I wish there were more people like OP, because the only way I can make people who are neither my friends or family recognize that I’m being treated unfairly is by getting angry. Humans have a gigantic range of emotions they may feel and yet most of them think that just because you belong to one gender or another only a portion of those emotions are valid.
That’s what happens when a gentleman who fought in WWI and dreamt of a cottage writes fantasy.
Sure, the last time I tried to be tender and emotional like this my wife mocked me for crying. Do I wish for close relationships like this with my fellow men, yes but there’s no room for it for some of us. Toxic masculinity is also expressed by the women in our society (USA)
Find a better human to be your wife.
I know that’s an extreme comment but I couldn’t imagine being with someone where I have to be guarded or keep walls up, that’s really unhealthy.
There is no reality where I would expose myself to that kind of abuse, because it is abuse. Anyone mocked for having emotions is being abused.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would find far more contentment being alone and free to cry when needed than being afraid to show emotion around someone who is supposed to love and support me.
I suppose I’m lucky to be with someone who has expressed satisfaction at the fact I don’t bottle up my emotions.
So what if you get mocked for not being “manly”? Man up and double down. Tell her a real man knows it’s ok to show emotions from time to time
You can’t demand people accept you because they just won’t. If this guy’s wife doesn’t respect emotional expression that’s not likely changing.
And they SHOULD NOT BE MARRIED
This isn’t the internet. People who respect you IRL will either listen or debate with you
Whoa, this comment thread is wild. Sorry to those who have to deal with shame. I also don’t like being hugged or kissed, but that’s true regardless of their gender. That said, you should be allowed to cry, and you should at least be allowed to express your feelings. It’s not a sign of weakness, and if anything, a sign of bravery.
But, reading your comments, grateful to not have a wife who judges my masculinity. I still gotta do my part around the house and stay respectful, but if I needed to vent over a bad day, she’s all ears. Thanks for that.
r slash niceguys
I mean, the problem here is that if you want emotionally available men you have to treat men better.
Good luck getting people to do that.
Look up Troy Hawke on Instagram and use his act as a guide.
Who are you talking to?
You must be new here. This is a comment section. Others call it a thread. You use it to comment on things.
It’s cool. I’ve been here a while. Enjoy the incels.
The answer is “incels”. You’re talking to incels.
Enjoy the gratification online, but it’s gross.
Different person. Next lesson we’ll learn about usernames.
I’m talking to you numb nuts. Look ONE day back in my comments. My point was they were talking, and you are talking/ virtue signaling to incels. Continue to do so. It’s a good red flag.
Yeah, and I’m talking to you. All I said was that I wasn’t the same person you asked your original question to. “Who are you talking to?” Was not asked to me. I must not have taught you very well.
In comment sections and threads, anybody can jump into conversations. You can see that when I jumped in after you asked a question.
This type of relationship is pretty common in war. You and the squad end up “in the shit” and now you have all crossed the boundaries of what civilians call “manliness”. You are free, unimpeachable, the manliest thing, a real warrior, a soldier in battle. The things you do now define manliness, you are writing the rules. They can call you whatever, you will reply with the sort of laughter that silences fools.
People die around you. The sound of another man’s voice becomes poetry to you. How much longer will you hear his voice? Who knows, tell him a shitty joke. Sit on his lap for a gag, do whatever. Drink in his presence, press his flesh against yours, be alive together, try to keep him in your memory, tomorrow we all may die. Has anybody seen those pictures of soldiers from the American Civil War all hanging out and mugging for the camera? Acting all “gay” with each other? That’s what war does to men, sometimes, probably not that often, I fear.
Somebody online with a military background once remarked about the safest he’s ever felt, including in civilian life, was when he was in some tent in a war zone with the rest of the platoon, everyone in their sleeping bags, crammed in the tent together like a litter of kittens in a box. Sure, they were in the death zone, for real, but he was warm and snug, surrounded by armed badasses who would come to his aid at once if anything nasty went down. He said he slept like a baby, that he’s never felt that sense of security since, not even safe in bed as a civilian, later.
It means a lot to me that this book, TLOR, was pretty much written by the Great War. Tolkien went to that war, against his own will, compelled by shame campaigns, not even the law, in spite of his own convictions, and he did not have some safe posting at the base, no, he was at the Somme. He saw the worst of it, probably missed death by inches several times, saw mud and blood, was deafened and battered, only to survive at last, coming home as changed as Frodo.
He watched men charge into machine guns like mice into a blender, watched them die of trench foot and the stupid ways war kills you without even glory or honor to show for it, saw that sometimes courage is just hiding in your little hole and not screaming when the tanks roll over. He saw Mordor in person. No man’s land.
Then he came home, and did he write some edgy darkness? No. He wrote this thing, this fantasy, with its message of hope that evil can be vanquished, and that men can be good, yes, even when they seem utterly lost to goodness. This is somehow the lesson that the War to End All Wars had taught him. He had nothing left to prove, so he made a pretty, frivolous thing, for children, but couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help making something bigger than that. He knew how intimate men become with each other under fire, and it ended up in the book.
That is the only thing he wanted to remember, that unexpected love when suffering and death are right on top of you. I wonder who Legolas was to him? Somebody young and beautiful, who deserved to live a thousand years, but didn’t, probably. They shall not grow old.
We shouldn’t need the machine guns coming at us to hug our friends, that’s probably what he wanted the world to know.
lotr nerds are the worst
You’re the worst.
Beautifully written and thank you for providing this insight. I have not been to war so it can be easy to miss the nuances
Wait…you don’t kiss your bro’s forehead and hug!?
Yeah it’s not cause youre naked together in the same bed that you can’t kiss forheads and hug. It’s not gay.
Like even if he put a finger in it’s not even like that
Nothing more masculine than sharing heat in cold conditions.
That’s what I was thinking, extremeties get cold too but apparently people disagree
Paraphrased from the last thread I saw about this: Women always want these types of men from LotR, but they never want to be like women from LotR: Strong, gentle, soft and loyal.
Wow, that’s some incel shit…
Lemmy is full of them. I might prefer Reddit…
So by your logic is the OP a femcel, or are you just embracing double standards? I encourage you to like whatever type you like, but try to understand that certain personality types “click” with certain personality types. If you want a specific type, then you ought to put in the effort to make yourself into the type of person who can support that type.
In the meme it is a request, be more like this, you are implying that no woman is what you’re saying.
Some women are strong, gentle, soft, and loyal. You can prefer that, but to say they never want to be or aren’t already, that is the incel shit.
Can’t say I disagree with you there. You’re just reading too much into my post.
@ogmios @The_Picard_Maneuver women in LotR stab people, argue with their dads all day, and waffle about kingsfoil.
Which is the soft one?
Most of them? Are you confusing “soft” for “weak?”
Bro have you even seen a woman?
At risk of being a dork I’ll also compare this to Star Trek (largely because OP is a clear fan). Both series are really timeless and impactful imo because they portray people as almost supremely emotionally intelligent. Everyone is very professional when they be - capable of great emotional restraint, but also deeply empathetic and caring and ‘tender’ when the time is right.
I mean Gimli is supposed to be the “emotional hothead” of the Fellowship and he’s literally more chill and emotionally controlled than most of the people you run into working retail
That’s why Star Trek is sometimes referred to as “competency porn.”
As someone who spent time in the military, j know exactly what you mean.
I wish the people I worked with were 25% as competent, rational, and level headed as the crew of the Enterprise.
It’s funny, when I was a fresh college grad I actually considered joining the millitary because I really did have a desire for that competent, almost bureaucratic professionalism and mature outlook.
Then I kind of got my heads out of the clouds and realized diction and reality are pretty separate
Its so relaxing
Suddenly vanishes the moment you’re promoted to Admiral, apparently
turn it around, only shitty people tend to be promoted to such positions, it’s like the saying that the best president is one who doesn’t want the position.
I was just making a joke about how every admiral in the franchise turns out to be the bad guy in some way, due to malice, incompetence, or because they were replaced by aliens wearing their skins.
Very apt. Funnily enough I’ve only heard the phrase applied to The X-Files
See also “The West Wing”, which is also entirely more fantastical than 24th century utopian space exploration, based on (gestures broadly)
But Scully and Mulder never succeed and demonstrating paranormal phenomena to anyone.
Can’t blame Scully, pretty sure she gets amnesia on a weekly basis
They’re talking about the guys keeping everything under wraps
Television in general can be “competency porn”. Nobody speaks to each other in real life with the attentiveness and thoughtfulness of TV show characters. Most people are devoid of empathy and bad at conversation. If you try to be as attentive and witty and empathetic as characters on TV (the ones at least that aren’t written to be terrible people a la IASIP) people will think you’re autistic.
Oh shit, everybody knows I’m autistic.
It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but TNG was a factor for me in finding emotional maturity.
I was a happy, naive child that was lucky to get to 8 before everything sorta fell apart. Parents divorced, sexual abuse from within the extended family by different people, having to toughen up at school due to the emotional issues starting to crop up, abandoned by a parent because of their addiction, and even the social pressure during the satanic panic (this was obviously the 80’s).
Somehow, I did manage to keep some of the happy-go-lucky and naivete, but otherwise I had a rough time reigning in my temper and sometimes would break into tears from being overwhelmed (alone, obviously, because I had to be manly).
When I got into watching TNG, I really admired Picard as a character template, and worked on some of my own self perceived character flaws, and why I acted the way I did. Essentially, looking for the causes and not the symptoms. It was the start of a growth that continues still. His morality and introspection as an archetype gave me hope.
A therapist surely would’ve been a better way to go about it, but those weren’t really much of an option for us back then.
I wouldn’t be embarrassed about that at all. TNG also showed me the world I wanted to build for the future.
Thank you!
I’m a pretty pragmatic at heart, so I feel silly sometimes when realizing that I used fictional characters for inspiration to build myself up. I don’t aspire to be the hero of anything, but do want to be someone that is worthy of respect.
Reality reflects art reflects reality. Star Trek has inspired countless people to live up to their potential and even bring to life the fantastic devices we see in those shows.
Put Gimli in retail and watch him pull out his battleaxe.
Only if he works at Walmart.
Oh Walmart isn’t the bottom of the barrel. A rite aid in the bad part of town is worse, or fuck being one of the only two people controlling a dollar store seems like some kind of weird hell.
The fellowship, especially the human members were made up of aristocrats doing things for honor and Valor. But most humans in 4th age me were living in squalor, a shell of a former great empire and people. Even the movies did a decent job of showing the distrust, violence and squalor and curruptability of average men.
All that said yes show less toxicity and more role model responses to hard situations is a good idea. But drama sells.
Excuse me? Doing it for honor and valor?
They were doing it to save middle earth from a tyrant who would have enslaved everyone under his rule.
That was one of Tolkien’s concepts, that a king should protect his people and lead by example. There is no battle in which Aragorn didn’t lead from the front.
The 4th age was one of peace and prosperity. Please share the source for the peoples of middle earth living in squalor.
Well you definitely right about the motivation. I guess my thoughts were 1. all the elves could have just bailed on ME but some stuck around. 2. Aragon in the books always intended on being king and was further motivated by elronds requirement to marry his daughter so as much as he may have done it to lead from the front it was still a game of houses. 3. Overall you absolutely right about the forth being prosperous i had the industrialisation of bag end in mind in particular. Yes sams family fixes it over 3 generations and it was 1 town trading with sauromon, but it def was the exploitative example I thought of. 4.Other than the wizard and hobbits it was all nobility in the fellowship etc… last is the “height of humanity” were the early numenorians so what was left of civilization by the lotr saga anyway was diminished
Thanks for checking my generalization I should be more careful not to twist tokens intent
No worries. I appreciate you coming back to reiterate and elaborate on your thoughts. And having a civil discourse on Tolkien.
I just want to add on some details about Aragorn for those coming to know more.
That whilst he did intend to reclaim the throne, the way he went about it was about as noble and selflessly as possible. He didn’t do it by conquering or by force. He did it by proving he was worthy of being king. He rescued Gondor from certain destruction. He healed people " the hands of the king are the hands of a healer. " Then when he finally does reclaim it, he ruled in a way basically the opposite of the last millennium of rulership. And worked to undo a thousand years or more of gradual decay.
“Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.”
Beautifully said. And honestly I kind of forgot about this and its a major theme. I got prrtty hung up on magic leaving/dying and the fact there were still humans like the haradrim or Easterling. I think aaragon made peace with them? I really dont know how I managed to not weight his reign with more importance, guess it shows my own bias pessimism. He was basically the perfect archetype and all the symbolism of him planting the 4th tree, etc making him more a messiah than hungry for power. I didnt really think he purged humanity of sin though … did he ever go so far to suggest that?
If a king can’t protect and take care of his people then they are better off without him, that’s what got heads rolling around Europe at a certain point
You get to express yourself in a healthier masculine way in Middle Earth because you’re not worried about fucking driving an hour to work and back to make some asshole rich while you worry about if you’re going to eat next week, all the while trying to numb your senses with substances and stave off the fear that at any time, an illness could ruin you and your family financially and put you on the street. At least in ME, the existential problems men face are quantifiable: there’s an orc that wants to kill me, etc.
Capitalism makes you emotionally unavailable? What?
My dear, I don’t think that’s the problem here
Try reading “The Way We Never Were”. While capitalism isn’t the cause, it’s certainly a contributor in the whole idea of men not needing anyone, men being sole provider, separating men from the tribes that gave them that emotional or physical support…not just men but women too.
If capitalism is about competition, then the need to divide and display individual strength are characteristics reinforced by capitalism.
Okay, I’ll admit, in a 2 sentence blurb, the connection might not seem “all there” but yes. Yes, the toxic world that is based in capitalism, our current paradigm and the one we’re comparing to LOTR, dividing and conquering people along arbitrary lines all the while we’re scrambling to get as much money as possible in order to fulfill some 60 year old notion about what being a man or what being a woman means, yes that turns people toxic and we express ourselves in toxic manners because of it.
Identify a problem you see with modern men and I can probably boil that point down to how it’s capitalism motivated.
My interpretation was always that distance to the enemy determines your pov. Shire was furthest, easy and laid back. Gondor is practically frontline, so some characters were more pragmatic and Machiavellian.
Rn I am speaking only about FOTR.
Fuck you I’m poor and angry
Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
Ah. He was a merry fellow.
I hear his jacket is bright blue.
Boots are yellow, if I recall correctly.
bars
There was a TV show called Moonhaven where men were a bit more like this. It was cancelled after 1 season, of course.
Oh wow, Moonhaven sounds like an interesting show, even just for the approach to “utopia”. Thanks for the tip!
With a hobbit on the cast!
They put the “gentle” in gentleman
