It is of course necessary and beneficial to tell people what not to do if what they’re doing is harmful. “Don’t continue to pursue a woman who isn’t interested” “Don’t approach or bother someone“ “Don’t be overly forward”. I’m not saying this is bad advice on its own, and I repeat, it’s a good idea to make these sorts of things clear.

​

However, I am getting the impression that people, in this case men, are told what not to, but they’re not really given any advice on what they should actively DO. It’s just assumed that men and teenagers constantly need to be restrained from acting, and that once they’re told what not to do, well problem solved! If you look at the resources on issues like this for pretty much any high school or education system then you’ll see what I mean pretty fast. I don’t even have any examples of what boys and men are advised to do in regards to these matters because I simply couldn’t think of any.

If you’re going to offer advice, if you’re going to tell people how not to behave (and to be fair, you probably should), then you NEED some avenue for them to go into, some actual mechanism for them to take help from, because if anything, incomplete advice can have more harmful effects than no advice. Because if not, you’re going to see the already too high male suicide rates, mental health issues and crises of loneliness climb with no end in sight.