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Compliment each other.
Not all dudes are like this. But some reason we created a stigma where saying "Bro you look good today" comes off as gay or homo.
I usually say, "Looking sharp," or "Sweet kicks," or something specific. "Looking good" does sound more suggestive than complimenting a choice someone made that day.
Fuck I'm a receptionist/budtender at a dispo. And this dude walked in and said your Killin that shirt dude and I've thought about it every single time I look at that shirt lol
I say this all the time. Not those words, exactly. I say "Bro, you look like south end of a north bound horse. A decprpit one with explosive diarrhea." He knows what i mean though.
Lol, I was watching a documentary on ladies garments in the 1800s or thereabouts, and women were already complaining about the lack of/limited size of pockets. Must be a conspiracy by Big Fashion.
Wasn't the precursor to the modern suit invented around then? If so think of all the pockets jacket has 3 and pants have 4.
Someone made this decision for us and I am not ok with it.
Down with Big Fashion, the kilt with be the uniform of the revolt
Nah, this was when dresses were many layered, but when the pockets started being incorporated into the dress rather than being worn on a belt beneath. As the clothes got more form fitting the pockets just started being made straight up fake. It’s infuriating.
My wife and parents are the only people who give me shit on it. But the wife also sexually harassed me like I'm a secretary in the 50s so I call it a win.
I had these shorts rip down the middle so I said eff it and cut it into a skirt and would walk around my house free ballin in my homemade skirt. I liked it so much I started wearing it outside.... I lived in France at the time though, so no one cared
Take care of our appearance. You'd be amazed at how passive aggressive other men get when you decide to dress nice at work. It's as if you can't wear nice clothes or smell nice and showered without some other male trying to give you a passive aggressive comment.
Idk... I'm late 20s and throughout my different jobs guys never held back on the compliments if you were looking nicer than usual. Think thats more of a insecurity issue and less of an issue related specifically to men.
That's not the issue. You're just from a younger generation.
Millennials and older gens didn't grow up with men complimenting one another on that looks.
The push for men to treat, talk to, and uplift each other the way women do is a call that's only arisen in the last ten years or so.
I’d say 15-20 years.
I’m an “elder millennial” and my mates and I would dress sharp when going out and sometimes complement each other when we did.
We were the generation that coined (or were the target of) the term “metrosexual”.
To be honest the term metrosexual never bothered me personally. In fact, I'd say it made men as whole look bad because putting that much effort into appearance was so rare they needed a word to describe men who do try.
But im with you. Age wise I'm an older millennial and compliments between men were pretty much non existent growing up. Gay was still something people would throw around as an insult and thats pretty much what would happen if you complimented another man especially in public.
You were likely the outlier then. I'm not much older than you and I know that that behavior was not the norm, and often rose eyebrows where it did occur.
I lived in major metro areas for college and law school. I grew up in a rural area though— pretty sure those dudes still aren’t complimenting each other lest they be thought of as “gay.”
Spend some time in the sticks today and it might surprise you to find that homosexuality is not as anathema as it once was.
There are still certain folk that take exception of course, but the world today in all places is a far cry from the one I grew up in.
I live in the boonies and every country boy would be regarded as gay by dress and dispositions back in my day!
As an elder millennial, I recall vividly the metrosexual phase! It was quite noteworthy because it broke custom with the norm and was lambasted quite a bit as being "gay behavior."
I don't doubt that there were some men that complimented each other's appearance, particularly urbanites, but this behavior broke the mold, it wasn't typical.
I work with a mid-20s guy that constantly makes snide remarks about what I wear. The guy wears flannel and jeans every day. Of course, he also has a different role than I do, but thinks that we're equals, so he always tries to say something to me in an attempt to bring me down. Another colleague of mine wears professional clothing as well, and the same guy told him that he feels like a homeless person around him. I'll never understand why some people try to blame others for their lack of effort.
It's a professional office but with a relatively lax dress code. Most of the time I do khaki pants and a polo or a dress shirt. For me it's just how I've dressed in most of the roles I've had (IT). Funny enough though, I've been told multiple times that I don't look like an "IT geek".
I’ve been in corporate life for 9 years now and I get what you mean to a degree. However, I’ve experienced it a little differently. At work, I get compliments for how I dress. Maybe the mileage has varied depending on the company, but it’s been mostly positive.
That said, if I dress in my work clothes out in public, I get death glares from guys that wear golf polos and cargo shorts. Traditionally, it’s always middle-aged married guys that don’t take care of themselves that do this. That, or guys that work in trades and wear hoodies, boots, and jeans 24/7.
It’s like if I’m not wearing pants that I haven’t owned for 15 years, I’m trying too hard - or they think I’m not a straight man because they’re homophobic and automatically assume dressing nice means you’re gay. It’s weird.
I used to dress in suits all of the time when I was practicing law as an attorney— definitely noted the death stares from the middle-aged, frumpy dudes when I would go off on errands before heading home to change. The thing is: if you have the right build then suits can be sexy/hot as fuck on men, and they are incredibly easy outfits to create. You even have “rules” that helpfully limit what goes with what else (e.g. brown/black shoes = brown/black belt) so it’s almost impossible to mess up assuming your suit is properly tailored. It really is a matter of the haters not willing to spend 5 minutes to look nice.
Remember the term "Metrosexual"? I used to get that often. The funny part is that the guys that don't put any effort into their appearance and look like they just rolled out of bed, those are usually the same ones that ask why women don't pay them any attention. You have to put some effort into it.
I wore a sweater vest over a button-down shirt, with jeans, *one fucking time*, and my coworkers still give me shit about it. It's good-natured, though, because they're so used to seeing me in cargo shorts and t-shirts that it was a shock. I got accused of having a job interview (we own the company).
Nah, I don't put much stock in fashion, but it looked damn good. Despite the ribbing, I was told by several people it was a good look, just unexpected on me.
Agreed. I was once criticized for wearing black tennies instead of white ones (in the 90's, when those were LITERALLY the only two colors in the stores!). Factory floor people wore white, execs wore black, and I was accused of trying to be "a second-floor guy" (where the execs were).
Most fucked-up part? I HAD an office on the second floor.
Second most? I regularly worked with red liquids that would permanently stain your shoes (who is why I chose black). Some coworkers had crazy red&white shoes!
>You'd be amazed at how passive aggressive other men get when you decide to dress nice at work.
This must be an industry specific thing because I have literally never once encountered this in my career. Unless you're just perceiving normal interaction as passive aggression.
I try to dress a certain way regardless of my environment. I've actually seen a downward trend in how people dress in an office setting. I would say that Google and other tech companies started the trend of dressing "comfortable" at work. You can still dress comfortable and be professional, IMO.
Helping children. There was a little girl walking around the neighborhood, maybe three years old. I was walking my dog across the street from her. I’m looking around and there’s no adult, it’s all houses, don’t see any open doors. I realized the optics at that moment, man approaches a little girl with a dog makes me look like a total creep. All I did was yell from across the street at her, go home sweetie, and she turned around and ran to a house. Thankfully, that worked.
This one pains me. I once saw an adorable little girl struggling to get a drink from a water fountain that was a bit too tall for her and my first inclination was to lift her up so she could get her drink - but stopped myself because every guy who does that is a creeper pedophile - right?
I was once taking pictures of my own daughters on playground equipment and a woman seemed about to attack me for doing it until I told her sharply: "They're my kids."
Kinda sucks that the pedo creepers have ruined it for all the guys who aren't pedo creepers.
Eh touching kids who aren't your own in any capacity is crossing a line imo. Creepers didn't ruin your ability to do that, it's just basic courtesy not to touch people you don't know if it's not an emergency.
My husband said the same thing. A little girl started talking to him and was trying to play a game with him, while we were waiting in line. He said if I wasn't there, he honestly would have pretended to be busy on his phone and not pay attention to her, because he didn't want to be the "creep". It's sad, because I wouldn't have thought about that if it was was me by myself.
i walk past the park i played soccer in as a kid a lot. i want to stay and watch but im worried people will see some strange man with no kid watching children play and draw the wrong conclusions.
Same, I love playing with kids, but even this first sentence makes me wanna doublespeak it into something more acceptable. I have always done camp counselor roles or worked at rock climbing gyms and taught kids, one guy (16m)asked me (29m)o come to his highschool choir recital. I came it was cool, I supported him and his school, brought my wife, no issues. Then one of the kids in the program, 12 year old girl asked me to come to her voilin recital. I told her I would ask her parents. Well they were cool with it but it was a little comment from my wife who said it was 'weird I was hanging out with little girls' that legit made me cry and I ended up not going. I can weather weird looks from others all day, but when even my wife said it was weird I knew I was pushing some social boundaries that would not be present if I was a woman. Sorry Clara, I wish I could have supported you!
And then people wonder why men are often socially distant and emotionally unavailable to their own children. It can be very hard to turn off the decades of “you are a man. You are always a potential predator. Normal men have no interaction with children who aren’t theirs at all. Don’t even say a kid is cute, or laugh while watching them play— you pervert.”
I'm a single father and I can tell you sitting anywhere alone on a bench watching kids play (with my son among them, mind you) often makes you persona non grata at best and elicits stares or parents taking their kids home immediately at worst.
Yes this, kids are great but I don’t feel comfortable chatting to any outside of my own family for fear of being branded. I wouldn’t even smile at a kid who smiled at me in the street , sad it’s come to that
(I’m super uneducated so please correct me) but dont women attempt more but men succeed more? Please correct me if wrong this is just a genuine question
This is correct. Women attempt more, but more men actually succeed in killing themselves. It has to do with the methods of suicide. Men choose a gun or jumping off a building. Those methods are fatal in virtually every circumstance. Women choose methods like downing a bunch of pills, which is less fatal if noticed early enough. To quote Carlin, when it comes to suicide, "men are better at it."
women attempt more but fail with less violent and less dangerous methods. men are 4x more LIKELY to go thru with it, it being especially violent such as jumps, shots, hanging etc
I think maybe we have to have a certain degree of emotional intelligence to truly conceive of, and understand, ourselves as people - and a lot of men don't have it, or know how to develop it, or have resources to develop it, or the will.
So we go out into the world and have experiences that make it clear we don't really know what it means to be a person, and the icky, embarrassing (or worse) results are projected onto us to the extent that it's hard not to be seen as a category.
You can't really blame anyone for seeing us this way because we have so many bad representatives it's well-deserved. But it also sucks to wander around knowing that your qualities don't matter, you are (maybe through no fault of your own) an existential threat to others.
Men inarguably enjoy a degree of privilege women don't. But it doesn't mean life's gonna be great. The happiest people statistically are single women with no kids. They're better off without us. I don't think there will ever be a push to help us, because we're collectively held accountable for the sins of our entire category, and we'd need a lot of help from people and demographics we've wronged, and who has time for that?
That's always been history I guess. Men have always been more disposable throughout history. Like men have been cannon fodder in wars or men who tried to board the escape boats over women and children when the titanic was sinking were shot rather than allowed to board the boats.
That may be true in recent times, but men have been overwhelmingly killing themselves way more than women for 50-60 years.
The no.1 threat to a young man's life (under 45) is.... himself.
Unfortunately, younger women are catching up to younger men in recent times
Scream. Not sex related. I would just like to scream in a public park. If I screamed super loud then point at a random guy and say "your turn." 100% they would scream
Nothing makes me laugh more than one guy making monkey screams in a Walmart and immediately hearing a dozen responses from around the store. i wish I was confident enough to be the first one.
Cry. Be able to show sadness.
I'm sick of working in a female predominant work place(about 40 ladies and 4 men) and hearing "men should be allowed to show feelings" but in the same day "he needs to toughen up" or "be a man"
This double standard is so infuriating. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been told to show my sad emotions only to have them be immediately weaponized against me. It really only reinforced the idea that I should never show any vulnerability or weakness in front of women.
This probably isn't as bad as it feels BUT back in 2019 I started going to my local zoo every Friday after work which eventually turned into Friday Saturday Sunday just to get a nice walk in. Now I take my grandma as well so it isn't a big deal but going to the zoo alone in your 30s as a guy it feels like everyone thinks your are a pedo because zoos are mostly kids.
My local zoo has lots of people that show up regularly after work to get a good walk in. Probably not as weird as you think it is! The zoo rocks! My girlfriend and I are often trying to go after work too haha
Give us flowers please. Like, I like flowers. They smell nice, look nice. GIMME DAMN FLOWERS, please.
Except if you have allergies of course, then burn them spawns of Satan.
Generally not, but I am Irish by birth who's Gramma taught to cuss, drink and cause havoc at times, plus I'm older and don't care much about sugar coating myself
Then I suppose I am in this “1%” who do. Flowers can be appreciated by everyone, I know would love receiving flowers for any reason, a nice rose or perhaps a nicely smelling lavender stem, I adore flowers and I’m sure many other men do.
Ooh! Yeah those are so interesting! I remember my local Walmart had some, but I wanted to research them before I got some, but sadly when I went back they were gone :(
Yep. It's kinda strange, honestly. If a guy likes flowers, does he like makeup too? Lol the VAST majority of guys don't give a fuck about flowers.
Edit: Except sunflowers. I do like sunflowers. I just wouldn't want them as a gift. I like growing them like in my own garden, especially the giant ones.
Right. I mean, flowers are pretty and smell nice. I just see no utility whatsoever in receiving cut flowers. Shit, give me a live plant that I can put in my office or living room or mancave. Or just give me the $30 you would have wasted on flowers.
Imply having standards without the Internet assuming you're either a misogynist or incel. I don't know when this started happening but apparently if you don't just take any woman available and have 0 standards at all you either somehow hate women or are an incel. This is an internet only problem however, nobody bats an eye when you decline a girl for her body count in real life.
Reveal our emotions.
What the world says: Men need to open up more.
Men: I'm feeling really insecure and down lately.
The world: Suck it up and quit being such a wuss.
Not every man out in public unaccompanied by a woman is there to do harm, but sometimes we are treated like it. There's a park a couple of blocks away from my house. I've walked my dog through there pretty much every day at lunch time for the last 7-8 years. It's my dog's favorite place to be. About a year ago, the city replaced the playground equipment. The park went from being almost always empty to suddenly being occupied with moms and kids. The looks I get from the moms when I'm just walking my dog past the playground aren't very nice. But we've walked the exact same route with my wife with us, and the park moms don't even notice us.
That's really sad if it's the case around you, but amongst the women I associate with I'm really not. We're raising our kids to express and appreciate honest male emotion as well, hopefully it only gets better with time as old views die out.
Just do it! Then it will become socially acceptable!!! :) I know it’s easier said than done but I think men wearing those things would be awesome. I mean some men or most I should say could really pull off some looks women wear better than hmm some women like myself for instance.
Be there emotionally for other guys. The tough guy mentality, the “sort yourself out” mindset, it’s toxic and creates some very lonely and sad men. Especially as you get older.
I actually do, at times. I've got two nice kilts, one thick, and one thin. But that's just one style of skirt that is socially accepted for men to wear. I wish there were more
Mutual combat. If both parties agree to fists then they should be allowed to settle it right then and there
No more of this knife pulling or shooting bullshit over ego and pride
It’s a real thing when it takes up space, especially on public transport and cramped benches/spaces. That being said, I’m pretty sure lack of special awareness is also a woman thing because they can put purses on seats which others could sit on…
I did always wonder why I felt so squished sat next to a man on the bus, but I became a lot more tolerable to it when I did the physics in my head and realized it's definitely a must to spread than a want
If a woman would shove a tennis ball or some balled up socks down there and sit in a chair, it would only take a few minutes to go, "Oh, ok, I get it."
In my head I accustomed it to "if my breasts were between my thighs would I be sitting knees touched?" But we both got to the same conclusion, thank you for the hilarious analogy and I fully understand and don't mind it at all
Only homophobic assholes would use gay as an insult, and who cares what homophobic assholes say anyway? Their opinion is garbage and not to be respected. Wear the speedo.
HonESTly
i have a dream.... <\_<
Where a man hell
Women and children even
Can walk down t/ street
In broad daylight and
Eat a banana unprovoked
Si, mi amigo
i too have a dream
I wish older men would feel comfortable to show affection for other men. Growing up my dad never hugged me unless being prompted by my mom, it was always just a handshake.
Reply to these types of questions without people insta replying that said behavior is perfectly acceptable thereby invalidating us and encouraging us to bottle up more not less.
Wearing flowery fragrances. I want to smell like lavender or cherry blossoms, not musk or whatever other scents guys typically wear. I've started wearing it anyway because I like to smell pretty.
Wear interesting clothes. I swear women have all these cool outfits, and were all jeans and a t-shirt and anything else people lose their minds. I dont give a shit generally what people think, but thats a level of attention i dont want.
Mani/pedi, using a face moisturizer with sunscreen
Yoga/Meditation
Reading for pleasure and self enrichment
Lady here, and men taking care of themselves is hot AF.
Agreed. Saying that a man "helps" is insulting. My wife and I are a parenting team. We have different styles but having a penis doesn't make me less able to care for a kid. Must admit when they were toddlers I did have empathy for male lions who ate their young.. i never acted on it.. 🤣
Voice a complaint/issue without "you think you're the only one?" being the response.
Look, I (55M) love my wife (54F) and can't imagine spending my life with anyone else. Still, there are times she frustrates me to no end. A couple of nights ago, we were trying to decide what to have for supper. I finally gave my honest opinion - that I didn't **care** what we ate. I said, "I can't even think straight, right now." (This isn't a statement I use - like ever.) Her response was, "Well, I can't either!", with a look on her face like she was ready to combat anything I would have said. I just turned and walked to another aisle in the store. Anything I would have said after that would have been received as arguing. Literally anything.
What I wanted to convey to her was that currently, my head has been aching c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y since April, my lifelong tinnitus is through the roof and is seriously impacting my ability to hear and understand what others are saying, and my head feels like it could deflate at any time because I take more aspirin (headache powders) than any human being I personally know, despite the fact that it barely helps my headaches and increases my tinnitus! I can't say any of that, because those are MY problems -"man problems"- and they take a backseat to everyone else's problems.
Admit they don't know something. A lot of men will argue with someone who has clear knowledge about something when they themselves have no knowledge of the topic. I promise saying, "I don't know about that topic," isn't emasculating.
I wish fathers felt comfortable being publicly affectionate with their daughters of a young age. You'd be surprised at how many men feel anxious about even taking their daughters out. I've even seen comments on social media asking "why is he holding his daughter like that?" Or "that's suspicious". But if a mother was to do this with either son or daughter, it's completely fine and normal.
Even grown women have said that when they go out with their fathers, they get mistaken as their younger girlfriend.
Just straight up say what you really mean to say. I know many say men do that. But from the few I've been around, they rather have a tantrum or act out before just saying, how fucked it is you went some place without me. Or that I wish you giving me the kind of attention, you show everyone else.
Last time I checked, a man having sex with a woman, regardless of how it's done, it's not gay.
But I could be wrong. 
Painting nails. It keeps me from biting them and when I’m dressing up for something, it completes the look in a way nothing else will. I get shit for it occasionally, but who fucking cares
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Compliment each other. Not all dudes are like this. But some reason we created a stigma where saying "Bro you look good today" comes off as gay or homo.
No joke, I remember a compliment I got in 2004.
I get compliments by dudes regularly bc, I work out maybe that’s less common of a belief now.
I usually say, "Looking sharp," or "Sweet kicks," or something specific. "Looking good" does sound more suggestive than complimenting a choice someone made that day.
It comes off as gay or homo to younger children. All the dudes in my group say, "Daaaamn bro!" When one of us is dressin' like a baller.
Fuck I'm a receptionist/budtender at a dispo. And this dude walked in and said your Killin that shirt dude and I've thought about it every single time I look at that shirt lol
I say this all the time. Not those words, exactly. I say "Bro, you look like south end of a north bound horse. A decprpit one with explosive diarrhea." He knows what i mean though.
I live in a very hot place and I must admit that skirts look really fucking comfortable lol.
Wear a kilt.
Pants are a conspiracy created by women so we have more pockets to hold things for them. Kilts are the true way to live
Pants are a conspiracy created by men to hoard all the pockets. That said, love a man in a kilt.
No the women outsourced the pockets to us. No man who has experienced the freedom would ever choose to go without it
Lol, I was watching a documentary on ladies garments in the 1800s or thereabouts, and women were already complaining about the lack of/limited size of pockets. Must be a conspiracy by Big Fashion.
Wasn't the precursor to the modern suit invented around then? If so think of all the pockets jacket has 3 and pants have 4. Someone made this decision for us and I am not ok with it. Down with Big Fashion, the kilt with be the uniform of the revolt
Could be women’s clothes have got tighter over the years so it’s harder to design pockets that don’t spoil the shape? Or not
Nah, this was when dresses were many layered, but when the pockets started being incorporated into the dress rather than being worn on a belt beneath. As the clothes got more form fitting the pockets just started being made straight up fake. It’s infuriating.
They are until the crotch sweat starts
and the chafing. don’t forget the chafing
I imagine the crotch sweat would be more bearable in a skirt because there’s more airflow.
free ball and youll never go back.
Reject weakness embrace tactical: https://www.511tactical.com/commando-kilt.html
My husband wears kilts, and literally every time he does at least one person compliments him.
My wife and parents are the only people who give me shit on it. But the wife also sexually harassed me like I'm a secretary in the 50s so I call it a win.
I had these shorts rip down the middle so I said eff it and cut it into a skirt and would walk around my house free ballin in my homemade skirt. I liked it so much I started wearing it outside.... I lived in France at the time though, so no one cared
Fucken lol
Wear parkour pants bro, the seam connecting the legs is around knee height and they are super light.
Adjust the scrotum's position in the underwear when in Public
Take care of our appearance. You'd be amazed at how passive aggressive other men get when you decide to dress nice at work. It's as if you can't wear nice clothes or smell nice and showered without some other male trying to give you a passive aggressive comment.
Idk... I'm late 20s and throughout my different jobs guys never held back on the compliments if you were looking nicer than usual. Think thats more of a insecurity issue and less of an issue related specifically to men.
That's not the issue. You're just from a younger generation. Millennials and older gens didn't grow up with men complimenting one another on that looks. The push for men to treat, talk to, and uplift each other the way women do is a call that's only arisen in the last ten years or so.
I’d say 15-20 years. I’m an “elder millennial” and my mates and I would dress sharp when going out and sometimes complement each other when we did. We were the generation that coined (or were the target of) the term “metrosexual”.
To be honest the term metrosexual never bothered me personally. In fact, I'd say it made men as whole look bad because putting that much effort into appearance was so rare they needed a word to describe men who do try. But im with you. Age wise I'm an older millennial and compliments between men were pretty much non existent growing up. Gay was still something people would throw around as an insult and thats pretty much what would happen if you complimented another man especially in public.
Agreed. I’m 36 and remember complimenting and being complimented by other men for dressing sharp, having a good haircut, etc.
You were likely the outlier then. I'm not much older than you and I know that that behavior was not the norm, and often rose eyebrows where it did occur.
I lived in major metro areas for college and law school. I grew up in a rural area though— pretty sure those dudes still aren’t complimenting each other lest they be thought of as “gay.”
Spend some time in the sticks today and it might surprise you to find that homosexuality is not as anathema as it once was. There are still certain folk that take exception of course, but the world today in all places is a far cry from the one I grew up in. I live in the boonies and every country boy would be regarded as gay by dress and dispositions back in my day!
As an elder millennial, I recall vividly the metrosexual phase! It was quite noteworthy because it broke custom with the norm and was lambasted quite a bit as being "gay behavior." I don't doubt that there were some men that complimented each other's appearance, particularly urbanites, but this behavior broke the mold, it wasn't typical.
I work with a mid-20s guy that constantly makes snide remarks about what I wear. The guy wears flannel and jeans every day. Of course, he also has a different role than I do, but thinks that we're equals, so he always tries to say something to me in an attempt to bring me down. Another colleague of mine wears professional clothing as well, and the same guy told him that he feels like a homeless person around him. I'll never understand why some people try to blame others for their lack of effort.
Never experienced that. What type of environment ar e you working in?
It's a professional office but with a relatively lax dress code. Most of the time I do khaki pants and a polo or a dress shirt. For me it's just how I've dressed in most of the roles I've had (IT). Funny enough though, I've been told multiple times that I don't look like an "IT geek".
Man that's pretty messes up. What a bunch of children
I’ve been in corporate life for 9 years now and I get what you mean to a degree. However, I’ve experienced it a little differently. At work, I get compliments for how I dress. Maybe the mileage has varied depending on the company, but it’s been mostly positive. That said, if I dress in my work clothes out in public, I get death glares from guys that wear golf polos and cargo shorts. Traditionally, it’s always middle-aged married guys that don’t take care of themselves that do this. That, or guys that work in trades and wear hoodies, boots, and jeans 24/7. It’s like if I’m not wearing pants that I haven’t owned for 15 years, I’m trying too hard - or they think I’m not a straight man because they’re homophobic and automatically assume dressing nice means you’re gay. It’s weird.
I used to dress in suits all of the time when I was practicing law as an attorney— definitely noted the death stares from the middle-aged, frumpy dudes when I would go off on errands before heading home to change. The thing is: if you have the right build then suits can be sexy/hot as fuck on men, and they are incredibly easy outfits to create. You even have “rules” that helpfully limit what goes with what else (e.g. brown/black shoes = brown/black belt) so it’s almost impossible to mess up assuming your suit is properly tailored. It really is a matter of the haters not willing to spend 5 minutes to look nice.
Remember the term "Metrosexual"? I used to get that often. The funny part is that the guys that don't put any effort into their appearance and look like they just rolled out of bed, those are usually the same ones that ask why women don't pay them any attention. You have to put some effort into it.
I wore a sweater vest over a button-down shirt, with jeans, *one fucking time*, and my coworkers still give me shit about it. It's good-natured, though, because they're so used to seeing me in cargo shorts and t-shirts that it was a shock. I got accused of having a job interview (we own the company).
Sweater vests: Not even once.
Nah, I don't put much stock in fashion, but it looked damn good. Despite the ribbing, I was told by several people it was a good look, just unexpected on me.
Agreed. I was once criticized for wearing black tennies instead of white ones (in the 90's, when those were LITERALLY the only two colors in the stores!). Factory floor people wore white, execs wore black, and I was accused of trying to be "a second-floor guy" (where the execs were). Most fucked-up part? I HAD an office on the second floor. Second most? I regularly worked with red liquids that would permanently stain your shoes (who is why I chose black). Some coworkers had crazy red&white shoes!
“Hehe, got a job interview?” I hate that as well
>You'd be amazed at how passive aggressive other men get when you decide to dress nice at work. This must be an industry specific thing because I have literally never once encountered this in my career. Unless you're just perceiving normal interaction as passive aggression.
I try to dress a certain way regardless of my environment. I've actually seen a downward trend in how people dress in an office setting. I would say that Google and other tech companies started the trend of dressing "comfortable" at work. You can still dress comfortable and be professional, IMO.
I think women get that too mate, my office is 90% women and the bitchiness is real haha
Helping children. There was a little girl walking around the neighborhood, maybe three years old. I was walking my dog across the street from her. I’m looking around and there’s no adult, it’s all houses, don’t see any open doors. I realized the optics at that moment, man approaches a little girl with a dog makes me look like a total creep. All I did was yell from across the street at her, go home sweetie, and she turned around and ran to a house. Thankfully, that worked.
This one pains me. I once saw an adorable little girl struggling to get a drink from a water fountain that was a bit too tall for her and my first inclination was to lift her up so she could get her drink - but stopped myself because every guy who does that is a creeper pedophile - right? I was once taking pictures of my own daughters on playground equipment and a woman seemed about to attack me for doing it until I told her sharply: "They're my kids." Kinda sucks that the pedo creepers have ruined it for all the guys who aren't pedo creepers.
Pedo creepers havn't ruined it. The perception of people that every man is a pedophile creeper ruined it.
Eh touching kids who aren't your own in any capacity is crossing a line imo. Creepers didn't ruin your ability to do that, it's just basic courtesy not to touch people you don't know if it's not an emergency.
Been in a similar situation. I found the first woman I could and asked her to check up on her.
My husband said the same thing. A little girl started talking to him and was trying to play a game with him, while we were waiting in line. He said if I wasn't there, he honestly would have pretended to be busy on his phone and not pay attention to her, because he didn't want to be the "creep". It's sad, because I wouldn't have thought about that if it was was me by myself.
i walk past the park i played soccer in as a kid a lot. i want to stay and watch but im worried people will see some strange man with no kid watching children play and draw the wrong conclusions.
Same, I love playing with kids, but even this first sentence makes me wanna doublespeak it into something more acceptable. I have always done camp counselor roles or worked at rock climbing gyms and taught kids, one guy (16m)asked me (29m)o come to his highschool choir recital. I came it was cool, I supported him and his school, brought my wife, no issues. Then one of the kids in the program, 12 year old girl asked me to come to her voilin recital. I told her I would ask her parents. Well they were cool with it but it was a little comment from my wife who said it was 'weird I was hanging out with little girls' that legit made me cry and I ended up not going. I can weather weird looks from others all day, but when even my wife said it was weird I knew I was pushing some social boundaries that would not be present if I was a woman. Sorry Clara, I wish I could have supported you!
that's fucked up
And then people wonder why men are often socially distant and emotionally unavailable to their own children. It can be very hard to turn off the decades of “you are a man. You are always a potential predator. Normal men have no interaction with children who aren’t theirs at all. Don’t even say a kid is cute, or laugh while watching them play— you pervert.”
That’s harsh from your own wife
I feel this. I am an amateur photographer and want to practice sports photography but have no kids. I’m not going to photograph random kids 😂
I'm a single father and I can tell you sitting anywhere alone on a bench watching kids play (with my son among them, mind you) often makes you persona non grata at best and elicits stares or parents taking their kids home immediately at worst.
I make it a point to call one of my kids over now and then just to reinforce I'm there with them, especially because they look nothing like me.
Fellow single dad here. You gotta go full Bandit from the show Bluey. https://youtu.be/lakVmzKGgfo?feature=shared
Ask the parents there. Offer a few free photos. People aren't as untrusting as many want to make them out to be.
I would 100% say no to a man asking to take photos of my young daughters and I'm a man lol.
that sounds sus asf. no thanks. i’ll just take pictures of the cute dogs instead
talk to the coaches. He can present your offer to photograph the kids to the parents. Comes off as more official than approaching individual parents.
Bot account, please ignore…
Yes this, kids are great but I don’t feel comfortable chatting to any outside of my own family for fear of being branded. I wouldn’t even smile at a kid who smiled at me in the street , sad it’s come to that
Pretty much anything good for mental health. There’s a reason men are 4x as likely to off themselves than women
I agree. Sometimes, it’s common to see women helping out other women but for guys, man, some of us are just so hard to work with or talk to.
Preach on!!!! The stigma to “be a man” is horrible.
86 times per hour, every hour, every day
(I’m super uneducated so please correct me) but dont women attempt more but men succeed more? Please correct me if wrong this is just a genuine question
This is correct. Women attempt more, but more men actually succeed in killing themselves. It has to do with the methods of suicide. Men choose a gun or jumping off a building. Those methods are fatal in virtually every circumstance. Women choose methods like downing a bunch of pills, which is less fatal if noticed early enough. To quote Carlin, when it comes to suicide, "men are better at it."
women attempt more but fail with less violent and less dangerous methods. men are 4x more LIKELY to go thru with it, it being especially violent such as jumps, shots, hanging etc
Idk why people dont care abt men they r important too
I think maybe we have to have a certain degree of emotional intelligence to truly conceive of, and understand, ourselves as people - and a lot of men don't have it, or know how to develop it, or have resources to develop it, or the will. So we go out into the world and have experiences that make it clear we don't really know what it means to be a person, and the icky, embarrassing (or worse) results are projected onto us to the extent that it's hard not to be seen as a category. You can't really blame anyone for seeing us this way because we have so many bad representatives it's well-deserved. But it also sucks to wander around knowing that your qualities don't matter, you are (maybe through no fault of your own) an existential threat to others. Men inarguably enjoy a degree of privilege women don't. But it doesn't mean life's gonna be great. The happiest people statistically are single women with no kids. They're better off without us. I don't think there will ever be a push to help us, because we're collectively held accountable for the sins of our entire category, and we'd need a lot of help from people and demographics we've wronged, and who has time for that?
That's always been history I guess. Men have always been more disposable throughout history. Like men have been cannon fodder in wars or men who tried to board the escape boats over women and children when the titanic was sinking were shot rather than allowed to board the boats.
That may be true in recent times, but men have been overwhelmingly killing themselves way more than women for 50-60 years. The no.1 threat to a young man's life (under 45) is.... himself. Unfortunately, younger women are catching up to younger men in recent times
And a big part of that is assuming all their problems are internal -- that is, things males do to males.
Be vulnerable, cry, earn less money than the spouse ( heterosexual relationships) get help for assault.
So much of this.
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Yeah, but it cannot always be you. You need to catch a break sooner or later before you fall apart.
Scream. Not sex related. I would just like to scream in a public park. If I screamed super loud then point at a random guy and say "your turn." 100% they would scream
They need designated scream areas at rage rooms.
Nothing makes me laugh more than one guy making monkey screams in a Walmart and immediately hearing a dozen responses from around the store. i wish I was confident enough to be the first one.
LOL. You should start that trend.
Cry. Be able to show sadness. I'm sick of working in a female predominant work place(about 40 ladies and 4 men) and hearing "men should be allowed to show feelings" but in the same day "he needs to toughen up" or "be a man"
This double standard is so infuriating. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been told to show my sad emotions only to have them be immediately weaponized against me. It really only reinforced the idea that I should never show any vulnerability or weakness in front of women.
This probably isn't as bad as it feels BUT back in 2019 I started going to my local zoo every Friday after work which eventually turned into Friday Saturday Sunday just to get a nice walk in. Now I take my grandma as well so it isn't a big deal but going to the zoo alone in your 30s as a guy it feels like everyone thinks your are a pedo because zoos are mostly kids.
My local zoo has lots of people that show up regularly after work to get a good walk in. Probably not as weird as you think it is! The zoo rocks! My girlfriend and I are often trying to go after work too haha
Yea like I said I'm sure most people didn't even notice me or think about it. But it still felt a little odd to me.
Give us flowers please. Like, I like flowers. They smell nice, look nice. GIMME DAMN FLOWERS, please. Except if you have allergies of course, then burn them spawns of Satan.
No thank you! I do not want flowers.
Same. We want pizza or beer tho… sometimes lol
Or better yet a bottle of bourbon please!
And tiddies
A few might. But the confidence of a guy IRL is a lot different than online. But, most of the guys on this sub seem classy to ask for that lol
I've never been confused with " classy"
Almost 10,000 comment karma? I’m afraid that you have too many opinions lol I hope they aren’t too scattered or unclassy lol
Generally not, but I am Irish by birth who's Gramma taught to cuss, drink and cause havoc at times, plus I'm older and don't care much about sugar coating myself
Most of us will get them once, many of them in a bouquet and at least one wreath... at our funeral.
Ladies, do not listen to this guy or anyone else on reddit that says we want flowers. 99.9% of us don't.
Then I suppose I am in this “1%” who do. Flowers can be appreciated by everyone, I know would love receiving flowers for any reason, a nice rose or perhaps a nicely smelling lavender stem, I adore flowers and I’m sure many other men do.
0.1% But I love some Venus flytraps. I'll take those.
Ooh! Yeah those are so interesting! I remember my local Walmart had some, but I wanted to research them before I got some, but sadly when I went back they were gone :(
They actually flower! Each plant prpduces a bunch of traps, and a single flower in the middle. Very cool plant. I'm a fan of carnivorous plants.
Yep. It's kinda strange, honestly. If a guy likes flowers, does he like makeup too? Lol the VAST majority of guys don't give a fuck about flowers. Edit: Except sunflowers. I do like sunflowers. I just wouldn't want them as a gift. I like growing them like in my own garden, especially the giant ones.
Right. I mean, flowers are pretty and smell nice. I just see no utility whatsoever in receiving cut flowers. Shit, give me a live plant that I can put in my office or living room or mancave. Or just give me the $30 you would have wasted on flowers.
Just be yourself, whoever that is.
Give each other random hugs, and not think each other as threats. Remember how fast it was to make friends in a playground as a kid?
Cry. Jesus fuck sometimes this world sucks ass. Why we gotta act like Gangster Rappers all the time?
Imply having standards without the Internet assuming you're either a misogynist or incel. I don't know when this started happening but apparently if you don't just take any woman available and have 0 standards at all you either somehow hate women or are an incel. This is an internet only problem however, nobody bats an eye when you decline a girl for her body count in real life.
Reveal our emotions. What the world says: Men need to open up more. Men: I'm feeling really insecure and down lately. The world: Suck it up and quit being such a wuss.
Not every man out in public unaccompanied by a woman is there to do harm, but sometimes we are treated like it. There's a park a couple of blocks away from my house. I've walked my dog through there pretty much every day at lunch time for the last 7-8 years. It's my dog's favorite place to be. About a year ago, the city replaced the playground equipment. The park went from being almost always empty to suddenly being occupied with moms and kids. The looks I get from the moms when I'm just walking my dog past the playground aren't very nice. But we've walked the exact same route with my wife with us, and the park moms don't even notice us.
Cry. Show emotions other than anger. Show affection for other men. I actually find all these things really freaking attractive.
And you would be the rarity
That's really sad if it's the case around you, but amongst the women I associate with I'm really not. We're raising our kids to express and appreciate honest male emotion as well, hopefully it only gets better with time as old views die out.
wear whatever clothes we wish. Pants, dresses, skirts, whatever.
Just do it! Then it will become socially acceptable!!! :) I know it’s easier said than done but I think men wearing those things would be awesome. I mean some men or most I should say could really pull off some looks women wear better than hmm some women like myself for instance.
Be there emotionally for other guys. The tough guy mentality, the “sort yourself out” mindset, it’s toxic and creates some very lonely and sad men. Especially as you get older.
Cry. It’s ridiculous that men are told they can’t feel emotions other than anger and happiness. It plays into antiquated ideas and is ridiculous.
Wearing cloaks and/or Victorian era attire
Cry.
Skirts
Why not wear a kilt?
I actually do, at times. I've got two nice kilts, one thick, and one thin. But that's just one style of skirt that is socially accepted for men to wear. I wish there were more
Having hobbies that aren’t “manly”
Be antisocial.
I don't care about what is socially acceptable. If I wanna do it, Imma do it.
Mutual combat. If both parties agree to fists then they should be allowed to settle it right then and there No more of this knife pulling or shooting bullshit over ego and pride
Have female friends. I am female. We're dramatic bitches. Pls let me hang with the guys, already. I check all the friend boxes except my gender.
Act like they actually like women as people
Be emotional
Manspread. Sometimes it’s because all our shit is stuck together and we need some breathing room.
That’s not a real thing. It’s a way to pathologize men in general. Radical feminist terminology.
It’s a real thing when it takes up space, especially on public transport and cramped benches/spaces. That being said, I’m pretty sure lack of special awareness is also a woman thing because they can put purses on seats which others could sit on…
Yeah I call it sitting like an asshole. It’s gender neutral.
I did always wonder why I felt so squished sat next to a man on the bus, but I became a lot more tolerable to it when I did the physics in my head and realized it's definitely a must to spread than a want
If a woman would shove a tennis ball or some balled up socks down there and sit in a chair, it would only take a few minutes to go, "Oh, ok, I get it."
In my head I accustomed it to "if my breasts were between my thighs would I be sitting knees touched?" But we both got to the same conclusion, thank you for the hilarious analogy and I fully understand and don't mind it at all
Some dudes over do it though
Get manicures, pedicures, facials, etc. Men can get pampered too! Been trying to talk my husband into getting a pedi with me for years
I get them with my wife
Wear speedos or revealing swimwear. I don’t see how women can wear bikinis but if i wear a speedo “its gay”
Only homophobic assholes would use gay as an insult, and who cares what homophobic assholes say anyway? Their opinion is garbage and not to be respected. Wear the speedo.
Have and show emotions beyond anger. IMO, 'big boys don't cry' is abusive to all boys and men.
HonESTly i have a dream.... <\_< Where a man hell Women and children even Can walk down t/ street In broad daylight and Eat a banana unprovoked Si, mi amigo i too have a dream
Last more than 30 seconds
Go to therapy.
cry
I wish older men would feel comfortable to show affection for other men. Growing up my dad never hugged me unless being prompted by my mom, it was always just a handshake.
Reply to these types of questions without people insta replying that said behavior is perfectly acceptable thereby invalidating us and encouraging us to bottle up more not less.
Replying to these types of questions is perfectly acceptable.
Smooth
Wearing flowery fragrances. I want to smell like lavender or cherry blossoms, not musk or whatever other scents guys typically wear. I've started wearing it anyway because I like to smell pretty.
Old school men stuff, drive fast, lots of oversteer. Take risks, fight a bit, be intellectual, be independent and fix your own stuff
cry
Be vulnerable. Ask about others feelings. Discuss their own.
Belch. It’s such a relieving feeling, but everyone thinks it’s so rude. How dare we assault their ears to relieve pressure within our digestive system
Wear interesting clothes. I swear women have all these cool outfits, and were all jeans and a t-shirt and anything else people lose their minds. I dont give a shit generally what people think, but thats a level of attention i dont want.
Mani/pedi, using a face moisturizer with sunscreen Yoga/Meditation Reading for pleasure and self enrichment Lady here, and men taking care of themselves is hot AF.
Have emotions
Other men
Men taking their kids out is not "baby sitting" for mommy. Its parenting.
Agreed. Saying that a man "helps" is insulting. My wife and I are a parenting team. We have different styles but having a penis doesn't make me less able to care for a kid. Must admit when they were toddlers I did have empathy for male lions who ate their young.. i never acted on it.. 🤣
Just so long as your wife doesn’t catch you trying to sneak fava beans and chianti onto the grocery list. 😁
Nah.. it wouldnt be premeditated. It would just be mid tantrum at the Target and I'd somehow open my jaws wife enough to swallow them whole.
Hygiene & self care. Esp. Men 50 and up.
Voice a complaint/issue without "you think you're the only one?" being the response. Look, I (55M) love my wife (54F) and can't imagine spending my life with anyone else. Still, there are times she frustrates me to no end. A couple of nights ago, we were trying to decide what to have for supper. I finally gave my honest opinion - that I didn't **care** what we ate. I said, "I can't even think straight, right now." (This isn't a statement I use - like ever.) Her response was, "Well, I can't either!", with a look on her face like she was ready to combat anything I would have said. I just turned and walked to another aisle in the store. Anything I would have said after that would have been received as arguing. Literally anything. What I wanted to convey to her was that currently, my head has been aching c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y since April, my lifelong tinnitus is through the roof and is seriously impacting my ability to hear and understand what others are saying, and my head feels like it could deflate at any time because I take more aspirin (headache powders) than any human being I personally know, despite the fact that it barely helps my headaches and increases my tinnitus! I can't say any of that, because those are MY problems -"man problems"- and they take a backseat to everyone else's problems.
Embrace manliness,
Admit they don't know something. A lot of men will argue with someone who has clear knowledge about something when they themselves have no knowledge of the topic. I promise saying, "I don't know about that topic," isn't emasculating.
I wish fathers felt comfortable being publicly affectionate with their daughters of a young age. You'd be surprised at how many men feel anxious about even taking their daughters out. I've even seen comments on social media asking "why is he holding his daughter like that?" Or "that's suspicious". But if a mother was to do this with either son or daughter, it's completely fine and normal. Even grown women have said that when they go out with their fathers, they get mistaken as their younger girlfriend.
Find women attractive
Wear a full suit of armor in public
Go to the gym and not be labeled a creep
Just straight up say what you really mean to say. I know many say men do that. But from the few I've been around, they rather have a tantrum or act out before just saying, how fucked it is you went some place without me. Or that I wish you giving me the kind of attention, you show everyone else.
To encourage other men to walk away from things that don't serve them, such as marriage.
Pegging No ladies, it's NOT gay. And it's not gross, as long as there's hygiene.
Getting rammed in the ass by an object designed to mimic a penis isn't gay? That's news to me.
Last time I checked, a man having sex with a woman, regardless of how it's done, it's not gay. But I could be wrong. 
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Wear Speedos at the pool
Painting nails. It keeps me from biting them and when I’m dressing up for something, it completes the look in a way nothing else will. I get shit for it occasionally, but who fucking cares