Don’t let us fool you.
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By Frank Kobola
1. Not having enough hair. Are we losing our hair? Can we grow a beard? We need to look like Robin Williams at the start of Jumanji or we are not a man.
2. Having a lame “how we met” story.You’re never going to have a meet cute like they do in the movies. Unfortunately, there’s no way to spin “we were drunk at a frat party” into something anywhere as good as Jack saving Rose’s life, let alone Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore meeting next to a dumpster in The Wedding Singer.That’s way too much pressure.
3. Being short on money. Blame the whole hunter/gatherer society aspect, but men still feel like they need to be able to provide for our family. Unless we’re making Soulja Boy-buying-a-plane level money, we’re always going to feel like we can do more.
4. Aging. No guy wants to get to the point where their whole body has the same texture as their balls and their teeth start falling out. And odds are, we’re not going to wind up going out as gracefully as Clooney.
5. Grand gestures of love.We don’t have the money saved up to rent hot air balloons, to whisk you away. Hell, if I’m ever in a situation where I have to chase after the love of my life in the airport, I’m not making it past the ticket desk. I have about $8 saved up. That’s not enough to buy a ticket to anywhere.
6. Not being able to open a jar. We will try until our hands are slick with blood. This jelly is not getting the best of us. If you’ve asked us to open it for you, the stakes are even higher.
7. Gross insects/bugs/snakes. Men are expected to be able to defend the house, but sometimes that giant spider is making us want to throw up and hide under the bed and then throw up again while we’re under the bed.
8. Guys who have big muscles. “Why can’t I gain muscle?” we ask through mouthfuls of pizza. Sure, maybe muscle bound dudes aren’t so great for cuddling, but we still hate knowing they could beat us up.
9. Being bad at something. We don’t care if this is the first time we’ve ever played lawn darts. We play to win. Yeah, this might be at a child’s birthday party, but if we don’t dominate everyone here will think less of us.
10. Every celebrity’s abs.Come on, we have real jobs. We do not have the time to work out at the gym eight hours a day. We will never look like the leading men in romcoms and spoiler alert: we will probably die of heart disease.
11. Porn. Guys in porn have full heads of hair and muscles and giant penises and ARE YOU LOOKING AT THEM? WE WILL PUNCH THEM. WE WILL PUNCH THEM RIGHT THROUGH THE SCREEN.
12. Setting our friends up with your friends.In the movies, the leads friends always date each other because you need B and C romantic plotlines so everyone can have a happy ending. This inspires you to set up your best friend with our old college roommate who still wears hemp hoodies and is adamant that Karl Marx had some practical ideas. Somehow, when it ends terribly, we’re going to feel awful about it.
13. Bears. Really, anything in the animal kingdom that could kill us. We like always being at the top of the food chain, and knowing we could get eaten at any moment does not make us feel manly.
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan. For more like this from Cosmo, try:
Photo credit:Garry Knight/flickr
You’re right. You are perfect for us. You’re not just for me. . .it’s those vulnerable inadequacies that most of all make me personally feel safe. No pretense. Walls crumble; and in these transparent moments, I know WE’RE not alone in this crazy/dreary/tiresome world.
P.S. I love the things you sometimes can’t say.
Love this post! ❤️
I love men! What would we do without them? Thank goodness it’s not just women.
This is good to.know..I laughed at the giant spider under the bed. I laughed when it happened in reality too. And when my daughter’s boyfriend screamed louder than either of my girls when he saw a bug. Or how I can still scare my son in law with a spider. I don’t mind killing the bugs or my guy not having hair on his head but has an epic beard. Or he’s just some weirdo that makes me laugh. As long as he’s honest and faithful and doesn’t abuse me or neglect me. I’d be happy.
While reading this list, I was saddened by the juvenile contents and thought that most were completely unrelated to The Good MEN Project. Now that I see it was originally published on Cosmopolitan.com (“… the definitive online destination for millennial women”), and that there is no author’s real name listed at the head of the article, only “Cosmopolitan,” I have to wonder if a male actually wrote it. Let me be clear: men’s vulnerabilities and fears are one of the things I work on with my male clients in my psychotherapy practice, and I always encourage them to be willing… Read more »
I do find it ironic and a bit funny that this particular person was complaining about porn……there are nothing but images of perfect women///tons of porn with women……talk about insecurities….who can compete with that!!! Glad to see men have caught onto this…now that it affects THEM…maybe something will change although I seriously doubt it!
Julie, men have always been affected by it, it’s only now that YOU’RE noticing.
1. Not having enough hair. I would amend that to “Having hair in the wrong places”. These days a head without hair is less bad than a back with hair on. Sometimes I even feel ashamed about having chest hair. Funny how the times change. Sean Connery had chest hair and was sexiest man alive. Today it would make him a monkey freak. 8. Guys who have big muscles. There is a way to alleviate these insecurity: Remind yourself that you have the joy of going to a nice restaurant and enjoy the pleasures of good food, while gym rats… Read more »
Thank you for saying “Hair in the wrong places”! I have hair seemingly growing faster out of my nose and in the last couple of years, hair growing out of my ears and just outside my ears. I’ve never had any qualms about the hair on my back or chest but the hair on my head is disappearing rapidly. I guess it’s finding new homes in my nose and ears 🙂
Hah, I can totally relate 🙂 I had this discussion with a couple of 20-somethings a few years ago, as to why fewer men than women (as rumour has it) trim or shave their private parts. My point that if you have hair all over your legs and abdomen, it makes it both hard to know when to stop, and also it probably just looks ridicolous to have a bald spot smack in the middle of the body, hadn’t even been considered by them… (Note, I’m not saying that women don’t have body hair, or that all men are hairy… Read more »
I don’t agree with most of this. I don’t think of myself as being particularly secure, I’m always terrified to ask women out face to face, but few of those things bother me. As far as Robin Williams goes, it sucks being hairy. I’m not as hairy as he is, but I’ve got hair head to toe and trying to figure out where to stop is a bit of a trick. It’s challenging to define a line beyond which I don’t need to shave without shaving the whole body. Some women do like that, but I don’t think that it’s… Read more »
I agree. The things I feel insecure about tend to be more psychological, not being liked by people, disappointing my family. It’s all really a lot of critical thoughts about myself that essentially say I am failing as a human being. I am trying to combat these thoughts. I found this article helpful http://www.psychalive.org/insecurity/ in case you might want to read it, too.