@bonifartius @thor @Hyolobrika @Mac_CZ traditionally men in general could rely on women in general -- even acquaintances, or people they struck up conversations with in the bus -- for a certain base level of emotional support that they couldn't get from their peers for fear of appearing weak. we didn't really understand this because we're used to having a million girlfriends we can go and get drunk and cry at whenever something difficult happens, and just assumed it was the same for guys, but it's completely different for them. and once feminists started banging on about "entitled men" expecting "free emotional labor" and throwing tantrums at men for daring to show vulnerability, that ripped out a crucial support structure, but left in place all the same expectations as before. i try to give what emotional support i can to men i know and it's horrifying to get a glimpse of everything they're all carrying now, trying to get by with basically no one to really talk to, all while their girlfriends bitch and moan and whine expect them to solve all their problems

i have a very close friend, he's basically family to me at this point, who i lived in the same city as for a couple years. i wasn't his only friend at all, but i was pretty much the only person he could safely rely on for emotional support, and it clearly made him feel really guilty because he's older than me and felt that he was failing in his duties as a man by leaning on a woman so much instead of the other way around (not that he didn't support me in turn). and seeing how much he had to rely on me, how much he was dealing with, it just made me so fucking angry that his male friends, his other female friends, even most of the time his girlfriends were never there for him and never allowed him to show vulnerability. at least one deserted him for daring to. and i try to imagine what it must be like being a man without even a single sympathetic female friend or partner, and i feel like i begin to understand why male suicide rates are so bad