I’ve got one issue with your article.
At one point you acknowledge that men are emotionally undeveloped. Then you casually mention that it would be great to have someone show you how to do that, show you the ropes, so to speak.
Prior to that though, you had said that being constantly told as men to work on yourselves and get some therapy isn’t really helpful to men to address the toxicity of performing "maleness".
Do you see how you’re contradicting yourself here?
On the one hand, you acknowledge that you need coaching, but on the other you won’t accept coaching. The way some of you recoil at the mere mention of the word, you’d think you were being offered a game of Russian Roulette in front of a firing squad. That’s what a therapist is. A coach. For your life. A neutral third party, who has your best interests at heart, who’s going to be real with you, help you focus and work on skills that are lacking, and never make you feel bad about yourself for not being an expert out of the womb or shame you for struggling or needing to ask for help. That’s it. No firing squads involved.
Honestly, what gives? I keep hearing iterations of this from men all the time and I don’t get it.
Do y’all just not understand that a therapist is a professional life coach?
Why the insistence on women you’re romantically involved with "showing you the ropes" or coaching you emotionally? Real life isn’t little league. You can’t just sign up for whatever sport and be assigned a coach, who’s really a teacher who got coerced into it, to teach you how to play . In professional level sports, the players choose a team, sure, but the coaches also choose the players they want to work with. And those coaches get paid for their work coaching. They don’t do it for free because they got forced or coerced into it.
That means, because therapists are getting paid fairly, they will keep your interests and well being centered. They will work for you and you alone, because unlike an athletic coach, they aren’t beholden to a team owner or a sport organization, only to their "players".
Something to think about.
