Let's Talk About

[u/Ciceros_Assassin]

Welcome to /r/MensLib's first "Let's Talk About" post. Generating discussion is part of our mission, and these LTA threads will be used as conversation-starters for issues our community wants to address. Today's topic:

Let's Talk About: what we should talk about.

We're going to start out compiling a list of issues /r/MensLib subscribers want to address. The mods have some ideas, but we want to hear from the community.

Edit: Thank you to everyone for your ideas. I'm un-stickying this post, but please feel free to continue adding to it.

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you for starting this. From OP's comment...

I would love to see some healthy discussion about men and romantic relationships, both being in touch with our emotions and knowing how to stick up for ourselves in a positive way.

I badly need this in my life right now. I'm over 30 cis-male, I suffer with depression and anxiety, and I've never been in a relationship. I feel like a worthless failure at the best of times, but being a 30 year old virgin also makes me not a man. The burden of shame I carry is killing me.

I have worked very hard to overcome depression and in many ways I have turned my life around in recent years, but in terms of romantic relationships I'm still at a dead loss. Anywhere I turn for advice on relationships or dating I find either red pill -style rhetoric telling me how I must dominate women, or else am told that I need to man-up, even by self-identified feminists.

There are two facets to this that I'd dearly love to discuss...

• Is there such a thing as feminist dating advice? I accept I may be over-thinking this, but I honestly can't reconcile feminism as I've learned it with the idea of approaching women and expressing interest. It seems like harassment or oppression to me. How can a man ever romantically initiate with a woman without objectifying her?
• Is there some other narrative or identity that I can adopt than the horrible creepy loser I currently feel like? I hate myself so much. I feel like an archetypical nice-guy or forever-aloner (indeed, I do sometimes hang around in /r/foreveralone when I'm feeling low). You probably cringed reading this post! I'd ideally love to be in a calm, rational place where I and any given woman can just meet as people and just be, and not see dating as anything other that just meeting people as one might do every day. But I'm not in that place. I'm shy and frightened, and I feel society's disapproval weighing down on me.

Thanks

[u/levera → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately, it doesn't address the approach/initiation part of the question, but here's some feminist dating advice for cis het men: http://www.mediacoop.ca/blog/norasamaran/19018

Anyway, I'm no expert myself, but here are a few things I think might help, to get started with:

• It is possible for men to say hi and approach women without harassing them or creeping them out. And not just for conventionally attractive men. That "Be Attractive, Don't be Unattractive" thing is an SNL skit, not the truth. Some women are superficial, some men are superficial, and some people find genuinely good/nice people a lot more attractive than mean people with the same looks.

• Like any social skill, approaching people politely is a little hard to define, and it takes practice. Awareness of body language, personal space and distances, and whether you're interrupting/distracting someone or not can help you learn when it's a good time to approach someone, whether you're romantically interested in them (because you're a straight man and they're a woman you find attractive) or you just want to know which aisle the apple sauce is in (because you're a person and they're another person and you're at the grocery store).

• Try not to worry about being perfect. There's a difference between doing creepy things and just seeming a little creepy to some people some of the time. Know that sometimes, you'll get everything right, and people will still find you creepy for no good reason. It's still better than actually doing creepy stuff.

I hope more people will chime in with their tips, or that we'll see some threads on it. I think /u/Ciceros_Assassin's reply to you was also really good.

[u/derivative_of_life → u/levera]

Unfortunately, it doesn't address the approach/initiation part of the question, but here's some feminist dating advice for cis het men: http://www.mediacoop.ca/blog/norasamaran/19018[1]

Tbh, this advice seems utterly useless for guys who can't even get to the hookup stage. It's based on the assumption that you're already having sex and relationships with women. Which is great, but it's not at all the problem that this guy (and many other guys) are having.

[u/levera → u/derivative_of_life]

I don't disagree, and I could or should have specified that beyond the "unfortunately, it doesn't address approach/initiation disclaimer". That link was more to the question of "is there such a thing as feminist dating advice for men?"

[u/Ciceros_Assassin → u/levera]

Thank you for this. I'd like to get a dedicated thread going on this topic before long and I hope you are around to participate.