The Inadequacy of Being a Guy
If not for the kind and understanding ear of a friend, I think I would have gone insane by now. I can tell her anything and not worry about being judged, and I've really relied on her as of late to keep my from going under.
In my last email/unceasing rambling to her I wrote about how inept I feel when dealing with guys, both straight and gay. I grew up not having many guy friends. They were a huge source of anxiety for me growing up as a boy; a boy who didn't entirely understand the invisible, but very real differences that set him apart from the other boys, yet understood that those differences would mean being cast out as an outsider if ever revealed. And so I did my best to distance myself from having any real guy friends. I stuck to the safety of my female friends. And it's been nearly that way my entire life.
My female friends have always been a constant source of love and companionship, but I can't help feel like I've missed out on something special, the male bond. I see my brother with his guy friends and I see my female friend's brothers with their guy friends, and it makes me feel inadequate.
And I wish it were as simple as recognizing a problem and then it magically fixing itself, or that tomorrow I'd make a million guy friends, but it doesn't work that way, especially when I still find myself operating in a similar state of paranoia over the exact same thing that prevented me from making those male friendships back when I was a boy.
It's scary to wake up one morning and feel like you've failed one of the very basic acts of being a guy.
In my last email/unceasing rambling to her I wrote about how inept I feel when dealing with guys, both straight and gay. I grew up not having many guy friends. They were a huge source of anxiety for me growing up as a boy; a boy who didn't entirely understand the invisible, but very real differences that set him apart from the other boys, yet understood that those differences would mean being cast out as an outsider if ever revealed. And so I did my best to distance myself from having any real guy friends. I stuck to the safety of my female friends. And it's been nearly that way my entire life.
My female friends have always been a constant source of love and companionship, but I can't help feel like I've missed out on something special, the male bond. I see my brother with his guy friends and I see my female friend's brothers with their guy friends, and it makes me feel inadequate.
And I wish it were as simple as recognizing a problem and then it magically fixing itself, or that tomorrow I'd make a million guy friends, but it doesn't work that way, especially when I still find myself operating in a similar state of paranoia over the exact same thing that prevented me from making those male friendships back when I was a boy.
It's scary to wake up one morning and feel like you've failed one of the very basic acts of being a guy.
posted by John M at 12:50 AM
1 Comments:
We all feel that way, the hardest part of being a guy is that we don't share our feelings because that's wrong somehow so we all feel like we're missing out of something.
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