
Damn, now I feel bad for the dude. Clearly has some deep-seated insecurities, particularly surrounding women & dating. I can relate. That said, @cool-intellectual, DUDE YOU HAVE TO STOP! This is not healthy! A relationship will not make you feel complete, and you will not get one this way! You would still feel just as insecure in a relationship & just as sad/lonely/etc. There is no real difference between how you’d act in or out of a relationship, as hard as that is to hear & realize.
the most direct way would likely be participating in feminist spaces or reading at least one feminist book (e.g. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given) or documentary (e.g. Miss Representation). I also highly recommend learning about toxic masculinity as it’s very eye-opening when you deconstruct it. exposing yourself to media by women & with realistic women characters can help your journey as well
and learning abt the LGBTQ+ community & sexuality/gender (though more so gender) helped me a lot as well. for both, I’d recommend the Trevor Project articles on them, which you can find by looking up “Trevor Project ally to trans people” for gender & “trevor project sexual orientation” for multiple articles on orientation
and recognize when media is hurting you, too. I used to watch a Reddit Stories guy who was misogynistic & homophobic & that really shaped how I saw both women & queer people. I stopped watching him, & not exposing myself to content like that definitely helped. but in general, reading educational resources is the most direct & effective way to start, & after that it’s more about immersing yourself in those concepts & behaviors
hey man, I used to feel ostracized just like you. the difference between acceptance and rejection is in how open you are to learning & changing your behavior. prepping yourself through educational resources is a great first stepping stone, but you gotta remember you’re there to learn. it definitely feels weird and often uncomfortable, but that’s how you know you’re improving.
I 100% get that, which is why I recommend learning more abt feminism & gender before exposing yourself to that. part of your discomfort is likely in worrying about doing smth wrong or being judged: just remember that accepting when you’ve made a mistake & endeavoring to grow will erase a lot of hostility. I took a while before I made friends with women, but deconstructing my own toxic masculinity & preconceptions about women prepared me for it. even just consuming media by women helped me a ton
most of my friends are now women btw so it genuinely does get better. but it only gets better if you’re willing to put in the time & effort & can open up your perspective to try understanding others’ experience. and trust me when I say it’s rewarding. I learned more about myself and moved past a lot of behavior that were harmful to my own health
hmmm… the main one was trying to “prove” my masculinity in very unhealthy ways. I was very reckless & got myself injured multiple times because of it, & I put a lot of my self-worth on how much attention I got from others (especially women, since I’d been conditioned to see them as alien, separate, & desired). my mood was always up & down based on how much attention I thought I got from women I didn’t even know
I think my main turning point was picking up a Zine about toxic masculinity, since I felt emasculated constantly & knew I was doing something wrong. reading it made me realize just how self-destructive & objectifying I was being to both myself & those around me. I’ve always been attention-seeking, but my perception of my own gender & that of others fed into that & made it my everything.
that’s a big reason why I recommend learning about toxic masculinity since it directly addresses the behaviors & thoughts you’re having about yourself, which is a huge foundation for other dehumanizing & objectifying behaviors. once that topples, you’ll have a much easier time reconciling with other behaviors
yeah I constantly felt bad about myself because of it & that externalized as not seeing others as valuable/as people since I, myself, barely saw myself as a person. it was genuinely a self-humiliation ritual and it’s an insane breath of fresh air to not feel that way anymore. if nothing else, I’d recommend looking into resources on deconstructing toxic masculinity
hell yeah, dude. I found out I was the same way, and that I didn’t connect to manhood like what was expected. that was another unhealthy behavior, and I was able to embrace it & feel more like myself because of it. that’s partly why I’m friends with so many women, since I connect with them some ways & with my guy friends in others