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Why Do Men Feel They Have Something to Prove? · Bro-ing Pains

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was definitely doing the bullying by association because I knew that this person wasn't respected.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: I remember at one point telling myself that I would take the secret of my sexuality to the grave.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: What's up, world?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Browing Pains, where we have the conversations that live somewhere between your therapist's office and the group chat.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Chad, a licensed marriage to family therapist, but my friends like to call me Papa Chad.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Carlos, theater kid turned self-proclaimed corporate puppy.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And a quick reminder: this podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health care.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're struggling or know someone who is, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional in your area.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is Browing Pain's Season 3, Episode 8.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Last episode, we talked about sexual identity, what we were taught about sex, attraction, desire, and all the expectations that come with it.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Something I've been thinking about is how much of that is tied to our gender identity.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked a lot about the expectations placed on men, but I think there's a difference between performing masculinity because you want to be accepted, expressing masculinity in a way that feels authentic to you, and then expecting other men to conform to your definition of what a man should be.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think we're always aware of when we're doing those things.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And why do we call things like strength masculine but nurturing feminine?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Aren't those just human qualities?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not necessarily questioning whether someone identifies as a man, a woman, or non-binary.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're questioning the expectations and characteristics that society attaches to those identities.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: But are we sometimes guilty of judging men who express their gender identity differently than we do?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So today we want to explore the ways we've performed masculinity, the ways we've enforced it, and how our relationships with our own masculinity have evolved.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: If being a man doesn't require you to look, act, feel, or love a certain way, then what does being a man actually mean?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, we present to you vignette number 15, lifted into masculinity.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Colin had always been a man's man.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: He lifted six days a week, drove a big ass lifted truck with an exhaust loud enough to turn them heads, and never passed up on an opportunity to talk about the gym.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: His social media was a steady rotation of PRs, truck pictures, and motivational quotes about discipline and never being soft, hashtag no days off.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: His friends gave him a hard time about it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: His girlfriend sometimes called him a walking stereotype.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even his coworkers joked that he was trying a little too hard.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Colin usually laughed it off.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Besides, he genuinely loved lifting.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: He'd loved getting stronger, pushing himself, and the feeling of walking into the gym knowing he'd put that work in.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: He'd liked his truck too.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: He'd spent months building it exactly how he wanted.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But lately, he started wondering why it bothered him so much when people made fun of him.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: At the gym, he felt like he had something to prove.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: If someone lifted more than him, he couldn't stop thinking about it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: If he missed a workout, he felt lazy.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: When his friend suggested doing something that didn't involve the gym or watching sports, he found himself making excuses and doing it anyways.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even with his girlfriend, he struggled to let his guard down.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: He hated feeling like the weak one, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd admitted he was struggling with something without turning it into a joke.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: One night his girlfriend asked him why he always seemed to need people to know how tough he was.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Colin got defensive.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just being myself.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with that?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: She paused.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing, but do you always feel like you have to be that guy?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to tell her she was wrong.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to explain that he'd always been this way.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: On the drive home with his truck rumbling beneath him, he kept thinking about her question.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: He liked being strong.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be tough.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He liked being competitive.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: He liked the gym, his truck, and the culture he'd built around himself.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he also realized how much energy he spent making sure nobody saw him as anything less than confident, capable, and you guessed it, tough.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Was this just who Colin was?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or had he spent so much time trying to prove he was a man that he never stopped to figure out what being a man actually meant to him.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Are you a man's man?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I would say you are.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes for sure.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then other times I feel like I'm in a I'm in a less-being relationship.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my wife told me that I'm the most masculine, feminine person she's ever met.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Colin's truck first.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can we do that?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: We won't.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't need to talk about it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Let's dive into it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Colin obviously is a is a big fan of things rumbling beneath him.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously that this is uh a very sort of typical stereotype of what you think of uh a real man is.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Colin exists though.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like this isn't like this isn't too crazy.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it's about the power, Chad.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the power that the truck has.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the torque.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: The torque and the horsepower.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, why don't you tell me?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious when did you like first realize like what it meant to be a man and like what it meant to be a male as your gender identity?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like similar to the whole sexuality thing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: I remember from a very young age feeling othered, feeling like, oh, I don't really feel like I'm a part of or that I fit into whatever it is that I'm supposed to be fitting into.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think from a young age, I always questioned all of that and and didn't want to like be put into this box, you know.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Also, I had three older brothers that like were also like reinforcing that idea of like, no, boys are gonna like sports and and boys should not be playing with dolls or or whatever.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think from a from a young age, I was just like told that whatever I was doing, whatever I enjoyed doing was not it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel like a lot of like what I think about when it comes to what does it mean to be a man, like your gender identity, masculinity is really tied to respect.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I guess acceptance is another way to say that, but in a in a masculine sense, it's not being accepted.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like being respected.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta take it.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, you gotta take it, you gotta earn it, you gotta prove it, you have to show it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't just like end, too.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're constantly being like monitored by other men who are also wanting to reinforce this masculinity.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: My first real memory of of understanding this is um so my my dad used to be like really into weight weightlifting.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Him and Colin would have been best friends.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Besties.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Besties for sure.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: He would need to take us with him sometimes.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd hang out in like the daycare area of the gym at Gold's Gym.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, Gold's gym is like a weightlifter's gym.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't like Planet Fitness, you know what I mean?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is like we're already, we're already at a different echelon here, okay?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just like looking out, there was like these windows that you could like look out into the gym.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was already pretty obsessed with my dad.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember like watching him lift, and he's just like he's just like massive.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like he he was just lifting more than anybody I could see out the window.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to also watch how other people were watching him, and it just made a big impression on me that like that's what you're supposed to do.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it very vividly.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he would do these big, huge, you know, lifts and and and and screaming or you know, making these loud noises and stuff.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it yeah, very like typical like gym bro lifestyle.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a workout partner that he worked out with, and they were both doing it, and they were like the biggest dudes in the gym.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, wow.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is indoctrinated differently on what it means to be a man, right?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, I think if you're not, you know, the biggest lifter in the gym, you start realizing that people maybe don't like give you as much respect.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess uh d some of it as far as like, I mean, some people just choose not to care.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're just like, I'm not gonna buy into this to this gender role of expectation, partly because maybe they think they they can ever reach that level of uh expectation, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they just like uh screw it, why, why even bother anymore?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm just gonna be the nerd and I'll play a different role or whatever.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But another part of it is like like maybe they genuinely just don't care.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Looking at it from the from your from your dad's perspective, it's I mean, for one, it's it's so much pressure to to perform and to feel like you always have to be the best number one all the time.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's it's um it's it's not sustainable.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: You have to fight for the your respect and you have to earn it and and all these things.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's exhausting.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's this level of like accomplishment though that you feel.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I get that a lot from other men is like, yeah, but like when you work hard and you win or whatever it is you're trying to do, you get this feeling of accomplishment.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I always respond by saying, yeah, but then that only lasts like a little bit, and then you gotta go do it again.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're like, yeah, just go find another goal or whatever, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing with like lifting, for example.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You hit a PR and it's like, okay, well, that's on to the next one.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think having that mentality of constantly like being in competition or you know, being trying to be the best, do you think that that could ever lead to failure or disappointment?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's like taking your your dad's example, he was the guy that was like lifting the heaviest, lifting the most, or whatever.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: But like as you get older, you're not gonna be able to fucking do that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: So what happens then?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Is your your self-esteem is the way that you even like see yourself, how you think others see you, like that's not gonna stay intact, you know what I mean?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what is gonna happen when you can't, when you're not the biggest, baddest person in in the gym.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like this idea of like this competition and performing with other men is not as prevalent now because there are a lot more like opportunities for people to succeed in different ways, I feel like like there's just more access to be quote unquote successful.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can make a lot of money, you know, doing art, you know, on YouTube, or you know, you can do other things.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas like I think back in the day, it's like blue-collar worker, gotta work hard, gotta be the strongest.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The spaces are limited for you to be a respectable man.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, Carlos, did suppressing your attraction to men also mean suppressing parts of your personality?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: How did that affect your relationships with other men?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: A thousand percent, yeah, for sure.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's like the internalized homophobia, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Of of wanting to fit in, wanting to just hide who you really are so that nobody's going to attack you or you know, or out you or whatever, whatever it may be.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: As a teenager, you're so impressionable.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so at least, I mean, I don't, I don't know about anybody else's experience, but I think for me, it's like I I wanted to just like put my head down and just like move through life like sort of undetected, you know.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember, I remember at one point telling myself that I would take the secret of the of my sexuality to the grave.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: That quickly changed.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's quickly changed once I once I got my first boyfriend.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I think especially at that time in our society or whatever, it's like a it's it's a much different generation, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm grateful that there's there's so much more visibility around, you know, representation or you know, and whatever all of that means.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in middle school, oh, there's a trans woman, girl.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I just remember, remember her being like the the school pariah.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you as a guy were caught even being friendly to her, it's like by association, you're gay, also or whatever.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, dude.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I absolutely fell into the peer pressure of trying to fit in.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that Carlos, I guess, wasn't didn't feel comfortable enough to let himself be known, I guess.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest with you, I think I was already getting bullied, you know, like even as I was trying to fit in and and like be like everybody else.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: So then standing out means you're absolutely getting picked on and getting torn apart.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just like, I'm gonna protect myself here, you know?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: The fitting in part, I think, I mean, we were talking about this before the podcast about like you wanted to see what ways you could like be accepted or respected by traditional masculinity.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just trying to, I was on the opposite end trying to maintain that I was still accepted into the masculinity box.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever felt like your appearance or personality made you less masculine in the eyes of others?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I talked about this in the last episode about like being a bigger guy and being fat.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think just naturally being fat is not masculine.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it means that like you're lazy, or there's a lot of like negative stereotypes that come with that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of wanted to break down like my experience of maintaining the masculinity and like wanting to make sure that I wasn't made less masculine in the eyes of others.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like in high school, I played sports, you know, captain, you know, whatever.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was good.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't the greatest of all time, but I was I was good.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was a good player.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Football and wrestling were like my main two sports.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, specifically with wrestling, I mean, it's number one, it is the most homophobic, masculine sport of all time.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and then it perpetuates this like weird thing of I mean, this isn't the sexuality episode, but there's a lot of like grab-assing basically in boys' locker rooms and things like that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about that in our next season.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I noticed is like, okay, so me being a bigger guy, one of the ways that I can be respected by others is to be really good at the sport.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because then if I'm like a captain or something like that, then I have that in, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't really matter if I'm fat, at least I'm really, really good at, you know, I wrestled varsity as a freshman.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then there were these other guys.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is so funny thinking about this back right now.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: There were these guys on the team that they just wanted to be on the team so they could say that they were football players.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like anybody on the team that was actually good knew that their whole vibe was they were not good and they weren't athletic, or they weren't strong enough, or they weren't tall enough, or whatever.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: But like they thought that they were at least gonna be accepted because on Fridays they get to wear a jersey at school.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is so crazy to me that like you you want to be accepted so much by other men that you are willing to play a sport that you're not good at and get beat up on all the time.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's crazy.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like a like a participation trophy.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: A participation jersey, essentially.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I feel mean saying this, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to be honest, like this is part of the podcast, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is being able to talk about those kind of nuances, and it's so crazy that like everyone knew this, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and also disrespected, like, I'm I'm thinking about one guy in particular who actually played football.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this kid was this kid was bullied.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, big, big time bullied.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a part of me that's like, you know, obviously feels really bad.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really tough.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was definitely doing the bullying by association.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think I was outright saying mean things or anything, but exclusionary, not inviting, you know, definitely I think, yeah, because I knew that this person wasn't respected.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if I was kind of like what you were saying with the trans girl, like if you were associated with this person or even being nice to them, you were seen as somebody who was soft or something.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then it got made worse because then there's this guy who wants to be accepted.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so they start putting on this front as if like they are a man's man, and then they start like performing and pretending like they're tough and pretending to do all these things.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much nuance in like, okay, well, if you would just be yourself, maybe people would like you and respect you, but then again, you still wouldn't be liked and respected by people who were like manly man, and so it's like a lose-lose situation for this guy.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do I try to join the football team even though I'm not gonna be good or barely make it, or do I not and be shunned by them anyways?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I it's it's so confusing.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the tension that I'm feeling, right, is it's that like I think you said it, right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like we often feel like there is no winning at the end of the day, because it's like you're you you think that you're doing the right thing by trying out and making it onto the the football team or the wrestling team, but yet even when you make it, you still have to compete for and and and fight for to earn your respect.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, yeah, that's fucking exhausting.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even for me, like I was like, you know, a really, really good player, but yet I wasn't that good because I didn't play both ways.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know who you're talking to?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: In high school, if you play on offense and defense, that means you play both, you play both ways.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Who knew?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've been playing defense and offense this entire time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't the best person on the team, let's put it that way.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this, there's this level, you know, the hierarchy with even within the hierarchy.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: That takes me to my next question of of these character traits, of being nurturing, the softness, the the sensuality.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like these are traits, these are human qualities that are considered feminine for the most part.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, why?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Reminds me of the example that you just gave of these of these football players, these, these, uh, these athletes that weren't very good and just had like a participation trophy, whatever qualities they had, or whatever qualities they were lacking that were that didn't make them good enough, right?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Does that automatically make them less masculine or or feminine even?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Are these not just human qualities that everybody possesses?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I again I'm reading this Sapiens book, and I can't help but keep thinking, referencing back to it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the argument that I always get when I'm like, well, what's the difference between being a man and being a woman, or what's the difference between masculine and feminine?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there is a difference, right?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like cavemen, like the men would go and like hunt, and the woman would stay home and take care of the young and gather things and blah, blah, blah, hunters and gatherers, right?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Part of me is like, I don't really have a great answer in response to that.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's really outdated.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not in hunter-gatherer days.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what's happening.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: But like my argument is like, we're we're not in those caveman days, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think to answer the question is like, yeah, I I think this pressure is coming from usually women who are wanting an expensive.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, that's right.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Blame the women.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm saying thank you.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying I'm saying, like, good for them to have higher expectations of men.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the relationships that they're in with men to want more because we're not, they don't need us to go hunt and gather and protect our young like we were in hunter-gatherer days.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like they want they want a partner, they want an emotional connection, they want all these other things.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why men are having a really hard time with their gender identity.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, that's not what it meant to be a man all my life when I grew up.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you asking me to do all these different things that I wasn't prepared to do?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it is, is the the traditional form of masculinity, what Terry Real would say is it's dehumanizing men to the point where they're thinking that they have to do all these things to maintain their level and status and and they don't.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're getting this external pressure from women to want differently in their relationships.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a beautiful thing.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, I don't know, to me, there comes a certain level of my maturity that I think like you d in particular definitely have, which is like you have to like not care about what other people think.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like if you're gonna like not be accepted by the manly men of the world, like who who gives a shit kind of a thing?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I'm envious of you with that.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you just in general, I don't I don't think you care as much about what other people think about you.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that I think that serves you really well and it gives you like a good sense of like maturity, that you don't have to think about like, oh, am I accepted by my masculinity or not by other people?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you I don't think you really care that much.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that I don't care.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: I care a lot, but they're not gonna stop me from being myself.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, a person's opinion of me is not gonna change anything.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: From a very young age, I lived my life trying to fit in and trying to impress people and trying to meet some standard that is, for one, constantly fucking changing, you know.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know what that is like.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fucking miserable experience.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: When I was younger, you know, maybe more self-conscious about whatever it was, it was very easy for me to be intimidated by that by these hyper masculine presenting people, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that the perfect example of this is Colin in the vignette, right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: This very stereotypical gym bro who's huffing and puffing at the gym and just causing a scene.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, chill out.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not necessary.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Where my mind goes is, oh, they're obviously like self-conscious about something.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they obviously have a small dick.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they obviously have a horrible relationship with their with their girlfriend, you know what I mean?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever it may be.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's that's where my mind goes.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I can recognize that like that is judgment.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's true, maybe that's not.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But but I think that like, what does that matter?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: People are always gonna have something to fucking say.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: People are never going to be satisfied.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: So why not satisfy yourself?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: You want to satisfy yourself.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: To me, one of the things that in the vignette that I caught was just like, you know, the constant like posting on Instagram and things like that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like that feels performative.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that but that's a different topic for a different day, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as like being able to be excited about lifting weights and and health and fitness, and um, you know, you'd like working on a truck.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like he it said in the vignette that he, you know, built to this truck or whatever.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's I mean, that's really cool.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even change my oil, you know.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I so like I think that that's it's fun and and cool.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you like that, then then do it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it just as long as it's genuine, right?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people people are people and they're gonna they're gonna recognize genuineness or not.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so um yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to think so.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lift your weights, man.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do your thing.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's there's um something that I'm that I always think about is is the defensiveness.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's a big thing.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think about a lot of the comments that we get on social media and things, like in response to our videos, and it's like somebody always has something negative to say, and they always take it as a personal attack.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, but why?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Why not be curious about okay, why is it that you think or feel this way?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Let me try to see it from your perspective, or try to see it from the other side.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that that's that's there's a there's a lot of missed opportunity there for connection.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: When connection's not really your goal, then then you're gonna get defensive because you need to protect all this that you've built.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty much what I've, you know, what I see with these comments and what I see a lot in my work is there's been too many years of living like this and writing with this type of mantra, and to go back on it now is like it's almost too freeing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like, wait, you're saying that I don't have to just do X, Y, and Z.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can just be myself and I can be my gregarious self and be the MC of my friend's wedding without feeling like someone's gonna, you know, judge me or something like that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it's almost it's too freeing for people to accept.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean I I challenge people to do it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh like you were saying, like, I mean, as far as like don't let other people, you know, affect your ability to live your best life.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because this life is so short.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And to pretend that you know, living a certain way so that the appeasement of other people is just yeah, you're gonna potentially regret that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's very easy for for me specifically to feel judgmental of the the hyper masculine, the toxic masculinity, you know, presenting guys.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it feels performative, but I can also acknowledge maybe why they are the way that they are, you know, or or like some sort of explanation, maybe.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I can understand that and I can I can empathize with that.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: But again, I think that there is so much like missed opportunity for genuine connection because I think at the end of the day, you know, we we've talked about it multiple times on the on this podcast of true genuine connection is what provides a happy life.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it helps us live longer.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: It feels it feels so corny to say, but I think that especially right now, the world needs so much like love and compassion in it.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And disagreements are an opportunity to to learn about each other and to and to like uh disagree with somebody in a in a positive manner.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think my borrowing pain is thinking about what you were saying earlier about like there's always gonna be somebody that's gonna be talking shit.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And like just giving up this idea that like you can prevent that because it's it's always gonna come.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think like the only way through that is to, you know, get with your your tribe and your people and just be like, hey, can we like put down all these like facades that potentially we're putting up?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And can we just be like real people and just like not pretend with each other?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're with your people, like you can feel safer, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And having to worry about protecting that from everybody is just gonna be too exhausting and it's never gonna work.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that takes a level of acceptance to let go of that desire of control, of protection.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think in my 35 years of life, it does, it's it's um very apparent there will there will always be people who are set on misunderstanding you, and there's nothing that you could ever do to change their minds.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to learn to be okay with that.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can't you can't control that.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's part of growing up, is just realizing that you'll have to let that go.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I also think, like, you know, this whole thing of like redefining masculinity or what does masculinity mean?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't think it has to mean anything.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think it literally just means that you have some body parts that you were born with, and like you can mean it to mean whatever you want it to mean.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no one, no one needs to tell you what masculinity means.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: What does trying to fit into this box, what does that do for you at the end of the day?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that for me, it's like there's there's so much beauty in all of it, in in the mess, the masculine and the feminine, but also in in the in-between, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's there's so much to explore there.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the world is your oyster.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Go forth and do what you will with that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we will leave you with this closing question.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: If we stopped defining what makes someone masculine or feminine, what would we finally give ourselves permission to be?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for joining us for another episode of Browing Pains.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Please join us on our next episode as we continue the chat about identity development.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're going into how do our values shape who we are and how we see ourselves and our identities so we can unpack that and where these values come from and how to make sure that you're living your values-driven life.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for hanging with us for another episode of Growing Pains.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: If this episode shifted your perspective at all, don't just keep it to yourself.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Pass it on.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on TikTok and Instagram at GrowingPains to stay tapped in with the community.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've got a story, question, or a hot take you want us to unpack, slide into our inbox at growing painspod at gmail.com.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to hear from you.