You know, folks talk about male stereotypes like they’re some old, dusty rules nobody follows anymore. Stuff like ‘men gotta be tough,’ ‘men don’t show feelings,’ all that jazz. I kinda thought the same for a while. Figured, hey, we’re all more evolved now, right? Well, let me tell you, I decided to actually poke at this a bit, see what’s really going on from my own experience.
So, I started this little personal experiment, a kind of practice, you could say. My big idea was to just be a bit more… open. Especially with feelings that aren’t exactly the ‘strong, silent type’ ones. I wanted to see what happens when you try to step outside that box, even just a little.
I kicked it off with my buddies. Instead of just the usual talk about work or whatever game was on, I tried to bring up things that were actually on my mind, stuff that was maybe a bit vulnerable. Man, you’d think I’d started speaking another language. Some of them just went quiet, looking all uncomfortable. Others immediately jumped into ‘fix-it’ mode, you know, the classic ‘Ah, you’ll be fine, just gotta power through it!’ It felt like they were running a default program.
Then there was this one time, really sticks with me. We were at a family get-together. My cousin was obviously going through a tough time, really down. So, I just said something simple, like, ‘Hey, that sounds incredibly hard. It’s completely okay to feel rubbish about it.’ Complete silence. You could’ve heard a pin drop. Later on, my uncle, bless his heart, pulled me aside. He was all concerned, asking if I was doing okay, as if showing a bit of empathy meant I was about to have a meltdown myself. Can you believe that? It was wild.
And I won’t lie, this whole practice wasn’t a walk in the park. It felt super awkward a lot of the days. Like I was breaking some unwritten, sacred guy code. Got my fair share of weird stares and puzzled looks. I’m pretty sure a few folks started thinking I’d gone a bit soft or something. It’s like people really, really want you to stick to the script they expect.
So, what did I get from all this messing around? These stereotypes, they’re not just old sayings. They are dug in deep. Way deeper than I thought. They actually shape how we talk, or more often, how we don’t talk to each other. It made me see just how much pressure there is for guys to just bottle everything up, to always be the ‘strong’ one. It’s a constant thing. I’m still working it out, this whole being open business, but it definitely opened my eyes to what’s really going on under the surface. It’s a process, I guess, for me and probably for a lot of us.
