the biggest brainwashers of men

[STR8UP]

I have no one to blame but myself.

My parents aren't perfect, but my dad is DJish and I could only hope to meet a woman like my mom one day.

The biggest part of my problem comes from my social anxiety growing up. If I would have gotten help for that when I was in high school my life would have been different, I assure you. I didn't get it under control until a couple of years ago, and it still isn't completely gone.

I suppose society was my largest negative influence, and of course that "evil" thing we call the media, which is nothing more than a reflection of society (albeit a bit exaggerated).

Really, just watching the matrix unfold around you it is VERY difficult to see through it. We are all influenced every day by what we see and hear.

 

[Colossus]

In response to your OP Joekerr, I think that the mother-son dynamic is more pervasive than most men will admit.

I say this because of my own personal experience with my mother, my oberservation of other men and their mothers, and my father's relationship with both of his parents.

I think this phenomenon has been more or less proven in psychological literature, but dont quote me on that; I'm not a psychologist.

It seems to me that men who had hard-assed, stern fathers and mothers who smothered them with care and affection seem to have issues with women later in life---clinginess, unrealistic desires, scarcity mentality, et al.

 

[KontrollerX]

Damn Colossus powerful post.

I feel the more I read and study over this forum we are all almost the same guy.

At least in many formative life experiences if nothing else.

 

[Last Man Standing]

Here is the crux of the matter...If the mother plays her natural genetically designed feminine role as a nurturer, which entails a loving, caring, supportive, compassionate nature - and the male plays his masculine role - as a securer, builder, and provider, then the children will never have problems with their parents that are justifiable!!

It is when parents go outside of their feminine/masculine roles, as husband and wife, that all family problems emanate from!!

 

[Luthor Rex]

So I don't love my momma, what does that mean?

I think she only loves me the way you love an object: like a family heirloom, but not as a human being.

My POV is that it doesn't matter anymore. I've lived away from her long enough that if she died tomorrow it wouldn't effect my life. I don't mean to say that from a place of resentment, I meant to say that from a place of independence: I accept that everyone I love will one day die. That's just the nature of human beings and nothing can change that.

Overall, I think the Matrix was not built by one woman in our lives or one culture etc. ... it was built by a sum of many things and will be burned to the ground in by the sum of many things.

Now, hopefully fate won't unkind to me and my mother will live many years to come... but I guess you never know...

 

[##17]

I'm not sure I would call moms *brainwashers*....the fundamental challenge is that our roles in our relationships with Mommy when we are young and impressionable, are NOT the same as our roles in our adult relationships with the women who come later in our lives.

Mommy represented our first source of feminine energy and beauty. Mommy's role also was to comfort and protect us, and to solve all of our big problems. She set the rules, and our job was to follow them. All these things that Mommy did for us and with us--that's just her job. But how we acted with Mommy is not how we are supposed to act as adults, though.

To get how we are supposed to act as adults, we needed Dad to take us out and show us some things. We also needed the outside world--other boys--to rough us up. That's not Mom's job, though. My understanding is that boys were 'intitiated into' manhood in ancient cultures (by the older men), and when it came time for that to happen the boys often actually had to be pried away from their moms, whose primary instincts are to protect her children.

The issue we have today is that this kind of initiation is harder and harder to find. So we continue to get mothered into adulthood, perhaps long past time time it is healthful for us in the long run.

 

[AgonyUncle]

Joker, that was a fantastic post. Its been a while since a post has actually made me sit back and reflect like that. I think you may be spot on the money. I never really realised it.

My mother was always a victim or my father was always being unreasonable. Me and my sister were both bombarded with complaining. These days, when my mother starts her *****ing, my father is 9/10 in the right. Its a **** test! 30 years of marriage, and she still **** tests him. All those years thinking my old man was just being the stubborn ungrateful mule when in fact my mother never worked a day in her life and has almost everything she needs within reason.

My first few relationships with women were always destined for failure. I spent so much time trying not to do what my father did with my mother, they I became a doormat. Always giving in, always bending over backwards to make sure she was happy.

As I got older, that changed, and I have become even worse then he is now. There is a huge difference between compromise and flat out nonsense. Strange how as you get older, the advice your old man gives you starts to make more sense.

I adore my mother, even with all her faults. and she and my father have had a very succesful marriage. I cant help but understand why now. Not because of her, but because he deals with everything his way and his way only.

The **** tests never stop. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

[KontrollerX]

Great post Sinjester!

I read every damned last inspiring word of it and it sounds like you are yet another case of having the same childhood as many of us here on Sosuave.

I'm quoting your post here because I think despite your age its good enough to remain on the mature man forum. The mods I think allow us older members to sometimes quote and post a younger members post so it remains since yours will probably be deleted if a mod sees it since they don't allow under 25 posters here.

Wow the Mature Man forum has some absolutely fantastic posters.

To be honest I am still too young to know how I will turn out. All you guys are 25-35, and perhaps I don't belong here, but why not let me learn from mistakes other have made in the hope I wont make them myself? For the record I am almost 17 but please don't let that deter you from reading any of my posts.

After reading some posts here it's clear that I've had a really good childhood. Not perfect by any means but I've always had a loving mother and father. The thing is my father has always been stern rather than caring so I of course prefered my mum and ran to her for attention. Maybe he is being a 'man' but in the end I think if he was a little softer it would have been better in the long run. As of yet he hasn't taught me to be a man, he may have tried but I just retaliated and decided not to do whatever he asked because it was easier not to, and I knew him teaching my anything would result in him being stern and even angry at me. Because in learning something new you aren't going to be good at it the first time, and making mistakes results in a harsh tone of dissaproval. E.g. household man jobs like fixing things, driving etc. Basically instead he attempts to make me do stuff by putting me down and saying how HE would have done it. All this does though it make me retaliate again and gives me lower self-esteem, he can't even understand if I try and explain it.

Also on my dad is while he works to put food on the table and so we can pay the bills and everything he definately isn't a DJ. He even admited himself that he suffered froms social anxiety all his life, even now in his 50s, there is no confidence in social interactions. He has never been social in having mates over or anything, I'm sure this contributed to my social anxiety early in life.

My mum is caring and selfless and one of the nicest people anyone could meet. However like most mums she is over-protective and smothering. She often says comments like 'why can't you just get a job and stay here?' because I want to move to the city and go to university. Completely selfish and certantly not suggesting that I make the most of lifes oppurtunites, why should I when I could stay with her? Although I think she may not be 100% serious when she says this because she knows I have to move on one day. At the moment in my late teen years this has just made me yearn and strive for freedom. I might add here that I am an only child so that just amplies my mother smothering me.

Sometimes I see things in my parents and thing 'wow I hope I don't end up like that'. Firstly they are fairly negative. Dads view is that you have to be lucky and inherit a fortune or win cross lotto to be succesfull, it is all the world's fault that he isn't richer. He also always tells me to go straight for the money when chosing a career, but I want a job that enjoy and I am passionate about. I completely understand why he thinks this because he has been poor his whole life and some other issues I wont go into here aout his father. Not to mention the way he always acidentally puts me down and calls me 'useless' all the time. Thanks dad, that really helps my self-esteem. Mum always picks on other people, like when watching TV its always 'oh he has the worst eyebrows' 'can't he get that birth mark cut off?' 'ugh look at her nose'. All this despite me having some physcial flaws of my own that I have very self-concious about, but she doesn't desitate pointing out those flaws in other people. No one should be surprised if I value looks above all else.

These things may seem small, especially when people talk about having cold mother or being abused by their fathers, and I don't pretend they aren't compared to things like that, but they are big for me. Makes me wonder how I will turn out later in life. As of yet I have never had a relationship with a girl...

Don't ever underesitmate the media however. Just watching a few TV shows and movies it really hits home home much AFCness is everywhere. In almost every movie and TV show a guy wins a womans love with flowers, chocolates, romance, declaring his undying love for her before they are actually a couple etc etc. Sometimes it almost makes you wish that love was like the movies. If you think about it harder it is flawed because the woman is always the prize and has to be won in every movie ever made. Not only won but also sometimes 'bought' and 'earnt'. No wonder guys think like that. Hell even asking any other guys for dating advice will lead to AFC answers, because that's all they know. Guys who are good with women are usually naturally condident and don't know how they do it. They say 'just be yourself' because thats exactly what works for them.

Non parental factors such as enviroment and friends are also crucial. I'm sure if you had playa buddies you would catch on. For all my years of high school we are one of the only guy groups in the school to never sit with girls at lunch breaks, and in class guys and girls always sepearate into sepeate groups. Yet somehow we manage to be cool. If this had changed I think all our group would be different. I was also bullied horribly, although it got better as I got older. Never phsycally or as bad as the uncoolest kid in school gets it, but I am sure this has contributed to a vast amount of my insecurities.

If you think about it if what is considered natural and right is for the father to work and the mother to stay home and care for, then the father will be stern and the one to deal out punishments while the mother will always be caring. Surely this leads to:



In most cases. Unless the father is softer and actually takes time to guide his son to manhood when he isn't at work and the mother doesn't smother the son. If my father made manly activities enjoyable instead of self-degading I might actually like to partake in and learn them.

I think Senor Fingers was right on the money when he said that modern society was the reason while men aren't strong anymore. I don't need to fight or hunt, no one has taught me to be a man. I guess I just have to teach myself. I guess I am teaching myself.

Isn't it interesting how some people turn out like their parents, but some see their behaviour and vow never to be like that and do exactly the opposite. How can we tell who will do which? At least if we are attracted to females with similar personailties to our mothers I might end up with a warm caring person who is nice to all. There is one thing my dad said to me that has stuck with me since he said it. One day we were on holidays and we were deciding where to eat tea, dad normally makes all the desicisions (he biggest claim to manliness) and isn't often undecided. He asked me to choose and I said I didn't know what I wanted. He turned to me and said 'son, when you get a girlfriend you are going to have to be the one making all the descisions'. So true. Perhaps the biggest thing he has taught me in being a man. He also told me when I was complaining about going to a wedding 'you just have to do these things, even when you don't want to'. Apart from that I really can't think of many other ways he has tried to guide me to manhood and suceeded.

I think I am an interesting case. I literally avoided the nice-guy I was becoming because I found this website so early. Maybe it would have been good to have that experiance. At least them I would have some experiance. When people talk about nice guy vs the jerk I just take their word for it because I really have never had those experiances. I do agree that desperation is bad and I have been LJBFed. When I was a would be nice guy I never had the balls to do anything about whoever I had one-itus for at the time. Oh how I wonder what life would be like if I hadn't sumbled upon sosuave. I probably would have ended up sending a text mesage of love to a girl, but hey at least I would have some more rejections, maybe it would have even worked and then who knows. But probably I would be where I am not only much worse off and forever the AFC.

Our parents are human too. We realise this when we reach a certain age. We all make mistakes in every aspects of our lives and our parents are no different. They may have made mistakes in raising us and we will all make mistakes in raising our children. All we can do is hope we learn from their and do the best we can.



(Damn that was long. It felt good writing it thought, looking back but seeing the future and how I can change.)