Is this a common and prevalent problem, or is it just another case of confirmation bias?

JonF1 · 2023-02-22T18:03:03+00:00

It depends.

If you're young, a lot of your peers really just aren't about shit yet. I learned this very quickly when a lot of my "friends" couldn't provide an inkling of validation and support after I had a stroke very young at 21. They just wanted to keep shitposting, being edgelords and shame people out of having any sort of personal boundaries.

When it comes to family and parents they just unfortunately not considering you to be grown adult and are still see you as a child.

When it comes to a girlfriend it's almost mostly immaturity. Red pill gurus on their panels intentually select for women to come on who have had the emotional and overall personal development of a potato, or they're the only people they can can attract and/or get on their show because the women who aren't playing all of these corny ass games are working regular jobs with regular people and spend their time doing regular things, which is to say not spending all day trying to turn relationships into some sort of ultimate form of science.

Free-Ad-6334 · 2023-02-22T22:08:25+00:00

What you said about confirmation bias was so true. Hamza said if you don’t believe him that women lose attraction to guys crying, then search up “I cried to my girlfriend” Reddit posts. That is the shittiest advice I’ve seen. He does not realize that people post on Reddit when something bad happens, not when something good happens. If you have a good relationship you are most likely to going to be posting on Reddit about it. So basically what he was saying was to search up stories to confirm his own beliefs. I used to respect Hamza but everything he says about relationships is just a lie.

PutsWomenOnPedestal · 2023-02-23T01:05:09+00:00

I have always been a very emotional man, both in my college dorm and in later with my wife. I have cried before her when my grandmother fell ill. No one has belittled me for it.

Exis007 · 2023-02-22T18:52:14+00:00

So, I think we need to throw the evolutionary psych out the window. That's some bullshit. And I'm saying that because I think there's a different way of thinking about how much of a "problem" this is, and it comes down to socialization.

Women who have internalized the desire for toxic masculinity under the patriarchal bargain are going to be far more likely to react badly. What does that mean? It means women who are brought up with strict ideas about gender roles, strict images of what's manly and a message that to be manly is to be attractive, and who believe they are finding empowerment through the patriarchal bargain might very well react badly to male vulnerability. The patriarchal bargain, in case that's a term you're not familiar with, is the idea that some women take a strategy under the patriarchy to lean in, as it were, to the power structures assuming they can benefit by appealing to that value set and will achieve safety and prosperity in doing so. Think, for example, trad wives as a really hard-line buy in. They believe if you dress modestly, have few aspirations outside of marriage and children, commit yourself to domestic labor, and essentially embrace a feminine ideal you will attract someone who is the masculine ideal and you can stay home and run the house and make babies and be happy. That's an extreme example to illustrate the point, but you get the idea.

On the flip side, women who are raised in progressive households with egalitarian approaches to gender norms--especially if they have parents who exemplified vulnerability for men and women--probably wouldn't date men who refused to display vulnerability. That's very much my upbringing. It would be a dealbreaker for me to have a partner who repressed vulnerability or was unable to feel and express sadness, grief, fear, anger, and pain appropriately. That's emotional health and well-being 101. Not only do I expect that of myself, I'd expect it of anyone I was seriously involved with.

And so the answers you're going to get will really run a full spectrum. A lot of it comes down to politics and values. The more someone believes that there's a right and correct role for men and women to play, ways of being intrinsic to sex and gender, the more people are going to see emotional expression in men as taboo or off-putting. Not all emotional expression! But sadness, fear, loneliness, grief, pain, those kinds of things. On the flip side, the more you see everyone as a human being first and their gender or sex second, the more you level the playing field to see all individuals as inherently part of a common human experience, the more you'll get the view that vulnerability is critically important and vital for intimacy. There's nothing hardwired about any of this, it's culturally reproduced by family, by geography, by ideological constraints and religion and a bunch of other elements. Age is a factor too. The younger you are, the more this is going to skew towards "vulnerability yay!". Boomers and some Gen-X folks might see more of a trend towards the "suck it up and be a man" model of thinking. Red pill, obviously, is leaning hard towards codified gender roles so ideologically is going to swing away from vulnerability and emotional expression. But Red Pill always uses biological essentialism to explain what is almost always an issue of socialized gender dogma. Increasingly ill-fitting dogma for younger people, for what that's worth.

It's not that you'll never meet someone who says it is unattractive when men cry or hear a story that someone was turned off by displays of perceived "weakness" in men. But I all but guarantee you that the person expressing that opinion is going to be in lockstep with a bunch of (in my opinion) terrible and ossified ideas about gender roles. But since values tend to cluster, I think it's an easy thing to test for early and often in the dating process to get a sense of who you're working with. Sometimes people being turned off by something is a blessing because it tells you that they are fundamentally not going to mesh with the life you want for yourself, and I think anyone being afraid of intimacy and vulnerability is one of those things.

fathergoose77 · 2023-02-22T17:42:49+00:00

You pretty much nailed it. Confirmation bias. If you go on a post titled “men, tell me about when you tired opening up to a woman and she reacted negatively” vs “men, tell us about the women in your life who you’ve been able to open up to”, you’d get wildly different results because of the type of different people responding. Humans like to be validated in their experiences and feel a sense of community, so they want to find other who have shared their experiences and vent.

At the end of the day: being able to be vulnerable and open with your partners IS healthy for a relationship. Ask literally any psychologist and marriage/family counselor and they will confirm this. Hiding your struggles and emotions from your partner will only create a distance between you two. Plus, if your partner doesn’t know what you’re going through, how are they supposed to support you? Your partner should see you as a whole person with emotions, just like any human, not some robotic stoic machine. I wouldn’t want to date someone who doesn’t understand that men have emotions.

Now, unhealthy and toxic people still exist. Men and women who don’t know how to be vulnerable and don’t know how to respond to vulnerability exist. This can be worked on if both partners are willing to work on it.

Also keep in mind: many posters here are young (many teens and early 20s) who are still trying to figure out their own emotions and learning what vulnerability is, so more people in this age range have probably had bad experiences both sharing and hearing about vulnerable experiences. Plus, some people can’t differentiate who is a trustworthy person to share vulnerability with and they get confused by the reaction (like sharing your deep psychological troubles with someone you’ve only known for one week and being surprised that they’re out off by it - this ties in with social skills I think).

Additionally, how are the people posting here expressing vulnerability? Some people misunderstand what sharing appropriate emotions looks like. For example: crying in front of your partner because you are grieving is all fine and well, sharing you are angry about so-and-so because they did xyz is fine, but yelling at your partner, calling them names, throwing items and punching walls is not okay and your partner should not be there to deal with those unregulated emotions. Similarly, sharing you’ve had a rough childhood and how it affected you is fine, but expecting your partner to fix deep rooted traumas is not appropriate because the average person is not a trained psychologist and most likely won’t even know how to respond. Finally, there are very real cultural differences on here. In some cultures, the traditional toxic masculinity expectations of men being emotionless robots are alive and well. It’s not healthy, and a lot of places are coming a long way to recognize this, but it is absolutely still present in very conservative cultures.

In summary, being vulnerable can be complex for different reasons, and what you see online in spaces like Reddit is not representative of other individuals just living their healthy lives out in the world, not spending their time venting on Reddit. Being vulnerable takes courage and opens you to the possibility of being misunderstood, but without it you can’t build deep, meaningful connections.

anthonyrecenello · 2023-02-22T22:22:50+00:00

Yeah I actually experience the opposite. Women have asked me to be MORE vulnerable and emotional. The whole “don’t be vulnerable” thing is bullshit.

Everything about red pill starts as something small and they turn it into a mind blowing revelation that is the biggest problem in your life.

“Don’t be vulnerable because women will think you’re pathetic.”

Like dude who tf are you dating?

jazzmaster1992 · 2023-02-22T22:39:29+00:00

This is one of the things in the red pill narrative that does happen. I hate to say it, but there are women who will lose interest if you get emotional. Just like there are some who will break up or cheat on you for "Chad". When this happens to men, they turn to the Manosphere because it validates their feelings and even offers answers and closure. And I don't think telling all men that all women are perfect angels is the right thing to do, because it's simply not true. When you go through things like this it is hard to accept, and it'll make anyone jaded and guarded against dating,which IMO is what tends to manifest RP rhetoric.

You can't tell guys who experience this that it will never happen. It can happen, but it's not a guarantee. The "trick" is realizing not all women are plain awful and will break your heart. Then again, I don't think if a woman wants a strong man who acts as an emotional rock, that she is a bad person either. People have preferences like this, and dating is inherently shallow at the outset. No reason to bury our heads in the sand and pretend otherwise.

LuisMiranda4D · 2023-02-23T00:55:00+00:00

I don't want to disqualify anyone's experience if that actually happened to them. But I find it weird how similar their stories are, which honestly makes me think they are just lying.

It reminds me of conservatives who claim to have had a friend or family member die in a car accident and then had their deaths counted as caused by covid. It's just weird that so many have the exact same story.

I cry a lot and I've honestly never had anyone lose respect or attraction to me. A lot of times its actually seen as having a healthy relationship with my own emotions and evidence that I go to therapy.

TVans14 · 2023-02-26T04:51:08+00:00

I think it depends on what is revealed about the man when he is being vulnerable. Nobody expects a man to be able to solve death, so crying for a dead loved one isn't shameful. But crying because no matter what he does he just can't get a job, something any normal man should be able to do, is going to freak out any woman who is in the stage of her life where she's looking for a partner to provide for a family. At this point the extent to which she likes him will determine whether she leaves or not. The more she likes him, the less likely she is to leave. If he was some beta male no-leadership-taking dude who she was only with for his money, she's probably going to bail unless there is still some potential she can see. But if she loved him for other reasons regardless of how big his wallet is, she's more likely to stick around.

Q-9 · 2023-02-23T09:53:38+00:00

I think that to be able to show vulnerability requires a lot of strength. It's a lot easier to yell and push everyone away than reveal your inner working to others. It's very difficult to do and women aren't that much better at it in my opinion.

I've had few men show me vulnerability, friends, BF, stranger even. These are the people I respect the most. These are the people who's opinions I value the most. If man can be this real with others, it is he's that real with other things too, which makes his voice "real".

XihuanNi-6784 · 2023-02-23T15:01:27+00:00

Hasn't happened to me. I think it's more common in relationships between people who both heavily subscribe to traditional gender roles. The types who make a point of posturing about how they need a "feminine woman" and "a man to take charge". Since none of my friends or family are like that I haven't experienced this issue personally.

RatDontPanic · 2023-02-26T08:21:10+00:00

It comes down to your choice of women. If you choose poorly then you run into this kind of problem. Of all the issues I've seen in my life, women losing attraction with me over showing emotions is one I've seen happen to a rare few others but never had it happen to me.

JennaMTF · 2023-02-23T00:53:54+00:00

If you only have 2 personal anecdotes, that's not a lot of data to reference.

Of course you're going to cry when you've lost a loved one like that.

HGW86 · 2023-02-24T04:09:07+00:00

I often hear the whole "oh, men shouldn't cry or show vulnerability" talking point from a lot of people when they talk about the red-pill from the outside, but I have honestly always found the narrative obnoxious. It's obnoxious because I feel it relates to very specific types of vulnerabilities but never addresses the specific kinds of vulnerability that attracts men to the redpill.

I say this because your example of crying when a family member passes away has always seemed like a perfectly acceptable thing to be sad and upset about.

However, when I showed vulnerability about my own personal insecurities with women, I lost a lot of respect from not only my male friends but I ESPECIALLY lost respect from women, including women who call themselves feminists and make these cookie-cutter "men aren't allowed to cry" comments.

A lot of what made the manosphere extremely appealing to me back when I was susceptible to it was the fact it did allow me to openly talk about my insecurities with women without judgement and it offered to actually try and help me with it, something in which I was either judged, ridiculed or patronized for anywhere else.

You can call it confirmation bias, but the redpill narrative about women being repulsed by men who appear weak felt extremely true.

I can remember prior to being redpilled where a woman straight up turned me down because I looked like I was a "cuddler" and she'd break me in half. It hurt like most rejections hurt, but it also felt like she was literally the only woman who gave me an honest answer for why I was rejected. Most would give me a canned response like "oh, you're not my type but I'm sure you'll find someone" or some fluffy bullshit like that.

I tried with polite and kind and not be overbearing with women and it got me ridiculed and rejected over and over. I also remembered that a lot of the men who used to bully and beat me up when I was in Jr. High and high school were extremely successful with women., which further validated that belief.

The red pill validates these experiences (at least on the surface) whereas those critical of the red pill do not and it drove me to spend the next few years of my life bulking up my physique and try to suppress any sort of emotional weakness I may have had, which let me to become extremely aggressive and hateful towards women because I felt they would never respect me if I did.

And to be honest with you, the only reason I abandoned the red-pill was because I realized that bullshit doesn't work either, but it left me in a pretty terrible depression because there really wasn't much of an alternative to the red-pill out there.

I envy people who have supportive friends and family about shit like this because I was never lucky in that regards. I believe if folks truly want to combat the ideological spread of the red-pill, they have to assume that red-pilled men are as unlucky as me in that regards.

I've felt the "men can't cry" narrative feels like it's just giving lip service to this problem rather than actually addressing it and it's a lot of why I get frustrated that it's such a common talking point when talking about the red-pill.

OpalMagnus · 2023-03-03T02:40:19+00:00

I will totally out myself as the asshole here, but I was that girl who ran from guys when they gave me the puppy dog look. I couldn’t stand guys who wanted me.

But I’ll also fully admit that those were because of MY issues. Like I fully believed I wasn’t worthy of love so if someone showed me affection, I thought something was wrong with them or that I was going to get played. I mean I would become straight up aggressive at guys looking at me like that because it triggered a defense response.

So to anyone I’ve ever left or to all the boys left wondering why that girl left you when the worst thing you ever did was love her: it wasn’t you, it was ME.

Title	Is this a common and prevalent problem, or is it just another case of confirmation bias?
Author	CptHappyOrange
Upvotes	16
Comments	29
Date	February 22, 2023 4:44 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/1194in3/is_this_a_common_and_prevalent_problem_or_is_it/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/is-this-a-common-and-prevalent-problem-or-is-it.1153741 https://theredarchive.com/post/1153741

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