned earlier, to serve a function.

[Tristan12]

5 minutes ago, Raze said:

25 minutes ago, Tristan12 said:

I feel like the "toughen up, don't be a pussy" approach is ineffective and outdated. Society has treated men that way for a long time, and men in today's world are far from being in any state of health. Clearly that approach doesn't work.

How do you know that’s the cause of the issues? Some evidence suggests us doing it less is the problem. 

I don't know for sure, it's debatable, but I know for me personally, that kind of tough love approach would be incredibly destructive. From everything I understand about psychology, it just doesn't make sense to me that a tough love approach would be that helpful.

I'm not saying it couldn't help some guys get stronger and become more confident and masculine, my concern is if it does that in a way which is also healthy, and isn't just covering up insecurities. If we're talking about a root solution to being a weak male, I don't see how being told to toughen up could help you. Surely you would be weak and fearful for a reason, and there would be some deep psychological issues that need addressing through love and understanding, rather than brute forcing yourself to stop being a bitch.

So of course I don't know if that tough love approach is actually partly to blame for men's issues or not, but I don't see how it could be helpful in most cases.

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, integral said:

If you ever dated some women and you cry in front of them you'll quickly realize the mistake that was made. They do not have tolerance to deal with your emotions and they lose respect for you in the long term

Not true in my experience.

You just got to cry from a solid foundation, not from a pathetic place like a wounded child. If you are confident in your masculinity then crying will not change or shake that.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It's exactly what's needed for weak confused boys.

I say counter-balancing things to correct for imbalances, depending on the situation. 

Always note the context of the topic I am posting in.

This thread needed a dose of masculine realness.

I find it odd I have to overexplain this.

I'm not so sure that the OP is a weak confused boy. There's no evidence that he's in need of a tough love and toughen up lecture.

But there can be an attempt for people who have not developed or integrated their Masculine side to avoid taking accountability and doing the difficult things that are necessary to move their goals forward.

And they can use "focusing on mental health" as a strategy for avoiding doing the external work.

And if there's too much attachment to ease, then that's very unhealthy.

But outside of a teenage friend-to-friend dynamics, all these "Don't be a pussy" and "Men don't cry" narratives do is to create and exacerbate shame... and shame is quite paralyzing for many people.

And if it does light a fire under someone's tail temporarily, it will be unsustainable for more than a sprint and will lead to a crash and burn... or it will lead to major mental health issues down the line for those who manage to keep themselves under the whip.

That's the problem when someone is motivated by shame.

I've not-so-infrequently worked with men (especially young men with entrepreneurial ambitions) that have become paralyzed because they hold these impossible Masculine standards and berate themselves constantly for "being a little bitch" and "not being Masculine enough."

And I've never seen a case where that actually helped someone more than it harmed them.

But it's hard to get someone to realize that the medicine their favorite male gurus have given them is a shame-inducing paralyzing poison.

When I first started to integrate my Masculine side, I was 16 years old. And I had challenging classes in school, and I also worked 5 days a week. It was the first time I ever had to work really hard in school to get things done.

And I was very lucky to have a chemistry teacher that would say things like "Successful people do things well especially when they don't want to." And he became my Masculinity guru.

And I'd be at school from 7am until 3pm, at work from 4pm until 10:30pm, do the dishes, homework until 2am, get up at 5 to catch the bus at 6 to take an hour-long bus ride because my stop was first, and I'd repeat the same thing over again... and catch up on sleep on my two days off from work.

And when I was awake and dealing with sleep deprivation, I'd say to myself the mantra "Successful people do things well especially when they don't want to."

And I really started to value pain and discomfort and pushing myself past my limits. And I got all As and kept my job, and that really meant something to me because I showed myself that I can do difficult things.

And I just don't feel like telling men not to cry and stop being a pussy is going to help them find that kind of meaning and tap into that kind of tenacity and grit.

[Tristan12]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To create a good man requires going through a hardening phase and then a softening phase.

I agree with that, I think both gentle motherly love and also tough masculine love are necessary, it's just about knowing when is the right time for each one