My 19 year old brother just told me something about his coworker. We'll call the coworker J (for jackass). Bro was out with his two coworker friends. We'll just call the girl Karen. She looked sad and my brother asked her what's wrong. She admitted that her mom had literally DIED the day before. My little brother was shocked and gave her a long hug. He didn't know what to say. His response was just that he wanted to be there for her. He's a very caring empathetic individual.

How did his 23 year old male coworker J respond? Said something along the lines of "ok well let's just not talk/think about it anymore because i wanna have fun on my day off before going back to work tomorrow." My lil bro was totally confused and horrified by this. He came home and told me he's no longer interested in being friends with J. I felt so bad for Karen, i told my bro she can come over any time she wants if she ever needs anyone to talk to or a place to hang out, we'll be there for her. She's only a teenager and already lost her mom, which from what i understand they had a strained relationship as it was.

I had to explain to my lil bro that while what J said was truly awful and horrifying, this is actually the standard in society for how males behave and that if he sees red flags like this again he should immediately cut such people out of his life. My bro is gay, very young and inexperienced in romance. I'm so scared that he might go through all the shit with men that most of us have been through: callous, dismissive, unempathetic. These are all signs of an abuser. I'm hoping to mold my lil bro into a HVM (which he's already showing signs of being fortunately, despite our shitty home life growing up) so that he can find a good partner someday.