Although you probably feel like you’re socially delayed because you’re not just now working through all this stuff, speaking as someone who’s 29, I have known plenty of people who didn’t reach this realisation until they were a fair bit older than you, so from my perspective, you’re probably ahead of your peers. Some people may seem like they don’t need to work on this stuff, but often it’s just that it’s less easy to detect until it really becomes an issue later in life.

That just seems so crazy to me. For all my life, I’ve had a single-minded emotional obsession with (what I now know to be) secure attachment and realized in adolescence that gender roles make the mutuality I desire in relationships impossible. (When do I get to be the vulnerable comforted one? When does she get to be strong for me? When do I get to be pursued? When does she get to be the pursuer? Why can’t I be emotional too? Why can’t she be assertive too? What if I don’t want to treat women like cattle?) From my perspective, I couldn’t even try to date women because my brain refused to accept a relationship like this and couldn’t see an alternative. It wasn’t “less easy to detect” for me because it was the only thing I could think about – that there’s no space for me to be vulnerable and no emotional safety to be found anywhere. I couldn’t escape that depressive doom loop until I educated myself and went to therapy. I don’t understand how guys can go without that emotional safety and still seem to function perfectly fine without constantly being tormented by it.

I often see posts from the LGBT community that make me feel… Envious? Almost like I’m missing out on something. The social stigma of being “gay” for having feelings must’ve really gotten to me growing up. I feel there’s a blockage in my brain and emotions that tells me I can’t be a silly, goofy, caring guy, so I default to being quiet and closed off. Almost like my true potential as a person is being surpressed by the thoughts of myself and the beliefs of those around me.

I felt the exact same way, but perhaps to a more toxic and reactionary degree. Being called “gay” so much caused me to believe that I was indistinguishable from a gay man, to the point where I was better off being homosexual since I would face the same amount of discrimination anyway (not true). In other words, I thought that as a guy, it’s worse to be straight and feminine than gay and feminine, because bigots think you’re gay in both cases, but in the former case, you also repel the gender you’re attracted to (based on the assumption that women universally find feminine men unattractive).

At least that would explain why I was born, but my family has shown little care for the mental health or wellbeing of myself or others. It’s almost like the societal pressure to get married and have children override the actual feelings of love for others.

I believe I was born for similar reasons. I think my parents had children because it was gratifying for their self-image and made them feel successful. They didn’t know how to create a safe or nurturing environment. Now they are disappointed that their kids didn’t turn out how they hoped, when it’s because they put no actual emotional labor into raising them and created two traumatized adults.

Thanks, although my psyche is kind of forcing me to speedrun this awakening because every day of my life that I couldn’t form a secure attachment was incredibly painful. Like, imagine that you’re on fire for every day of your life since you gained consciousness. Then you discover the existence of water at age 21, and it takes 2 more years to find enough of it to put yourself out. And then you’re left with physical scars for the rest of your life due to the unholy amounts of stress you’ve been under the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so, SO glad to not be on fire anymore and this is literally the least horrible time of my life so far, but the lasting physical effects of being on fire for so long have radically altered my life trajectory to the point where I’m definitely going to need to lean on those secure attachments.

If anything, I’m surprised that I haven’t heard this story from other guys — being so desperate for warmth and care that you frantically deprogram from your entire childhood and culture just to be able to say “I need help” or “I’m scared, please hold me.”

I just don’t understand how lots of men find toxic masculinity or even misogyny remotely palatable. I couldn’t stand the idea of hurting people’s feelings for no reason. As a young child, when my dad expressed hatred towards women, I felt hurt and invalidated in my instinctive desires to hug them and be kind to them. I never developed malice towards women or a desire to subjugate them. I simply became attracted to cute, cuddly, affectionate women. Any kind of hierarchy or discrimination would just get in the way of the closeness I seek. I just see a woman I’m attracted to and get all blushy as I think “Hugs… warmth… safety…” I don’t see some kind of sex slave or asset, so I never understood the guys who talk about women like that.