Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamwong246 | Hacker News Reader

“Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally” ~ Chris Rock

Lots of yakking it up about how sad men are but it's all so disingenuous. My experience leads to me to believe that the moment a man asks for help is the moment he has lost the respect of his peers and, should he be so lucky, his female partner. Evolutionarily, men are disposable, and the workplaces and dating arenas we must inhabit reinforce it at every step. For a long time, we were given a medal for our sacrifices which read "You Are A Good Man" but now even that worthless consolation prize is gone. They may fret over lost economic output or the dearth of marriable men, but make no mistake, they care far more about what you could provide than how you feel.

View on HN

How can we forget this classic:

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat." - Hillary Clinton

Men: not even the primary victims of their own gruesome battlefield deaths.

I get the point you are trying to make but who fights the wars ?

What's the point you're making?

I guess if a country invades another, you're saying that the men in the invading force have themselves to blame? Although sometimes they're threatened and forced, get shot if refusing.

But there's also the ones defending their own people. They didn't start any war

Similar to the "UN journalists" publication that shared that 20% of journalists killed were women, and that women should stop being targeted.

Blatantly ignoring the 80% of men of course.

Not to mention, who are they talking to anyway? Do you think people killing journalists will now say: OK, sorry, I'll stop. Or maybe pick only men?

> they care far more about what you could provide than how you feel.

This is real, it does happen. But for the sake of anyone reading this, please be aware. There are plenty of women who are not like this. Finding them can feel overwhelming, but when you land the right one, it makes life so much better.

I'm kidding, but only slightly, when I say this: I think the best advice for young men is to skip the dating scene altogether until you're about 30. Things settle down, everyone more mature and less mercenary, and women will look at you more for your good manly qualities rather than the shallow ones.

Terrible advice, that's gets men fleeced and suicidal

i am always advocating for getting married early, before we are settled into our habits and expectations. however that is dependent on a supportive society, one that teaches young people what qualities they should look for in a partner, and one that that nurtures these good qualities from childhood.

until then, i would very much agree with you.

The most effective cure for felt disposability is indispensability. Such as: family life.

>My experience leads to me to believe that the moment a man asks for help is the moment he has lost the respect of his peers and, should he be so lucky, his female partner.

Honestly, it sounds like you need some new friends and to stop listening to Jordan Peterson. When I was going through a divorce, my closest friends were there day or night to take a call and let me vent. Heck my current wife actually was a sounding board as I navigated shared custody later on.

If the people around you are shunning you for asking for help and expressing your emotional trauma, you need to surround yourself with new people. And I say that with genuine concern for you, not out of spite or judgement.

I will also add the people I worked with eventually heard what was going on and were more supportive than I ever could have asked for.

Need a day off? Take it. Need more time to get that project done? We understand. Never a word of judgement from any of them and quite frankly the whole experience turned a few of those relationships from "just coworkers" to close friends.

>Honestly, it sounds like you need some new friends and to stop listening to Jordan Peterson.

And what about those who experience this effect, and have always actively avoided Peterson and his ilk?

When you find out rumours are spreading about you after you've opened up, you can separate yourself from that community, but where does that leave a person? What do you think happens when someone tries to join a new community, who has rumours circulating about their “mental health”?

It's much easier said than done, but get the hell away. So far away that your past relationships cannot in any way taint your future ones. Move to a new job, new city preferably. Rebuild your friend network.

I've been lucky for the most part with good friends, but periodically rebooting your life situation has other benefits too. I recommend it heartily, if you're in a position to do so. Keep your old friends if they're good, in that case.

That's been my approach but still, look at that advice and think about what it says about a society that necessitates it.

For both obvious and non-obvious reasons, I don't want to get into specifics in order to provide an existence proof that this is a problem, but consider that switching jobs/moving city/rebuilding a social network is something that depends a great deal on having resources available to do that with, not having obligations preventing that, having the means to evade the pervasive social media that encourages exactly the sort of “reconnection” that is anathema to the task.

Oh, I 100% agree. It's not feasible in a lot of situations, arguably in the vast majority of cases people are stuck. And even when it works, there are bound to be complications.

But I do recommend it when appropriate and feasible. Some of the best changes I've made to my life came because I was able to shake things up and go somewhere with no ruts.

I assume from the "rumors are spreading" you're talking about a high school situation - in which case that'll stop pretty quickly when you get to college (or full time work), so just tough it out.

If you're a grown adult and have rumors following you around, just find a new friends group. If your town is so small that you can't escape that, seriously just move? If it's a job and the culture is gossip, it's probably time to just find a new job.

I get that uprooting your whole life is a VERY BIG DEAL but you only live once. There's no way you're ever going to be happy dealing with constant gossip, and that isn't normal. That's a very, very abnormal situation you're in if you're a grown adult.

I agree with "tough it up" to a large degree.

However, the funny thing about people like you is

you would never say "though it up" to a woman

yet you would claim "women and men are equal"

disingenuous

I literally have said that to a woman who was having a tough time her sr. year of high school with catty girls in her grade. There was no avoiding them, the behavior didn't rise to the level the school was going to do anything, and she wasn't in a position to transfer.

in addition, there are ways to share this message that is not belittling. people read "tough it out" as: "be a man, tough it out, haha", but it could also be: "yeah, i am sorry you are in a rough spot. unfortunately, there is no way you can avoid it, so you are going to have to protect yourself in other ways. here are a few things you can do.... don't give up and loose hope, this will go away."

> so just tough it out

Congrats, you have just advocated for what's called "toxic masculinity".

>Congrats, you have just advocated for what's called "toxic masculinity".

No, I've just advocated for: high school sucks. It has literally nothing to do with being a guy. I would and have said the same thing to girls dealing with asshole classmates. At some point your options are find a new school, or just grin and bear it because your life is a different place after HS. Most high schoolers don't have the option of a different school.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com