Comment by erikerikson
1 day ago
It seems to me (and clearly I could be wrong) that you really want to express certain sentiments. Another way to say it is that you seem to be engaging in motivated arguing. Said with the more standard idiom, that you have "an axe to grind".
I am honestly just curious what people think, it is an interesting topic. I have heard off and on throughout my life this idea about being vulnerable. I was never fully certain what people meant by that. Even in this thread it seems people think of it differently, but no one really goes into details to clarify.
E.g. what are some concrete examples of what would make a man be vulnerable?
In my opinion and in this context the common striped-down-to-its-consistent-core usage is taking the actions that expose one's inner/core emotional space/thoughts/feelings. FWIW I would agree that this doesn't have to be a true vulnerability in the dictionary or any other sense. I think many people talk past each other a lot without knowing it with this word. There is a lot of diversity in specific semantics so good question. The idea that one is vulnerable when one is known seems to encode the victim mindset many get stuck in but that's reality for many. Even when I yack at my therapists for years they still only learn small slivers of my whole person so certainly the broader being is not so vulnerable by sharing just little moments. I think openness is true strength (obvious caveats for secrets like passwords/PINs/et cetera. The contradicting position seems to be that by withholding and looking for opening for attack you position yourself for "winning". In the meantime, it seems to me, you lock in isolation and losing, missing your opportunity to connect, learn, and grow increasing your vulnerability over time. Busy night, rushed through writing so hopefully not too many errors or stupid thoughts.
[edit: Giving up control seems to be a common feature. Maybe more simply being willing to cooperate when your interactant could defect.]
Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself? I've gone to therapists and many different ones through my whole life too. Maybe in the past I had times when there were some things I might have not told them, but I feel like I'm pretty stream of consciousness now.
I think I'm a at a point in my life where I think that as long as with each person that I interact with, I'm looking to benefit both of our lives, I'm free to be myself. This wasn't always the case, and especially as a teenager, I was a lot more paranoid that people are out to get me, and in my 20s as well. I think I wasn't being myself because at those times it didn't seem like myself was received truly well. But now if I think everything I do is to benefit both parties - or whoever is in my circle, there's nothing to be ashamed about anything that I do. And any situation I treat as being in a team together whether it's work, friends, or with my life partner.
So what I'm thinking still is - if I do it like that, I can communicate my thoughts without concern. And is that being vulnerable or not? I don't think I'm a "kind" person or trying to virtue signal here or something or a naive person that could be taken advantage of because of this strategy. I do think however life is too short to be playing any such social games trying to hide or seek advantage from. I'd prefer to truly understand people and what they think, transparency. I'd prefer any situation is treated as a team working on a unified goal, whether it's understanding the World, each other, or making best of any gathering in terms of jokes, entertainment, insight or whatever.
There are still situations of course where I have to be on guard, and these I'm really bothered by, e.g. corporate environments. Not the best place for me in that sense. But I try to be as honest as I can. I guess my main issue is that I work in weird passionate bursts and I have trouble doing organizing/maintenance/routine stuff, so I feel like I have to hustle around that and what actually gives me frequently feelings of being an impostor. That I can't do many of the routine things that I consider boring, yet are frequently expected. I sometimes do 16h of very passionate, efficient, effective work, but the other days I'm completely disinterested in my paid work and so I have to kind of fake being productive or something, as I'm not sure how it plays to people that I just can't be bothered to work if I don't feel like it. Like I can't be that 9 to 5 person, but I work in corporate environment, because it pays me the most.
> Giving up control seems to be a common feature.
That is also an interesting one. What does giving up control exactly means? Another thing I've heard a lot about in my life. Someone's controlling, someone doesn't like to let go of control etc. I can understand how there are unhealthy controlling behaviors (e.g. intruding someone's freedom by pressuring or manipulating them to do what you want or not do what you don't want etc), but what does it mean to exactly giving up control over yourself?
I guess in romantic relationships maybe people can be vulnerable early in terms of getting hurt? E.g. putting yourself out there to be rejected. But I don't think that's where there's an actual problem with men? With men there must be this problem elsewhere.
Reading the article again - it doesn't seem to super register to me that it's the male vulnerability that is the problem. It seems there's an example of a homeless character that lies about being homeless. Is it that men don't want to leave an impression that they are unsuccessful? I can see how that's the case, although I think the main issue here is not the vulnerability, it's the fact that he's homeless in the first place. Perhaps if he didn't hide it, it could be solved somehow, but I don't know if that's exactly the case.
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