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Men, I want to apologize to you. I want to apologize on behalf of the society and the world we live in today that has taught you that talking about the things that matter to you—move you, make you happy or sad—are not manly.
Growing up around people that associate brotherhood with drinking a beer on the weekends, smoking up over a game of Fifa 18, and talking about women has made you forget that you could talk to other men about what you are going through.
So you buried it all in.
That one night when you couldn’t perform during sex was never talked about because years of conditioning had led you to believe that men are always supposed to perform and last for hours on end.
The other night when you had a bad day and couldn’t talk it through with your girlfriend, instead of resorting to a rather feeble, “I’m fine!” no one decided to dig deeper and ask you again.
Time and again you were kept in the loop by this one girl who would keep you around because you were the quintessential nice guy and she couldn’t do without you, forcing you to live in this delusional paradise that promised a future where you are together.
The entire time she gave you just enough so that you don’t go away. Finally, when the dust settled you were left with a heart that couldn’t tell what love was even if it was staring right at you.
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I have this friend from college who identifies as a loner. He hardly talks to anyone and when he does, he is extremely loud. He has a few friends but he believes he has no one he can really talk to. So he spends the entire day doing drugs because that helps him numb the constant emptiness he feels inside him.
Another believes wholeheartedly that love is the only thing that can fix his loneliness. His desperation comes from the belief that if he had someone in his life he could truly call his own, he would finally be able to talk to someone without fear of judgment.
Another is extremely confused about his sexuality. He watched straight porn and he wasn’t aroused. He moved to gay porn but that didn’t help either. He also tried to masturbate but couldn’t bring himself to do it. For the longest time, he was ridden with the feeling of guilt, shame, and loneliness. With a little push, he visited a therapist who helped him realize that he might be asexual. He was finally told that there was nothing wrong with him.
I come across such men every single day. Teenagers, men on the threshold of adulthood, men with no one to really talk to. Men who are devastatingly lonely. This brings me to write this piece to address this epidemic of millennial male loneliness because no one seems to be telling you that manhood has nothing to do with acknowledging what you feel inside and seeking help.
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Men, I apologize because your mental health wasn’t ever considered. You grew up lonely, never acknowledging whatever it was you were feeling. That was where your tryst with loneliness began. The more you ran from it, the more potent it became.
Men, I understand you. I was there too. For the longest time, I ran from this terrible feeling almost to the point where I probably wouldn’t have been alive today if I hadn’t accepted what I was going through. I didn’t talk about my nightmares, panic attacks, and depression with the people I would come to call ‘brothers’ because I thought it wasn’t what men were supposed to talk about.
I buried it all in and when it finally became too much I tried to take my own life. It took me almost a year since to understand that wanting to talk about the things that were bothering me had nothing to do with my manliness. People who really love you should be able to accept you for who you are.
If you’re an emotional mess, so be it. If you’re asexual, so be it. If you aren’t good in bed, so be it. You should be able to talk about it. You should be given a chance to let it out and work through it.
Vulnerability breeds acceptance and someone needs to tell you that every single day until you start accepting it yourself. Your manhood has nothing to do what you feel. Let it out.
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