apologies of a recovering f#$% boy

I have recently had an awakening of sorts, emotionally.  I have been searching through the origins and manifestations of my life to this point. It is a process that is ongoing, very cathartic at times and very painful in others. I want to share some of what many may consider dirty laundry because I think it is often that we psychoanalyze one-another at a superficial level, especially women, with things like, “daddy issues”, “ugly duckling syndrome”, etc. While this is not always productive conversation, the conversation rarely ever turns to mental health for men, so I want to start a dialogue.  Below is the first part of some of my backstory, experiences and the impact on my personal life and give a high level overview that I will break out and address in more detail in later posts one area at a time.

I grew up overweight and managing my weight has been an issue my entire life. I was often called a “teddy bear” and “so nice”, but those were euphemisms for not being attractive due to my weight, at least in my eyes. I have battled issues with self-confidence my entire life stemming from my self-image, and compounded by my natural personality predispositions (being introverted and very comfortable with consistency and being risk adverse).

On top of the self-image issues and my insecurities there, as a teenager I was a very emotional guy. I was teased about my emotions and would have moments where they overwhelmed me and I would seek solitude to get away when in group settings, which often got me more flack for “being a baby and hiding”.

In tenth grade I had my first “girlfriend” for a couple months. I had many crushes, but more often than not, I did not have the gumption to approach them or ask them out directly and would rely on subtle flirting that rarely got me anywhere. I had my first “real” girlfriend just before I was leaving the state for college, resulting in a long-distance relationship.

Having a real relationship and someone that I could channel my emotions towards taught me a lot about what the possibilities were for the emotional spectrum. It was my first time feeling that kind of longing, reciprocation, and dare-say-it, young love. It was also my first real exposure to feelings of jealousy and the uglier side of the emotional spectrum.  I learned even more about that spectrum in my next relationship which started my freshman year after the long-distance relationship imploded.

My first relationships had a manic-depressive nature: blowout arguments and heats of passion with few dull moments in between. These drained me emotionally which led to increasingly boxing up my emotions. In progressive relationships, I further gave into societal pressure to act like “more of a man,” which ultimately only served to protect me from my biggest fear: rejection.

Subsequently, when dating, I thought of it as not looking for “chemistry” in relationships any more, but looking for compatibility. In reality, I was looking more and more for emotionless connections with more similar lifestyle choices. Once the honeymoon phase wore off in most of those relationships my partner inevitably started to want emotional support or response from me and I would advise them I was not capable of that and allow the relationship to end. And as a fuck boy does, in the most passive way possible.

Oddly, as I repressed these emotions more, felt less, expressed less and had slowly made progress on my level of fitness over the years, I seemed to become more attractive and have more success in getting reciprocation and attention from women. Now I was being called “mysterious” or “hard to read”.

In a world where I now felt very little authentic emotion, validation started to come in the form of conquests or hookups. At times I took pride in it. I even had a list at one point, a warped reminder of the “trophies” I had collected. I felt like I was making up for lost time and justified my actions any way I could. I never thought about how it may impact others or what the perception of my actions would be. I did not act with malice, but I also did not consider the impact of my actions.

The reality was that I acted with emotional negligence in many cases and it ultimately was unfulfilling and often left collateral damage. I hurt people, leading them on and using them for my satisfaction without considering how it may impact them. I lost friends, gained a reputation in one friend group as a player because I hooked up with many people in and around the circle. This made it hard to get the group together in the same format and now I rarely see or hear from them. I allowed my pent-up emotions and acting without full agency or exercising any kind of self-control to turn me into the type of misogynistic asshole that I despise. As a pro-feminist male, this is something that I have had to come to terms with and try to reconcile.

“I allowed my pent-up emotions and acting without full agency or exercising any kind of self-control to turn me into the type of misogynistic asshole that I despise.”

As I mentioned, I just went through an awakening period. The prospect of a lifetime of love was presented to me and I dug deep and have been trying to access these emotions that I have guarded so well over the last several years. Some things that I feel impacted my ability to open up were extremely simple, such as making eye contact during sex. That is something I avoided for quite some time.

I found that small steps in intimacy like that can have a tremendous impact allowing for emotions to build and to be transferred between partners.  Also, I cut back immensely on watching porn.  This has been a long-standing habit of mine and I feel it adds to the objectification of women for me.  I focused my feelings of lust and longing towards my partner and tried to make sure they were channeled more productively. I pushed myself to communicate openly and to be vulnerable and express my feelings, emotions and fears verbally to my partner.

However, the prospect of love failed, talks of marriage quickly turned to being in my familiar high school “friend zone”. I was presented once again with the feelings of heartbreak, but the crazy thing was to actually feel something. This triggered much of what I say is my awakening because I had completely forgotten what it was to feel this way. By making myself more vulnerable and allowing myself to be heartbroken I was able to once again sympathize with what I may have put other people through while I was asleep at the emotional wheel.

I reached out to several of the women in my life that I felt I had disrespected or not treated with enough dignity or transparency and apologized, and there are others that I have lost contact with and want to openly apologize to as well. I know I acted irresponsibly and I am truly sorry if I led you on or hurt you in any way. My actions were a reflection of how I feel about myself and not of you.

Going forward I want to be the man I know I am capable of being and be more cognizant of the impact of my actions on others. I vow to act with more agency, to think about more than instant gratification and to continue to talk openly about emotions with my friends, especially male friends, because there is so much room for that dialogue to be more accepted and encouraged.

I would love to hear the thoughts, questions or comments that you have.  Feel free to add in the comment area below.