What Causes Low Self Esteem In Men? - AskReddit

because the default life is having financial success a stable job their own home and a nice girlfriend from where does very low self-esteem in men come from it might have something to do with the fact that most boys literally never hear words of encouragement there is no one out there making them feel like they have worth same thing here add to that not growing up in a first world country and it is even worse nobody cares what do you want and how do you feel it's a shut up and do what you have to do mentality insecurities aren't the biggest issue of all of the mentioned low emotional and empathy levels are what messes you up and what leads to bad relationships poor woman and children treatment and dissatisfaction in general at the age of 19 i was at my sister's wedding my dad's brand new girlfriend just got done calling my sister an ugly i told her to shut her mouth and i walked away my uncle walked up to me touched me on the shoulder and told me i was a good boy i felt like i was being power washed with emotions i didn't know what to say it wasn't for another five to seven years did i realize i had never heard those words or any like that directed at me i was an honors student playing multiple sports in band and choir and had been working jobs since i was 14. yet that small string of words still sit with me as a 35-year adult male men fundamentally lack the same social safety network as women have practically since birth women culturally and socially are seen as a weaker purer and more vulnerable group of people who require support there's also the somewhat creepy reality that a lot of dudes think being a shoulder to cry on will get them an eventual relationship when a woman is upset or going through hard times her female friends will reach out to her for varying reasons and dozens of male friends and orbiters will be in her dms when a man is upset or going through hard times he's laughed at ignored told to man up or forcibly lowered a rung on the social ladder for daring to showing weakness male socialization is heavily based on ability and the result and hierarchy that forms from varying levels of it whereas female socialization is rooted more in presentation cooperation and mob mentality overbearing overprotective mothers are the source of it they baby the boys prevent them from taking any risks from taking part in any struggle because you will get hurt these boys are not trying and failing they do not receive understanding that from failure stems growth as a person and as a professional they simply absorb mothers overbearing fears and subconsciously refuse to take risks source was a boy like that until i got a job where i failed learned and heartened i think teenage boys are told by society and the media that the default life is having financial success a stable job their own home and a nice girlfriend eventually wife and that all that can be adjusted through a reasonable amount of effort and not being a total jerk so when they find themselves getting into their 20s and those things still aren't materializing they feel like they've failed especially if their parents express disappointment or they see their friends enjoying greater success i had really low self-esteem well into my 30s and was told often it was misguided or confusing that i did i guess because i'm tall and decent looking confidence is expected i think a lot of it stems from being raised by a single mom from 13 on dad died and anger that manifested into lack of self-worth not having a male figure in my life in my formative ears i'm not sure but i had a lot of creepy emotions towards my dad and that i was so warpedly mad at him like a lunatic for dying and having to figure out my place and take his place i'm the oldest of four kids after he was gone didn't think i was up to snuff for that thought girls especially could see that inner weakness and self-doubt and it embarrassed me even though of course they could not overprotective parents that compete with other parents in a race of whose kid is better being forced to do things i don't like one bad mark in school and i get mentally obliterated pressure on me to perform because of my parents inability to do something for themselves in their 20s and 30s and now i have to be 10 times better than them to compensate constant comparisons with other people i personally don't care but when most important people start comparing you to others it starts to hurt now i am a lonely 23 year old that at least studies something that will help me live on my own i have solace in that if you don't have rip tabs a routine of hygiene and skin care that is flawless impeccable clothing taste and you treat women so well you could be confused with a doormat but also so hard and unyielding that it makes you a business titan but you also must have the passion and free time to have 50 bazillion different hobbies oh and you must be so competent with a tool set that you and you alone can fix anything around the house if you don't have all of that get the hell out of here obviously i'm making a caricature of the conflicting demands above but that's the message that society conveys to men i could go on but women pretty effectively reinforce these kinds of messages especially on dating apps i think one growing factor is that generally men are valued largely on their ability to provide and earn a living however the market for professional level jobs seems to have become much more competitive particularly in the last two or three decades so it's become much more difficult for young men to meet the provider role that society expects of them this makes dating more difficult and also leads to criticism from the older generations who don't understand how the professional slash educational landscape has changed i suspect that disconnect between society's expectations and reality is probably worsening the self-esteem issue someone replied i've always paired with women with attraction passion pleasure and chemistry being the foundation of the relationship it always lead to great frustration and despair though since i'm awful as a provider i live in minimalist ways and avoid laboring for others as much as possible i discovered accidentally a while back that the workaround was to find a woman who needs nothing while get a girlfriend with a trust fund is an awful piece of advice and unrealistic to employ as a dating strategy it really solidified the general theory that men are appreciated ultimately for what they produce in previous relationships my partners had all been of similarly unremarkable financial means with no significant family support like myself i get that being a young woman with no feeling of security as her biological fuse burns away immerses one in an existential urgency to attract a mate that does provide that security however it's pretty unsightly when apparent the expectations i have been placed under by some of these girls in the past became dreadful over time and ruined what had been a beautiful honeymoon phase leaving both parties exasperated with the other and driving a massive wedge between us ultimately it's an unsavory truth to the human condition that while we may idealize not placing shallow factors highly but ultimately it's tied to one's ability to thrive i am fortunate overall and i suppose if it came down to it could work hard to be a provider but it's not a value of mine and do not believe that dynamic brings out the best in me i feel for those men that suffer without response or an escape from this i also feel for the women that feel crushed by the pressure to capitalize on their limited peak marketability many people have to come to terms with some rather blah conditions to maintain long-term love and these issues have been magnified over the years as almost everyone is under ever more pressure than our parents generation at one time girls didn't feel the need to look like models and men didn't have to be complete slaves just to earn enough to provide hyper competition may bring forth humanity's greatest achievements but also may achieve foregoing of our humanity in the end men lose self-esteem from constant rejection from women i mean what better way to demotivate someone is there than to have the person you're interested and tell you you're not worth their time it happens to men from a young age they notice other people can find relationships and wonder why they're not appealing i would say men get their hopes crushed all the time because dating heavily favors women in my opinion they have the men ask them out and they decide if they want them or not men really have to handle rejection gracefully which is extremely challenging additionally men feel like failures if they are not able to attract a mate i'm not saying there are not plenty of successful love-filled relationships initiated by both men and women i'm just saying the approach to dating feels rigged against men it's still entirely possible to attract a romantic partner if someone has something they can offer or are generally confident in their self-esteem so it's a bit of a paradox rejection lowers men's self-esteem low self-esteem makes them less appealing to women in order to break the hyperloop approach dating with confidence regardless how many rejections you face it's a numbers game and there are bound to be some individuals who find some of your features pleasant to them if you want something work for it this comes to mind because dating is easier when you work on yourself and can contribute something [Music] growing up you're constantly told that you're the cause of all problems in society and that you're responsible to fix it as i near 30 i'm learning that most of the toxic masculinity and patriarchy problems i've been blamed for are nonsense and have literally nothing to do with me that's helping but societally we are still given responsibility and blame for things that are beyond us and so many men bear that weight even if it's subconsciously i was reading recently that it is at least as common for men to be the victims of women but men are given all the blame it was a bit of an eye-opener every ex i've had has physically attacked me and blamed her period or got violent when i wasn't in the mood i had multiple babysitters and teachers touch me in ways that would have landed a man in prison but the authorities were basically like way to go stud most boys would kill for her attention when my ex-wife accused me i lost my kids for over a year even after she admitted lying because she was i kid you not mad i cheated in a dream i still had a long fight to even get visitation again didn't matter that she got a dui with them didn't matter that they were found in the road three times before the age of two even with everything the mother is still viewed as the ideal option for the kids society does not value men beyond labor we're blamed for so much more than we can control and denied equality in social matters honestly i believe it's similar to the issues women face when it comes to body image and behavior boys are from an early age exposed to the image of the manly man that saves the day and gets the girl they're taught mostly indirectly through media and social expectations that they're expected to be strong be leaders bring home the bacon boys are celebrated when they accomplish physical feats like scoring a goal but less so for mental feats example i was given a full ride scholarship to a private college due to my academics i busted my butt to get there that scholarship was worth a ton of money my name was printed in a list in the school newspaper a friend of mine got a full ride scholarship to a state college for football the school held an assembly to congratulate him it's a lot of pressure and that pressure results in things like depression and low self-esteem i believe part of my low self-esteem comes from being a popular kid in school i was validated girls liked me i had friends and got along with pretty much everyone and that's a lot of pressure to be perfect every single day when you grow and you leave school behind you're alone in the world and getting nothing from people making you seek it and wonder what's wrong with you that you're not liked like you were before i'm sure there's other reasons too but i think this is a big one low self-esteem in boys come from several places boys rarely ever get encouragement boys get taught from a young age that to be male is inherently bad and that oftentimes they must work to rid themselves of innately male traits and feelings boys lack direction as many of them don't have strong male figure or mentors in their life and even if they do there's no praise for doing your best as a dude because that's what is expected of you failing feeling like a failure or any derivative of this is generally ignored or ridiculed in boys and even with support they ways how boys are taught to cope our counter to the ways that work best for them leading them to fail to cope it turns into quite the depressive spiral boys have to come to terms with the reality that they're just not very valuable in society until they achieve something but they often have no idea what it is they ought to be achieving lastly boys are often mislead early on about what boys should do and be it creates lots of cognitive dissonance and unfortunately there's not much that can be done about it because it's not an intentional campaign against boys it's just an unfortunate side effect of where we are now the issue of early life development most boys with low self-esteem were either parented like girls coddled by overbearing mothers or didn't get enough exposure to other boys as children be it in family education activities or community male socialization may be somewhat meritocratic but it still requires participation and still forms packs as happens in female social groups as a result by the time poorly raised boys reached the stage of true social bonds around their early teens they're hopelessly unprepared for it and as a result pushed out of the social order by these packs unlike women who hold intrinsic social and sexual marketplace value regardless of their ability or genetics men hold no intrinsic value within those marketplaces and so there are very few avenues for improvement socially essentially if you're in a position where you need to try you've already lost the kind of actions required to undo social stigma or outcasting take years and generally by the time you've completed them you've already passed the stage where you wanted to use them as a result of this branding boys with low self-esteem who don't fit into the hierarchy or find any sort of acceptance generally tend to stay that way but being kept out of the hierarchy doesn't free you of it instead you become target practice for other higher value boys without self-esteem issues as well as most women and authority figures because you're generally powerless to change this you stay in the mud and gradually come to tolerate it it doesn't matter if you change your style force yourself into hobbies constantly slam against the wall of improvement at those hobbies as well as working on your social skills if your branded is a low value man all you're doing is embarrassing yourself and entertaining others thus it's very difficult to counter low self-esteem because it's so rooted in stages of life where you as an individual have next to no say in anything concerning you so men tend to carry that baggage later into life than women who mostly outgrow it by their late teens our culture doesn't validate men except as beasts of burden and someone to pick up the check at the end of the party tv commercials show us consistently men are idiots we're taught to listen to women understand their feelings value their input but oh boy ask for the same in return and you're told to suck it up mr since feminism started as a movement men have been told we aren't wanted needed or necessary men are routinely savaged in court during divorce the women are given every consideration by default and if a guy challenges that he'd better have video and multiple sworn affidavits to substantiate any claims he may make the list is long and varied why men are denied devalued and debased many different sources i'd suggest many of them the same ones that girls get theirs from and some a bit different for myself i'd probably point to the general expectation for men to look and behave a certain way there's a physical and mental strength expected of men that i frankly never embodied never been a big guy and never been the type to be a leader i'm a people pleaser by nature and i'm generally quite easygoing and unaggressive but the messaging from society that's then mirrored in reality via relationships romantic and otherwise supports the idea that you're not quite a man if you can't tick those boxes and naturally this leads to a lack of self-esteem i personally think though that parents are often the major source of issues like this one way or another if you've never gone through life being told in a negative sense exactly how much you are worth then count yourself lucky many people go through life with minimal positive reinforcement and a plethora of negative forces against them this is even before any self-doubt sets in i grew up being told a lot of negative things by parents teachers or peers alike there was no magic turnaround in adulthood to mitigate it or that i became good at something in which to gain positive reinforcement from in fact as someone with various learning issues and disabilities even into adulthood i was deterred from doing things due to low likelihood of success the old revenge fantasy that is sold of proving detractors wrong doesn't happen for everyone some simply exist in a vacuum of ways to feel good bar indulgence for many the negative treatment won't just stop because they've turned 18 or people matured they merely try to hide it so you just make doing grimace when dealing with people for those that merely write it off as an esteem issue didn't get to experience the petty ways in which people can be pretty degrading thanks for listening to radio tts hit the subscribe button and activate the notification bell for more topics that aren't talked about enough click the right box for the related playlist let us know in the comments what you think about these stories

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Id: 2fUUciT4aUg

Length: 17min 39sec (1059 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 19 2021