top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 172 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Strong people build others up. Weak people knock them down to feel big. You want to feel like a strong man? Protect others and be generous with your spirit.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 73 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    You want to feel like a strong man? Protect others and be generous with your spirit.

    Fucking this. Strong men—strong peoplehelp others. Healthy or not, realistic or not, this is the message that’s been sold to us since time immemorial. The knight that slays the dragon and saves the kingdom. The alien that crash lands and moonlights as a superhero. The sled dog runs 261 miles to bring the medicine to a town beset by an epidemic.

    Yes, sure, one can argue some romanticism (or propaganda) with any given example. But the overall message of heroism, of strength, is not one of selfishness or of “me and mine”.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Heroism is something we ought to focus more on as a culture in general. Doing things simply because they are right and protecting others who cannot protect themselves cannot be understated.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    I think a challenge with “right” is that it is subjective. For example, there are people today who believe that doing what’s “right” entails doing things that hurt people, or deprive them of happiness, or even a future. Or, that doing what’s “right” means only helping your family or your friends or your church or your Elks club.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Semi-related, as this reminded me of a quote from Cary Grant:

    I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me.

    This was then repurposed on Star Trek Strange New Worlds by chief engineer Pelia (from a species that lives several centuries):

    Most heroes I've seen... are just pretending half the time. There's this one guy I remember, he said to me, 'I always pretended to be someone I wanted to be, until finally, I became that someone, or he became me.'

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 148 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    How to really feel like a man

    1. Ignore gender wars bait, there are way more important things out there.
    2. See step 1
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 60 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    A patient I dealt with had schizophrenia and dementia, "but I'm a man, not a little girl with panties" was his counterargument to everything.

    You can only have one cigarette at a time because otherwise you lose them all and run out. "But I'm a man."

    You know the doctor says your food needs to be cut up. "Do I look like a little girl to you?"

    That's the communal cheese bowl, this is your plate. You can't eat from the communal cheese bowl with a fork. "Do you see me wearing panties?"

    Whenever I hear people making these kind of gender essentialist arguments, they just sound pitiably out of touch with reality to me.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [+] 40 points 2 years ago (3 children)
  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago

    In my head I made many cutting remarks. But the reality of this level of cognitive decline is like 90% miserably depressing and only like 10% infuriating. Plus he wouldn't be capable of understanding the criticism anyway.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 54 points 2 years ago* (14 children)

    If Men want to feel like Men then they have ways to deal with their insecurity:

    Redo their own plumbing, twice. Once to change things and again to fix the problem they caused.

    Chop firewood.

    Build a furnace that you're only going to use like 4 times, ever.

    50 pushups. If not reaching it makes you sad, start skipping numbers.

  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago (25 children)

    Just change King to also say man.

  • source
  • hideshow 25 child comments
  • load more comments (25 replies)
    [–] 39 points 2 years ago (48 children)

    I'm stumped at the simple task of trying to imagine what does imply to "feel like a man".

  • source
  • hideshow 48 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    A lot of it is centered around achievement and feeling useful, so building or fixing something, physical activity, being seen as a provider etc.

    It's why men with families etc take being made redundant quite badly, not being able to provide for your family can really make you feel like a failure.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (23 children)

    I’m stumped at the simple task of trying to imagine what does imply to “feel like a man”.

    I feel like a man when I know I've met all of my responsibilities to myself and the ones I care about, and that I've moved the world even an infinitesimally small way forward to help the others in it. This means lending a hand or an ear to those that need it either with my labor or my mind (or many time both).

    I hope others have something close to this definition, but realistically I don't think its common.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 23 child comments
  • load more comments (23 replies)
  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    When you take your shirt off, you lift something real heavy, open a beer without a bottlecap opener, and high five somebody and it hurts then you should be activating all the correct masculine endorphin triggers. A lot of it comes as a response from high testosterone hormone levels.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (8 replies)
    [–] 31 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    Just waiting for the day when someone can explain to me what makes a man a man without describing skills, qualities, and actions that anyone can do regardless of gender.

    And don't tell me it's "have a penis", because if that were true then effeminate men wouldn't be insulted all the time for not being "real" men, and there wouldn't be toxic masculinity.

  • source
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • load more comments (11 replies)
    [–] 29 points 2 years ago*

    I’ve always thought the least manly quality you can have is caring about how manly you are.

  • source
  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    From somebody named "geekandmisandry".

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (3 replies)
    [–] 23 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    When first reading "a man likes to feel like a man", i thought it was about trans men

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 22 points 2 years ago*

    That's the perfect answer, IMHO.

    More in general, it's not up to others to change the way they act to feed somebody else's self-delusions of having some kind of quality they do not have.

    I've actually had to deal with something somewhat parallel to this when I moved from The Netherlands (whose people are known for being blunt) to Britain (were everything is sugarcoated and people are evasive, the higher the social class the worst it gets) and then proceeded to go around unknowingly insulting just about every insecure person I met in that place by giving them my blunt opinion on what they cared about, without evasiveness or sugarcoating.

    The balance I found was to stop giving my opinion unless asked and if asked by somebody who didn't know my ways yet, give them a notice ("I used to live in The Netherlands so just point out ways in which things can be improved, but that doesn't mean I think they're bad") and then proceed to give them my blunt opinion.

  • source
  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    I have to feel that "a woman needs to feel like a woman" wouldn't get a similar reaction.

  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • load more comments (7 replies)
    [–] 18 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Just don't cast shit on a man that's had enough of it from his work or society. Sometimes we just want to feel human.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (6 replies)
    [–] 16 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I thought "feeling like a man" meant eating a lot of meat and losing money on sports betting.

    Idk I don't do traditional man things.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • load more comments (5 replies)
    [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    A man likes to feel like a man

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Is this a real thing? I don't believe I've ever encountered this. I suspect they're actually being demeaning to men in general, or men who don't fit their idea of masculinity. I've encountered people like that. Though the opposite is more common (men, and women, demeaning women who don't fit their idea of what a woman should be like, or just demeaning women in general).

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Did the first person just translate "like a man" as "superior to you"? They done failed their own little word game.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I need to feel like a man. I need someone to hold me tight for a moment.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Funny thing: only ever heard women say this

  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    because its not only men perpetuating this shit, some just put up with it and guide younger women on how to gently move things along and the flimsy little dude forgets and gets mad about the next dumb thing. Literally my parents...

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    load more comments
    view more: next ›