Maybe We Need to Ease up on Our Men.

I hear it in every circle.

What’s wrong with men? Why can’t they shoot straight? Why can’t they communicate?

Age-old communication issues between the sexes are as alive and well in 2010 as they were in 1960.  We women complain that our men are shut down in one breath~and complain that they are too emotional in the next.

I live in Boulder, Colorado, where a man is as likely to have a yoga mat in the back of his truck as his mountain bike. While yoga may open their hips and allow their minds to clear, there are still many guarded and wounded hearts in those classes. Yoga or not, most men I know have been wounded deeply and are struggling to make sense of the female species.

Here’s a great example of the male mystery:  While walking my dog yesterday, I met a boy in his teens on a skateboard; his eyes were clear as they met mine and we engaged in friendly dialogue.  He was open and unguarded until my dog approached him.  He shared that he once had a dog that looked like mine but was forced to give her away.  In that moment, his face clouded, his eyes dimmed and the pain he carried was noticeable.  His body language changed and his friendliness ceased.

We said goodbye and as I walked away I realized that I had just witnessed a clue as to why many men seem shut down to us.

Like many of us, they’re wounded early.  The difference?   Men are often forced to “buck up” by poor parenting and stuff their emotions rather than express them.  Peers usually ostracize a crying boy over the age of 11.  Often juggling his ever-changing role with mom, he naturally starts to bond with dad and the old rules from prior generations are ingrained once again. As the years go by, that sweet and tender heart is slowly protected with each new wound, as no outlet for those emotions is readily available.

Most women regardless of their dysfunctional childhood, grow up and find comfort through female friends—it’s considered normal to cry and vent, express emotion, and fall apart when needed.

Men aren’t naturally encouraged to release their pain and express their hurt,  so to survive they slowly add armor to their hearts and stand guarded against that pain.

While we find comfort in our female friendships, often a man’s only source of physical comfort is sex.  Hmmm…kind of makes you think doesn’t it?  Does this mean that we should hug and hold our new male friends often; thus delaying the pressure to have sex too soon?  Do our men often reach across the bed for sex when what they are really seeking is comfort?

So, as we try to navigate mixed signals from our male species and wish for clearer communication; I’ve realized that most of their ambiguous actions are merely to protect a tender heart from rejection.  Most women I know agree that witnessing an empowered man opening his heart, despite his wounding, then putting it all out there in a vulnerable way is sexy.

Sexy, but not easy.

Many men have been shamed in the past for asking for what they want.  They’ve been shamed for wanting sex, shamed for feeling attraction and shamed for their vulnerability.  (Don’t get me started on how women have been wounded)  It’s an uneasy playing field out there, actually a land mine field when you think about it.  Take a woman wounded by an aggressive man and have her approached by a man openly asking for what he wants and she may cower and run.  Makes you realize that the next woman he approaches may experience him as a man that dances around what he wants and is now afraid to ask openly.    What a conundrum eh?

Women are wounded and afraid to trust.  Men are wounded and afraid to open.   I wonder what would happen if both sexes fought those voices inside and just put it all out there? Kind of like that game of paper~ scissors~ rock; you look at each other and on the count of three go for it not knowing what the other is going to do.

What I do know is that if we keep waiting to see what the other will do, we’ll find ourselves in this pattern for a few more decades.  If I wait for a man to be vulnerable and open with me before being vulnerable and open myself, I may be waiting a lifetime.  If a man waits until he knows it’s safe to express what he wants and how he feels until the woman feels safe, he will be closed for a lifetime.  There is no safety net when it comes to changing paradigms.

Lone wolves usually lead mass shifts in consciousness by running solo and fearless. Hopefully one good encounter leads to another and another, until finally you’ve found that special someone to run alongside in life.

freedigitalphotos.net  dancer by Graur Codrin, wolf by Evgeni Dinev,  yoga man from opposingviews.com, man from www.123rf.com, armour from wikipedia

Originally posted as Are Men the Weaker Sex?

Tagged as: communication, relationships, Tamara Kerner