How do I stop using toxic masculinity when it’s the only thing that works for me?

Fragrant-Education-3 · 2021-11-01T03:07:34+00:00

A question that might be worth asking is whether toxic masculinity is actually working for you. As you say you do all the self help work but it only reinforces a perception of yourself that is negative. I wonder whether that’s because you compare what you do and what you achieve to what you feel you’re expected to achieve.

Your using the tenants of masculinity to beat yourself up without asking whether you actually want to live up to whatever expectation it’s set. Dating isn’t about gender roles, it’s about connection. Now there is a discussion to be had about the effect gender roles play in connection but at the same time it’s not a universal fact that all men need to embody manliness to make connections. There is a difference between someone who wants to live up to masculinity because they deeply believe in it versus someone who does it to be recognised. The thing is you don’t need masculinity to be recognised as someone. But it helps to know what you really believe in and stand for, and then embrace that side of yourself and present it honestly to people.

Being hard on yourself to overcome situations can seem positive, however it comes with risks as everything you do ends up coming from a place of self loathing. As the way the mind tends to work is that it will always find faults or issues, which means that while the drive to improve never recedes when it’s tied to negative self image so to does that remain. You’re enough as it is, I mean seem articulate and self aware, traits can be rather rare. Accepting you’re enough doesn’t change the want to improve, it changes the place where the drive to improve comes from. Either self loathing or self care. You may also stop wanting to improve because you also could have been burning yourself out and not noticing it because again negative self image can make weakness out of anything. It’s not a bad thing if you slow down in that case.

xvszero · 2021-11-01T05:27:45+00:00

I mean, it's not necessarily toxic to keep perspective. I don't think I'm toxic and I don't try to get all stoic, but most of my problems are 1st world problems, so I do try to remind myself that a lot of people have it much worse. Hell, I'm 42 years old, there were times and places in history where it is unlikely that any given person would even live that long.

But you don't have to get mean to yourself about it. I don't call myself a loser. What's the point of that?

You can just like, decide to work on yourself without being toxic. It's possible.

heytheredelilah91 · 2021-11-01T07:31:28+00:00

Sounds to me like you know how to put on an act, but you don't know how to actually change yourself.

vcreativ · 2021-11-01T13:08:19+00:00

I wrote a great long essay, but I don't want to hit you over the head with it.

Basically, by what metric is toxic masculinity working for you. Because it doesn't sound like it is. It's merely the thing you understand "best".

From what I can tell you're logic is "I have feelings, I'd like to not have them, so I'll suppress them..." This is not going to work.

Having compassion for your feelings is a great step, but the key is to build understanding of your inner state. This can be achieved through journaling what you're thinking about, leveraging therapy as a catalyst. There are sources on YouTube, but they must be a professional, not a self-appointed guru.

Then as you grow more mature (somewhat loosely correlated to age) you may begin to understand Stoicism for what it is, not what it seems to be. I'd non-exhaustively describe it as a fully abstracted solution to dealing with a large extent of the human experience. It's a great perspective but not a useful starting point. It's a bit like, I'll learn to swim today, but I couldn't freestyle 10k. So this won't work.

No woman would want to be with a man who acts this pathetic and have no control over his life.

Possibly. It doesn't really matter, because you're not at that stage anyway. You need to spend time resolving your inner state emotional issues before you can enter any healthy connection. It may not seem that way right now because you are yearning a connection and it's not reciprocated in the real world.

Ultimately this can be a blessing in disguise, since the connection you're looking for isn't anyone else at all, it's your subconscious that you're yearning to connect with. But because that's abstract and difficult to understand people project this (rather heavy weight) on external relationships.

It's a process, I am afraid. It'll take time in years, but it will be worth it.

NB: you might want to look into personality types, maybe that'll be interesting to you. There are some significant differences in how people perceive and seek to utilise reality as well as their needs. It's important to compare yourself to people similar to yourself (if at all). But no introvert will ever be happy aspiring to be extrovert at all times of the day.

Hope this helps.

SnooLentils3008 · 2021-11-01T09:08:01+00:00

Well masculinity itself isn't toxic, but there is a tendency a lot of people express it in a toxic way. So maybe it would help you find some actual positive role models to learn from, nothing wrong with being stoic and in fact I think if you research Stoicism it will help you with this very issue and in growing more mature.

Having a better balance in your sense of masculinity will actually help your results with women. Having more emotional maturity will go a long way in your life and how people view and treat you. Being "alpha" is usually something people do to put on an act or a facade, to cover up insecurities and vulnerabities. It might work better than being a total pushover, but it still comes with its own problems, which I think is something that gets lost for a lot of guys with a low sense of self worth.

You know as I've been working on a lot of this stuff for myself I've come to see those supposed alpha guys so differently. These guys are hurting and crying out for validation or acceptance that they probably didn't get enough of to form a healthy self identity. Its actually quite sad when you're able to see what it is. I used to look up to those types, which just shows where I was at, but progress isn't measured in how many women you sleep with. Your progress is your growth as a human being, a hopefully non-toxic man, and your own maturity and I think thats where you should focus your energy. And when you do, I believe you'll have even better results with the people around you, not worse

cunningcaring · 2021-11-01T10:32:07+00:00

Being strong and smart is not toxic. You need to work on your grammar.

BrodieDharma · 2021-11-02T20:02:32+00:00

Emotional discipline is important. Knowing your goal and what standard you want to achieve is also important.

Stoicism isn’t meant to stand alone. Find outlets for your emotions and integrate who you are into your ability to attract women and positive experiences in life.

If you like women who are feminine, being masculine is still how to attract them—however, let it be from a place of what is authentic to you so she doesn’t see you as a fraud when she gets beneath the surface—similar to success.

throwaceornotaceblob · 2021-11-03T18:52:18+00:00

You are self-abusing. Guess what that leads to? Adopting abuse as an acceptable tactic.

There are ways to achieve what you are doing without self-abuse.

PlayfulLawyer · 2021-11-06T20:22:49+00:00

Pretty hard to stop using something that isn't real in the first place but I wish you luck

hagakurejunkie · 2021-11-13T02:07:25+00:00

What???

You can't get rid of "toxic" masculinity because it doesn't exist.

And while I see a whole lot of twitter weirdos complaining about toxic masculinity, I don't see a lot of women dating liberal arts majors. They all want to sleep with the assholes. That's what they do.

So all you're doing is creating a complex inside of your head because some lunatics who don't know you have poisoned you into thinking you have a mental problem.

You don't.

Sincerely, a toxic man who drinks, lifts weights, trains mma, repairs cars, builds furniture and puts his d*** into literally anything that looks at him twice.

Title	How do I stop using toxic masculinity when it’s the only thing that works for me?
Author	Laliving90
Upvotes	12
Comments	11
Date	November 1, 2021 2:46 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/qk4qa2/how_do_i_stop_using_toxic_masculinity_when_its/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/how-do-i-stop-using-toxic-masculinity-when-its-the.1080689 https://theredarchive.com/post/1080689

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