Men Don’t Have to Looks Max, Be Rich, or Assertive to Be Manly

In these days of poly crisis, you will hear about terrible men, broligarchs, the Epstein Class, grifters, grabbers, and sometimes just the grubs.

Human beings, not just men, need love and reciprocal relationships. So much talk about the loneliness epidemic — to give just one example — is known more often to mostly men. One reason is simply because boys and men are online more. Programmers, tech grads, porn users, gamblers, gamers, start-ups, financial guys, and much more are digital spaces where women are still outnumbered.

Then we also hear that women expect too much from men. A man may lose pride if they are not the primary provider. Let’s change that to: women and men, whether care-takers, or care-givers, or truck drivers, or athletes; we all need to make enough to live on. Women, some movements say, should expect to to be taken care of by “her man.” Well, a far greater number of women would say she is more proud of having got her grades, bought her own home, and earned it all the hard way.

If men are more lonely than women, they tend to hide it by repressing emotions and vulnerability more. Women likely suffer just as much human rejection, but are socialized to be more calm and collective about it.

We will fall into the same traps as class war, culture war, race war, and gender war until we all understand we need to all be on more equal and equitable footing. This is what reciprocity is for.

When manosphere culture is indoctrinating young boys and men, it is up to all human beings to show up and celebrate our common ground and also our unique and quirky characteristics. Somewhere out there a hot tradwife and a formerly resentful incel might be falling in love, but I rather doubt it, given all the social baggage we lug around.

It is important for men and women, whether hetero or not, to understand whereas ambition is good, aggression is to be socially frowned upon. Having a good body is great, but most of us spend the far greater parts of our lives (hopefully) being over 25, being neither tall, or reed thin, so it’s not the most important factor that so many people think it is.

Nor is having a lot of money.

Flashing money around and using money to have others work under you does not always make others love you. It’s a form on one-way power. It could, in fact, set up one way relationships that are hard to navigate. “If I don’t do what he says, will I be in trouble at work?” “I guess I’ll date this guy because he really treats me nice, but do I have to settle? just because my bio-clock is ticking?”

What we need most for adapting to our fast forward frenzied life is to employ patience, kindness, reflection and interaction. And not just for people.

Our changing culture is hard to navigate for everyone. We need others to support each other and our precious planet. For those many tasks, we need people who are cooperative without being suck-ups. We need them to have confidence to see ourselves as worthy and not driven by societal forces, especially those that are swaggering instead of self secure. We don’t want bullies; we want associates.

We want partners, not one-sided power pushers.

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