I'm a millennial. I was raised with the usual bullshit about how "men can be emotional too" "it's okay to show your feelings" "women want a guy in touch with his feelings". Turns out it doesn't work like that.

I think most people here understand that strong, confident guys do best in life. But in the United States it's been taken to an insane extreme. If you don't show cartoonish levels of overconfidence, if you don't stick with shallow, pithy one liners, people won't respect you.

What sucks is this isn't even a "red pill" on how men should be. Other cultures prove this. You can be confident but not given to talking incessantly, or more thoughtful than extroverted. But here, in ostensibly the GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH, that's not enough. It's more than just faking it. You basically have to be a TV character, because that's what people expect.

Lesson learned: don't be yourself. Have a public persona completely separate from your actual character, and as long as it checks the boxes you'll be fine.

Of course, if you actually ARE insanely confident and talkative, good for you. Seriously. But there's no way this expectation is a healthy thing. Society is basically telling men that it's wrong to think, wrong to listen and extremely wrong to build genuine relationships.

On a separate note, why is the suicide rate so high?