what makes a man a man?

[backbreaker]

in reading these feminist blogs, i have a tad bit too mcuh time on my hand this week with my son being sick and wife out of town, one resounding theme that i read is that the male gender has lost some, masculinity i suppose. and while make no mistake i understand that the very majority of what i read are women who are trying to find scapegoats for their wreckless and sometimes unthoughtful behavior, that does not necessarily mean that there is not some truth to what women say.

just between us guys, if we are being 100% honest, can we admit that men as a whole, just aren't what they used to be?


and not because of what women spurt out. not beucase they don't make money or they don't go to school or aren't waiting in line to shack up with her after she has played the field for a decade or more.

I define a man as a person who is self reliant, who can deal with the vast majority of the issues that he faces in life on his own, and a person who people can depend on. A man is someone who has lived life enough to at last attempt to take what he wants.

Some men, become men just by getting older. You get thrust out in the swimming pool of life and eventually your natural survival instincts will kick in and you "get it". You may have been mislead or coddled a tad bit too much or partied your way through school but you get out in the real world, and real things are demanded of you, and you call on your latent abilities and you get it. You work hard, you take care of yourself, you have done enough in life to where you understand that you are not scared to talk to a woman you find attractive, even if you don't really know what to say yet, you know you find her attractive and you know that's enough to warrant at least trying.

some people like myself, go through dramatic life changing events that just make you man up. I am the youngest person my wife has ever dated in relation to her, i'm 4 and a half years younger than her as she's 34, and she tells me that i'm easily the most mature man she has ever dated and it's not even really close. I'm the youngest person that works for me, by a few years actually and everyone respects if not looks up to me. At 28 I'm the "man" of my mothers side of my family and there really isn't any question about that.


but the vast majority of men.. well let me rephrase that's going down a slippery slope... a lot of men, don't do either. most males, live in a prepatutual state of.. instant gratification and are so mislead about what being a man is about that they never become men. They never do anything, they never try anything, they never accomplish anything. going to college at it's face is not accomplishing anything. They are so mislead about what being a man is, they figure that they need a female to make them happy and thus the overt AFC behavior, becuase they are trying to literally fufill a part of themselves. And it's sad to see.

I have a what... i'm almost 29, he's 7 years younger than me so he's 22, a 22 year old brother who I don't talk about a hell of a lot because he doesn't live with me but I love him like, well a brother lol. smart as hell, decent enough looking, i'm flying down to little rock next week to watch him walk across stage and get his college diploma. I had a talk with him about 2 months ago, he called me for some advice. His mother like mine is extremely religious but unlike mine she is also extremely, extremely overbarring. my mom had rules, but once i hit 18, it's time for your ass to go lol. he's 22 and he still has to check in with his mom and he lives in a different city lol. it's actually quite sad. i used to pick him up and take him to football games with me and stuff just so he could get away from her. and it's effected his entire life. he is going to be a nurse. he hates nursing. his mom wants him to be a nurse but he doesn't like it but doesn't feel he has a choice. he can't date becuase his mom gets in his business too much. guys when i say overbearring i mean like if he doesn't answer the phone she will drive her ass down to arkadelpha and konck on his dorm room door overbarring. my dad has tried to talk to her about it but to no avail. he wants to come out here iwth me and i would be more than happy to have him out here with me and i will go to war with his mom if i have to to make it happen but i am more concerned about him dealing with the shock of being able to be his own man for the first time.

In dealing with my brothers situtation it made me realize what a man is and what a man is not. A man is not a person who can get laid when he wants. A man is not a bank account, a bench press number, a waist size, a car, a house, a credit score. These are things that men have, and do, but they aren't in themselves what makes a man.

A man is a person who creates their own path in life to do whatever it is THEY want to do for whatever the reasons THEY want to do it. And I am not necessarily talking about work. But like in my brothers case, if you hate something don't do it. it's one thing to be indifferent about work but to hate your job and do it anyway becuase your mom told you to that's not a man.

path, not job, not career, not style, path. whatever that path may be. I used to like mase the rapper growing up. in the height of his rapping career he said you now what, this is not what i really want to do i want to be a preacher. i'll be damned, he's a preacher now. rather or not if he is an effective one is another story but he's doing what he feels he wants to do and he's happier now for it. that to me is a man. to do what you want to do not what people expect you to do or what society expects you to do.


what you decide to do or not do does not make you a man or make you not a man, it's the path in which you travel to get where you are going , the experiences, the up's the downs, the hi's the lows, that make you a man. I look at warrior74 here, and him and i have alot of PM's back and forth. He may or may not succeed in his business. I believe , no i know, he will but that's not my point. Warrrior has learned more about himself and live and people in the last year then he has the last 35 years probably combined. You become a man when you decide you want to have your own graphic art company and you start with no money and no employees and no clients and you make that happen or not happen.


And as a society right now, we don't have that. we have a party society. we have a chase girls soceity. men are too busy tryign to chase girls in short skirts to do antyhing that requires scarfice or any hardships. we have men who do as they are told by everyone who tells them what to do and never questiona ntyhing, from what to wear to what to do for a living to what hobbies are and are not acceptable. i remember i tried to take a dude to the horse track one day, one dude from AA a few years ago and he told me his wife would not find him going to the track acceptable rotfl. GFTO. and you have these 25-30-35 year old males who are men in the sense that they have penises but are really just drones with testosterone. becuase they are not happy with themselves or the decisions they make in live, they become depressant on women to validate who they are, and that is the essense of AFC Behavior. men in turn become bitter and lash out becuase they have done everything you told them to do and there is no prize at the end of the road. But in reality you never were supposed to do what everyone tells you to do.

 

[SoldMySoul]

BB, look at our fathers; their fathers and you soon have the answer. Now take the younger kids today as a fine example. As time progresses, men have become sissified. It pisses me off to know end to watch how these men are made to look on Tv. Just watch any sitcom and it makes men to be weak, and controlled by their spouses.

Back in the day did you see leave it to b e a v e r 's dad being controlled or made to look like a punk? Hell no! Did you see Andy Griffith done this way by his dates? To a lesser degree, but it was done differently.

Just saying kids and younger men today are not the men of our fathers!!! I am not even the man my dad is....but I have more ethics and unfortunately from my mother, more feelings.

I have made mention before on here a few years ago. Want to see pure inspiration and what a real man was/is??? Watch a PBS show from late sixties, early seventies called, "Alone in The Wilderness."

 

[zekko]

I would add this amendment:
Sometimes a man doesn't do what he wants to do,
but what he has to do.

 

[st_99]

I think a big part of being a man is having the ability to lead.

Not necessarily trying to be the big shot leader everywhere you go
and in anything you do but knowing that you can step up at anytime in
the face of crisis, uncertainty, stress, or in any take charge situation whether its doing something fun or
managin something stressful.

A big part of that like BB said is seeing things from your own perspective and not following the heard like sheep.

 

[FairShake]

A man takes care of himself, his family, and his property. Pretty simple to say, doesn't seem so simple to do.

I don't care if you are the most emo, metrosexual, milquetoast dude out there, if you take care of yourself, your family, and your property you are more of a man to me than all the rock stars, gangbangers, and guidos that any manosphere fool can jerk off over.

 

[Jonnybangbang]

I would add this amendment:
Sometimes a man doesn't do what he wants to do,
but what he has to do

Agreed.

John Wayne once said, "Courage is being afraid to death but saddling up anyway."

 

[Lexington]

As every feminist blog will point out, women are now earning more college and graduate degrees than men. Women are now beating out men in a lot of professions. Women are now the main breadwinners in a lot of households. Recently, the Navy had to allow women to serve aboard submarines because they couldn't find enough qualified men.

Obviously, most hard college degrees (math, physics, chemistry, engineering etc.) are still male dominated. Most of the top innovators/entrepreneurs in the world (e.g. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet etc.) are men. The people at the top are still mostly men. But lately, the average guy has fallen behind the average girl.

And it's not only because of feminist society holding guys back. Growing up, it was very commonplace for the smartest person in my class to be a girl. My high school class' valedictorian was a girl. I majored in biology in undergrad and a girl won the award for being the most distinguished scholar. In my med school class, the person with the highest GPA is a girl.

We like to ***** about those feminists who can't settle down with a guy, but they do have a point. Women still want to find a guy who is smarter, better educated and wealthier than they are. In the past, the average guy was all of those things. But these days, the trends are starting to reverse.

If things continue as they are, we're going to end up in a situation like the ancient times. Back then, a few elite men (kings, nobles, industrialists, warriors etc.) hoarded a large number of the most desirable women. The rest of society was forced to fight over what was left over.

Remember, only until relatively recently was it commonplace for most men to reproduce. If we trace our ancestry, we are descended from twice as many women as men. How is this possible? Because a small number of men were doing most of the fvcking while the majority of men in human history never even reproduced.

 

[backbreaker]

As every feminist blog will point out, women are now earning more college and graduate degrees than men. Women are now beating out men in a lot of professions. Women are now the main breadwinners in a lot of households. Recently, the Navy had to allow women to serve aboard submarines because they couldn't find enough qualified men.

Obviously, most hard college degrees (math, physics, chemistry, engineering etc.) are still male dominated. Most of the top innovators/entrepreneurs in the world (e.g. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet etc.) are men. The people at the top are still mostly men. But lately, the average guy has fallen behind the average girl.

And it's not only because of feminist society holding guys back. Growing up, it was very commonplace for the smartest person in my class to be a girl. My high school class' valedictorian was a girl. I majored in biology in undergrad and a girl won the award for being the most distinguished scholar. In my med school class, the person with the highest GPA is a girl.

We like to ***** about those feminists who can't settle down with a guy, but they do have a point. Women still want to find a guy who is smarter, better educated and wealthier than they are. In the past, the average guy was all of those things. But these days, the trends are starting to reverse.

If things continue as they are, we're going to end up in a situation like the ancient times. Back then, a few elite men (kings, nobles, industrialists, warriors etc.) hoarded a large number of the most desirable women. The rest of society was forced to fight over what was left over.

Remember, only until relatively recently was it commonplace for most men to reproduce. If we trace our ancestry, we are descended from twice as many women as men. How is this possible? Because a small number of men were doing most of the fvcking while the majority of men in human history never even reproduced.

z

i'm curious what do you do for a living?


the only issue i have with that is that you can't realistically demand to be the same as a man then hold it against the man when you are his equal lol. at some point if you are going to demand everything be equal you are going to have to look in other areas to find male dominance outside the bank accounts and job status. I understand that hypergamy will make sure that women will always try to marry up if at all possible, but if that is not possible one needs to have a realistic outlook on the available options.


like i look at my little social group of friends and there in total may be like 15 or 16 girls outside my wife and about half of them have LTR's and every last one of them exepct one i would classify as a male drone. they have no ideas, they don't lead, they supplicate all the time, and you can tell that the second that the woman has a legit better option she's gone and the men will look at her and say she's a ***** but **** i would do the same thing. how can i explain it, most of them are in their late 20's early 30's msot are pretty attractive, all are playing this game where they are keeping the man interested , around, while double checking the scene to make sure there are no better options and at the last moment, she will lay on the i want to get married talk thick and they think it's beucase she's in love but in reality she just couldn't find anyone better and she wants to get married and you will do i suppose.

 

[Lexington]

z

i'm curious what do you do for a living?

I very recently finished med school and I'm going to start my residency soon....prelim year in internal medicine and then anesthesiology.

the only issue i have with that is that you can't realistically demand to be the same as a man then hold it against the man when you are his equal lol. at some point if you are going to demand everything be equal you are going to have to look in other areas to find male dominance outside the bank accounts and job status.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. But as we have been discussing in that other thread, there is difference between what "should" be and what actually is. The world has undergone some pretty significant changes in the past 100 odd years and our culture still hasn't quite caught up.

The fact is that women still highly value a guy who is successful....that's not news to anybody. The problem is that these days, there are a lot fewer guys who are successful relative to the girls.

I understand that hypergamy will make sure that women will always try to marry up if at all possible, but if that is not possible one needs to have a realistic outlook on the available options.

I agree with you here too. But it will take some time for the social programming to be undone. Women are conditioned to look for guys who are "better" than they are......smarter, wealthier etc.

There's a whole industry founded on the fantasy of a normal girl getting married to a prince; a prince who in addition to being tall and handsome, is also immensely wealthy and powerful.

like i look at my little social group of friends and there in total may be like 15 or 16 girls outside my wife and about half of them have LTR's and every last one of them exepct one i would classify as a male drone. they have no ideas, they don't lead, they supplicate all the time, and you can tell that the second that the woman has a legit better option she's gone and the men will look at her and say she's a ***** but **** i would do the same thing. how can i explain it, most of them are in their late 20's early 30's msot are pretty attractive, all are playing this game where they are keeping the man interested , around, while double checking the scene to make sure there are no better options and at the last moment, she will lay on the i want to get married talk thick and they think it's beucase she's in love but in reality she just couldn't find anyone better and she wants to get married and you will do i suppose.

How many threads do we find on these boards about girls thinking they're the sh*t? We hear all about 5s and 6s thinking they can land pro athletes, hedge fund managers etc.

Like you've said, girls will go for their best option. Usually, a more successful guy (i.e. a guy with money/power/status) is more desirable than an equally good looking guy who is less successful.

 

[Warrior74]

by all standards...I honestly have no right to call myself a man. This last year has proven that without a doubt. If I wasn't a coward, I'd just kill myself and get it over with.

If our fathers are the measure of a man, then I am not. I'm not half the man my father or brother is.

I don't care what feminist say, I don't care what women say. I really don't care what you guys say. None of it really puts food on my table. And neither do I apparently. I see a lot of the outrage about feminism as a smoke screen for a lot of people. People who are deeply unhappy with their own lives. Don't get me wrong, many have valid points, but from where I stand it's just of no concern to my every day life. What another man does or what a feminist does doesn't matter one way or another.

And yah I learned a lot BB. But mainly I've learned that I dream too much and act to little. I've had a bad run the last few months and nothing is going right. I give up. I'll be taking a job at krsytals or some other BS job and moving to some ****ty neighborhood and trying to figure out how to trick myself in to suicide without noticing it.

My friends are kinder than they should be, and honestly I'm tired of leaning on them. My problem is me. Not anyone else. I wish I could change, but at this point in life, it's obvious that I can't. I'm a lazy, entitled selfish godless man child who is pretty much worthless. The worst part, is knowing it and not being able to do anything about it. I give up. **** being a man, or human for that matter. In every game you have winners and losers and I'm not a winner. That's just life.

Women aren't that complicated, at least not for me. I have never really had a problem getting laid. I've probably slept with about 60 or so women. Some good looking, some not, some fat, some skinny, some broke, some well off. It's never been a problem. I could probably get laid today if I tried. If I wanted a wife and kids, I could have that. If you know how to bull**** and know that for the most part women are bull**** and steel then you got that on lock. Bull**** gets em, having steel keeps them or runs them off. You win some, you lose some. It's an easy ****ing game to play. I always felt sad for the guys who couldn't get that.

I might be depressed, I know that I am, but honestly, I'm just tired. Dead ****ing tired. Pretty much ready for it all to just be over. I'm done blaming anyone else for my problems. My parents, or my childhood, or my ex. At the end of the day, I'm the ****ing problem. And I can't solve that problem. I've tried everything I could think of for years and it's always one step forward and two steps back. I give up. Everyone, my family, my daughter, my friends, they deserve better than I can give. I understand now the whole "going out for a pack of smokes" and never coming back thing. If we lived in a world where that was still possible I'd do it tomorrow.

 

[backbreaker]

i tried to pm this to you but your pm's are blocked. and this is too important for me not to get this to you warrior.



i have noticed some of your threads and they are getting pretty depressing, and i care about you enough and what you are going through to take time out of my day to talk to you.

no one said entrepreneurship would be easy if it were easy more than 95% of them would succeed. you are seeing now why most fail. it's ****ign hard and painful. but it's possible.

there is alot about my personal story i have not told the forum, but i will disclose some of the **** i had to go through to give you an idea and to let you know that you are not alone.

i too had to get a job, after about a year of trying to make our company work. First doing mindless 10 key work for GMAC entering in checks. then i sold cars. i also sold custom computers on ebay supplement our income. it took about 8 months before our original business brought in enough income to where i knew we could live off it alone. that's 8 months from when i got the first job after it was clear we had no clue what we were doing yet.

i got kicked out my mom's house because my mom thought i wasn't ever going to do anything with my life. i got kicked out my grandmothers house. i damn near got kicked out my first apartment but by some miracle was able to come up with 1500 dollars in 2 days. in between i lived in my car.

i did not buy myself one piece of clothing from the age of 19 utnil i turned 21.

in retrospect if i knew just how hard our business would have been to start, i never would have done it. it was beyond brutal. you will and are being tested. and it' snot even about you being tested, you have seen in the last year what you don't know. right now for the first time you have a true account of yourself and what skills you bring to the table. instead of getting down on yourself use that as a stepping stone to see what skills you have to be able to hone.



but i believe in you enough to write this to you. i see something in you that i don't think you yourself see. you just have never been punched in the mouth like you have been now. but you will get up you will access the situation and you will move forward. society has a very structured setup that makes it very easy to get buy and live. but when you leave that and try to live on your own and make your own path you are seeing just how hard it is. but like quitting drugs, just remember man you aren't the first, you won't be the last. If i can do it, i kNOW you can do it. I'm not special. I'm intelligent but there are men on this forum I am quite sure are more intelligent than I am. I am probably more creative than your avg person but outside of that i'm not special. But you won't outwork me. and I don't quit. I will eventually punch a hole through the door however long it takes me to. That is what makes winners win and loses lose.

i'm just telling you man to man, man i've been there. exactly verbatim where you are now. i know exactly, verbatim, what you are feeling now. better than you probably can imagine i know. i get it. but failure is not an option. it's just not. it's not a matter of if you will get what you want it's just when. but you will keep pressing and you will move forward. the dream can never die. as long as the dream does not die you will be okay. it might slow down, it might at times have to not go full speed but don't let it die. these here, are the best, most life defining years of your life right now. you right now are experiencing life like most men never will. embrace it. realize that this right here, what you are going through right now, is the best left hook that life can throw at you and while you are dazed, you are still standing. this is the best life can throw at you and you can take it. these are the moments in life that define men as men. not when you have 5 plates driving a new porche and living in a new sweet kick ass loft. when life has done a 26 hit Cheif Thunder like ultra combo on your ass how do you handle it? do you look in the mirror and find something deeper and press forward or do you run back to the comforts of the known, putting your dreams off forever? do you honestly, have what it takes to be a ****ing man? to pursue your dreams even when it's not convenient or even logical for you to do so? when life punches you do you punch back? some do, most don't.

you have a daughter. swallow the pride and get a bull**** part time job to keep food on the table some food. understand that this does not mean you quitting your dream. i had a hard time with this one. you have to eat lol. dreams do you no good if you are starved to death before you realize them. you wont' be the first that had a temp. setbacka nd you won't be the last. you just have to take a pragmatic approach to how you will deal with it. when i sold cars i would work from 8:30am to 8 at night, and get off work and meet my partner and work from 8:30pm utnil 12:30-1am. yeah it got to me most kids my age were at clubs and parties my own two best friends stopped calling me. it sucked. but it had to be done I knew that. i did that for 8 months. put together a computer or two, work on marketing, but evet

 

[jhl]

+1 for BB. That was touching post.

 

[Insouciant]

backbreaker, that was an amazing reply, man.

Warrior, please keep your head up bro. I'm not an entrepreneur (yet), but backbreaker has the experience... and it looks like he himself has faced similar adversity to what you're facing now.

You'll get there, man!

 

[FairShake]

Warrior to me you are a valuable and respected commentator here in the virtual world.

That kind of wisdom doesn't come unless you are also a valuable and respected citizen in the real world.

Keep right and stay safe bro.

 

[Down Low]

by all standards...I honestly have no right to call myself a man. This last year has proven that without a doubt. If I wasn't a coward, I'd just kill myself and get it over with.

If our fathers are the measure of a man, then I am not. I'm not half the man my father or brother is.

I don't care what feminist say, I don't care what women say. I really don't care what you guys say. None of it really puts food on my table. And neither do I apparently. I see a lot of the outrage about feminism as a smoke screen for a lot of people. People who are deeply unhappy with their own lives. Don't get me wrong, many have valid points, but from where I stand it's just of no concern to my every day life. What another man does or what a feminist does doesn't matter one way or another.

And yah I learned a lot BB. But mainly I've learned that I dream too much and act to little. I've had a bad run the last few months and nothing is going right. I give up. I'll be taking a job at krsytals or some other BS job and moving to some ****ty neighborhood and trying to figure out how to trick myself in to suicide without noticing it.

My friends are kinder than they should be, and honestly I'm tired of leaning on them. My problem is me. Not anyone else. I wish I could change, but at this point in life, it's obvious that I can't. I'm a lazy, entitled selfish godless man child who is pretty much worthless. The worst part, is knowing it and not being able to do anything about it. I give up. **** being a man, or human for that matter. In every game you have winners and losers and I'm not a winner. That's just life.

Women aren't that complicated, at least not for me. I have never really had a problem getting laid. I've probably slept with about 60 or so women. Some good looking, some not, some fat, some skinny, some broke, some well off. It's never been a problem. I could probably get laid today if I tried. If I wanted a wife and kids, I could have that. If you know how to bull**** and know that for the most part women are bull**** and steel then you got that on lock. Bull**** gets em, having steel keeps them or runs them off. You win some, you lose some. It's an easy ****ing game to play. I always felt sad for the guys who couldn't get that.

I might be depressed, I know that I am, but honestly, I'm just tired. Dead ****ing tired. Pretty much ready for it all to just be over. I'm done blaming anyone else for my problems. My parents, or my childhood, or my ex. At the end of the day, I'm the ****ing problem. And I can't solve that problem. I've tried everything I could think of for years and it's always one step forward and two steps back. I give up. Everyone, my family, my daughter, my friends, they deserve better than I can give. I understand now the whole "going out for a pack of smokes" and never coming back thing. If we lived in a world where that was still possible I'd do it tomorrow.

Women are emotional. Men are rational. Men admire men such as George Washington or Thomas More because they were just so damned rational.

I found it helpful to put aside everything else and concentrate like a chess game on the problems of my life.

Maybe you will do so and, in the end, agree that dropping your pants for 60 men -- or women -- doesn't reflect well on your character. A woman who does so -- turns herself into a public convenience (public toilet) where random men go to relieve themselves and wipe their asses on her. It's no different for men, but it's easier to describe when using women as the example. Maybe for men I could use as an example, let's see, maybe a dildo left in the porn studio.

It's just so much more sensible to fvck a small number of women the same total number of fvcks.

 

[Cabal]

Warrior. I run a film production company that I started from scratch years ago, after catching my girlfriend in bed with another man and getting expelled from college and evicted from the student accommodation.

I became cheated on, single, out of education, and homeless in one day, and I wasn't working at the time.

Believe me buddy, you just need that one fvcking spark left and I bet you've got it.

 

[st_99]

I became cheated on, single, out of education, and homeless in one day, and I wasn't working at the time.

if thats not inspirational then i don't know what is!

 

[rum]

fit body

good job

independence...but still close to family, a good brother, son etc

confidence when you need it

self sacrificial at times

surprise her, always keep her on your toes

you do all this...30-40% of the time they'll love you. 60-70% of the time they'll still kick you to the curb.

 

[Serg897]

A man is not a person who can get laid when he wants. A man is not a bank account, a bench press number, a waist size, a car, a house, a credit score. These are things that men have, and do, but they aren't in themselves what makes a man.

A man is a person who creates their own path in life to do whatever it is THEY want to do for whatever the reasons THEY want to do it. And I am not necessarily talking about work. But like in my brothers case, if you hate something don't do it. it's one thing to be indifferent about work but to hate your job and do it anyway becuase your mom told you to that's not a man.

............

we have a party society. we have a chase girls soceity. men are too busy tryign to chase girls in short skirts to do antyhing that requires scarfice or any hardships.

So much truth in those words. This is why I haven't even been trying that much with women the past few months - I'm starting to realize that chasing women and getting laid is not a worthwhile pursuit that really brings any long term satisfaction of happiness. That has to come from somewhere else.

 

[origin138]

Thanks for this post BB. This is just what the doctor ordered today in my personal life. I live in southern OC and look around at all the wealthy beta providers with trophy wives, 3 kids, and large homes. This place can really take a toll on your ego in that it leads you to think it's like this everywhere, and that if you're not living it, you must be doing something wrong.

Thanks for reminding me of the importance of being my own man, and the importance of not being led around by other people's ideals.