Ask Lemmy

I never had a problem expressing my feelings because I am secure in myself. Men who fear showing their emotions tend to be young and insecure. Young men get fed so much bullshit about how they should live their lives and carry themselves from all angles.

You have the "progressive" and feminist types try to shame you for being a man and they try to pretend that it's some sort of defect to overcome. The "macho" and misogynist types try to convince you that your gender is a point of pride and that you should double down on the stereotypes they approve of. You have the "traditional" types that try to instill the idea that being a man is a like a job with specific roles that you have to fulfill to qualify. There's many more types, but the point is that you're getting constantly bombarded by all these nonsensical, contradictory, and misinformed ideas about how you must live your life. It's not wonder young men are having an identity crises.

In reality, all these people are full of shit. Masculinity is not a role and it's not a stereotype, it's a state of being. You're masculine because you are a man. Everything that you do is masculine because that's what masculinity is, it's the behavior of men. You being yourself is masculine. There's no need to live to some misguided ideal or rigid standard set upon you by others. You're masculine whether others approve of it or not.

As it happens to be, men are humans, and humans have emotions. It is perfectly natural and healthy for men to express their emotions as they fit. If you're sad cry, if you're upset be mad, if you're filled with joy then be happy, if you're anxious then be afraid. There's no shame in expressing yourself or being vulnerable. These are things that make people interesting and deep. If someone takes issue with that then they're the ones with the problem, not you. If someone can't handle you for you then they're not even worth your time. At least that's how I see things.

MtF genderfluid here

The more feminine I have become, the more acceptable it is for me to show emotional vulnerability. The more people genuinely listen to me and not treat me like a disgusting animal they are hesitantly entertaining until they can get away.

When I lived as a cis man not even my friends wanted to hear it, and they are good people.

When a man cries in front of his partner for the first time, usually a switch will flip, and that partner will never look at you the same way again. Being vulnerable with even your closest relationships often feels like a mistake.

Men don't talk about their feelings because almost nobody in society has empathy for others, especially if you are more masculine, especially if you "look scary".

The experience being a man is isolating and dehumanizing by default.

I feel comfortable expressing them, but I see others get uncomfortable when I'm expressing them.

Yes, and it feels like it would be easier if I was feminine. However, it is so broad of a topic and depends on how it is met. Many people meet and respect and even appreciate it, but the difference would be that for women it is more normalised and focus becomes on the actual feeling, not on the circumstances and therefore it may feel more accepted and validated to be that way then. I don't think it's a big effect, and it would also vary extremely much depending on culture.

Yes. But I’m a therapist, so….

I don’t feel comfortable interacting with people irl. So to answer your question no.

Male here. By now I can and do express my feelings. It took a while. It is an odd power move at times, when you at will articulate and/or show your emotions. Some people can't deal with it.

The older I get, the more I realize that opening up makes things worse.

Female here. I like to keep my feelings private. If something is wrong, you won't know until after the nervous breakdown.

I struggle on two fronts with this - I don't want to "burden" others with how I feel, and fairly often I don't know what I feel.

Grew up in the American Midwest as a preacher's kid. My parents are awesome people, but Dad's job meant our family had to seem close to perfect for small town political reasons - we had their support for any kind of crisis, but we had to keep it inside the house so our single limited income wasn't threatened.

Between that and a family full of neurospiciness, it felt like we were always on the edge of catastrophe. I was generally able to get by day to day, so I just kept quiet so we all had room to deal with whatever else needs handled.

So, I think I got in the habit of bottling things until I couldn't even tell what I was feeling, and also developed an aversion to sharing what I could tell was bothering me. I'm open to the idea of sharing things, I just can't often tell what needs shared until it pops out unexpectedly.

Gay cis male

When around my boomer parents: Fuck no

When around my friends: Hell yeah! Some of the straight guys use me as a sounding board for their emotions, since they know I'm not going to judge them.

When people tell men "you can tell me anything" what they mean is "I don't want to feel like you're keeping things from me."

It 100% does NOT mean "you will face no negative consequences for telling me."

Men keep some things to themselves because sharing feelings has resulted in getting burned too many times.

These things aren't necessarily bad. They might just shatter exciting illusions the other person prefered over the ordinary truth.

As I've gotten older and have been going to therapy, I've gotten way more open about my feelings. I grew up in a super stoic family, but I have no problem telling anyone that will listen how I feel. I highly encourage everyone to let people know how you feel.

I think its a maturity thing for guys. My gym buddies and I were talking about mental health a while back and I said "I was on meds for a while because I had an irrational sense that life wasnt worth living. A year later on the meds I was fat, unmotivated and had erectile dysfunction and I was like 'Great, now I have legitimate reasons to think about killing myself' so I came off the pills."

The 20 somethings all looked super fucking uncomfortable, the thirty somethings nodded and made sympathetic faces and the other 40+ guy said "How are you doing with it these days?" Of course I immediately deflected and said "Oh its hard as a rock" which got the laugh and broke the tension. But the only guy who didnt duck the conversation was the guy of a similar age who had a rough divorce years before I knew him...

As a guy who’s half European and half Arabian, no I don’t feel comfortable expressing emotions or feelings. Each time I have done that, I get shit for it back.

“Man up”, “that’s just life” and “I know you’ll push through it”. Is what I hear. They rather have me be aggressive than to be emotional more often than not. While I’m trying to get rid of my anger issues.

So instead of expressing emotions, I just put it all in a diary. Never thought I’d be using one but it truly helps.

No. It’s not acceptable at all to have feelings. No one will care in a positive way if you do as a man.

There is no acceptable outlets for emotion as a man.

This is way weird political shit gets so much traction as it is considered to be acceptable to be angry at idea you don’t agree with,hate an opponent or other and you are allowed to be happy at the pain you bring them.

Everything else is shut up you don’t know how good you have it or shut up you don’t know how much worse it is for someone else.

Woman between 30-40 here, I am extremely private and it has taken me years of therapy to start to open up even a little.

Men and women lie when they say they want you to express yourself more. Whether they intend to or not, they get angry or sad about you burdening them with knowledge of your own experiences. Many will atore away anything you confide with them, so they can use it against you further down the line.

I was a bit better at it when I was younger, but time has beaten me enough that’s it’s really hard now, even with my wife and kid.

I tell my family I love them, I tell my best friends I love them, I hug people I care about, I tell them I miss them, they've seen me cry. It doesn't make me feel any less of a man. If somebody says it does, they aren't somebody I want to close with. Fuck em.

I say whatever the fuck because I'm comfortable with myself.

I think I'm emotionally stunted from years of repressing my feelings. I don't feel that strongly about most things. A lot of people will comment about how stoic and quiet I am, but it's not like there's really too much to express. When I am "upset", it's usually because I'm exhausted or hungry.

That being said, in times of catastrophic events (deaths, break ups, etc), I might get upset. But I tend to be very good at expressing myself with words. I take my time and choose them carefully, so much so that sometimes other people will think that im being silent; im not, I'm thinking about all the ways this could play out depending on what I say.

Crying only happens quietly, to myself, maybe once a year, and usually because of some dumb kids movie that gets to me. I think the last one was Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

I will express my feelings with words no problem. I can cry under certain circumstances and in front of certain people. But I won't do so in front of others, though I think it has to do with me not being used to do so, more than feeling that is not a masculine thing to do.

Like farting. You know your farting audience.

I'm an autistic male and for me expressing myself in general is a bit awkward. During tough times I really liked expressing it to my friends and siblings since it's a decent way to process the feelings.

No. I keep pretty much everything to myself. I am convinced that no good can come of me expressing any of my emotions. I need to be a rock. I allow myself a few minutes of crying when a relative dies.

Broadly and selectively, yes, I feel comfortable expressing my feelings. I'm usually more honest than the social norm, and probably more open than is common.

Coming from the Midwest I don’t think I ever felt uncomfortable expressing any emotions. I could kind of rattle off whatever I wanted to say without too much thinking.

But having lived in Los Angeles for roughly 10 years now I’m afraid to be open at all. When I first came here I was accused of hacking people’s credit cards twice because here knowing about computers means you’re a hacker. I learned to keep my mouth shut and become a robot; toxic/fake positivity is everywhere here and if you don’t play along then you’re quickly cast aside.

Depends on the person. I am definitely more expressive than your average man, but it's all strategic. I use my openness as a distraction from the feelings I keep hidden. It's sleight of hand but emotions. I've been hurt way, way too many times by being open about the wrong things.

I cry all the time, dawg.

Cis male. Often yes, but there's always room for improvement. I lean on metaphor a little hard sometimes.

I had a relationship where the other person was very Guess Culture (as opposed to Ask) and that didn't work very well at all.

I am an enby who presents primarily masculinely but I have a lot of feminine traits and habits too.

Which is to say I am a bearded, muscular reserve sergeant who wears a lot of flannels and wooly clothes, but I have a beautiful, glimmering head of hair that goes to my lower back which I love to braid and the routine to keep it and my face in good shape is very long every day, and in my routines am generally considered very feminine. I do makeup, I cook and bake, I sing all the time, dance freely while doing household stuff, and most crucially, I am very good at listening to others talk about feelings and such, but am also myself very much a sharer in terms of my feelings and just general thoughts too, however fragile or even embarrassing, or just cute, whatever.

I also have adhd which kind of makes me just be myself whether I wanted it or not, I mostly do and think only after. Same goes for things I say or talk about. Couldn’t hold things in if I wanted to…

Which, in turn, is all to say that I’ve always just shared my feelings and intimate thoughts and all without restrictions, mostly because that just happens, but I also like it about me and it keeps me kind of grounded and well conscious of myself, but importantly, it encourages others to share too, and I feel very much more connected to everyone around me, since we tend to talk about everything, even the difficult things.

But I was born a biological male, I present visually mostly masculinely, am very traditionally masculine looking dude, got upbringing as though I was a man, so I think my pov might be relevant still, even though I learnt, as a young adult, who I really am, what I feel, what I see, what I indentify as and how.

I did talk quite freely back when I was young teenager too, when I was still confused and tried to fit the male bill, so I think it’s something more fundamental than what I consciously understand myself to be.

Either way, it’s always been super helpful and really helped me connect deeply with people. Help them, and also get help in turn. It’s a precious thing. To share. To dare to share.

I hope it gets easier for you too.

In personal settings, sure. In professional ones, not really

African American male. Growing up it was the "Man up" "no one cares" and all of that negative talk.when trying to be open I still express feelings and emotion but I do limit it depending on who I'm around, and those people are very rare for me to want to be around longer than a small talk catch up while passing by

I'm cis male, and I think I do a better job of it than many, though I think there are some lingering effects of cultural expectations and upbringing that don't always make it easy.

As a person of the male genre I prefer to express my emotions through body hair

It's.....complicated. On its face I don't have a problem discussing my feelings. I'm a living breathing human being and life hits all kinds of different ways.

I have learned that I can't just tell any old person what I'm feeling or going through. And that the things I tell people.can and will be used against me. And no. Not just by women. Any person with a sufficient amount of cleverness and a busted moral compass can use what you say against you.

I have to get very comfortable with the person to express my feelings. With most of my friends I'm already very comfortable so I usually feel okay talking to them about personal things. With romantic partners... Well if I don't get comfortable enough then I think it was never meant to be.

Of course online, pseudonymously, I have no problem talking about it all. Mostly because I'll never meet any of you, or if I do, I won't know it's you.

I am very comfortable expressing any emotion, as long as it is anger. I am also keenly aware that most times I attempt to express any emotion emotion other than anger, the person or people I am expressing it to are most likely to mistake it for anger.