I never had a problem expressing my feelings because I am secure in myself. Men who fear showing their emotions tend to be young and insecure. Young men get fed so much bullshit about how they should live their lives and carry themselves from all angles.

You have the “progressive” and feminist types try to shame you for being a man and they try to pretend that it’s some sort of defect to overcome. The “macho” and misogynist types try to convince you that your gender is a point of pride and that you should double down on the stereotypes they approve of. You have the “traditional” types that try to instill the idea that being a man is a like a job with specific roles that you have to fulfill to qualify. There’s many more types, but the point is that you’re getting constantly bombarded by all these nonsensical, contradictory, and misinformed ideas about how you must live your life. It’s not wonder young men are having an identity crises.

In reality, all these people are full of shit. Masculinity is not a role and it’s not a stereotype, it’s a state of being. You’re masculine because you are a man. Everything that you do is masculine because that’s what masculinity is, it’s the behavior of men. You being yourself is masculine. There’s no need to live to some misguided ideal or rigid standard set upon you by others. You’re masculine whether others approve of it or not.

As it happens to be, men are humans, and humans have emotions. It is perfectly natural and healthy for men to express their emotions as they fit. If you’re sad cry, if you’re upset be mad, if you’re filled with joy then be happy, if you’re anxious then be afraid. There’s no shame in expressing yourself or being vulnerable. These are things that make people interesting and deep. If someone takes issue with that then they’re the ones with the problem, not you. If someone can’t handle you for you then they’re not even worth your time. At least that’s how I see things.

MtF genderfluid here

The more feminine I have become, the more acceptable it is for me to show emotional vulnerability. The more people genuinely listen to me and not treat me like a disgusting animal they are hesitantly entertaining until they can get away.

When I lived as a cis man not even my friends wanted to hear it, and they are good people.

When a man cries in front of his partner for the first time, usually a switch will flip, and that partner will never look at you the same way again. Being vulnerable with even your closest relationships often feels like a mistake.

Men don’t talk about their feelings because almost nobody in society has empathy for others, especially if you are more masculine, especially if you “look scary”.

The experience being a man is isolating and dehumanizing by default.

I feel comfortable expressing them, but I see others get uncomfortable when I’m expressing them.

Yes, and it feels like it would be easier if I was feminine. However, it is so broad of a topic and depends on how it is met. Many people meet and respect and even appreciate it, but the difference would be that for women it is more normalised and focus becomes on the actual feeling, not on the circumstances and therefore it may feel more accepted and validated to be that way then. I don’t think it’s a big effect, and it would also vary extremely much depending on culture.

Yes. But I’m a therapist, so….

I don’t feel comfortable interacting with people irl. So to answer your question no.

Male here. By now I can and do express my feelings. It took a while. It is an odd power move at times, when you at will articulate and/or show your emotions. Some people can’t deal with it.

Female here. I like to keep my feelings private. If something is wrong, you won’t know until after the nervous breakdown.

The older I get, the more I realize that opening up makes things worse.

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I struggle on two fronts with this - I don’t want to “burden” others with how I feel, and fairly often I don’t know what I feel.

Grew up in the American Midwest as a preacher’s kid. My parents are awesome people, but Dad’s job meant our family had to seem close to perfect for small town political reasons - we had their support for any kind of crisis, but we had to keep it inside the house so our single limited income wasn’t threatened.

Between that and a family full of neurospiciness, it felt like we were always on the edge of catastrophe. I was generally able to get by day to day, so I just kept quiet so we all had room to deal with whatever else needs handled.

So, I think I got in the habit of bottling things until I couldn’t even tell what I was feeling, and also developed an aversion to sharing what I could tell was bothering me. I’m open to the idea of sharing things, I just can’t often tell what needs shared until it pops out unexpectedly.

As I’ve gotten older and have been going to therapy, I’ve gotten way more open about my feelings. I grew up in a super stoic family, but I have no problem telling anyone that will listen how I feel. I highly encourage everyone to let people know how you feel.

Woman between 30-40 here, I am extremely private and it has taken me years of therapy to start to open up even a little.

When people tell men “you can tell me anything” what they mean is “I don’t want to feel like you’re keeping things from me.”

It 100% does NOT mean “you will face no negative consequences for telling me.”

Men keep some things to themselves because sharing feelings has resulted in getting burned too many times.

These things aren’t necessarily bad. They might just shatter exciting illusions the other person prefered over the ordinary truth.

I think its a maturity thing for guys. My gym buddies and I were talking about mental health a while back and I said “I was on meds for a while because I had an irrational sense that life wasnt worth living. A year later on the meds I was fat, unmotivated and had erectile dysfunction and I was like ‘Great, now I have legitimate reasons to think about killing myself’ so I came off the pills.”

The 20 somethings all looked super fucking uncomfortable, the thirty somethings nodded and made sympathetic faces and the other 40+ guy said “How are you doing with it these days?” Of course I immediately deflected and said “Oh its hard as a rock” which got the laugh and broke the tension. But the only guy who didnt duck the conversation was the guy of a similar age who had a rough divorce years before I knew him…