Interesting perspective. It would be really mind-blowing to see the other side of the gender, even though I have no interest in being trans.

One thing I will add to this article is that men are also viewed as little more than bank machines after divorce. People always have the utmost sympathy for any mother who is separated from her children, even if only for a few days. Movie plots can revolve around mothers finding their lost children and being reunited. But for men? We're only the providers, the ones who pay the child support.

I lost my kids (not legally, just boring old classic parental alienation) six years ago following the divorce. Nobody cares, because I'm just a man. Not even my own father cares. He happily continues to see his grandkids because he doesn't want to "take sides." None of my cousins or other parts of my family care either. So long as I'm paying my "support." And I can't complain about it on social media because I'm a man. I'm a stoic. Boys don't cry, remember?

The lack of emotional support for men mentioned in the article is another thing that really exacerbates divorces and leads to suicides. I do feel like if I were the type of person to contemplate suicide (I'm not), I would have definitely done it when my ex took my kids from me. And there would have been no male friends to pull me back from the edge. Those friendships are, to quote the author, superficial to a large degree, or even the ones that aren't are men who are now focused heavily on their own families and wives.

I mean, it's also true all the other stuff about the male privilege and feeling safe and the good things that come with being a man. But it's nice to see the perspective of how we lack emotional support and we're expected to grit our teeth and "walk it off."

As a married cis man moving towards his 40s, I can only confirm from my perspective that the male-to-male friendship experience seems broken.

First of all, in college I learned about the performative nature of gender and that gave me the tools I needed to push back against social pressure. I wear what's comfortable, I try to be considate towards others, I talk about emotions, and I do what sounds fun without a care about whether it makes me "feminine" or "gay". I feel that pushing against gender performance expectations has made me a better and fulfilled person.

But male-male friendships are still really hard, and I don't get it. I've lost all of mine, for various reasons. Some of us got busy with careers, families, or whatever other reason. I've reached out now, multiple times, over the last few years, to old male friends and coworkers that I worked with for 5+ years.

The conversation starts with a list of accomplishments. I congratulate them, so glad they're doing well. We're both pretty happy in careers too.

I ask how they're doing, what do they do for fun, you still with that same girl? Fine. Same old. Uh huh.

I suggest that maybe we should do something sometime. Play disc golf. Play some games. Hang out. Meet somewhere. Bring your kids if you want, I'd love to meet them.....and at this point they get distant and eventually ghost me.

After a few instances of this, I started to wonder if there's something wrong with me. Maybe they didn't like me. Maybe I said something wrong. But there was one other instance. A woman I worked with for like 9 months. I called her once to ask for a job reference. And we ended up talking for an hour about our lives, our SOs, life goals etc. Before I could ask, she ended up suggesting that hang out and bring our SOs.

The only male friends I have right now are the male SOs of female friends or my wife's girl friends.

Some of the most fulfilling friend groups we've had since were groups with LGBT and NB folks. And I think that's because, even though gender performance is absolutely an important thing in these groups, there's less pressure for us, a cis couple, to "perform" in a certain way. Our conversations are more real and liberated. It's less anxious and competitive. But at the same time, those friendships eventually end because I don't they can really connect with us - like, we're still outsiders and so there's a bit of a block. I understand, but it sucks.

Because we try to connect with cis men, or even couples, in our area, we either get standoffishness or competitions. Like, we're getting evaluated for our performance of gender / society / life expectations. My wife and I have careers, no kids, and we're fine, but we're also trying to explore who we are outside that. And new cis friendships at our age seems to be less about connecting and doing fun things and more about bragging about accomplishments or complaining about the lack of them over coffee.

And its so hard to find any cis men that are just fucking chill and maybe tired of all the anxiety and social pressure around masculinity and just willing to be a person rather than a "man".

This story reminds me of an ex girlfriend that wanted me to open up. So I did. She left me after that. The end result was good though, as it made me realize I needed some professional mental assistance.

Men started treating me like their guy friends, which was exactly what I wanted. What I didn't know is that male friendships aren't as deep.

That is also my experience - never could emotionally open or connect to my male friends. While (from time where I learned it) not having the same problem with women in relationships or friendship. I feel always a bit on guard with other men, always a bit performing. But at the same time I never made an negative experience with opening up being emotionally vulnerable.

I still get sad at the surprise women have when I move before they do

Is this actually a thing? I've always moved away from everyone's path and never noticed anyone feeling surprised by that. And from every man I've ever walked with, I can only remember one who I noticed didn't make room for other people.

I am glad this perspective is being presented. I think ftm people have a unique view of how difficult it can be to be a man that throws light on a lot of men's issues.

I hope this person can present more along these lines. I think I could come up with hundreds of questions.

As a minor example supporting a lot of what's in that article, my wife went out to hang with a friend of hers, and I hung out with a buddy for a couple of hours. When she came home she asked me how he is, and I said, "I don't know, I didn't ask". She seemed shocked and can't understand why I say we don't have those kinds of conversations.

I’m a white, cis, heterosexual American male. I’m supposed to be privileged in every way, feel endlessly guilty over things I cannot control and try not to perpetuate, and never, ever dare suggest any kind of dissatisfaction with my situation.

I wouldn’t know how to express my feelings the way the author has. I’d feel like a misogynistic neckbeard, callous racist, or ungrateful whiner. If, somehow, I didn’t feel these things, someone would quickly, loudly, and condescendingly remind me that I should. They’d then be applauded for putting me in my place.

I can’t thank the author enough for writing this article.

I believe that's why the suicide rate in men is so much higher. I recently saw that men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.

That's accurate, but doesn't convey they entire picture accurately.

Women attempt suicide at a significantly higher rate than men. The ways women tend to attempt suicide are the ways that are least likely to leave a significant mess; overdosing, hanging, drowning, cutting wrists in a bathtub, etc. Men that attempt suicide are more likely to use methods with a high probability of success, like jumping or firearms. At one time, women's incomplete attempts were deemed to be a "cry for help" rather sincere suicide attempts, but this is not correct.