Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

cuz I don't think anyone was saying that. wariness towards these stupid seminars, sure, but that's not the same thing (the amount of closeness/bonding actually achieved at an Everyman seminar seems highly debatable)

Gah, I am pretty uncomfortable in male-only groups unless they include men I already know well and have things in common with. I am not very good at stereotypical dudely conversation (Uh, sports? Shooting small animals? Punching one another in the arm?).

- anonymous

There was others too. It was mostly in the tone—like other men are some foreign species

other men have cooties

they're from Mars iirc

is this basically just american men we're talkin about, is this that thing again

just american and irish.

and especially irish americans

amen to that latter

Yeah this take that men occasionally hanging out with just other men is automatically “creepy” is totally weird to me and I don’t really understand why a bunch of smart people are making these cartoonish assumptions about what that really ~is~. Men, like women, can feel a certain openness around just each other and it for real can be something other than a dumb frat/sports-bro/incel/Promise Keepers/masculinity re-affirmation.

Treesh OTM. Also sarahell.

some ppl itt have only ever met stupid men its good reading if nothing else

Being a kid in a pretty stoic, conservative environment and occasionally having my dad drag me along to events like building a shed over a weekend on my uncle’s piece of land out in the sticks with a few other guys (for one traditionally masc. example) was generally... really cool. Got to see a certain easiness, camaraderie, and (most significantly) tenderness from these guys that I never got to fully witness outside of a situation like that.

Yeah ideally everyone would feel just as open to people that are not like themselves, but we’re here and these avenues can be really healthy and edifying. Even to, y’know, men.

it's weird to jump to 'exclusion' when talking about hanging out with just men. someone isn't really "excluded" unless they want to be a part of said activity and we purposefully don't invite them, or we tell them they're not welcome.

A group of men hanging out together doesn't mean women were "excluded" per se. Someone isn't inherently excluded any time we decide who we want to hang out with.

I hate 'bro culture' as much as the next and often hang in mixed groups, but hanging out with a group of other men with like interests every now and then isn't going to turn us into incels.

and it isn't always intentional. sometimes you invite people from all walks and only guy friends show up. it's whatever. I like hanging out with people that I like.

Is there a name for invariably feeling like a dude but not really caring about what that supposedly means? I'm speaking for myself and myself only – there are obvious reasons to be anything but indifferent to such matters if you're experiencing gender dysphoria, for example.

― pomenitul

gender-anomic?

why would you want to talk about modular synths instead of just playing the modular synths. in an ideal world everyone everywhere on the gender spectrum would be playing modular synths together and never talking about them

I hate 'bro culture' as much as the next and often hang in mixed groups, but hanging out with a group of other men with like interests every now and then isn't going to turn us into incels.

and it isn't always intentional. sometimes you invite people from all walks and only guy friends show up. it's whatever. I like hanging out with people that I like.

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal)

I was sure you were going to say "Neanderthals" instead of "incels" and had a laugh when I read who posted it.

i realize me bruvas aren't as advanced as the Magnons but fuck them and their frisbees!

according to a dna test, I’ve got an above average amount of neanderthal dna. how it came into my possession, don’t need to know

why would you want to talk about modular synths instead of just playing the modular synths.

why would you want to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, or assign numerical ranking to songs by bands and artists, rather than just ... listening to music?

drag em sarahell

Lol

I would like to congratulate myself for not posting a long confessional post i drafted about how I am afraid I’ve undervalued my male friendships through the years

Future biographers would have loved that shit but no dice

Future biographers? As in you in 10 years?

Hope not. If i ever write a book, I think I need a better subject.

sometimes you come upon the work, sometimes the work comes to you

treeship is actually a celebrity already, but which one?

Tony Robbins

It’s hilarious you guys haven’t realized I’m lindsay lohan

The Teaches of Treeshes

omg

sarahell can you say more about why wanting “to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, rather than just ... listening to music?” is masculine? Is it that making quality judgments is masculine, that discourse itself is masculine, or something else?

To jump in and mansplain for a second, i don’t think she was saying that.

some sort of hierarchy (preferably a ballot-driven ranking system) is necessary in order for people to be able to understand my important opinions

why would you want to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, or assign numerical ranking to songs by bands and artists, rather than just ... listening to music?

― sarahell

when i hear something i like i want to share it with other people. just saying "here, listen to this" doesn't work with most of the people i know, though. so i wind up talking about music i like, and i don't know how to do that without comparing it to other music. polls, ranked lists, i'm not fond of this sort of advocacy of Monoculture, of canon-making, of endless fodder for stupid facebook arguments along the lines of "there's no way that record is only as good as #53!", of men making every goddamn thing into a Competition about which One is Best. having the pretext to talk about music at all, though, that i like.

IDK if this is exactly the right thread, but I've found myself in this weird limbo in the last 10 years where I like sports enough that I sometimes feel like watching, yet not enough to devote the kind of time needed to speak *fluently* about what's currently going on in them. So, e.g., I decided to watch game 5 of the WS last night and I briefly joined a conversation about it, and I can talk about the game itself but then as soon as anything goes beyond that (e.g. which pitcher previously played for who and what their career has been like) I'm suddenly mute and it probably looks obvious that I'm not a *real* sports fan. I work in a very male dominated field and it would honestly probably help me out to just be a little more able to talk sports, but whenever I try to I wind up feeling like I just look dumb.

i.e. I genuinely like sports yet don't love them and wish they weren't such a key part of the language of maleness, and I wish there was a little more open-mindedness and ecclecticism among men in my field.

I'm suddenly mute and it probably looks obvious that I'm not a *real* sports fan.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Staying mute is fine. Just nod and try to look interested in everyone else's opinions. It's jumping in with a blatantly stupid and uninformed opinion of your own that would really hurt you in the eyes of a *ahem* *real* sports fan.

and ask questions. sports fans luuuurve explaining things

i don't find that a huge issue to navigate myself so I'm not sure what to suggest. being from west central scotland football (soccer) was really the only sport that mattered - other sports were a bit more marginal and small talk didn't usually necessitate talking about them, and i was a huge fan of football with a season ticket for my team, so that was easy for me to talk about.

moved to north america and so was suddenly completely ignorant about all the sports. i like all the big sports, but can't find the time to follow them all that closely - so many leagues, so many games, so many players! - but if i small talk about hockey with someone or whatever i just preface with "haven't watched that much this year" or what have you to let them know that I'm not going to be au fait with everything and it seems to go fine

I also have the luxury of working around mostly computer people and the expectation is that 2/3rds of the already mostly-male staff don't really engage with televised sports at all, so I'm the one making an effort to reach out to a minority!

jim otm, though -- I tend to go out on sunday nights to get food after starting a load of laundry and if I end up catching a particularly interesting play or game ending when the NFL is on, I'll comment on it if my coworkers are talking about that game

they know that I probably don't know much beyond that, though

why would you want to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, or assign numerical ranking to songs by bands and artists, rather than just ... listening to music?

I wouldn't say that I do that rather than listening to music, but I do do that, and I do want to do that, and I'm not sure I could say why, any more than I could say why I want to listen to music, for that matter.

One thing about sports talk is that I find it to be a very useful way of talking across geographic / political / social class boundaries and talking to strangers more generally. Like if you're in a bar and a game is on you can just say either "no way in hell was that pass interference" or "that was blatant pass interference, come on" and either way you are basically opening up a public conversation window.

second captains guys

I'm going away with 9 other blokes this weekend. We'll mostly eat, drink and listen to music on Friday, then have a walk on Saturday and go to the pub for a bit. Someone will cook Saturday night and we'll fall asleep watching the football. It'll be a bit bro-y at times but there are people there with tough jobs (me, being one), people going through marriage break downs, people that have got young kids; mostly we'll be talking about those things. It's not exclusionary I don't think (those left at home with the kids might argue) and it doesn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

Some of these people have been dicks in the past; I've been a dick in the past - but right now, it's a good and (generally) gentle place to be.

re: sports talk

find a few entertaining podcasts, keep up with scores/standings, and know the rules of the game, and it’ll be enough to keep a conversation going. if someone challenges you, a good way to back out is to say you wish you had more time for it.

that's good advice. i don't think anyone has an issue with somebody that enjoys watching the game but doesn't have time or capacity to get into all the background and details. i actually try to keep my sports chats with randos and coworkers at a pretty high level--i mean i could talk about the 8th or 9th guy on all 30 nba teams but that's probably the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

i advise just having no social contact with any man or woman who makes conversation about sports